…With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you…2 Peter 3:8b-9a

still day 1

Probably my last text message til next year just came thru, from Johnny.  I dropped him off about 9 hours ago. He said he’s boarding the plane finally. Who knows what all the day consisted of for him. I don’t get to know the details. I don’t need em. He loves me and he will contact me when  he can.

  It feels like forever ago that I kissed him goodbye, but it seems like just minutes have passed. How long is a year? How did we do this before?  It’s surreal, but it’s for real, he’s on his way out of the country, on a mission. When I see him next, our kids will be another year older. Jonni will have her driver’s license. Maliek will probably be taller than him. Kara will look like a young lady, not a baby girl anymore.  (hopefully I’ll be twenty pounds lighter!!) We will have lived in the next new house for longer than we have lived in this one.  We will be settled in a home that he has never stepped foot in.  It’s hard to fathom, even what our lives will look like by next spring. Who we will hang out with, what will we be in to. My heart can’t really line up with my head right now, to digest the fact that my man won’t be pulling that little car into the driveway tonight. He won’t even be home late for dinner. There won’t be any sweaty PT clothes lying in front of the washer waiting to be washed.  No one is gonna turn on ESPN tonight. There really won’t be anyone to cuddle with under those cool sheets and that squishy down comforter than we love so much. Not any big reason to shave my legs!  No one will poke me in the night to let me know I’m snoring again. No one will nudge me in the morning to let me know it’s time to get up. I guess I will make less coffee. Who will ever finish that pack of raisin oatmeal? I already miss things that don’t seem like they could, or should be missed.

How long will I stay on this edge of emotion?  How long will I be completely ok one minute and the verge of crying the next? What is my new normal? I don’t want a new normal. I want my best friend. The man of this house. I don’t like waterproof mascara. And I’m gonna need more eye gel soon.

But you know what? I am so completely honored to be the wife of a man who serves God and country at the same time. I am thankful to be his helpmeet and the mom of his kiddos. I love having his name. As much as I plain hate days like these, I can’t think of another life that I’d want to live. If he is a soldier, then I wanna be a soldier’s wife.  Period.

 And I trust that there’s not a detail that God doesn’t know about. He delights in the details of our lives. He knows what my kids are thinking and feeling even when I cannot tell. He knows what I need even before I ask. Nothing is too big, or too little, for Him. Not a deployment. Not a cockroach. He is able, and I trust Him.