Real Army Wives: When it’s Time to Move On

*****This post is part of The Real Army Wives series. For last week’s chapter, click here.*****

People say that the Lord isn’t worried about the small details of our lives. I could never believe that. Maybe he’s only involved in the small details if you ask him to be; although, sometimes He seems to show up even when you don’t ask. They call it Karma these days, but I don’t see it that way. I just call it walking with the Lord.

[clickToTweet tweet=”‘It’s not a small world. It’s a big world, with a great CEO.’ ~Israeli man I met in elevator #truth #bigworld” quote=”An Israeli man I once met in an elevator reminded Alan and me, ‘It’s not a small world. It’s a big world, with a great CEO.'”]

By December 2002, Alan and I were so ready to be together! It had been 6 months at this point since we had been a daily part of one another’s lives.Besides, being a married, senior year Resident Assistant in a freshman dorm was not my idea of a fun time. Not a bit of me belonged there anymore.

I have always taken a good 10-40 minutes to stop in the morning, put on something presentable, apply make-up, and make an effort at fixing my somewhat unruly thick and wavy, red hair, but NOT that semester.

For those 4 months, I felt like a walking hot mess before the phrase “hot mess” had even been invented. My wardrobe was always flip-flops, jeans, and a ‘Go Bama!’ t-shirt. My hair was ALWAYS in a pony tail, and make-up wasn’t happening too often. It was time to move on. I was a married woman, and it was TIME for me to be with my husband.

I just had to get through finals first. All good things are worth waiting for, right?

This is what I wrote in my trusty journal at the time:

I have no memory of the arthritis starting that long ago, but there it is. This must have been a low point for me, but it was a hard semester.

Being a Military Spouse is A LOT about WAITING. That’s what I learned in our first year of marriage.

Alan and I were 7 DAYS out from finally being together. We kept talking about how we couldn’t wait to “move in together.” We did learn to stop calling it “moving in together”, as people definitely got the wrong idea. No, y’all, we were never ‘shacking up’. We were married before we ever experienced living together as a married couple.

Don’t read the above journal entry and think I was a miserable, spoiled college student. I promise you my University of Alabama days were some of my happiest, and I could not have been more thankful to be there. This was probably an especially bad day.

You know how it is when you are closing a chapter of your life, even a fun, meaningful chapter? You are sad and happy all at the same time, but it is time to move on. Even if you wanted to, you couldn’t stay. Your bus is leaving, and it’s time to get on it.

Only in this case, it was an airplane. The Lord had prepared a new and exciting adventure for us, far away in a land we call Texas, but first, it was time to go be with my husband for a few weeks in Oklahoma. By the way, when I landed, guess where we went, right away?

To my first Military Ball. My wait was over.

“The Red Leg Ball” (For why that’s a big deal, read this. I had been disappointed to miss a ball due to Army circumstances, months before this.) Alan had actually asked me what dress size I wore (2-3 sizes smaller than now…but whatever), gone to the mall, and bought me a dress, which, believe it or not, fit perfectly.

Amazing, eh? It wasn’t Karma. It was God showing up, in the little details. He knew we were on shaky, newlywed ground, and he awarded us, at a low point, with an event that I had been waiting for the past 4 years, a formal event, with a fancy dress to wear to it!

Life is hard, and there is always another obstacle, no matter who you are, but as Alan’s dad wisely said once, “There are enough happy moments sprinkled in there with the hard ones to make it all worth it.”

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