******This is the 12th chapter in the series The Real Army Wives, stories from a young military bride at the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, 2003.******

Previous chapter: When Alan First Deployed: My New Friends at 9-1-1.

Getting Help

I followed through with my vow from the previous night to hop off this crazy train and get myself some help. What kind of help, I had no idea, but I figured I’d try the doctor’s office first.

Military clinics are a unique entity. The appointment line system in and of itself is enough to make a person go absolutely mad, but somehow I managed to secure myself a same day appointment. I must have called at 7:59 am, and God was just smiling down on me that day because it’s normally about impossible to get an appointment.

I remember that every single time I would go to the Fort Hood health clinic they would circle my BMI (too low–which I can’t even imagine now) and take my blood pressure and my heart rate twice, because “that just couldn’t be right.” Ha! Yet it took 13 more years to figure out I needed heart medicine. We always just thought I was nervous, which really I was.

On that particular day of desperation, I saw a female, civilian physician who I’d never seen before. She was probably in her 60s, a thin, upbeat woman with short white hair and glasses. I liked her immediately, which is very unusual for doctors. Don’t you love it when things actually work out?

Telling my shortened tale of woe to this doc, who we’ll call Dr. Jones, was a humiliating thing to have to do, but I knew it had to be done. I told her about my jaw and my inability to sleep before 4am. I even admitted about calling 9-1-1, though I doubt I told her how many times I had done it.

The tears came. I couldn’t help it. This was so embarrassing. What kind of adult can’t even handle living alone? Well, me, I guess.

She asked me if I was depressed, but I didn’t feel like I was in general a depressed sort of person because I’m not, but the situation was definitely getting to me in a bad way.

After listening, Dr. Jones told me a little part of her own story.

Apparently, she went to medical school in Chicago. Her apartment situation was on the wrong side of town. Dr. Jones confided that she had once even accidentally left her keys in her front door!! She said a neighbor knocked on her door, handed her her keys, and reprimanded her kindly, “Girl, this ain’t no nice neighborhood. You can’t be leaving your keys in the door!!!”

So Dr. Jones counseled me that while break-ins do happen, most people are basically good. She reassured me I would be okay.

Then she prescribed to me a 30 day supply of Ambien, a sleeping pill. Dr. Jones said that it would fix both my sleeping problem AND my jaw.

My jaw?? How could a sleeping pill fix TMJ? That was because the jaw was the result of constantly grinding my teeth, which I was doing, unawares, in my sleep.

I’ve never left a doctor appointment so relieved. Maybe I was a touch embarrassed that I needed sleeping pills, but mostly I didn’t care. I just couldn’t wait to get a full night’s sleep and be able to eat potato chips again.

And you know what? It worked!

My jaw stopped hurting within a couple of days, and I stretched that Ambien out to well past 30 days and then never had to take it again.

Sometimes when times get hard enough, we just need a little boost to get us through.

Unfortunately, I was still actually more depressed than I was willing to let on to any doctor.

My life was not working out as I’d planned it at all. My Mr. Right was oceans away, and I could only hope that he would even come back. This was a tough situation to work through. There was no way around that.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Sleeping pills could fix my physical problems, but not my spiritual problems. #milspouse #armywife #faith #Jesuscan” quote=”Sleeping pills could fix my physical problems, but they couldn’t fix my spiritual problems.”]

However, the sleeping pills did provide me with some mental clarity during the day. Y’all! Sleep is so incredibly important. Never underestimate it!

The sleep allowed me to look at my life and examine myself more honestly and realistically.

My whole life I had always been a spiritual person. From the age of 4, I remember looking up at the sky and simply feeling the all-powerful presence of God. I didn’t know anything about Him. My family did not go to church, but I knew He was there. Creation testifies to the Creator.

While I was 4, a neighbor invited me to church. I was so excited to go with her and finally learn who in the world was God!! I can still remember the blue dress that I wore the first time I went, with the white lace at the top and the pretty sleeves. That was the day I first heard about Jesus.

After that, there was no turning back for me. I wanted to know more, and more, and more. My mom started taking my sister, my brother, and me to church herself. It was extremely difficult to take my big sister, Amanda. As I mentioned before, Amanda was blind, mute, profoundly retarded, and handicapped from birth.

While Amanda was mute, she could yell, just not talk. She often yelled out, but not with words, and she rocked back and forth, shaking her wheelchair enough to make it roll whether the brakes were on or not. Plus, it’s a lot harder to carry around an 85 pound person than a 30 pound toddler.

It was almost impossible to take Amanda anywhere. Therefore, after the first few years, Mom began to let Amanda stay home with my dad. It was just Mom, my brother, and me that went to church from then on.

But Amanda was a blessing to us too. From her we had all learned more about love, compassion, sacrifice, work, and serving.

From God’s Word, we found comfort and healing from some of our own hard situations.

By the time I was seven, my Mom went forward and accepted Jesus as her Savior. I got saved soon after her, and my little brother did a few years later.

We firmly believe that Jesus is the Son of God, sent to Earth to reconcile man to God. God loves us, but we are sinful. There’s a price for that sin, but Jesus paid the price for us, and we need only believe with our hearts and confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord.

Salvation is a gift of grace, not a work that we accomplish. Not one of us is any better than any others of us.

Over the years, starting in middle school, I became a devout student of God’s Word. At that age, it isn’t enough to hear a preacher say something. You have to examine the truth for yourself in order to believe it.

Misplaced Faith

But between high school and college, I somehow seemed to have put too much of my faith in the Bible study that I was doing rather than in what Jesus has already done for us.

You see, after getting married, it was harder to keep up my Bible study routine. Alan was always there, it seemed, and reading my Bible isn’t something I can do if I’m not alone. As the deployment approached, and I needed comfort from the Lord most, I was praying and reading my Bible less and less.

I didn’t mean to. It was just a new routine to work out.

Once Alan deployed, I was stuck in this absurd mindset that I couldn’t reach out to God because I had not been reading my Bible every single day. How ridiculous! Ya’ll! Reading your Bible doesn’t benefit God nearly as much as it benefits YOU. Your Bible reading doesn’t make you more worthy either.  Only Jesus makes us worthy.

Whether I read my Bible or not, God was still there. I could have called out to Him at ANY time, any place, and he would have heard my prayer. But at the time, I was stuck on stupid.

That’s when I realized that I had become puffed up, thinking highly of myself because I read my Bible so much and thinking that was why God answered my prayers.

That year I learned that God doesn’t work that way.

He is not a bank that you deposit prayers and study in and then cash out in hard times. No. God is always here. He’s always available. We need only seek him. We need only have faith. He will always be found by those who seek him.

Suddenly, I was seeing clearly. I don’t think Alan had even been gone much more than a month before I realized how foolish I had been.

I wasn’t just depressed because of my circumstances. The problem was that I was focusing too much on my OWN problems. I was being self-centered, and I was depriving myself of even praying under some foolish notion that I didn’t deserve answered prayers.

God answers our prayers because He loves us, and you know what? He still loved me, and I finally realized that once I got my head all sorted out!

I vividly recall bending down on my knees, at the foot of my bed, with tears all over my face and probably snot too, and realizing all these things as I prayed. This is where life had brought me–to my knees!!

My next steps were suddenly crystal clear. This year wasn’t about “how I was going to get through this” at all. Instead, it was time for me to focus on helping my friends “get through this”. It was time for me to build a support network.

Some of my friends from church: Jessie, Ashley, me, and Theresa. Ashley’s husband was also in the 4th ID. Jen and Theresa’s husbands deployed later that year with the 1st Cav……..By the way, those are none of their real names.

Time to Reach Out to the Other Real Army Wives

I didn’t have much to give or many talents that I could think of to use, but I could cook, and I had a cute little duplex to visit with friends and neighbors in.

So from that day on, my mission was to gather Army wives in my living room and attend any outing I was invited on. We would laugh, we would cry, we would gossip (sorry, but we would) and encourage one another, and none of us would truly be alone anymore.

There was Elsie across the street, who seemed to be doing just fine, but I needed her. I was going to have to start with building that bond. There was Sarah, the bubbly specialist’s (or was he a corporal??) wife I’d met at a unit sports day before Alan left. There was Katie and little Garrett, and Ashley and the gals from church, and so many more that I was yet to meet. But I was ready to get started supporting others and no longer thinking ever so much about myself!

Want to know what happened next? Click here for the next chapter: The Coffee Group

Come back next MONDAY for the next tale in this series of Real Army Wives stories, right here on storiesofourboys.com.

Need to catch up on previous chapters? Click here for last week’s and here for a somewhat complete list.

The post Real Army Wives: Time to Build a Support Network appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Surprise Welcome Home Party at Kristy’s house. There were 23 neighbors in attendance.

On Friday night, I snuck into my home town.

My parents were expecting me at 8:45pm, but truthfully I arrived at 7:30 or so, but I didn’t want them to know that. They were still staying at the rental house, but I did not go straight to the rental house. I went by my childhood friend, Kristy’s, house. We were on a mission, you see.

I grew up playing with Kristy and the other neighborhood kids. Kristy’s grandparents lived next door to us, and she spent a lot of time over there. As kids, we climbed trees, rode bikes, swung, swam in her granny’s pool, and played a good deal of make-believe and front yard baseball.

Then six or seven years ago, grown-up Kristy bought the house across the street from my parents! Pretty cool, huh? That tiny street is full of people who have been living there for most of my life.

They’ve been watching the destruction and re-building of my parents’ house up close and personal. They dealt with the smells, oh, you don’t want to know about the smells, the rubble looters on the day of the bulldozer, the construction crews, and the watching and waiting. They never complained.

Kristy said, “I’m telling you, they could’ve built it faster.”

Mrs. Sara (Kristy’s granny) lamented, “Well, the only problem is they built it closer to the road than it used to be, and the way it’s shaped I can’t see Terry on his front porch, and I can’t see Terry on his back porch. How am I supposed to know he’s okay???? How am I supposed to know it if he falls?”

She’s right, that’s a problem when you have good neighbors. Kirsty reassured her it’d be okay because she can still see him from her front porch.

Neighbors that look out for each other. Such a beautiful thing!

A month or so ago, Kristy hatched a plan for a surprise party. We had no idea what day they’d finally move in, so she planned it for December 10th, and lo and behold, what day do you think they finally moved in? Well, December 10th, of course, so it was pretty easy to get my parents over to the right place at the right time.

Chris, Kristy, and me

We decided the best story to tell to make sure my parents were at the new house unloading at party time was to say that pizza was arriving at the new house at 11am. This was pretty easy. I just used Alan’s obsession with pizza coupons as my cover story.

“You know how Alan is about his pizza coupons. Well, he’s already got the pizza scheduled to be delivered at 11am tomorrow at the new house. It’s a little early, but he wanted to make sure he had plenty of food, and that way when my brother gets off of work, they will be able to get straight to work with the heavy moving then.”

No one doubted that story for a second.

By 11am, every one of us was in place at my parents’ new house, but there was one part I hadn’t thought through. Now how do I get them over to Kristy’s house? Everyone was focused on the mission of moving… Hmmmm

“Hey, um, y’all, I talked to Kristy out in the yard, and she said when Dad gets here to have y’all stop by her house real quick. I think she has a Christmas gift for ya.”

And to my surprise, it was that simple!

They just said, “Oh. Okay,” and started off across the street.

“I think I’ll come too,” I said, motioning the boys to come on. John David was of course shoeless. Alan got his little shoes on JD as quickly as possible, and we all six followed Mom and Dad across the street.

Mom said she did think it was weird that we were ALL coming.

Kirsty opened the doors and motioned for us to all come in. I’m not sure how long it took Mom and Dad to figure out this was their surprise party or that we weren’t actually having pizza. Pretty funny! This was so fun to be a part of.

We all ate together. Mr. Byrd, a neighbor I remember as the one who would buy whatever I was selling from my school fund-raiser every year, said a beautiful blessing before the meal.

We laughed over the surprise, and caught up with everybody.

Then we walked everyone over and gave them a tour of the new house, for those who hadn’t seen inside of it yet.

I know. I know you’re dying to get a peek inside too, and I would show it to you, but Mom’s not as big on posting the minute details of her life on the internet as I am, so I’m going to literally just show you one peek. I’m going to give you Kristy’s porch view of the new place:

Mr. Byrd, Dad, and Chris and Kristy’s porch view of the new house.

It’s not a re-built house. It’s a completely new house. The old one had to be bulldozed and carried away, down to the last scrap of concrete. Nothing could be left. What wasn’t burned was all damaged by smoke, water, and asbestos.

Everything is gone. The trampoline burned too. When they were clearing the house away, there was a huge storm that came through, and lightning stuck the last of the tall pine trees that still stood from my childhood. And as they took away the dumpster last week, they killed the mailbox too.

It was as though God decided that he couldn’t just partially fix it. It had to be completely made new.

We may not understand the ways of God, but his ways are best, and I know that this house is going to be a great blessing to my parents.

Isn’t it funny how God even arranged it for Alan and me to move back down here for two years, so that we were here for all of this? I got to see construction of the new house in all of its phases. I got to pore over paint and tile samples with Mom on my coffee table.

And I got to be there for move-in day, even when we didn’t know until 3 days prior that it would be moving day!

God moves in mysterious ways.

I wish you could see what all Kristy has done with her house too! She bought it after the housing market crashed, and completely re-modeled the place, knocking down walls, moving the kitchen, painting, and putting in new floors. It’s inspirational to look at what she’s accomplished without even hiring a builder, a little at a time!

It makes me smile to see Alan getting to talk to these sweet neighbors, these pillars from my childhood. When I see Mrs. Sara I always smile and think of how she used to call out to us from her front door, “Y’all play purdy now!!” Maybe I should start calling that out my door to the boys and their friends.

Our neighbors didn’t just feed us and visit with us, even though that would have been more than enough. They also SHOWERED my parents with gifts, AGAIN. I say again because they’d already helped after the fire, but they just kept on giving!

opening gifts

Kristy, our lovely coordinator and hostess

They were given a big, beautiful set of Rachel Ray cookware, which I could tell Mom was excited about, as well as all sorts of other useful blessings!

Mom and I have always admired what Kristy can do with her vinyl cricket (cricuit?) machine!

An Emotional Gift

The most emotional gift was this large framed floorboard from the original house, which Kristy wrote their name and anniversary date on. I cried when I saw it, even though I knew she was planning it. Mom cried. I don’t know if Dad cried.

The day of the bulldozing, Kristy had looked for some wood from the house, but there was none available that wasn’t too damaged, so she found a whole plank from the Pergo floors. This made it even more special because Mom and Dad had put those floors down themselves around 10 years ago, and we’d all just loved those floors.

Kirsty laughed about almost getting caught salvaging that board from the rubble. She said she left the kids with Gail and ran over to dig around for something she could save for Mom and Dad. She had just discovered a good board, and all of a sudden there was my dad! He was there to try to save some china, and she quickly dropped the board off to the side, and said, “Oh, here, let me help you with that!” She said she felt like she was almost busted. So funny, because Dad would have had no idea what she was doing anyway.

We laughed, we ate, we cried, and then we hugged people and got back to work!

This was such a blessing, what the neighbors did for my parents, and I just wanted to share it, the fact that things like this still happen. There are people who are still kind, giving, unselfish, who want to help other people, and we make each others’ lives better in the process.

Thank you so much for all the hard work you put into this, Kristy, and to all the neighbors for blessing us in such a big way. We are so thankful! Our cup runneth over.

“Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.”  –Hebrews 13:16

May we all strive to be this kind of neighbor. Merry Christmas, y’all!

The post Moving Day, the Surprise Party, and the Power of Good Neighbors appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Daniel 3:29

Do you love a good rescue story? Man, I am a sucker for a rescue.

Lately, I’ve been feeling down. I’ve been letting circumstances get to me. I’m still pouting over losing my people in this move. I still have my family, my most important people. But I lost my support groups. I lost my friends. Friends are a tricky thing to replace. The thing is you can’t replace them because no two people are the same. It’s not possible. So you have to keep your old friends, but you have to find new friends too. I’ve met some ladies I like here, and I’ve already leaned on a few of them. We’re getting there. It’s promising. These things just take time.

Alan was gone for a great part of November for work, and it was a hard month. It was getting to me big time.

But this morning these verses in Daniel spoke to me. 

“No other god can save in this way.”  –Daniel 3:29

And those lines were spoken by the King of Babylon, who had just erected a giant gold statue of himself and proclaimed that everyone must worship it or burn.

But he saw the results. He couldn’t deny them. He SAW Jesus rescue those three Jews out of that fire when they refused to worship his ridiculous gold statue.

And that’s when he stood amazed, and he proclaimed a decree that no one was to say anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, “because no other god can save in this way.”

I’ve seen the results too. I might not have been there all those years ago for the fiery furnace rescue, but I have seen one rescue after another in my own time, and it lights a FIRE in my soul, let me tell you.

The Bible is not just any other book, y’all. And God is not just any statue. He’s not a statue at all. Why would you worship something so small you could DIY????

This year my parents had their own fire. In case you missed that, I talked about that here. It was a burn-it-to-the-ground kind of house fire. This thing was so impactful. I would never wish it on anyone.

But God’s raising up something beautiful from those ashes. He’s staging another rescue. My parents will move into their new house, probably next month, just in time for Christmas.

He’s making everything new and everything beautiful, and he’s blessing my parents with a new home. It smells like new paint, it is handicap accessible, and it has the prettiest master bathroom shower I have ever seen. I am so excited for them. And you know what I said at the beginning about the hardship of finding new friends? They won’t even have to worry about that because he’s building it right where their old house stood, on the same plot of land I grew up on.

They will still have their neighbors and their church family right down the street.

Don’t you love a rescue like that?

And I want to say a special thank you to the members of Victory Baptist Church and to their neighbors on their street. They blessed them in ways that I, far away in California, did not. They were there for my family when I wasn’t really. You have no idea how much that means to me. Thank you!!!

Remember the kind of God we serve. Amen. Amen. Amen.

The post I am a sucker for a rescue. appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Alan and me the night he left for Iraq, 2003

This week is Veteran’s Day, and as the wife of a veteran it’s a holiday full of meaning for me.

In honor of Veteran’s Day, I thought I’d share this letter that I wrote to Alan on New Year’s Eve, 2003. Alan was in Iraq, and I was living in Texas. What started out as this nightmarish, depressing event (sending my husband to war–I was all of 22 years old) had gradually turned into a year of growth and new friendships.

Did you know that we military wives have our own “battle buddies”?

We do, and they were a life-saver that year. That was the year I learned that I do not enjoy teaching. I experienced the first major failure of my life when I quit that job before the year was over because it was so hard and miserable I couldn’t handle it.

I found many things I didn’t want to be. I thought I would never figure out what I DO want to be, so I headed back to graduate school, but the answers weren’t there either.

But I was never fully defeated because the Lord sustained me.

He sustained me with mentors and friendships and love, and when 2003 closed, I was still full of hope. This is what I wrote to Alan:

**************************

9 months down!!!!!                             I love you!!!!!!!!

Wed.,  Dec. 31, 2003

Day 275

Wow! This is the final day of 2003. But like I read in one of your letters, it was indeed a rotten year. Good riddance, 2003! Don’t let the door hit you on your way out. One thing’s for sure. It’s a year we won’t soon forget.

 But I’m so glad it’s over. For me, 2004 brings so much hope! Much like 2002! I remember New Year’s 2002 so well, and so fondly. I KNEW big things were in store for me that year. I knew you were becoming an important part of my life. And I had a feeling my life would be forever changed. I had a feeling you were “the one.” I remember sitting on my porch, holding my little Sylvester and crying. They weren’t tears of sadness or even tears of extreme joy. I guess it was just a moment in which I was preparing myself for the future. And I was letting go of the little girl inside of me, the innocent girl about to be rescued by her prince, about to grow up.

 I didn’t know I would be getting married that year, or moving far away, or even that I’d be graduating.

I knew nothing of what was in store. Yet I can CLEARLY remember that the Lord was preparing my heart.

He was preparing my heart for you. And all the wonderful things you brought into my life. No one changed my life more than you. But it was a wonderful change.

 On the flip side, 2003 was not so wonderful. It was equally eventful. Only the events of 2003 often brought grief and hard lessons to be learned. I know we have grown this year though. We do grow from trials.

 But 2004 means something much different to me than either 2002 or 2003. To me, it is a year of hope, love, and laughter. That’s because when I think about 2004, all I see is you coming home to me, and spending a year together with you. Wow! How amazing it will be! Me and you together at last!

 So from January to March. Those 3 months are the joy of anticipation. And then You. You here in my life again. I can’t wait!

 I don’t have a New Year’s resolution. But I have a New Year’s hope. It’s like the final hump in this long deployment. The halfway mark was hump 1. And the end of 2003 was hump 2 to me. 3/4 of this journey is over!

 Yes!

************

3 months later, I hung this sign at our very first home together. I lived by the airfield, so I got to see Alan’s ginormous cargo plane fly right over my house as it landed. I’ll never forget the elation of that day.

It was a 4 page letter, and that was the first 3 pages, and I actually did write “Yes!” that BIG at the bottom of page 3. I meant it that large. In fact, it’s actually a little bit larger. I wonder whatever happened to the fourth page.

Happy Veteran’s Day, y’all!! I’m so thankful for my veteran.

The post A Letter of Hope from 2003 appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

So happy: My friend Amy sent me this Anna/Mickey Mouse ornament, as a souvenir of our Disney trip. Love this!

John David asks me one question every single day.

“Mom, are you so happy? I just want you be happy, Mom.”

If I cry, he can’t take it. “No, Mom! I just want you be happy!”

If I get stressed and start rushing around, “Mom, I just want you be happy!”

If he’s in trouble for something, well, if John David gets in trouble for something he does that thing that little kids do that will melt your heart. He sticks out that bottom lip, his face scrunches up, and he cries, and then he says, “I just want you be happy!”

Apparently, it is exceedingly important to this sweet baby that I be happy…..ALL the time.….And that, of course, is pretty much impossible. But I try my best.

Even when JD goes to the potty, I have to be happy. I’m back there wiping his bottom, and he says, “You so happy, Mom? You so happy??”

Ha! Well, that’s what we get for throwing such a party every time he went potty.

But what a great reminder. What a great reminder to take joy even in the time of small things. What a reminder! Be joyful even when you’re wiping up poo…

I don’t look so joyful at cross country meets. There are gnats y’all, and on this particular day it was 104 degrees. Not even exaggerating.  I just stand there with my kids, looking like this. Inviting, huh?

That’s the thing about joy. Being encouraged by other people is so uplifting, but when you walk around looking annoyed, who wants to talk to you? Well, usually nobody.

So we must somehow find a source for joy that does not depend on other people. It’s great to derive joy from your friends, but until you have friends, joy has to be found elsewhere.

I’ve been searching the scriptures for joyful ideas.

This was a recent yard sale find that I was excited about. YES, GOD WILL!

We can take joy in the promises, provisions, and love of God.

Maybe find a place to sit outside or by a window and read God’s promises. Turn to the New Testament or Psalms when you are feeling down.

“I rejoice in your promise like one who finds great spoil.”   –Psalm 119:162

“Shout for joy, O heavens; rejoice, O earth; burst into song, O mountains! For the Lord comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones.”   –Isaiah 49:13

Nonna, enjoying time with her grandsons

“Announce this with shouts of joy and proclaim it. Send it out to the ends of the earth; say,”The Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob.” They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts; he made water flow for them from the rock; he split the rock and water gushed out.  “There is no peace,” says the Lord, “for the wicked.”   –Isaiah 48:20-22

Remembering what God has already done keeps your faith and your joy strong.

“Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation.  With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.”  –Isaiah 12:2-3

“In the past, he let all nations go their own way. Yet he has not left himself without testimony. He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their season; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.”  –Acts 14:16-17

I can assure you that basketball brings Joshua great joy.

I wish I could send you all a clone of John David, my daily reminder to “just want you to be happy.” He’s so precious. It is hard to stay down when you share your day with one like him, but not all of you are up to taking care of a three-year-old right now. Take heart.

These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.  –John 16:33

It’s true. There was Jesus, who they killed for our transgressions, and by his wounds we are  healed. We are forgiven, if we only ask to be. We are loved. He wants to take care of us.

“A man may have a hundred children and live many years; yet no matter how long he lives, if he cannot enjoy his prosperity…. I say that a stillborn child is better off than he.”            –Ecclesiastes 6:3

Some people may roll their eyes at the need for comfort and happiness, but I think that it’s important to try. As John David says, “I just want you be happy!!”

It did make me “so happy” to see JD make a friend at a cross country meet.

JD’s happy place. Do you have a happy place?

Thank you all so much for following my blog. It is a great encouragement to know that I have people, no matter how many times I move, I have people right here. Thank you!! You are a blessing to me. Have a joy-filled week!

The post “Are you so happy, Mom?” appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

So today, why don’t we take time to remember? Do we remember?

There was this movie called The War Room, which starred Priscilla Shirer, and Beth Moore even had a small role in it. In the movie, an elderly woman served as Priscilla Shirer’s mentor. She had something hanging on her wall that I’d never seen before: a list of answered prayers.

It was a powerful film. I hope you get a chance to watch the whole thing later, but for now, here’s a dramatic clip:

This movie was GOOD, but because it was Christian you didn’t hear about it much. Go digging for it on the internet. It’s well worth your time. I mean I saw it a YEAR ago, and I’m still remembering things I learned in this movie!

Amazon sells it for $10, or if you have Starz, you can watch it for free:

The other big thing that stuck with me was having a closet to go pray in.

Here at my new house I finally have both a list and a closet to pray in, and I am loving that.

I even made a pretty list to write my lists of answered prayers on. In only 30 minutes, I filled up four of these sheets, so if you want to use this, you may want to print 5, not just one. Yep. I turned it into a free printable, so I can share it with you.
Each list is the size of a sheet of copy paper. Click here to print it. : answeredprayerWord

I have a black and white printer, so mine didn’t have the pretty colors after all. Sad! But yours can so long as you have a color printer.

I feel like I’m living the longest answered prayer ever this year.

My list was long, and I won’t bore you with my list, but I do want to share this one with you.

I want to tell you about my support system this year. The hardest months were November 2015-April 2016. It felt like my physical body was crumbling. There were days I limped around with hip pain, and no one could tell me why. I would toss and turn, and I could not sleep because of that obnoxious hip, but no one could fix it. But the worst part was the fevers, because they would zap my energy and leave me feeling useless. Oh! And then the heart problem started. Then when they told me it was v-tach, and I read about v-tach, I thought, “Oh, great. I’m dying? I could just die any night in my sleep?”

Since my doctors couldn’t figure out my hip problem, they labeled me as having “many somatic complaints,” and they sent me to a counselor. Nice. So basically, if you have a sickness that docs don’t know how to fix they decide you need counseling. And there are lots of problems doctors cannot fix.

Many women would fall back on family during times like these, but when you live on the other side of the country from your family, you’d better hope you’ve made some friends.

It felt like a recipe for depression, my friends.

But that wasn’t how it turned out.

Sometimes God sends people who are the answers to our prayers. That’s what happened for me. I want to tell you about three people who were answers to my prayers.

Analise, my substitute

Analise

I hired Analise to watch the boys each Friday while I went to my weekly doctor visits and tests at the cardiologist, the rheumatologist, the counselor, the physical therapist, and the chiropractor.

Ladies, don’t ever feel like you are “just a nanny.” Analise was 1000 times more than just a nanny. That is a noble calling. I could not have made it through this year without her, and she was a source of happiness for my boys who were having to cope with having a mom that was “always sick.” She was fun and energetic, but she was also mature enough to handle two boys who were supposed to be doing their schoolwork, along with two pre-schoolers.

Analise was a gift from God. She was the answer to my literal cry for help.

My unofficial support group of friends: Every single one is a blessing. Laura is the one on the far right.

Laura

Laura was Daniel’s best friend’s mother. She had Daniel at her house about as much as I had him at mine, and I don’t know what I would have done if she hadn’t. I would also come home to little gifts from her all the time: bath fizzies, Bama cupcakes, and her signature sidewalk art.

Laura offered that touch that reminded me that I was still a person of value, even when I was sick and confused.

The incredible women in my home school support group. Paola is the second from the end on the right, on the sofa. Man, I miss these ladies!!

Paola

What you might not know about me is that I have this need to follow the rules and …..win. I like winning. That’s right. I too want to win and win biggly. (Hehe!) I crave success. So when I started failing, it was quite the avalanche of pride. Oh, what a humbling year it was.

I could not keep up as Joshua’s grammar/writing teacher. He had his computer program for math, but grammar was on me. But our grammar/writing tutoring sessions were every Monday afternoon. No matter how hard I tried, doctor appointments kept falling on Monday afternoon. And fevers. And just my general mess!

Fail. Fail. Fail. I felt like I was constantly failing. Joshua actually had to direct himself for most of his school work for most of that school year. I felt like I was setting him up for failure.

When we would make it on Monday afternoons, we’d be behind on assignments, because of me. Plus, JD’s entire day would be thrown off from the lack of nap at daycare, and Joshua would be in misery because he wasn’t getting much out of that class as unprepared as he was.

I didn’t have it in me to stay for Monday afternoons any longer. It took so much of my energy reserves to finish a Monday that I finally realized I could not keep it up.

We could handle the three-hour Monday morning tutoring sessions, but packing a lunch for all of us and staying for the afternoon became too much.

So it was with great humility that I wrote Paola (the Essentials tutor, Joshua’s teacher for the 2 hour afternoon session) a long note explaining why we had to drop Essentials with only five or so weeks left in the program.

And what I got from Paola was something I won’t forget. I’d back that woman up for any battle she may ever need help with. Paola gave me grace. 

She agreed that our course of action was best for us. She sympathized with all we were going through. She allowed Joshua to continue turning in his grammar charts to her, but she didn’t pressure us for anything at all. In fact, when the year was over, she congratulated me on persevering to the finish.

Have you ever known someone who gave you the exact encouragement that you needed and more? I felt like such a flake that whole semester because of all the “no’s” I was having to say. But Paola and the other CC moms accepted us right where we were in life.

It wasn’t just Paola that gave me support last school year. All of my fellow Classical Conversations moms were understanding and helpful. If only I could have brought my California friends with me to the South!

Sometimes God uses people to answer our prayers, and truly even to teach us what grace feels like.

Grace, hope, and love. I hope that he will use me to bless others as greatly as my friends and family have blessed me.

What a year of answered prayers. I can’t wait to see what God does next. I want you to all know that I am doing much better now. Thank you so much for loving us through the hard times.

Be sure to get the printable and share what God has done in your life.

The post A Place to Write Out Answered Prayers appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

“In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.”  Ephesians 6:16

You know that feeling when you wish you could get a do-over?

Dear 2016, here’s my white flag. I would like to go back and try again, sort of like the chute right smack in the middle of Chutes and Ladders that takes you right back to start.

I have learned an abundance of lessons from it all, and I know that this is going to work out for my good. I will be a better person, I have already become fathoms more sympathetic, and I will have learned to treasure and pray God’s promises.

Jesus said to her, “Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?”   John 11:40

These promises from God are not just for me, they are for all people who call upon his name. They are for believers, both new and old. I remember 2003. In 2003, that was when I learned that in my pride I had begun to think that I have something to do with God’s grace.

As a single person, it had been easier for me to find time to pray and draw close to our Heavenly Father. As a married woman, my routines were thrown off, and hard times came before I could get my spiritual groove back. Alan left for Iraq just three months after we moved into our first house, and I was reeling. All alone in the great state of Texas, I searched for answers, but God felt so far away.

I was depressed at first. It took weeks or months, I don’t remember, for me to realize that God was no further away than he had been before. Only I was further away from him. My daily Bible reading didn’t make me “more worthy” to pray and call on his name. It never had, but I, without knowing it, had believed that it did.

It didn’t. You can call out to God anytime, anywhere, from any situation. God is everywhere. Your good deeds are not what earn you favor with your maker, although he does prefer to see us trying to do good.

I called out to the Lord, and there he was, just as he always had been. I had simply forgotten to rely upon his grace.

So we say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper. I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?    –Hebrews 13:6

And at that time, he heard my cry, and he reminded me of an important truth: I wasn’t depressed because I was alone. I was depressed because I was in a selfish frame of mind. I resented the Iraq war, for taking my husband away, but that was silly. I married a soldier. What else would you expect? And while I was feeling sorry for myself, I had yet to do anything to serve anyone else but myself.

So at that time, I prayed for help, for forgiveness, and I began to look for ways to serve my friends who were going through the same thing I was. We began to have ladies’ dinner nights. Once we began that, we were not alone or selfish. We were looking out for one another. We had fun that year. The hardship became a joy, really.

I like to think back on years like 2003 when I go through years like 2016. I have this ablation coming up, and I’m not excited about it. Our family is about to tackle another cross-country move. There are seven weeks remaining of home-school.

I’m holding out hope that I’ll do so well on the upcoming heart tests that I won’t even need an ablation. But whether I do or not, God has a plan for me. He promises that.

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are numbered.    So don’t be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows.    –Matthew 10:28-31

Stress abounds. It lurks around every corner. But so does God’s grace. Here are a few of his promises that I am holding close. I hope they will help you too.

“I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you and watch over you.”  Psalm 32:8

“Many are the woes of the wicked, but the Lord’s unfailing love surrounds the man (or woman) who trusts in him.”   Psalm 32:10

Come near to God and he will come near to you.   –James 4:8

And God’s greatest promise of all, in my opinion, the Holy Spirit:

Jesus said:

6 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;

17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

18 I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.  –John 14:16-18

Ah, that’s right. He will not leave us comfortless. Okay, I’d better get back to work. I hope you all have a blessed day. I hope that you give God a chance to be your comfort too.

The post What are God’s promises in the hard times or even the hectic times? appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.