Military Wives Can Have a Career Too!
Hi Everybody!
An article I wrote for Wives in Bloom, Military Wives Can Have a Career Too!, is being featured on today. You can view the article here.
In the article, I talk about my journey of trying to achieve career goals while constantly moving and dealing with deployments. Six tips are given on how you can regain control of your career as a military spouse.
Feel free to leave a comment and tell me what you think about it. You can even share your success story. There are other great articles on the website that I’m sure you will like as well, so check those out too.
Wives in Bloom is the online magazine for Christian Military Wives, an interdenominational, Bible based, ministry of Christian Military Fellowship. The goal of this group is to assist United States military wives and their families by encouragement, aid and education.
Have a blessed day!
A Back to School Prayer
It’s that time of year again! School bells are ringing and yellow buses are running their routes. Our children are heading back to school.
pic by sydney1613
I believe that it is very important to pray over our children as they start their new school year. There are so many negative influences out there and we have to remain prayerful and active in our children’s lives. Below is a prayer for our children as they head back to school.
A Back to School Prayer
Lord, I pray that you be with every child that is returning back to school this year. Protect them as they wait at the bus stop, ride the bus, travel by car, or walk to school. Keep them safe from dangers seen and unseen. Help our school crossing guards and bus drivers to remain attentive on their jobs.
Give our children favor with their teachers and help them to pay attention in class. Let this be their best year yet for academics, sports, and fine arts.
Be with our children’s teachers this year. Help them to teach in ways that each student can understand. Let them have reasonable expectations of our children and give them patience whenever their patience meter is running low. Bless the teachers with administrative support whenever needed.
Help our children to stand against peer pressure. Empower them to make decisions that will be pleasing in your sight. Surround them with good friends that are positive influences. Keep drugs and alcohol out of their reach. Help our children to keep their hormones in check, avoiding sex before marriage. Protect our children from bullies and those that mean them harm. Help them to work out their problems instead of fighting with each other.
And finally Lord, help us as parents to be even more supportive of our children this year. Strengthen our discernment. Let us know when something is going on with our children. Help us to keep them on track with their homework and study time. Help us to remember all of the subjects that we took many years ago so that we can be effective in helping our children complete their homework. Provide for us financially so that we can allow our children to go on field trips, buy school yearbooks and pictures, have appropriate clothing for the seasons, school supplies, or whatever else our children need to enhance their educational experience. Give us favor on our jobs so that we may be able to attend activities that our children may have during the work day. Remind us of the need to pray daily for our children.
In Jesus’s Name,
Amen
Bloggers that Inspire Me
I really enjoy blogging, but I also enjoy reading other blogs. Over the past year and a half, I’ve been inspired by several bloggers that blog with a spirit of excellence and integrity. Their posts seem to always be right on time and applicable to where I am in life.
Here are some of my favorite inspirational bloggers:
- Dianna Hobbs at Your Daily Cup of Inspiration. Dianna takes every day events and turns them into wonderful life lessons. Every Thursday, she posts prayer requests from her blog followers so that everyone can join together with her in prayer for them. Not only does she blog 5 days a week, but she also has an online magazine called, EEW Magazine.com, The ESSENCE of the Black Christian Woman. With over 250,000 subscribers, Dianna and her editorial team seek to empower everyday women. Dianna is also working on a music CD! So far, she has released two songs off the CD that are entitled “Do What He Said” and “Purpose.”
- Alisa Hope Wagner at Faith Imagined. Alisa writes from the heart and is so inspirational. She often uses scripture in her posts to illustrate her points. She is the Chief Editor of Granola Bar Devotional Writing Ministry and is a contributing writer to many online websites. She and her sister started a quarterly publication called Sanctified Together. Alisa just had an article entitled, “In Defense of Self Help Books,” that was published on Michael Hyatt‘s blog. Michael Hyatt is a very popular blogger and the CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishing, which is the largest Christian publishing company in the world.
- Kennisha Hill at the Ready Writer. Kennisha has written and self published three books. Amazingly, most of the work was done while she was pregnant. This busy mom was one of the first people I met on my blogging journey. Her blog posts are always encouraging and thoughtful. Kennisha felt a need to encourage young married couples and launched Marital Bliss Online Magazine in 2009. Right now, she’s busy promoting her new christian fiction novel, Awakened.
- LaVender Williams at Mom’s Peace Bites. Lavender blogs about her teenage sons and husband. I like her blog because it gives me a heads up on things my little man might face later in life and how to respond to it. LaVender is passionate about encouraging and empowering mothers, which is evidenced by her website MOMSWEB. LaVender published a book earlier this year called, We Snap in Silence.
- Joceyln Green at Faith Deployed. Jocelyn is a fellow military spouse that has a book, “Faith Deployed,” and blog dedicated to encouraging military wives while their husbands are deployed. She also co-authored another book entitled, Battlefields & Blessings: Stories of Faith and Courage from the War in Iraq & Afghanistan. Jocelyn’s blog has been such a blessing to me since my husband started deployment rotations. I was able to talk with her a few weeks ago for the first time on the phone and it was like talking to an old friend. Jocelyn is also the Editor of Christian Military Wives.
What bloggers inspire you?
Lost and Found
I was talking on the phone to a friend back in April during the Duke vs. Butler NCAA Basketball game. It was the championship game and it went all the way down to the last few minutes before Duke emerged victorious.
I walked through the house, talking animatedly while taking off my jewelry. I was rooting for Duke, of course, and telling her why North Carolina basketball teams are the best.
When I started taking off my earrings, I noticed that I only had on one earring. I was so distracted by the game and my intense debate that I didn’t think too much about it that night.
I spent the next day looking all over the house for it. I looked EVERYWHERE…on the kitchen table where I was working, on the couches, in the bedroom, in my jewelry box…you name it, I looked there.
After a while, I started to get sad because I wore these earrings often. My husband gave them to me on a special occasion and I really liked them. They were white gold hoop earrings with little diamonds in the hoop part.
At the end of April, I had a lot of family come in town for my husband’s promotion. I moved furniture and cleaned like crazy. We also had a lot of get togethers at our house with our friends in May. I never found the earring.
For Mother’s Day, I asked my husband to buy me some earrings to replace the ones I lost. He let Little Man pick some out for me and I had to smile when I saw them. They looked just like the earrings I had, except they were sterling silver and cubic zirconia. Little Man really liked those earrings for me. When I opened the earring box, he got excited because he knew he chose them. I wore them with pride because my baby picked them out just for me.
Time starts passing.
June comes and goes.
July comes and goes.
I vacuumed, dusted, moved furniture, and washed clothes about 100 times since April.
At least weekly, I asked God to reveal to me the location of my earring.
Fast forward to late Monday night:
I was up pretty late. Everyone had gone to bed and I was FINALLY settling down for some “me time”. I had a rough day and was feeling kinda down. I walked out of the kitchen into the living room, getting ready to grab a pillow to lay on the couch and read when I saw something glitter out of the corner of my eye. I looked down and guess what I saw?
You guessed it, my earring!!
Now let me tell you. My earring, which had been lost for over 4 months, was lying in the middle of the living room floor. It wasn’t under a coffee table or under the couch. It was in the middle of the floor!
There is no way that I could have missed this earring for 4 months if it had always been in this location.
I was so surprised and happy that I started laughing.
I went to the bedroom to check and make sure that my other earring was still there and it was. I held the matching earrings in my hands with a heart full of joy.
I have no idea how my earring got to the middle of my living room floor and stayed somewhere in that area for over 4 months without getting vacuumed or moved to Little Man’s toy box. You know how Little Man likes to do magic tricks.
Thank you Lord for brightening a challenging day and answering my prayer.
Overcoming Guilt
Guilt…
A lot of people deal with this inner struggle. It often occurs when we intentionally do something that we know is wrong. It can also sneak up on you when you did something that you thought was right at the time, but later found out that it wasn’t the best option.
Guilt can eat away at you like a cancer, taking away every ounce of joy you have left.
Please let me encourage you on today. You don’t have to live with the guilt of your past. God is bigger and greater than anything that you did 10 years ago, 5 years ago, 30 days ago, yesterday, or even 5 seconds ago. He is willing AND able to forgive you of anything you have done.
That’s right. I said anything!
You can be forgiven for cheating on your spouse. You can be forgiven for committing a crime.
God wants nothing more than for you to have peace in your heart and be reconciled with Him. He loves us and doesn’t want us bogged down, looking back at things we did in the past with regret in our hearts.
Besides, if we are always looking behind us to the past, how can we ever move forward into our God given purpose?
Please know that I’m not saying that you can keep doing the same thing over and over again and ask for forgiveness each time. That’s not true repentance. Repentance means that you turn completely away from sin and go in the opposite direction toward righteousness. God knows if you really mean it in your heart. We shouldn’t take advantage of God’s grace and mercy.
If you are really tired of dealing with guilt and desire forgiveness from God, check out the below scripture.
1 John 1: 9 NIV – If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
It’s just that simple. Confess whatever it is that is causing you feelings of guilt, ask God for forgiveness, and move forward.
Below is a video of a song called “I am Forgiven” by Ricardo Sanchez and Free Chapel. I pray that it blesses you like it blesses me!
Deployment Dreams
Earlier this week, I had a dream that I was deploying. One of my friends, who is active duty in real life, was deploying with me in my dream. It was our job to drive the convoy to Lexington, KY. I guess we were going to leave out from there.
I was trying to get myself organized to deploy, but I just couldn’t. One of my previous pastors came to see me to check up on me to see if I was alright. I remember trying to get out the door to leave for duty, but so many things stopped me.
I finally got out the door and ran to where we were supposed to be meeting to leave. I got there late and realized that I had not taken as much time as I should have to rest. I was very sleepy and there was no way that I could help drive feeling as tired as I was. The dream ended with me trying to figure out what was the lesser of two evils: driving first, or driving last.
I woke up confused. That was the first time I ever dreamed that I was deploying. The thing that bothered me about the dream was that I was unprepared for what was coming.
Dear Hubby is deploying again later this year. I’ve known that it was coming, but I’ve been putting it out of my mind. I don’t really want to think about it too much. Besides, he hasn’t been back a year yet. But that’s how rotations go. And they aren’t fun.
During his last deployment, I took some time to travel and visit family to help pass the time away. I’m not sure if I’ll be as flexible this time, as Little Man has speech therapy sessions several times a week. He’s doing so well with that and I don’t want to interrupt his progress.
This dream has prompted me to face the music. I have to face the reality that I will soon be a single parent again for several months. I’ll be without my best friend and husband.
I can make it through another deployment, but only with God’s help.
The Highs and Lows of Facebook
This week was a very interesting week for Dear Hubby.
Late Saturday night, I was reading a book and he was on his computer. All of a sudden, he got really excited. One of his old friends from Germany found him on Facebook. Dear Hubby was an Army Brat and lost touch with a lot of his friends from his teenage years. He often talked about how he wish he could reconnect with some of them, but he couldn’t remember some of their last names. Plus, there was no telling where they were. He couldn’t even begin to think where to start looking.
The friend that found him from Germany was also Facebook friends with about 20 other classmates of Dear Hubby. He got so excited that he interrupted my reading at least ten times (no kidding) to tell me stories about each person he reconnected with on Facebook. It was a wonderful night for him and he stayed up well after I fell asleep, catching up with old friends that now resided all over the United States.
As a matter of fact, as I’m typing this post, he’s catching up with a few more of them.
But nothing could have prepared him for the news he received a few days later.
One of my husband’s friends from the military that was stationed with him at two bases died in a motorcycle accident over the weekend. Guess how I found out? You guessed it…Facebook. Another military spouse that we know from a previous base posted about it on her status and I was floored when I read it. I knew that Dear Hubby didn’t know because he was in training all day. I was sick to my stomach.
I quickly tried to figure out what to do. I decided that I would see if he could meet me for lunch, but I was unsuccessful in reaching him. He finally called me back an hour later and I told him that I wanted to come and see him for a little while. I got Little Man ready and we headed off to the base to tell Dear Hubby the bad news.
After what seemed like forever, I met up with Dear Hubby. But he already knew. One of his friends sent him a text about it. He was pretty down, but he didn’t want to focus on it then. I just wanted to make sure he was okay. My husband thought highly of his friend and they had communicated by email recently. My husband and his military friend had so many stories together. I’m smiling right now thinking about them.
Dear Hubby still hasn’t talked much about the death of his friend. He’s putting it on a shelf way in the back of his mind. Eventually, he’ll have to talk about it. I know what it’s like to lose a dear friend. He’ll need me to lean on and I’ll be there, just like he has been for me.
Isn’t it funny how Facebook can bring out the highs and lows of friendship?
The Potty Race
Potty training is going pretty good with Little Man. He has #1 down pat and tells me when he has to go with 90% accuracy.
As for the other 10%?
Well, 5% of the time he waits until he can’t hold it another minute. He starts crying and jumping up and down like he has ants in his pants. It took about two of these episodes for me to realize that this signal requires me to stop EVERYTHING and run with him at cheetah speed to the bathroom. Most of the time when he does this, he’s already started peeing but managed to stop to give me the signal.
The other 5% of the time accounts for when he is too occupied with having fun to go to the bathroom.
Sadly, I can’t report any real success with #2. We are UNSUCCESSFUL 90% of the time. Pray for us.
Occasionally, Dear Hubby and I will get brave and take Little Man out in public with big boy underwear. No pull-ups. Just Toy Story underwear.
This weekend, we had to go to the car dealership to get some work done on one of our vehicles. We were told that it wouldn’t take long, maybe 30-45 minutes. We had a few other errands to run and decided to combine them all into one trip since our stops were close in proximity to each other.
When we left the house, Dear Hubby and I reminded ourselves that Little Man had on big boy underwear and we had to stay on top of it.
After about an hour of being out and about, we picked up some food at Chick-Fil-A, which was a couple of doors down from the dealership. We arrived at the dealership for our 2:30PM appointment and went to the waiting room with our food. I hadn’t ate all morning, so I was more than ready to devour my chicken sandwich and yogurt parfait, while washing it down with a fresh lemonade. I took one bite out of my hot and fresh chicken sandwich when all of a sudden, I see Little Man doing impressive vertical jumps over and over again.
“POTTY!!! POTTY,” screamed my Little Man.
I put my sandwich down at lightning speed, grabbed Little Man and RAN in the direction of the bathroom, which was nowhere near the waiting room.
Car Salesmen and potential buyers watched our track and field performance with a half smile, knowing that I was trying to save them from a river on their showroom floor.
Little Man was excited about our PT run, singing a potty song that he and his Dada made up, as if he was running in cadence:
“PEE PEE PEE PEE POTTY!! PEE PEE PEE PEE POTTY!!” (It’s supposed to be “Pee Pee in the Potty” but oh well)
We burst through the door of the bathroom and sprinted for a stall. I chose the last one so that we would have more room. I pushed Little Man in and closed the door behind us. I had to lift him up so he could “Pee Pee in the Potty” and that’s when I saw it.
A massive black cricket was within two steps of me. It moved its antennae in our direction.
Now here’s a sidenote: I HATE BUGS! They give me the creepy crawlies, but I had a decision to make: Freak out while Little Man is in midstream or calm down and pray that the cricket on steroids doesn’t move.
Thankfully, the mutated cricket didn’t move. After Little Man was done, I grabbed him and quickly exited the stall to wash our hands and head back to the waiting room, walking this time.
When we got back, Dear Hubby had a question:
Dear Hubby: “Did you make it?”
Me: “Yes, we made it. Barely though. Did we have extra clothes for him?”
Dear Hubby: “No, we didn’t.”
Whew! That was closer than I thought! Note to self: Always have an extra change of clothes for Little Man.
One Minute Sermon
Keeping the Spice in Your Marriage
Hi Everyone,
An article that I wrote is being featured at Faith Deployed. It’s called, “Keeping the Spice in Your Marriage During a Deployment.”
Pic by militaryhealth
You’ll definitely want to check this one out! It’s already getting a lot of good feedback on the Faith Deployed website and Facebook page.
The article contains a list of six different things you can do to help your spouse remember what he’s coming home to. 
Even if you aren’t a military couple, you can modify these tips to suit your own relationship.
Be sure to leave a comment and let me know some of your tips to keep the fire burning with your spouse while the two of you are apart.
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