We who live this military wife life know that the holidays can be a touchy subject, to put it mildly. Just a quick scan of my military wife Facebook friends will tell me who is going home for the holidays, who has family visiting, whose husbands are deployed, who’s going away to an exotic location…you get the idea.

For my family, we were planning a nice quiet Christmas in our new home this year. We knew we’d just seen our extended family over the summer before we moved, so we weren’t expecting anyone to pony up for plane tickets so soon. As God’s timing would play out, our family is now going to be away from our new home for Christmas. I have an ear condition that requires surgery, so we are all flying together as a family so I can see the specialist. Also in God’s plan, we’ll be in a city where I have family on my dad’s side, some of whom I’ve never even met.

Some might say this is coincidence. I don’t. I say it’s God’s plan and timing.

Yes, even at Christmastime, when we’ll be away from the new home we’ve made, the new chapel community we’re just getting to know, and the new friends who have taken us into their hearts.

I am reminded of Mary and Joseph, who traveled away from home, and they didn’t even have family in Bethlehem to take them in during the busy census season!  That first day of Jesus’s birth, what we know as the first Christmas–His family wasn’t at home, either.

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. (Luke 2:4-7)

So really, when I stop and think, Christmas isn’t the tree in my living room, or the presents we’ll be opening early to save room in our luggage, or even church on Christmas Sunday—although all those are truly blessings. Christmas is in our hearts, where the infant Jesus–Emmanuel, God with us–who became the Son of Man–the Lamb of God, our Savior–now resides.

In the words of the old hymn,

O come to my heart, Lord Jesus…
There is room in my heart for Thee. 

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The past few weeks my leg has been nagging me when I run.

I say nagging because it’s not an intense pain, it’s a just-enough-to-make-it-annoying pain.

(I hear that’s what nagging is like. I wouldn’t know, though, because my husband actually LOVES it when I repeatedly bug him about things until he gives in. That’s not nagging. Nagging would be annoying…)

I needed to do a few things in order to deal with the pain. I needed new shoes and I needed to fix whatever was wrong that was causing my foot to cramp.

But I was putting it off. Shoes cost money. They cost time and effort of working them in. And, well, my old shoes were comfy.

I was also putting off figuring out why one leg hurt that much more than the other. Even though I have a friend who is a great chiropractor and has a practice very close to my home, going would mean costs and an adjustment that would possibly bring a little pain on the way to making it better. And not just one adjustment, but several to make sure it ‘took’.

Mostly because fixing it would mean effort.  Ignoring it would take no effort at all.

Then last week I got home and pulled up my left leg to stretch… and my right knee gave out.

Turns out, ignoring it all didn’t actually help. It made it worse. Who would have thought?

And so today, after I finally dragged my butt into the chiropractor this week, was adjusted and massaged and grounded from running for a bit, and after finally going and buying a new pair of shoes, I thought of something.

Looking at my old shoes, I can see now they are filthy and worn. They never looked really bad on their own, or next to other old shoes at the front door. In fact, compared to some shoes, they look pretty good. I could even think to myself   ‘see, they are not as bad as those shoes.’

But next to my new shoes, they look like a mess. They are covered in mud and the leather is cracking. They have way too much give where they should be holding my foot tighter. Worn down and compromising in all the places my foot pushes the hardest.  They might feel comfortable because I am used to them, but they are actually hurting my feet and stopping me from being able to run father.

And I realize that I have a lot of attitudes and behaviours that look like my old shoes.

Next to others like mine, they look fine. They might even look good. I might be able to think to myself ‘see, at least it’s not as bad as that!’. But hold it next to God and it’s a mess, covered in messy thoughts and way too much give and compromise when there should be challenge and conviction.

Attitudes and behaviors that feel comfortable because I am used to them, but that are actually hurting me and stopping me from being able to grow further in my walk with God.

And change, that would come at a cost.  It would mean letting Someone give me an adjustment that will probably hurt.  And chances are I wouldn’t just need one but several to make sure the change ‘took’.  Funny thing about muscles and attitudes, they are both really stubborn about change.

Most of all, change would mean effort.  And ignoring it takes no effort at all.

Until one day I have complete meltdown with tears streaming down my face in the car with a screaming 3 year old on the way to dance class and realize that ignoring it isn’t helping anything.   It’s actually made things worse.

And then and only then do I ever get around to putting the effort in to change the old, comfortable attitudes and behaviours that seemed like they were working until I looked at them next to Jesus.

The adjustments will hurt, but in the long run will make everything easier and let me grow closer to God and my family.

My chiropractor spends a lot of time explaining to me how my feet are connected to all these other muscles that are causing them pain.  (I pretend to understand but there are reasons I took Social Work in college and one big one is I didn’t have to take math or science.)

Apparently they are also connected to my attitude.

And I don’t think there are adorable little pink ice-packs for after those kinds of adjustments.  But I know He is there to hold my hand through it all.

Kim is a child of God who believes in Grace and is grateful that His mercies are new every morning.  I am a 30 year old wife of a soldier in the Canadian Army.  We’ve been married 10 years and have 3 amazing kids.  We have survived 3  deployments to Afghanistan as well as numerous other training and domestic operations.  While I went to school to be a Social Worker, right now attempting to mother my children is my full time job.  www.kimberleymills.blogspot.com

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In the months leading up to every PCS (there have been a lot of them!), Hubby and I, together, fervently pray for three things.

• A church
• A home
• Godly friends

God has been faithful and has answered our prayers with a resounding “Yes!” at every duty station except one. In my fear of a new place, my fear of becoming a new mother, and my fear of loneliness, I cried out to God for great, godly friends at our duty station to provide mutual encouragement and companionship. God repeatedly responded to this prayer with an adamant “No.”

This left me wondering why a prayer for a seemingly righteous (in my own eyes) request was not answered in my own way and in my own time. In my studies and search for understanding, God put on my heart some very powerful insights about these desires for close friendships at our duty station. (I would also like to say at this point that God has richly blessed me with wonderful friends that are only a phone call or quick trip away, and for those friendships I thank God every day.)

God’s people were finally about to enter the Promised Land after years of agonizing discipline in the desert. But before they could go in, God had a few more words for them. Numbers 33:55 is part of this: “‘But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land, those you allow to remain will become barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides. They will give you trouble in the land where you will live.’” God instructed his people to drive out the current inhabitants in order for the Israelites to enjoy the full blessing of the Promised Land. Otherwise, God warned, the natives would become “barbs in [their] eyes and thorns in [their] sides.” The Message Bible translates the second part of the verse as this: “They’ll give you endless trouble right in your own backyards.” God wanted the Israelites to enter the Promised Land, and for the Promised Land to be everything He originally intended.

As I entered our new duty station, did I claim God’s promises? Did I try to drive out those that were destructive to His land, or did I allow the original inhabitants of the land to stay? Unfortunately, I let the natives stay. I did not fight the destructive tendancies around me and spent months with an emotionally hurtful thorn in my side. Rather than claiming God’s promises, I allowed the land’s original inhabitants to destroy what was intended to be a “land flowing with milk and honey” (Numbers 13:22). Perhaps in this struggle, God is disciplining my lack of obedience to him.

Or perhaps God was sparing me from an even worse pain that comes from having destructive friends. Proverbs 13:20 says that “he who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm.” I “know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). All things. Even friendships. God’s emphatic “no,” or worse, His seeming silence on this issue, was hurtful, but I know that I know that I know that God has a reason for that season of my life. I might understand it one day. I might not. It doesn’t really matter because God is in control and is somehow working even this for good.

Sometimes God allows times in our lives where he intentionally send us into the wilderness. He specifically ordained these times for a purpose He may or may not reveal to us. But take heart! Even though God sometimes sends us out into the desert, His provision never ceases: “‘Because of your great compassion you did not abandon them in the desert…You gave your good Spirit to instruct them…For forty years you sustained them in the desert; they lacked nothing….’” (Nehemiah 9:19-21). I might not have great friends at a duty station, but God still provides in other ways. He provides His love, my precious family, and friends that are far away.

If you’re still with me at this point, please continue reading this passage in Romans. Every time I read it, I find myself almost shouting it with joy, fist pumping, and leg stomping in the style of the most charismatic church you can imagine.

Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.

So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:

They kill us in cold blood because they hate you.

We’re sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.

None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us. (Romans 8:26-39)

Amen, anyone?!

In conclusion, I learned to find some kind of peace in the situation God gave me. “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff they comfort me” (Psalm 23:4, italics mine). I also found that it is “better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife” (Proverbs 21:19). Or bad friends.

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