Wives of Faith

Obedience. Such an important concept when we’re parenting, and such an important concept in the Christian faith. And an unpopular one, if I’m honest with you.

Just as it’s sometimes (or in some children’s cases, most of the time) difficult for our children to obey us, their parents, it’s often difficult for us as adults to obey God, our Heavenly Father.

Today as I opened my Bible, I got excited when I saw the name of Naaman. I love that story!, I thought. Who wouldn’t love a little biblical schadenfreude every once in a while, right? Oooh, let’s watch the proud man have to dunk himself in the muddy Jordan River!

So I read 2 Kings 5. I’ll link it to Bible Gateway here, and you can choose your own Bible version this morning on the drop-down menu.

I think we’d all agree that the necessity of obedience is crucial in the military. Many of you are former military as well as being military wives, so you know this better than the rest of us. Naaman, however, was the army commander. I don’t think he is overly concerned with his own obedience, because he’s the one in charge.  Obviously he answers to the king, but it sounds like they have a good working relationship. Probably more collaborative.

So to imagine this tall, powerful military man, who suffers from an uncomfortable and even painful and ugly skin ailment, ticked at the prophet Elisha for not coming out and meeting him, AND being told to bathe in a lowly muddy river, not once but seven times? It’s no wonder he balked at the instruction and got upset!

How many times have we disobeyed the Lord ourselves? When we choose fear over faith. When we don’t follow that inner Holy Spirit nudge to talk to someone or pray for someone or even pick up the phone and call someone. I know for me it’s too many times to count.

I love what Naaman’s servants (the NLT actually says these men are his officers!) tell him, and I’m so glad Naaman listens. In verse 13 they say, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!” (NIV).

So Naaman obeys and is healed.

In the book of 1 Samuel, the prophet Samuel declares, “To obey is better than sacrifice” (1 Samuel 15:22).

Obedience is better than sacrifice. Obeying those inner promptings of the Holy Spirit, God Himself, is more important than sacrifice.

He wants our obedience.

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Welcome September! I’d love to say “Welcome to Autumn” but frankly, autumn is not here yet in my corner of the world. The heat of summer still reigns supreme, in spite of the back to school rush at local stores and the plethora of yellow buses now dotting the roads.

The changing of seasons happens in our hearts as well as outside our houses. Even though the thermometer says it’s still summer, I can feel the change in this season of our lives. Back to school for my girls, back to dance classes, finding a new routine for our family.

We have some changes on the horizon for Wives of Faith as well. Sara has been working hard behind the scenes on our new web design while also dealing with changes in her world. We have some new faces here at Wives of Faith, and in the coming weeks we’ll be introducing those lovely ladies to you.

Above all, be assured: God never, ever changes. That’s something that can center you when it seems like everything else is in flux.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
~Hebrews 13:8~

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I held the menu in front of my eyes and stared at it, unseeing. My husband of one month had gone to sea that morning for the first of many separations, and these women invited me to dine with them. Despite the kind gesture, I brooded anyway.

“Get the Caesar.” The captain’s wife interrupted my gloomy reverie.

“What?”

“You like garlic?” she asked. When I nodded, she continued, “Get the Caesar salad. They make it right here in front of you, it’s sensational, and no will care your breath smells like garlic for the rest of the night. I always get the Caesar when Jay is underway.”

I had to admit, she had a great point! I will always remember that moment as the time when I began to learn that living life as a military wife doesn’t mean waiting until your husband comes home to experience joy, but finding it wherever you can, and relishing it, just as I absolutely relished that Caesar salad that night.

In fact, during that inaugural deployment, I made a list of all the things I could do while Rob was gone that I wouldn’t do if he was home. For example, I skipped shaving my legs for a few extra days at a time. I didn’t worry about cooking the perfect meal. I watched all the chick flicks I wanted to, stayed up waaaaay too late scrapbooking, hosted sleepovers with other women and their daughters, etc. I’m sure you have your own list!

The point is not that we wait until our husbands leave to have a lot of fun. More importantly, we recognize that there is joy in life—all of it—not just the days when our husbands are physically by our sides. If we spent each deployment on the sidelines, waiting to enjoy life again until he came home, not only would that be an unfulfilling existence for us, but just imagine how much pressure that would put on our husbands to make us happy!

Our husbands do bring us joy, and none of us would wish them away just so we could have a Girls Night Out. But our happiness is not up to them. It’s up to whom we put our trust in. If we’re going to have joy, we simply must put our trust in the One who never changes, never leaves us, and never disappoints: Jesus.

Psalm 28:7 says, “The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song.”

In her book Cold Tangerines, Shauna Niequist says: “I have always, essentially, been waiting.” We military wives can relate to that, right? Two pages later, she says:

“I don’t want to wait anymore. I choose to believe that there is nothing more sacred or profound than this day. I choose to believe that there may be a thousand big moments embedded in this day, waiting to be discovered like tiny shards of gold. The big moments are the daily, tiny moments of courage and forgiveness and hope that we grab on to and extend to one another” (Cold Tangerines, p. 17).

I love that. I really do. For military wives, that Big Moment we wait for may be R&R, or a homecoming. But I am convinced that God wants us to experience joy in seemingly ordinary, but profound moments between those events, as well.

Navy wife Denise McColl illustrated this concept in her book Footsteps of the Faithful.  She shares a story about how painful a particular good-bye was for one deployment when her family was stationed in Guam. But by that afternoon, she was making plans with her friend and neighbor to take their kids for a day trip to Cocos Island or a day at the water park.

Denise contributed to my book Faith Deployed, and it is dedicated to her because before the book was published, and mere months after her husband retired as a Navy submariner, Denise lost her battle to cancer. How tragic, I thought, that she died so soon after her husband came home to be with her for good! But consider how much more tragic it would have been if Denise had forfeited her joy during deployments or until her husband’s retirement. That would have been far, far worse. Instead, Denise experienced the joy of the Lord and found pleasure in everyday moments. Her life was not spent waiting. She was an active, joyful participant throughout her years.

This week, today, where can you find joy?

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Jocelyn Green is the award-winning author of Faith Deployed: Daily Encouragement for Military Wives and co-author of Battlefields & Blessings: Stories of Faith and Courage from the War in Iraq & Afghanistan. Visit her Web site at www.faithdeployed.com.

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You know the feeling as a military wife.  The orders come (or at least you get wind of them, whether the actual papers arrive or not), the packers get scheduled, and you begin the sorting process of what to send with the movers and what to transport yourself.  It’s moving time – again.

Once again, we are faced with a move in my family.  Except, this time, I am not packing the boxes, scouring the internet for information on a new city, or wondering how I will ever get everything ready before the movers arrive.  This time, my son and his wife are moving.

So everything should feel different than when we move, right?  At the end of August, I will lay my head down in the same room, prepare my daughter to attend the same school this fall and know exactly where my coffee pot will be when I come downstairs in the morning.  But, instead of knowing my son and his wife are 30 minutes away, they will be 3000 miles away.  And suddenly I realize that transition is transition.  For those who stay and for those who leave.  While my physical home is not changing, our home is once again being changed by a move.

I know we are dealing with transition when my husband and I adjust our travel budget realizing that “family time” now requires flying three people from one side of the country to the other.  I know we are dealing with transition as I watch my daughter struggle with the fact that all of her siblings are going to be living on the opposite coast.  I know we are dealing with transition when I look in my own heart and realize just how much I am going to miss them.

If there is anything we do consistently (and pretty well, thank you) as military families, it is to move.  However, being good at it does not mean that it is easy or that it does not impact us and our children.  So where can we find some comfort and encouragement in our (and our children’s) nomadic, transition-filled lives?

One of the things we do at our house is to talk about it – a lot.  Somehow, acknowledging that yet another move is going to be an adjustment for everyone seems to work so much better for us than the “this is the life God called us to, let’s not ever admit that it is hard” attitude.  It seems to be very freeing for teens and young adults to be led by parents saying, “This is going to be tough.”

The other thing we consistently need is a healthy dose of truth for our minds from God’s word.  Here is a truth I love to hang onto in seasons of transition:

Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” Deuteronomy 31:6 (NIV)

No matter how many moves impact our family or how small or dramatic those impacts may be, God goes with us wherever we go.  Not only does He see all the impacts before they occur, but He goes before us and prepares the way.  No matter how far a move may take us or our family members, God promises to never leave or forsake us.

So, it’s moving season again at our house.  More transition is headed our way and our family would appreciate your prayers.  With some conversation and some truth from God’s word, I know I, and my family, will have everything we need.  How about you? What truth is God giving you for a season of transition in your life?

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Bettina has been a military wife for over 29 years. She and her husband Rob have two sons and a daughter-in-law pursuing artistic careers in Los Angeles and a high school daughter at home with them outside Washington, D.C. She blogs at Simple Stories, Timeless Truths.

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As a young mom, I used to look at copies of home décor magazines and daydream.  If I could ever just get the house clean enough and decorated to look like some of those pictures, then we would have a home that would make my husband proud, my mother-in-law smile and others stand in awe.  Somehow, with two little boys running around playing “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle” and my basic lack of decorating skills, that daydream never became a reality.  We lived above “call the health department” status and I put together my “early attic” décor to create our definition of home.

The turtles have long since been packed away and some friends have patiently instructed me in decorating so that the house has come a long way from those “early attic” days.  But now, the children who use to inhabit it have flown or are in the process of flying away.  So, what is home?

Between my husband’s responsibilities as a reservist and our sons attending different colleges around the country, we began several years ago to get a new vision of what home was for us.   Sometimes, the only time we were all together to celebrate a holiday or special family event was in a hotel room in a state or country far away from the building where all our stuff resided.  In the most recent phase of our lives, we are learning how it looks to have adult children moving out into the workforce and living in different locations around the country.  We find our times together as a family can be fleeting and infrequent.

As we travel through these transitions, home has become more about a face than a place.  Home is no longer just the building we love outside of Washington, D.C., but anywhere I can be with the faces of my family.  Sometimes it is a hotel room, sometimes a restaurant and sometimes even an airport terminal for just a brief hour or two.  It really makes no difference the location.  Home has become what it was always suppose to be in the first place – not a scene from a magazine, but somewhere we can be together.

As I think about the look of our new geographically scattered home, I love reading these words of assurance God gave to the Israelites.

On Judgment Day
I’ll bring you back home—a great family gathering!
You’ll be famous and honored
all over the world.
You’ll see it with your own eyes—
all those painful partings turned into reunions!”
God’s Promise.

Zephaniah 3:20 (The Message)

God continues to bring us home to one another, just like He promised the Israelites He would do for them.  Sometimes, it is at the address where we receive our mail, but it can also be anywhere that we are together.  For when I look on the faces of my husband and children, I suddenly and completely know I am home.

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Bettina has been a military wife for over 29 years. She and her husband Rob have two sons and a daughter-in-law pursuing artistic careers in Los Angeles and a high school daughter at home with them outside Washington, D.C. She blogs at Simple Stories, Timeless Truths.

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Upon first glance, this may seem like a redundant title. However, if you will, consider the following:

august (adj): inspiring reverence or admiration; of supreme dignity or grandeur; majestic

2010 has been a year of changes for my family, as well as for many on our Wives of Faith board and blog team members. One might argue that it’s easily explained with a glib, “Oh, well, we’re military wives, we always deal with change.” True, but at the same time perhaps it’s not as simple as that.

Which leads me to August–or, an august August.

I’ve been reading a very interesting and thought-provoking book called The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. It’s gotten me thinking about happiness, how I make or break my own attitude, and how I can count my blessings and focus on the happy things, rather than the things that rob me of happiness.

The chapter for the month of August, incidentally, deals with what she calls eternal values. One of the ways Rubin decides to count her blessings is to foster an awareness of gratitude in everyday life.

My challenge for all of you reading this blog is this: look for the august in August. Search for things inspiring reverence or admiration; of supreme dignity or grandeur; or majestic.

Incidentally, our monthly theme here at Wives of Faith for this month is A Joy-Filled Life. We’ll be looking for ways to find the joy in our day, in our lives, sometimes in spite of our circumstances. Also, we’ll be touching a lot on our other theme for the month: deployment. We have some wonderful articles forthcoming on that particular topic, which is always timely as every day on our Facebook page we hear from wives who are dealing with deployment.

I invite you to bookmark our site and keep coming back throughout the month. We’ve got some exciting new features, new and relevant content written by military wives for military wives, and a blog redesign all on the horizon!

Sincerely,
~Pattie~
Wives of Faith Blog Editor

(Side note: Gretchen Rubin is not a Christian, rather a self-described “reverent agnostic.” Nevertheless, I believe that this book still affords Christians a good jumping-off point for determining our overall outlook on life and attitude about being happy, even if only one chapter specifically deals with spirituality.)

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For the LORD sees clearly what a man does, examining every path he takes. Proverbs 5:21

Last week, I took somewhat of a media break. I logged out of Facebook, Twitter, and several other sites and determined to stick to business-only emails or those with time-sensitive material. You cannot imagine (or maybe you can) the peace of mind that I felt the morning after ‘unplugging.’

That first day, I was able to have a good Quiet Time in the Word without wondering who did what or went where or posted about this or that. I whizzed through my to-do list for the day, answered all my important emails swiftly and with extreme focus, and even had dinner hot and ready on the table when hubby came home. My mom was visiting that week, and we enjoyed some floor-play time with the kids, and we laughed and shared stories. Picture-perfect, list-done, happy home kind of day.

When the second morning rolled around, I planned for another smooth, quiet day free from distraction or disruptions, and was surprised to find it turn out that way. Chores done quickly, lesson plans made neatly, board meeting conducted smoothly. That evening, both of my boys lost a tooth. I felt a pang. My thumbs were itching to share this little tidbit of serendipitous news, and yet I held them back. “Next week,” I said to myself, calmly placing the cell phone back in its charging corner.

On the morning of the third day, all earth broke loose. Traffic was uncooperative, the store did not have what I needed, the kids did not nap during nap time, I was late picking up Mom from her conference, dinner would have to be take-out because the day was so far out of whack, and I had no one to share it with. Internet or none, my life was not meant to be mundane, nor was I meant to experience it quietly.

By the time my mom left my house at the end of that week, I do believe her ears were quite worn out from all my chattering about all the crazy things that were happening to me. I did pop online once or twice for very important things like a “Happy Anniversary” wish, and to RSVP to an upcoming event. I kept my email time within the few minutes I allowed myself and overall did very well.

But I missed my friends. I missed sharing all the funny things I saw during a trip downtown. I missed hearing about how everyone was spending their summer vacations. I could care less about the news, or celebrities, or celebrities in the news; I just wanted the fellowship and life-sharing back.

When my week of being offline was up, and I think I cut it short by one day (how can you keep track of time accurately when you’re unplugged?!), I had a clear perspective of what I really gained from using the internet: friendship. Simple and clear, that was what I gained from having all these email addresses, and sign-ons, and memberships. And I got to thinking . . .

God must miss us, too. When we get too busy to pray, when our Bible ends up at the bottom of the day’s stack, when we ‘unplug’ from Him and decide to do things our way.

The LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?” Genesis 3:9

For the LORD delights in his people; Psalms 149:4

He delights in the prayers of the upright. Proverbs 15:8

The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing. Zephaniah 3:17

Doesn’t he see everything I do and every step I take? Job 31:4

There is no creature hidden from His sight, Hebrews 4:13

The eyes of the LORD search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. 2 Chronicles 16:9

For I am the LORD, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you. Isaiah 41:13

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In my neverending quest to read the entire Bible through, I landed in 2 Samuel 7 the other morning. In this chapter, God is speaking to the prophet Nathan about David’s desire to build a permanent temple. God says in the second half of verse 6,

My home has always been a tent, moving from one place to another.

Then it struck me: God moved around a lot!

Well, obviously, God is everywhere all the time; but with this passage, I was thinking in particular about the Ark of the Covenant, the physical representation of the presence of God to the people. The Ark had been moved everywhere the people had moved, for hundreds of years, never having a permanent home anywhere.

God knows what it’s like to move.

He knows the stress of PCS and moving and that unrooted feeling that plagues so many of us military wives. He knows. He’s been there!

This gave me comfort, as I settle in from one move with the full knowledge we’ll be doing this again next summer. I pray it brings comfort to you, too.

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Sometimes life is just plain hard.

Chances are if you’re reading this, you’re either a military spouse or you know one. You’re probably nodding as you read this. Yes, oh yes, life is hard.

Military personnel leave their homes and families for necessary training. They leave for duty across the sea (or on its surface, or within its depths), for duty in the air, for duty on dry and parched land, for duty on flooded land.

And for family members left behind, it’s hard. Cars break. Appliances go wonky. Children get sick. Storms both physical and emotional take their toll on tired and wounded bodies and hearts.

Sometimes life is hard.

The question in response becomes, What do you do about it?

Outside of the physical responses, like calling AAA or appliance repair, the doctor’s office, or just plain hunkering down in the house . . .

When life gets hard, where do you turn? Where do you go? What do you do?

I hope and pray that you turn to Jesus. Do you know Jesus? Really know Him? I’d encourage you to learn. Begin by reading the gospel of John. Get to know the Son of Man, Jesus the Christ. Then invite Him into your heart and life, into the middle of your busy, crazy day. Just as you are.

I just know that having Him close to your heart will make life just a little less hard.

________

Do you know what it means to be a Christian? The plan of salvation is very simple and can be boiled down into three steps:

Admit you are a sinner. (Romans 3:23: For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.)

Believe in your heart that Jesus lived, He died as a sacrifice for your sins, and He rose again. (Romans 10:9-10: That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.)

Commit your heart to Him. (John 3:16: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.)

For more resources, you can visit the Wives of Faith Statement of Faith,  Roman Road to Salvation, or How to Become a Christian. You can also go to a local church and speak with a pastor, or if you’re on base or post, visit the chapel and speak with a chaplain.

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That’s Job with a long ‘o’. The Job with a short ‘o’ is another post.

For Mother’s Day I got a Chronological Bible. I think it’s one of my favorite gifts ever. The last two weeks I’ve been reading about Job. As in ‘the patience of’. Well, he wasn’t very patient. I’m not sure the author of that old cliche had actually read any of the book. However, his whining and crying is all too easy for me to identify with. That insight inspired me to look at the story a little differently. My inspiration has come from reading about Job’s friends. The very first thing that struck me was that they knew about his distress and went to see him. They didn’t do much at first other than share in his sorrow. And listen. They weren’t able to give him the help that he needed. But they listened.

I am a mother.  I am a fixer by nature. When my friends have problems, I want to help them fix what’s broken. As my mind starts whirling away as possible solutions, I forget what they really needed was for me to listen. As I read through the pages of counsel offered up from Job’s friends Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar and, in turn, Job’s defensive replies,  I realized that they didn’t have the answers either. And they, just like me, had stopped listening. They wanted to fix Job’s problems the only way they knew how. Even though the things they told Job weren’t wrong, they weren’t right either. They assumed that Job’s torment was a result of his sin. I’m not sure they were entirely wrong in their assumption, as the young man Elihu points out later. But they forgot their purpose of comforting Job in the effort to solve the problem. Their mistake was as serious as Job’s. They were convinced that they understood God’s purpose.

How often, as friends, do we offer loads of advice to our hurting sisters, convinced that we see their problems as they truly are? Do we see our friends as the next project to be fixed? Or simply as a wounded spirit in need of a caring ear?

Do we pray with our sisters in praise of God’s greatness, or for removal from (or of) the hardship? Do we remember that God is in charge and that we may not see the whole picture to understand the whys?

In 33:23-25 Elihu says “Yet if there is an angel on his [a man's] side as a mediator, one out of a thousand to tell a man what is right for him, to be gracious to him and say, ‘Spare him from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom for him’ — then his flesh is renewed like a child’s; it is restored as in the days of his youth” (NIV).

Praise God that we have a mediator on our side! Jesus paid our ransom long ago. We can offer our praise for God’s grace and the renewal of our soul. Instead of chastising our sisters so that we can ‘fix’ them, let us be guided to praise God with them so they can see that God is in control of even the worst situations. He understands the ‘whys’. Let Him be the fixer.

“Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.”  Romans 15:7

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