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The Supply Officer

Posted by Bettina Dowell on Wednesday, August 17th, 2011 in Faith | Comments (2)

“He that appoints what the voyage shall be will victual the ship accordingly.”

Matthew Henry

With a freshly minted MBA in hand, it was a logical choice for my husband to become a supply officer when he entered the Navy. After six months in Supply Corps School, we packed up for Jacksonville, Florida for our first sea duty. Rob became the assistant supply officer on a fast frigate. Even thought the eighties were a time of relative world peace, the ship still deployed extensively.

When it was time for a Mediterranean cruise, the supply officers and their department were responsible for lying in food, weapons, ship’s store items, cash and other necessities for extended time at sea. Not knowing exactly what their time before a port call might be, they had to assure the ship was prepared for a long journey. In addition, it was their job to “expect the unexpected,” not knowing what the needs of other departments might become once underway. So, we come to Matthew Henry’s quote about God victualling (to lie in food supplies) our ships.

I would like to think that I have planned well for my future journeys. However, the obvious truth is that I cannot, with any degree of accuracy, predict what will happen in the next five minutes – much less five days, weeks, months or years. Though my fortune telling skills are conspicuously absent, there is a God who knows and sees my voyage.

God is sovereignly aware of every circumstance I will encounter, every need I will have and every stormy or calm sea that lies ahead. He has also made sure, as my supply officer, that I will have everything I need for the journey.

But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by

Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:19 (KJV)

So how about you today? Where in your life are you struggling over the days that lie ahead? Trust can begin in a place where we acknowledge that God is sovereign. Know today that you have a supply officer who has seen the journey you must make and equipped you well for it.

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Seeking Understanding

Posted by Kim on Tuesday, August 9th, 2011 in Faith | Comments (2)

Recently there’s been some chatting in the military spouse community online about the idea that those outside the military don’t understand or appreciate the sacrifices that military families make on a day to day basis.

We in the military community aren’t the only ones who feel this. People struggling with infertility can feel as though those with children don’t understand their hurts and those who are struggling in grief can become isolated in fear that no one knows their pain. There are many communities online that reach out to groups like these to help people connect with others and know they are not alone in their experiences. They offer support, encouragement and a place to ‘belong’ for those who feel that no one ‘gets i.t’ Like Wives of Faith, they offer a healthy environment of people who share a common bond and who can pray and be there for each other.

But we have to be careful to avoid the risk of allowing our small communities to let anger take over and bond instead over a dislike for those on the outside. Then that happy and productive group changes from being supportive of one another to lashing out at ways we perceive others don’t understand us. Anger feeds on anger and bonds become over mutual hate instead of a mutual hurt.

Once that feeling starts, we can move even further down, when we start unnecessary comparisons of our experiences and begin to ‘one up’ each other. When fighting starts over each person’s individual experience and whether it was worse than the other, no one feels supported and everyone feels alone.

The truth is, no one can relate to exactly what someone else is going through. Here on earth, there is no one who understands another’s pain completely.

But the Bible tells us that Jesus does.

Hebrews 4:14-16 in the Message says “Now that we know what we have—Jesus, this great High Priest with ready access to God—let’s not let it slip through our fingers. We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin. So let’s walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help.”

We can learn from and support each other. That’s the reason Wives of Faith exists.

The Bible encourages us to lean on each other, to support and love those around us. Galatians 6:3 tells us to carry each other’s burdens, and 1 Thessalonians 5:11 says we are to encourage each other and build each other up.

There is incredible blessing to be found in sharing experiences and using our hardships to reach out to others going through similar struggles. But we take the role of Jesus and place it on others if we expect them to understand us completely. We can make our groups as big or as small as we like, but even if I joined a group called “Canadian Wives of x-type of Servicemen who have experienced x number of tours and have x number of children” I am not going to meet someone who knows what it’s been like to be me. Contrary to the saying, no one can walk a mile in another person’s shoes. (And no one would want to walk in my size 5 stilettos anyway).

We have a God who not only came to earth as a human to suffer and die for us (as if that wasn’t enough). We have a God who came to experience our pain, our hurt, our suffering first hand. There is nothing we can deal with that he has not felt.

Once we are willing to accept that He is the only one who is able to truly feel it all, I believe we will be more able to drop the anger, hurt and one-upmanship that we feel when we compare our experiences with others and instead allow ourselves to be a support and encouragement to those around us.

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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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Starving

Posted by Amber Parham on Thursday, July 7th, 2011 in Faith | Comments (1)

I know it’s been a while. I don’t blame you if you don’t recognize me. Let me reintroduce myself. I’m Amber who used to be pretty regular at doing Blog Spotlights and would occasionally send Pattie some Daily Encouragements and a Blog Post or two. I wish I could say that I had disappeared because God was doing amazing things in my life and he was keeping me so busy that I just didn’t have a minute to sit down and type a few words. But, I can’t say that. Something else was keeping me away.

I was really surprised to see that I wasn’t the only one that felt like she had disappeared. My favorite Peanut Butter Ball chef admitted that she hadn’t been able to come here and write in her post Forgiveness. I really understood about wanting to, but not being able to do it.

What was keeping me away, you ask?

I was afraid. But, let me start at the beginning. A little over a year ago I quit my job. I didn’t find another one. I had been volunteering at church, but the ministries that I’m involved in do not allow me to attend Sunday School or Wednesday night church. Then, about five months ago, I got pregnant. Now, your first thought may be that I was afraid that we wouldn’t have the money. That was a concern, but not what was foremost in my mind. You see, two years before I had my son I had my first miscarriage. Then I had another. So my knee jerk reaction was to worry that I would lose this child too. I didn’t want to be afraid. I knew that it wass wrong to fear and that I needed to have faith. I needed to believe God’s promises. Over and over I begged God to take away my fear. I cried out to him to protect me and my tiny little baby. I finally began to ask him to show me why I was so much more afraid this time, after I’ve had one successful pregnancy, after I had passed the most dangerous stage for miscarriage, after every visit to the doctor showed that our baby was growing and thriving. Why was I paralyzed by fear?

It wasn’t until a week ago when I was diagnosed with iron deficiency anemia that things began to make sense.

There are two periods of my life that I will immediately name as the times that God grew my faith the most. My husband’s deployment and when I was pregnant with my son. I am no stranger to fear. This time something was different.

While I was working it was easy for me to stay fed. I mean that figuratively and literally. I listened to Christian radio everyday on the way to work and back, I ate lunch with my friend with whom I shared great food and even better conversations about religion. God even worked through our patients to minister to me, and at the time we were attending a church where I was able to ago to Sunday School as well as serve the church. My spiritual platter was spilling over the sides.

This time around, my life had transitioned into a much different routine. We started going to a larger church where I served gladly! I sing with the praise and worship team, I work with AWANA on Wednesdays and I started substitute teaching at the school. I felt like I was giving a little bit back of what had been given to me. It’s work that I love doing. But I didn’t realize that little by little I was depleting my spiritual health, until it was too late. I was sick. Very sick. And I knew that my heart was yearning for something but I was so far gone, I couldn’t tell what it was that I needed. Then I was attacked by Satan’s most dangerous weapon: Fear. The fear that consumed almost every minute of my day was a disease. Not a physical illness, but a spiritual one.

When we get sick we try to take care of ourselves and we take medicine. When my doctor called with the results from my bloodwork, she told me to eat right and take iron. Honestly, my eating habits have been pretty sorry lately. I’ve always tended to be nutritionally conscious. Blame it on being raised by a Home Economics teacher. But, combined Morning (meaning All Day) Sickness and first trimester fatigue depleted my reserves quickly. I wasn’t taking in the nutrients I needed to thrive.

After I prayed to God to tell me why I was so scared this time, he revealed to me that just as I was physically undernourished, I was spiritually anemic too. My Daily Bread routine had been reduced to occasional Bible readings. Reading my Bible was good. But it wasn’t enough to fight off spiritual attacks and minister to others. I realized that I had been starving for the food, the bread of life, that I had had in such abundance before. Just like our bodies require certain amounts of nutrients and calories for us to stay healthy, our spirit needs constant replenishment for those times that we use up our spiritual stores of energy like when we are facing times of trial or an onslaught of spiritual warfare.

God showed me that to get well, to get rid of the disease of Fear, that I need to make some serious effort to continually nourish my mind. I have to quit relying on spiritual snacks to supply everything I need and pull belly up to the banquet table. I’m going to have to feed myself a well balanced diet of the Word by reading daily, listening to teachers and making a point to interact with my Christian friends. And I’ll supplement all that with a good dose of Christian music.

I’m struggling with Fear even as I type this. But I’m getting better everyday. If you are struggling with fear in your life, pray that God will show you how to fill your mind with his love and hope leaving no room for fearful thoughts. Reach out to someone that you can trust to help you through your trial and above all be willing to accept the truths of God’s instruction in your life.

Scripture to snack on.

God is love. 1 John 4:16

If we have love, there is no need to fear. 1 John 4:18

God will deliver us from our hunger and thirst. Psalm 107:5-6

Jesus is the Bread of Life. John 6:32-33

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Take every thought captive…

Posted by Semper Wifey on Thursday, June 23rd, 2011 in Faith | Comments (7)

I was recently sharing some of my struggles with a godly woman in my life. After listening to me go on and on…and on…she wisely advised me that I needed to take my thoughts captive. Her advice is based off of 2 Corinthians 10:5: “…and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

That stopped me dead in my negative tracks. “How exactly do I do that?” I questioned.

She suggested that I could either pray for the people/situations/issues I was having negative thoughts about or quote scripture out loud to push those thoughts away.

Genius. And yet so obvious. How did I miss that?

Paul writes in Philippians 2:5 that our “attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.” I’m positive that Jesus did not allow such negative thoughts into his mind.

Armed with these verses, I immediately jumped into my Bible to find scripture that I could use to block the negativity that is so persistent in my life lately. Now, when I am tempted by these pesky thoughts, I am whole-heartedly clinging to scripture to block this toxicity from my mind.

These are some of the verses I have been reciting to deflect negativity into glorifying God’s name. (If you see me mumbling to myself, you’ll know what I’m saying! )

“I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” -Philippians 4:13

“Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” -Ephesians 4:31-32

“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” -Psalm 139:14

What verses do you cling to in order to take your thoughts captive?

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Trading it all

Posted by Kim on Thursday, June 9th, 2011 in Deployment, Faith | Comments (2)

This fall when a group of soldiers from my husband’s unit returned from Afghanistan, it marked the first time since the war began that all members of that unit would be home in Canada. For that brief time no one from the Regiment was at war and to celebrate, his Commanding Officer threw a party.

A hall was rented, food was catered, huge door prizes were donated and all the soldiers and their spouses came dressed up and ready to enjoy it. A big name Canadian band even donated their time to play a private show just for us.

I remember looking around the room that night happy that everyone was getting the chance to just be proud of their unit, their friends and themselves. If I’ve noticed one major difference between Canadian and American military, it’s the level of pride. Soldiers here are much more reserved and while we have things like Regimental shirts and sweaters and stickers and flags, they are for the most part just for work. Maybe it’s the stereotype of the humble polite Canadian, but they tend to leave all the ‘army’ stuff on the job. So to see them all, in a room with the Regiments crest projected on the walls, celebrating their hard work, it warmed my heart.

After dinner the band got up to play and about halfway through their set they got to one slow song that everyone in the crowd knew the words to and they all sang along to the chorus:

“If I traded it all, if I gave it all away for one thing, just for one thing…”

I stood on the outskirts of what had for the last song been a mosh pit, and I watched all these soldiers with their eyes closed and their hands and cell phones in the air, sing that line over and over with the band.

And I realized the truth of it – that they had been willing to do just that. They had traded their safe lives at home, their time with their family, the opportunity to spend milestone dates with their kids and holidays with their wives, for a war in the desert to fight for something they believe in.

The even harder reality was that they had been willing to give even more and lay their lives on the line for that one thing – the safety of the people back home. Not every member of the unit was with us at that party because some had gave it all.

Doesn’t that just give us a glimpse of God’s ultimate sacrifice? That Jesus, who having it all and living with God in perfection, traded everything he had to be born a man and live on earth, to be persecuted, shamed, beaten and killed, all for just one thing – us.

Jesus’s Disciples dropped their entire lives to follow Jesus during his lifetime on earth and after His death and resurrection, many were imprisoned, beaten and executed for their faith.

The truth is that in many persecuted nations, they understand those early believers and what giving it all for their faith really means. For many, following Christ means being willing to risk their homes, jobs, families and lives for the sake of Jesus Christ. This is not a world that we live in here. And all too often that means that my faith becomes a fair-weather faith and my sacrifice is almost non-existent.

Just as not every soldier will give their life on the battlefield, not every believer is called to face such trials for Christ’s sake. But in the same way, just as every soldier stands willing to make that sacrifice for their country, we as followers of Christ need to stand willing to lay our entire lives on the alter for the sake of His Name.

Interestingly as I scanned that party I realized that the Regimental motto of my husband’s unit is “Perseverance”.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” James 1:2-4

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