It doesn’t matter what you do, something is always bound to go wrong the moment your husband walks out the door for a TDY or a deployment. The car breaks down, the garbage disposal backs up, the kids break out into chicken pox – whatever it is, deployment or TDY gremlins as I like to call them always appear. Despite your best foot forward. No matter the positive attitude. So what that you’re wearing your Big Girl Panties.

Cliff’s in California right now and this is our first long-term TDY (temporary duty for those newbies still using an acronym dictionary ). We’ve done the deployment, we’re used to the two-week ATs, but this is the first long Navy school he’s ever done. One month down, two more to go. It’s different. Easier in some ways than the deployment, still just as tough in other ways.

With our son doing more, the schedule has definitely been busier. Which, in some ways, is  one of the better things. But technology gremlins have followed me this TDY. Computer issues, printers breaking, iPhones not working properly, even Skype has been naughty lately as I’ve tried to have some talk time with my husband. I’ve had trouble getting into a good work day routine since Cliff’s been gone, my primary attention focused on our son and making sure he’s getting everything he needs. I’m fighting a cold, that annual tsunami of sniffles and coughs that comes at the beginning of every cooler season.

I know, I know, if those are the biggest of my worries, I should definitely be grateful. There are certainly other wives I know dealing with harder and more serious issues.

It doesn’t make it easier though knowing my husband’s sole responsibility is going to school; studying and making sure he passes. Sure, he has to do laundry and fix his meals, but the maid service at the hotel he’s living at makes up for that I would say. Keeping a house clean, doing our own laundry, caring for a dog whose seasonal allergies won’t go away, mowing a yard full of grass that still hasn’t gotten the message it can stop growing now, planning and cooking meals that my 8-year-old will eat that doesn’t come out of a blue box with yellow pasta shells on the front of it and all of the rest of what I do that I won’t list for fear of tiring you out before you finish reading this – this is my life right now.

On the one hand, it makes me grateful for my husband when he is home and helping; on the other, it just makes me really tired.

But… I can’t complain too much. In fact, I really need to do the opposite. In all of my gradual groanings over the last couple of weeks, God’s impressed on me that I need to start praising more than pouting. I need to be more content than crabby, I need to be less fussy and more faithful, more focused, more free as I follow God’s longings and not my own.

Not an easy challenge. But an achievable one. A doable one. A necessary one.

I need to praise God anyway. Despite the gremlins, despite the grumblings my lips so want to utter some days. Instead, I need to think of all that God has given me, has blessed me with.

Read a couple of these reminders -

“Rejoice in the Lord your God, for he has given you the autumn rains in righteousness, He sends you abundant showers, both autumn and spring rains, as before.” – Joel 2:23

“God’s favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning. ” Psalm 30:5

“We wait in hope for the Lord; he is our help and our shield. In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name.” – Psalm 33:20-21

Today may be tough for you, it’s tough for me too. But God doesn’t ask for us to give up, He asks for us to grab on.

The video below is of Martina McBride singing a song that’s one of my favorites at the moment and I always seem to interject “Praise Him Anyway” when I’m humming it in my head. So that’s my thought to you today.

Praise Him anyway.

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