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Veterans Day

Posted by Pattie on Friday, November 11th, 2011 in Resources | Comments (0)

image courtesy of Berkeley University library

Today is Veterans Day, which began as Armistice Day on November 11, 1918. It marked the end of The Great War (World War I). Today it is a day we as Americans honor our nation’s military veterans and thank them for their service.

The US Department of Veterans Affairs has a lovely history of the day on their website here.

I thought it fitting to share a famous poem from this era with you. The poppy is still a symbol of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

In Flanders Fields
by John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

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Summer Study: Tour of Duty Week Three

Posted by Sara on Monday, June 20th, 2011 in 2011 Tour of Duty Summer Study | Comments (80)

Hi ladies! I hope you’ve had a great week. This week we’re reviewing Chapter 2. How are you doing with the chapters? I hope you’re hanging in there! One more week and we’ll be officially halfway there! Know that I’m praying for you and for our time together.

Discussion questions follow the video. Don’t forget to please post your own answers to the questions and reply to others! Thank you for being part of this study! I pray it’s a blessing to you.

Discussion Questions:

1. In the “From the Home Front” section, I listed some of my “What if” questions. What “What if” question haunts you the most during deployment? How do you combat those questions?

2. What did you learn about faith from this chapter?

3. Which verse in the life jacket on pg 29 did you choose as the one that’s most encouraging to you? Why did you choose that verse?

4. We talked about Jeremiah 29:13. How hard is it to seek Jesus during times of deployment? How have you personally found this verse to be true during hard times?

5. What does it mean to be courageous and what does it mean to take heart? What stood out to you in this section?

6. What “impossibilities” did you list on page 35? How have you seen God help you face these seemingly impossible situations?

7. What part of Peter’s story spoke most to you this week?

8. What other part of this week’s chapter stuck out to you that you want to discuss with the rest of us?

Homework: Read Chapter 3 from Tour of Duty.

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God’s Temporary Lodging

Posted by Pattie on Wednesday, July 28th, 2010 in Faith | Comments (0)

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.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Sometimes Life is Hard

Posted by Pattie on Friday, July 23rd, 2010 in Faith | Comments (1)

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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Welcome

Posted by Pattie on Monday, July 5th, 2010 in Faith | Comments (0)

Welcome! We’re so excited you’ve found us. Whether you’ve arrived here from a search engine, or from a friend, from Facebook or from Sara’s recent interview on Focus on the Family, we want to welcome you to Wives of Faith!

Wives of Faith is a faith-based organization founded by military wives to support and encourage military wives through all the joys and challenges of life in the military. We are here for you, because we’re just like you: military wives facing deployments and TDYs and all those other acronyms! All of us here who serve with Wives of Faith are volunteers, passionate about seeing military wives experience and see God’s love first hand, especially through deployment. We want to be the hands and feet of Jesus. Read More→