C'mon God, that's not fair.

So after ten months of this crazy interview process, my husband was finally accepted as an active duty Chaplain for the Navy. Now, all of a sudden, our lives have been turned upside down. I mean, it's now normal for me to wake up in the morning and ask my husband, "So, have our plans for our life completely changed since we spoke last?"

When he was accepted he was told that he would do ODS (his officer training school) May - June and his Chaplain school in September/ October. This suited me just fine. It meant that I could keep working at the bank until August when our son is due to arrive. Plus, it meant that my husband would be able to be here for the birth and the first month or two of our son's life. Then my husband got a phone call and all of our well-laid plans changed. Now he will be gone at training all summer. He will miss being the best man in a close friend's wedding, he won't be able to marry my sister and her fiance in July, and he'll miss the birth of his son. And if that stress wasn't enough, he will be moving his entire family (wife, daughter and newborn son) all the way to Okinawa. Let me tell ya, that is quite the introduction into military life.

Now, for those of you who know me personally, I always knew that this life was a possibility with my husband. Even when we were dating in high school he told me about his passion for serving in the military. I made a decision then to prepare myself for  that life in the event that I ended up marrying this boy. So as far as preparation for a crazy military life goes... I was ready.

But I wasn't ready for this. I wasn't ready to make plans for going to the hospital without my husband to deliver our child. I was prepared for moving our family right after the baby was born. I was ready for explaining to our daughter that daddy would be home in a few short months. But the whole "not being there for the birth of our son" thing rattled me. And when he's only a few weeks old we're moving to Okinawa! I mean, wow... that's pretty crazy right?

Then I remembered a prayer I said when we were living in Scotland. We had had a rough time of it when we first moved to Scotland. We didn't know anyone, how to set up a bank account, get an apartment, secure a job or purchase a phone plan. There were a few days where we literally lived on bread and butter sandwiches. It seemed pretty bleak. But we still had each other and we still had Christ and we knew that was the only important thing. I felt a strange sense of calmness about the whole thing. I knew that we were where God had placed us and that he would take care of us just when we needed it... and he did. And that night I prayed that God would always have me live a life that was fully devoted to him. I wanted to make sure that my life was impossible without Christ.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, be careful what you pray for! I'm just kidding! But seriously, Christ called us to pick up our cross daily and follow him. He never said it would be easy. He never said we'd always be able to drive a car, live in a nice house, eat pizza or even have our husband with us when we gave birth. But he did promise us a full life... a saved life. That's quite the return on our investment, wouldn't you say? So I realized that I don't want to give Jesus a discount Amanda. I don't want to hold any of me back for fear of the unknown. I'm all in. I want to see what this "full life" is really all about. "What good is it for someone to gain the whole world and yet forfeit their very self?" Luke 9:25.