Peace

With the weekend quickly coming to a close I am coming to terms with the probability that my son will not come until I'm induced on Tuesday. The thought of that being the case terrifies me because it means that he won't be able to join us via Skype or even on the telephone. He's out in the field next week and is unreachable. I can't even talk to him on the phone afterwards to tell him his son was born. The most I can do is call the number for his Gunnery Sergeant and leave a message that his son was born and ask that he pass the message along.

The thought of having this baby without him physically here was hard enough. But facing the likely situation of him not being present AT ALL is nearly unbearable. I mean, when I found out that they couldn't induce me until Tuesday, I literally broke down in tears in the parking lot and had to sit there and cry it out for 5 minutes before I could even drive home.

I've been trying to face the fact that this situation is highly probable and figure out a way to deal with it so that I'm not overwhelmed by the reality of it on Tuesday. And I can't quite come to grips with it. I don't know how I'm going to handle it in the moment. We'll have to wait and see.

But here are the things I do know:

#1: I'm not the first person to ever go through this. I don't know how military wives of the past survived without the technology we have today. I can't imagine only being able to communicate with my husband via letters and an occasional phone call. So while my situation my not be ideal, other women have been through far worse and lived to tell the tale. If they can do it, I can do it.

#2: This is harder on my husband than it is on me. My husband hates feeling like he can't take care of us and even though what he is doing now is the best thing for our family, I know that the idea of not being here is killing him. He would never admit that to me because he's being strong for me. He's being supportive and loving and encouraging because that's just who he is. But I know him. I know this is the hardest thing he's ever had to do. However unbearable this seems to me, it's a thousand times worse for him.

#3: This could be an answer to prayer. You know how I've said "Be careful what you pray for" ? Consider this a prime example. My prayer throughout our time apart has been for God to use this situation for His purposes. Now, I don't know what his plans are. Maybe the nurse who will be taking care of me on Tuesday needs to see God working in someone's life more than the nurse who would have taken care of me tonight. Maybe this will help me to build bridges with other military wives as we work to minister to their husbands and families.

#4: God is bigger than my problem. He has proven this over and over again in my life. He has taken care of us when we had no home, no money and no food. He has always given us what we need, never what we want and at the end of the day we've always been grateful for that. If He has always been faithful in the past, I will not doubt him now.

I'm scared out of my mind. I don't want to do this without my husband. But this is the life we've chosen. This is the life we've been called to. And I just need to make my peace with that. For now, I will thank God for the beautiful daughter I have, and my wonderful husband and our son who will be here very soon. Even if I'm terrified to face Tuesday without my husband, I'm incredibly blessed. And maybe that's the lesson I'm meant to take away from this whole thing.

It's prayer, not a potion.

First off, sorry for the hiatus. My baby sister got married last weekend and preparation for the big event pretty much took up all of my free time. The event also brings me to the point of this post.

As you all know, I am SEVERELY pregnant. On the day of my sister's wedding I was due in 12 days. For anyone who knows my sister, having that kind of wild card hanging over your wedding plans is pretty much your worst nightmare.

So she started praying. And then she asked my grandma to pray, and my aunt, and her bridesmaids, and then everyone on the planet who even slightly believed in prayer to pray that I wouldn't have the baby right before or during her wedding ceremony.

Of course, once her big day came and went, everyone started praying the opposite direction! When I woke up this morning, still pregnant, still going through false contractions and cramping and just regular miserable-ness, my aunt said to me on facebook, "I think we all prayed too hard for you to not go into labor!"

My response: "Geez Sue, it's a prayer, not a potion." As if God were storing up all of those prayers in some cauldron in heaven and said, "Nope, she can't have that baby yet. I still have 18 'No labor' prayers to get through before we can start on the 'Yes labor' prayers."

Don't get me wrong, I don't think my aunt thinks of prayer in this way at all. I think she was just being cute. But so many people, church people included, do see prayer this way.

Why? Why do we constantly treat God this way? I'm guilty of it just as much as the next person. I know there have been times in my life when I have prayed so hard for something to turn out one way and it turns out another way. And all faithless little me can say is, "Why are you being so mean, God?"

I have to be reminded that it's not a magical incantation. Saying a prayer doesn't mean I have the power to turn God into my personal genie. Saying a prayer is talking to God. It's about spending time with the creator of the universe. It's about laying my burdens and worries on his shoulders rather than holding onto them all myself. It's about working on a personal relationship.

Sometimes that's hard to remember. I think the next time I sit down to pray, I'll tell him that I need help remembering the true purpose of prayer. I bet it will be on of those things that make my life better.

Umm, you're not a doctor.

I've been know to have really weird dreams. If my dream doesn't involve a dinosaur or Chuck Norris, it's usually pretty tame. Well, last night's dream didn't have Chuck Norris in it, but it was still up there on the weird-o-meter.

I dreamt that I bought my home minister's son, we'll call him Claudius Helpop, a new pair of jeans for his birthday. Now, these weren't just any jeans, but top of the line, all the cool kids are wearing them, jeans. Claudius had told me he really wanted them and I think he's a pretty good kid and I had some extra money so I figured, 'What the heck?'

The only problem is that Claudius is in between sizes. (He is a growing boy after all.)So the pair I got him were a little big. But we wanted them to be perfect for when school started back so I told him I'd take him out to the shops to get them altered so they fit him perfectly for the beginning of the school year.

So when I go pick him up, his dad, Horatio, tells him, 'Claudius, you have to stay with Amanda at all times. That's the only rule.' Of course, once the jeans were fixed, Claudius took off with some of his friends at the mall and I went into labor and had the baby. Go figure.

When I woke up in the hospital  Horatio was there wearing a white coat and holding a chest x-ray. He looks up at me and says, 'Well, everything looks just fine here.' And I said, 'Uh, Horatio, you're not a doctor.'

Then I woke up. I know I usually try to tie this into some sort of God lesson, but in this case I'm just going to leave it alone. I think the lesson is: pregnant women have weird dreams.

Honey, I don't think you're gonna make it.

So, I was at Subway last night getting my favorite sandwich, an Italian BMT with provolone, toasted with extra spinach, tomatoes and oil (btw... the description was thrown in there in case anyone wants to bring me one when I'm in the hospital. Sorry, I don't do subtlety.) and the man in line after me says, "when are you due to pop?" I looked at him with disappointment and said, "Not for another four and a half weeks." His eyes opened wide and he shook his head and said, "Honey, I don't think you're gonna make it." And I don't know why, but I had the strongest urge to give this man a hug. Don't worry, I settled for thinking in my head, "Thank you Mr. Stranger at Subway Man, thank you."

I guess I just needed a little bit of encouragement that this wasn't going to last forever and this stranger was the person God sent to remind me of that. I kind of wonder if he will ever know how encouraging he really was.

Anyway, it got me thinking about why I was so emotional about that yesterday. I know that I'm naturally a bit on the crazy side and the pregnant hormones don't help, but for a brief few hours there yesterday, I was feeling particularly vulnerable. Sometimes the whole weight of things just seems to come crashing down on us.

The more I thought of my kind Subway stranger the more I thought about my situation. Some time within the next month I will give birth to our son and my husband will not be there. (Talk about heavy.) And if that's not enough, within the next two months I will once again pack up my family and move far, far away from our loved ones and our support system, following the calling God has placed on my husband and our family. (Getting heavier...) And we will once again be thrown into a completely new culture with it's own customs, rules, regulations and expectations which we will just be expected to know and understand.  (Seriously, by this point I should be investing in one of those lifting belts.) To top things off, my husband will be working with soldiers. These are people who have to face the horrors of war that us civilians cannot begin to fathom. My husband's job is to counsel them, guide them and support them so that they can continue in their difficult field of service. (And by this point I just look like the wimpy kid in gym class who got stuck under the barbells.)

I'm not totally crazy though am I? That's an awful lot of weight to bear, isn't it? It's hard to remind myself that I don't have to carry all that weight. I have friends and family that are here to help. Like my sister-in-law who can research places to rent and neighborhoods better than any real estate agent in the country. She can tell you how far a place is from work, what the schools are like and the nearest location to purchase a blue slushie. But even more impressive than her slushie finding abilities is the strength we find when we just let God hold these weights.

I don't know why we fight him on this so often. You wouldn't see the wimpy kid in gym class tell the totally buff varsity wrestler guy who offered to help pick up the barbells say, "No thanks dude, I got this." So why do I try to do everything on my own? I think it's because total surrender to God is a lot more difficult than it sounds. It's one thing to sing about it on Sunday morning... it's completely different to put it into practice on Monday morning. To totally trust someone with everything, especially when the road he sends you on doesn't appear to make much sense; that's a scary thing. It's easier to say, "No thanks dude, I got this." But ultimately, that's really dumb on our part. Like, monumentally dumb. I mean, if we can't put our trust in God, who sacrificed everything so that we could join him in eternal life, then who can we trust? Honestly, we're just plain stupid sometimes.

So today, I am going to hand things over to God. He's better at handling this stuff anyway. And I'm going to pray for the strength to hand them over again tomorrow. After all, God has really big muscles and I'm just a wimpy kid on the right team.