Over a year, 13 1/2 months to be exact, and I meant to write this post right after we hit our one year mark but I procrastinated. A lot. I love to share with everyone how amazing this change has been for us, how much we have grown, how much stronger our marriage has become and how we feel like we are both being used by God in too many ways to count just because we said "yes" when He asked us to trust and follow him. But the first year here and the second year here are going to look very, very different.
The reason for my huge procrastination in writing a family update is because Brenner is deploying in less than a month and my heart just hurts to write that.
It is not a surprise, we knew that this would be coming, and yet when we got the orders it was still a shock. And so, here we are, reveling in all that God has taken us through in the last 13 months, grateful for the challenges of changing houses, careers, states, and time zones, amazed at the relationships formed, humbled by the love we are shown by the Air Force community and honored to given the chance by God to do such great kingdom work for full time ministry. And now we have to gear up for another challenge, a 7 month deployment.
While my heart hurts, I mean truly aches, at the thought of sending him off for such a long time, I am also very aware that once again, this is part of God's plan for us and there are specific reasons that this deployment is not only happening, but necessary. Every major challenge that we have faced I can look back and see so many reasons why that had to happen in order to change me in some way. Challenge and suffering and changes in our lives should change us into people more like Christ. So this past year, with the challenges we faced with our move to California and new AF life, has blessed us tremendously and we are so grateful for each day we are here. I can see why I needed to relocate, I already can pinpoint areas of change in my life that are for the better and areas where I feel Christ is shining more than he was.
And I really think that this next year, even though Brenner will be gone for so much of it, will still be a great year. My prayer for us is to grow in Christ, to have joy and contentment in our hearts, and to be used well in our full time ministries. This is not going to be a seven month countdown of when our life can start again, this will be a seven month journey imitating Christ and treasuring the season we are in. Be sure to remind me of that on the hard days :)
No comments:
Post a Comment