Beauty in the Hard

My husband is currently deployed. It’s a six month deployment and though we have done this before, it feels harder this time. As life can bring hardships, this year has been heavy. Our family experienced a lot of loss and I have been on such a journey after this last move. It’s felt like like God took me out of my comfort and shook me from my toes, so that everything in my pockets and the dark spaces has emptied. I have found myself feeling depressed, feeling discontentment in where we are and feeling misplaced. Though I know those are schemes straight from the enemy, I cant help but to feel those humanely feelings. The plus side is that feeling depressed, lonely, and misplaced has made me feel closer to Christ. I lean on the verse that the Lord is close to the brokenhearted. I feel Him, closely. I am trying to find what exactly He is trying to teach me and show me in this season. Surely these feelings of discontent are for the greater good. God has never ever failed me. I am truly living in the prayers that I once prayed. However things like deployments, death and discontentment make you realize how it could be taken away at any moment. I know that God does not call us to live a life of fear and worry, but it’s hard not to fall in those categories. I am so thankful to be married to a man who I feel loves us deeply and does all he does for his family. It’s amazing to compare this journey to others earlier in our marriage. We didn’t have what we have built today. It’s not an outward thing of what we physically have, but what God calls us to have, this togetherness and becoming one. I jokingly say that I feel as if I am 50% when Kevin is gone because he just completes me in so many ways. Honestly though, thats not a joke. Where I fall short he is gifted and where he falls short I can come in. Its amazing how you realize that. I look back on many parts of our marriage and we were not a perfect couple. We had arguments, I may have thrown a purse at him or said hurtful things and I look back and think how thankful I am that we kept going. Boy, how we think we know it all until we look back and realize we knew nothing.

This time around our kids are 11,7 and 7. They miss their dad, their throwing ball partner, their coach, their math tutor, their playmate and the one who is always there no matter what. Wednesday night Sophias wave of sadness hit, as it does, and she left youth group in tears missing her daddy. How good it is to have someone like Kevin, that you love so much. This past month we were able to put care packages from him and his team. It felt so nice to be able to do something for him. Often we get to attend his holiday parties, bake cookies for airman, in the past host for the holidays and so much more. It was my way of feeling like I was making a difference in his world. It felt so good to be able to do something, even though we are thousands of miles apart.

I have cried tears over the annoyance of how military life is romanticized. In the romance movies and books of military families, they miss the true heart break, the true struggles, the true sacrifice and the true tears and sadness that we feel. So many have been desensitized to thinking that thats just what military families do and we are “good” at it. Say that out loud, good at being away from the one you love the most? Good at having to Spend Thanksgiving without your loved one who is still alive but in another country. Good at having to make the magic that two people usually make for Christmas time and hoping it still feels magical for your children, or good at lying in your bed wishing you could sleep deeply because the one who protects you is lying next to you. I hate to break it to you, but military life is not as romantic as Hollywood makes it look. Ive seen more divorces, struggles, arguments and sadness then I would like to admit over these 14 years of our life together. So many of our friends just did not make it out together.

Anyway, this is getting heavy so I would like to end on a good note. Though it is hard, there is still so much to be thankful for and so much beauty. It makes you realize how important your loved one is with distance. Often, I don’t think most civilian couples get to feel that reminder and take each other for granted or maybe they never experience marriage on the level we get to because we’ve only had each other to lean on. I am so thankful for the humbling feeling of a deployment and the constant reminder of how much I need and miss my husband. How much he does for our family and continues to do even in his abcense. As we enter the holidays, I just pray that they feel magical but I also look forward to next years holidays. I look forward to having my partner in crime and look forward to that amazing cup of coffee Christmas morning, glancing at my husband as the kids experience the magic of Christmas. Giving him the look, that we did it.

I love you Kevin and though it may be hard, you are worth it.

There is beauty in the hard and I am so thankful for it.

Be Blessed.

Brittany