There And Back Again: A Human's Tale

Having a child defers all obligation to continue a blog, I think, until one's brain turns back on after about two years of joy and craziness. In all seriousness, I haven't had anything to say... so that's a pretty good reason not to say anything at all, right? Well, with all of the transitions and newness going on in our life right now, reopening this blog seemed like the best way to share it!

From California to New Orleans happened in about two blinks of an eye. My husband was selected for an army engineering position (which he was over the moon about), and we were assigned to New Orleans. We packed up our house with a lot of help from hourly childcare and caffeine, and we started the transition to the South within a few weeks of hearing the news.

Nobody really talks about what *really* makes being an army wife difficult, in my opinion. And quite honestly, I didn't even know what it was until this move. Being a loving, gentle, interactive mom is hard... but throw in zero environmental and scheduling consistency... and being a loving, gentle, interactive mom is about as easy as peeling potatoes with the backside of a spoon. Being a hard working, reliable, sane wife is hard... but throw in pregnancy hormones, packing a whole house, and leaving all the friends (and babysitters) that I've grown to love... and being a hard working, reliable, sane wife is as hard as peeling... Well, you see where I'm going. Sacrifice is almost always affiliated with deployments, but for me, I now see the constant transitions of mayhem to be what I really admire the most in army spouses.

This move was the most taxing aspect of my husband's career thus far. Having a daughter, who I love so much, drive me insane because of huge changes in her life made me sad. I know she's two. I know she doesn't understand change. Goodness, I'm 12 times her age and I don't understand change. Even though I knew those things, being in a hotel room with a toddler left me running back and forth between the doorstep of, "I'm losing it!", and the doorstep of, "I'm trusting God with all of this." Most days in the hotel, I flip flopped between the two, but at the end of each day I usually settled with trusting God with the big mess we felt we were in.

There are too many details to bore you with, but after staying in a hotel for about a week, we needed to get out of there. One, because we needed to have some normalcy again. Two, because the army only pays for 10 nights in a hotel once you reach your new duty station. With no military housing nearby, we had three days left to find a house to rent. It felt pretty hopeless. The houses we did see had BIG red flags on them--either bad neighborhoods, bad landlords, or odd/unsafe features. We wanted to rely on God to bring a house to us, and after those seven days of hotel life, God started to show us how He planned to provide for us.

Before moving here, I knew I had at least one connection to one human being on the very most basic of levels in New Orleans. I knew of a woman down here, whose parents have attended my parents' church since probably forever. I knew that woman's husband planted a church down here, and so our first Sunday in New Orleans we headed for that church. Honestly, I had forgotten about going to church in all the sadness and confusedness of our hotel stay... but "something" reminded me the Saturday night before to suggest it to my husband. The church was very small, which can be a bad thing for newcomers... but it could not have been better for us. They loved on our little girl, and after quite embarrassingly sharing our story-- they loved on us! I shared that we needed a house, and what our situation looked like. They prayed for us, and I kid you not- probably 80% of the people there came up and talked with us after the service--encouraging us, telling us they'd keep their eyes open for houses, giving us their information if we needed anything. My heart was FULL. We had no family, and no help... and God provided those people to show us His love when we needed it the most. God knew our needs, and he provided the support we desperately needed with their sincere, intentional kindness.

We ended up staying the next week with a sweet lady, named Pam, who we met that Sunday. She lives alone, and God had touched her heart to open her home to us (later we found out that her children were very against it, which I completely understand... strangers living with my widowed mom would probably not go over well with me either). While coordinating our move to her house, I could not fully grasp how accommodating she was, and that she was actually EXCITED to have us move in with her! Seriously, not too many people are excited about having strangers move in with them- especially when one stranger is super pregnant and another happens to be a two year old. Her response to my bewilderment was that God had given her a big house and the things in it, so He can use it for His purpose. We really could not have stayed with someone who made us feel more like family for that next week. God provided for us, even if it was totally not the way we pictured it. If we wouldn't have been "homeless" for that short time, we would not have felt loved so deeply by the people we've met here. We wouldn't have had something so big to feel such joy about! Joy comes out of suffering, and God's joy is something I didn't expect to find during this move.


"You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in You, all whose thoughts are fixed on you! Trust in the Lord always, for the Lord God is the eternal Rock. " Isaiah 26:3-4


More to follow soon...