I am sure most of you loyal followers of our family blog have seen the shift from Carter centered blogging, towards the family events, and happenings. I think as Carter has grown and our life centers around family and Carter's little life it is still important to remember those special times that we adults have with our spouse, friends and families alike (with our without children.) I would like to share a few readings I've come upon recently. It sparks much emotion in my heart. Randall, Carter and I have a family dynamic that is unlike our 'civilian' friends. I've only recently finally realized our struggles as a military family does , as much as I hate to admit it, set us apart from our civilian counterparts. Not better or worse, rather we just sit in two very different columns of life. We do have the normal struggles that most God centered families endure. But our family struggles with two parents, parenting from opposite ends of the earth for months on end. Our family has two parents who desperately want to be equally involved in child rearing, but simply put... it cannot be so. Our child goes for months on end without seeing a Father he cries out to while falling to sleep at night. Our child wants nothing more than the 'normal.' All the while, never knowing what 'normal' really should be. But this is our normal. Here is the one passage I found that really hit home with me. Although it's not "spot-on" it has an all to familiar tone that all of us married to the Navy feel more often than not. Sometimes we as military spouses hold back on asking for help, seeking out solitude and taking a moment to sit in silent prayer asking our Lord for the grace to get us through one more day. Some times the world looks in on the military family and says something such as "well you know what you were getting in to when you married a man in the military." Yes, in fact, I jumped in with two feet and ready for the ride. However our son did not sign up for this, he did not get the check list of personal strengths one needs to be able to function with this lifestyle. I do hope you'll read this with an open mind and an empathetic heart. And the next time you see a woman in the store, stressed beyond belief, struggling with her children, stop and say a prayer for her. She is probably a woman parenting alone, with a husband: That statement is such an oxymoron, yet 100% true for the majority of the female friends in my life.

God Bless.


Deployed at Home
Behind Every Soldier, a Family Is Serving Too

By Anna Hansen

My life isn’t that different from a million other single girls: I spend Christmas with my family. My dog keeps me company on road trips. I call my father when the “check engine light” comes on, and my aunt helps me carry boxes when I move. Single girls are used to figuring things out on their own and cooking for one—and let’s be honest: life is a lot easier this way. The only difference with me is, I’m actually married. The reason I still live like a single girl is that I’m married to a man in the military.

I was 28 when I took my vow to Josh. I wasn’t green; I understood the commitment. I was making—I thought. But military marriage turned out to be a different sort of sacrifice, a truth I learned one hard, lonely, frightening day at a time. I’m the girl who can’t sit on the other side of the couch from my husband; I have to sit right up against him. And I won’t be reading a book when I do so—I’ll be telling him my thoughts and feelings and earnestly inquiring about his. I don’t do separation. I do connection. I was petrified to marry a man who would not only be gone so much, but would be in danger too. Yet Josh won me over despite my reservations, and the early death of my mother changed my priorities. So one windy spring day, we drove up the coast and eloped by the sea. A fitting way to become a submariner’s wife.

Josh deployed to the Middle East two weeks later. I was the newlywed who wasn’t: no honeymoon, no home, not even a husband except on paper. It’s an old and noble heritage, the soldier marrying his sweetheart on the eve of his departure for the war, but in real life, it’s tense and terrifying. After he left, I felt abandoned—my mother had just died, I was living at home caring for my family, I needed him. Instead, he’d loved me and left me. But I couldn’t lament that—he was a hero. His country needed him more than I did.

Suddenly I was dealing with everything alone: a shattered family, my own heartbreak, and separation from my new husband while he was in a war zone. I began waking at night, staring at the glowing red numerals of my clock, wondering if this was the moment he’d just been killed. I begged God to keep him safe, but having just lost my mother, I found that maintaining my faith was a daily battle. Josh’s sub was in blackout for months at a time, with no word of how he was doing, whether he was okay. I could e-mail him, but he couldn’t e-mail me.

I was the wife without a husband, the bereaved daughter without my anchor. And under those difficult circumstances I had to learn the lessons each woman must when her husband is at war: Don’t say how miserable you are. Don’t tell him you don’t think you can do this anymore. Don’t gripe that you may as well have stayed single since he’s barely a husband to you. For his part, Josh had to learn some lessons too: Don’t be too tired to talk the one time in months you get to call home. Don’t neglect to put some e-mails in the pool that won’t be sent for weeks, because when they are sent, and your wife gets only 3 while her friend gets 32, you’re going to regret it. And I had to learn not to resent him for his vow to the military that trumped his vow to me. This one I’ve actually never mastered. He’s been absent for over two-thirds of our married life, but since he has no say in the matter, I can’t even be mad! And what use is mad anyway, when what I’m really feeling is lonely? Josh has missed Thanksgiving and Christmas, birthdays, our wedding anniversary. He wasn’t there when my mother died, and he wasn’t there two years later when we were all in the hospital supporting my niece in her losing battle with leukemia.

The flip side is, I learned what I’m really made of, a source of pride to myself and every military wife I know—we are forced to become stronger, braver, more resilient than ever we expected, and to rely on God in deeper ways, and this is not a bad thing. But when I’m weeping alone over the death of a loved one, it seems like a very bad thing indeed. When you weigh love and companionship against bravery and resilience, well, maybe other wives are tougher than me, but I’d cast my vote for actually having the husband I married, any day.

This doesn’t mean it hasn’t been worth it. I learned to love in a crucible, and I learned how loved I was too— not just by my husband, who works heroically to show up for me in meaningful ways when he’s at sea, but by the friends and family who have carried me during both of his deployments, and all the smaller ways in between.

Here are some ways others have supported me that meant so much—they’re things you can do, too, that will make a huge difference for military families you know:
1. Ask if you can help with projects around the house that the deployed spouse usually handles. When my key snapped in the padlock, Josh’s buddy Terry willingly jumped to fix it. My brother and sister helped me move into our first home. And my father tried to help with every technical question about the car, the printer, the furnace, or the dryer, and when he wasn’t sure, he’d even call my husband’s father, a thousand miles away, to ask, “What do you think Josh would do?” Friends who said, “Let me know if you need help” and followed through truly made me feel loved. Assure military families that they have an open invitation to let you know when they need practical help—and regularly ask if there’s something you can do to lighten the load.

2. Actively be available to listen, extend friendship, and involve them in social activities. My Aunt Laura checked on me often; my friend Bethany goaded me out of the house to have fun. Other true friends said, “Stop by anytime” and welcomed me when I showed up. If you live too far away to get together, a simple phone call can do a lot to let them know they’re not alone.

3. Regularly encourage them—not just “in deed,” but also with words. At times I need to hear, “You’re doing a great job” or “Josh is blessed to have a partner like you.” Simple words of encouragement are sometimes the greatest support I can receive.

It’s easy to romanticize military life nowadays and to underestimate the everyday sacrifices that troops and their families make, often without complaint. There are ceremonies and parades and the heroic imagery of protecting and being protected; whether or not we support war, we all love our soldiers. People put yellow ribbon magnets on their bumper, wave flags, and acknowledge that “the families are the real heroes,”—but thousands of families who don’t feel heroic are wondering if their soldier is ever coming home. And thousands of spouses are wondering just how far heroism is going to carry them if they ever get that knock on the door. Two years ago, I was visiting my father-in-law in North Carolina while Josh was gone on a two-month “surge deployment” under the Arctic ice. And as we watched the evening news, the lead story was announced: “The Navy loses contact with one of its submarines.” In that breathless moment, running in panic to the Internet to find out if Josh’s submarine was the missing one, I didn’t feel like a hero—I just wanted my husband to be alive.

There’s no romance in living with daily fear of losing the one you love most, despite how handsome he looks in his uniform, how manly he is when he strides down the pier. There’s no romance in weeping alone at 3 am because another oh-so-precious transatlantic phone call just ended badly. There’s dignity in it, yes, in the courage it takes to keep going, in the commitment—but the romance isn’t there till he’s safely home and your marriage begins all over again. And even then, you lie awake at night, listening to him breathing beside you, knowing he could be gone for good at any time, and you wonder how you can stand another day of this devastating, exhausting, uncertain marriage to the most wonderful man you know.

It’s a challenge to find a balance between separation and togetherness, walking that fine line of needing my husband enough to be married to him without needing him so much that I can’t cope without him. That grand return, the Holy Grail at the end of the long journey through deployment, is never what it seems, either, because he has changed, and so have I. And while the honeymoon period does exist, it’s tainted by both our needs and expectations and how different they inevitably are. It’s just never straightforward—and there’s no instruction manual. We learn as we go, ask God for strength and guidance every day, and hope we’ll get the chance to work out the kinks in person when Josh comes safely home.

Military spouses face the same challenges universal to marriage, but ours often feel as if we’re under a magnifying glass in the sun. We need extra-large doses of grace as we prepare to send our loved one away to war. Do you want to support the troops? Then support the ones they leave behind, every day, in small, practical, meaningful ways. Love and grace are all we need