Hitting rock bottom

Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom before you can look up and see the way out, that unfortunately has been there all along, but you haven't been willing to really see it until now. I have been in a dark place lately. A deep, dark, crushing place. Mentally and emotionally I have been exhausted, terrified and depressed. I have tried so hard to not be. I hate it. It's the last place I want to be. Sometimes I am able to be happy, to not let things bother me and to find joy in things and truly be content. But those moments are so fleeting...it seems like I'd be ok for a few days and then the dark, crushing wave would crash down on me again and despite my efforts to swim out of it and to reach the shore, it would drag me down to it's deepest and darkest depths and crush the life out of me. Ever since we found out about our OCONUS duty station and the possibility of me not begin able to go, I have been a complete and utter disaster. I have been angry, bitter, hurt, lonely, sad, jealous, depressed. I feel so alone and so completely at a loss of where my life is going and how I am going to survive. I have been to the darkest parts of myself and it is terrifying to know that that exists in me. I cry all the time. And sometimes when I do, I literally sob. My whole body shakes and I cannot breathe. What is truly frightening, is I know I am shaking partially because I have this incredible desire to hurt something, someone, anything really. And it's all I can do to contain myself and just cry without any danger ensuing on myself, the things around me or others near by. I am so angry. So incredibly angry. I have never felt this kind of anger before. I'm not even sure what I am angry at really. It's a multitude of things...the fact that my husband is away, that we built this life and I'm living it alone, that our choice to join the military is leaving me behind for awhile, that I am in limbo with my job, with our move, with what I want to do and where I want to go, that I am alone, that I am so in love with a man that I might lose one day. So many things scare me. No, they terrify me. They terrify me so much that the pain and heartache are overwhelming...my whole body hurts, my very core, my soul. Have you ever emotionally ached so bad that your soul and your body felt the pain all over, and you just think to yourself, "there has to be someway to stop this pain, something to make it hurt less"? But there isn't anything really, well nothing tangible that is. I know there is Something that will help...but I have been running from it...why? I couldn't tell you...because I feel like a failure, maybe. Or maybe it's because for the last 8 years I have ultimately run to Greg and let him comfort me and be my all, when really it should have never, ever been him solely in that role. And last night and tonight, I think I literally hit rock bottom. Do I dare say that I lost my will to live and I just wanted to run far, far away until everything faded away and I no longer felt anything. And in the midst of that and my terrified, painful, tear filled fog, I opened up my Bible. I started reading the daily Psalm and Proverbs. They were good, but nothing profound jumped out at me. I turned Pandora to the "Casting Crowns" station I had created, and slowly and surely, with each song that played, I found myself breaking down, letting go of all the pain and the anger and the heartache and I was running into His arms and His beautiful promises for my life. I started realizing things that have been getting in my way for years. And the biggest one...well, it has been my husband. I have put my whole life into our relationship and into him and his love and his presence in my life. And now that he isn't here, my life is falling apart. How sad is that? I have had my husband as my idol, my lord, my everything. I wanted nothing more than to be his everything and he be my everything, and that has been my biggest downfall. Yes, I need to devote myself to my husband and our life, I need to love him with my whole heart, and leave all others behind and cleave to him. I need to serve him and love him as Christ commands. But having it where my whole world revolved around him and our life, it only hurt me in the long run and should have only come after my relationship with the Lord and what I need to do personally in my life to be whole and fulfilled. With Greg gone, I found myself lost, incomplete, half alive. No wonder I have been struggling! I should be putting the Lord in those places...He needs to be my All. The place where I find my joy, my strength, my passion for life and my purpose in where I am and who I am. And maybe this is one of the main reasons that the Lord is taking me on this journey as an Army wife and where I am right now in limbo and alone. He is stripping me bare. He is taking away my comforts, the things I run to, the things I get lost in. He is pulling them away from me and leaving me empty and bare, until I realize that I need Him and I can't ever expect to be ok without His presence in my life and letting Him be number one. I then downloaded "Faith Deployed" onto my Nook. It is a book of devotionals for military spouses. And let me tell you, reading it is continuing to heal me. Helped me to see where I need to place my focus and to draw my strength from. I can't do it on my own. God is my strength. And I can really "do all things through Christ who strengthens me." He won't leave me or forsake me. He understands my heart, knows my needs and can heal me at each point and pain that I encounter. He will guide me in all I do, and I know that by placing myself in His hands and His will, I will grow more than I could ever imagine, I will be whole, I will experience joy, I will find solace, I will find love and peace. I also know that by doing all this and surrendering to Him, He will allow all this to strengthen my marriage and draw my husband and myself closer and closer, despite the distance and miles that may separate us. His will is perfect and if I just stop stressing out and fighting things, I will be perfectly ok, and my life and my husband and I will be just where we need to be...happy, content and perfectly at peace by trusting in the Lord and His plan for our lives. Hitting rock bottom, and the process of getting there might have been painful and horrific...but without it, I am not sure I would have been able to once again peacefully rest in the Lord and to place my focus in the right direction. I am ready for whatever may come my way, and I know that with the Lord and my amazing husband in my life, that in the end, no matter what may come, all will be well. And that, well, that is all I need. That is enough. In my weakness He is strong, with His strength I will carry on and in all things I will trust in Him.

This says it all! :)

Frustrated and Angry...just gotta vent, I guess...

I get so angry sometimes. I hate living apart. I just want to be with my husband. Is that too much to ask? It isn't fair. And then in the midst of that anger, I feel weak and that I can't do it anymore. How much heartache can one heart withstand? How am I supposed to just live my life and try to be a whole person when the one person who makes me whole is so far away? I'm not strong enough to do this. And the prospect of another year and whole world apart frightens me to the point of no return.

And I am so tired of being stuck in this stupid town with no husband, few friends and nothing to do. I want to be out of here already! I want to be doing fun things and enjoying my life and my hubby. I want my husband back and want so badly to be living the life we built together. I hope it is one day soon...I pray it is.

Somedays

I will admit...somedays are harder than others. Somedays I feel so alone, so sad, so far away. I would give anything to be with my husband and just living life day in, day out as a normal couple. The little moments are what I miss the most. Coming home and getting a hug and a kiss, sitting on the couch snuggled watching a movie, making dinner together, being able to look in his eyes when he tells me he loves me, being able to laugh together and share our lives.  Being able to go do things together and to have a best friend to share each moment with.

We have always had a really good relationship and are the very best of friends and loved doing all these things together. But now that those things, and that one person is so absent from your physical day to day life, it feels like half of you is missing. Half your heart is so far away and trying to live life without that person is a pain that never seems to subside.

People that are with their spouse every day have no idea what it is like to live apart. I can tell you that it has helped me realize what really matters, to enjoy the little things, to not take anything for granted and to love my husband with every fiber of my being. To know that no matter the time, the space, the distance or the miles, nothing will ever change our love and our commitment to one another. If anything it makes it stronger. It makes you grateful for the love you have and the time you actually get to spend together. The little, insignificant things no longer matter and you find yourself letting go of things you would have normally let bother you. Nothing else matters, except being with that person and truly loving them and enjoying every second that you have.

So, the times apart and the heartache that never leaves your soul when you are apart, you let that make you stronger and you carry on through it all. You look forward to the next beautiful hello and try not to think about the next painful goodbye. You reach for the moment you will see them next and hold on to the beauty and the love that will fill each hour spent together. You remember how much they love you and you let that calm your heart as best it can when you are thousands of miles apart. You hold on best you can and look forward to the next few hours, days or months you have together and know that no matter what, in the end our love will carry us through.

Strong & True

Even though my soldier enlisted a year ago, he was in the delayed entry program and he finally went to OSUT training 6 months ago. Sometimes it seems like it has been years, and then again it seems like it was only yesterday. We still have 4.5 years to go and I know that those years are going to be the best, the hardest, the most beautiful and the most memorable years of our lives. We knew when we signed up for this that it wouldn't be easy, but we are ready for that; and I can tell you that the last 6 months, despite the fact that we had little to no contact and despite the fact that we were thousands of miles apart, we are already stronger and deeper in love. Being apart and still being so in love, we realized that what we have is rare, it's beautiful and it is strong. Not everyone has it, but everyone we come across is in awe of it. We are blessed and fortunate. It is once in a lifetime. We are once in a lifetime. Best friends. Greg and I have been together for 8 years...we were 18 and we feel madly and deeply in love. It's never been another way for us. We have had our rough times...times that were deep and dark and we weren't sure what would happen, but those just made us stronger and helped us realize that we never want to lose one another. So these next 5 years we are ready. We are ready for what lies ahead-the adventures, the separations, the reunions, the beautiful small moments that last forever, the sad times, the hard times and most of all the times were we just melt into each other's arms and let the world fade away. We will make it. We will be stronger in the end. And we will never ever compromise what we have.

We Joined Too...

Just over a year ago my husband and I decided that it was finally the right time for us to join the military. Not that I joined, per say, but for all intents and purposes, I have joined too. You see, my husband and I are the very best of friends and we made the decision together, as it is a big decision and something that effects both of us. He technically signed on all the dotted lines, and he essentially is the one going through all the training, he is technically the one who graduated and he is ultimately the one who has enlisted to serve his country and to lay his life on the line. But, as all spouses or significant others that are with a member of the military, we will tell you that even though we didn't necessarily enlist as a soldier, a marine or an airmen, and that if we are a good spouse and we love our soldier and the only place we would ever be is right beside them and completely behind them, then we too have enlisted in our own army. We are wives, husbands, fiancés, girlfriends, boyfriends...we are the strength of our families and the strength of our soldiers, and essentially the strength of our nation. We are the ones that deal with the day to day struggles, the ones that keep it all together, the ones that make sure we are there for our soldier when they come home from a long day at work or a long year down range. We are making sure the bills are paid, the pets and kids are loved, the house is maintained and that our soldier never ever doubts our love and commitment to them and to the life that we have chosen and are so proud to be a part of.

I know that I haven't even begun to experience the whole spectrum of being an Army wife...all the moving, the deployments, one day raising kids alone the majority of the time and all the other things that come with this life. I know that there are a lot of things that are going require a lot of me. But I am ready for them and hope I can face those challenges with grace and strength and make myself and my soldier proud of my abilities and my commitment.


This journey and this commitment is just as hard on the spouses left behind, but we, like our soldiers, don't want your pity, we don't want to be commended for our sacrifices and we don't need to be applauded for all we do. It is enough for us to know that we make a difference in our soldier's life and that we are an essential part to their success. We are happy to be there for them and also for each other. We are at peace knowing that we are surrounded by those who are going through the same things and that we have a support group that truly understand us. We are members of our own army and we chose this life and wouldn't trade it for anything. We are strong. We are proud. We are faithful. We are an Army family.