Well, I can now officially say that I am the wife of a deployed soldier. Feels strange. I miss him like crazy already. I woke up at 3 AM this morning, and immediately saw the empty side of the bed that he has occupied for so many years, and I just felt sick at the thought of how long I have to look at it that way. Saying goodbye to him was the hardest moment of my life. I have never, ever felt such pain. There were so many tears, all day long. When we were leaving the house to take him in, I felt like my heart would pound out of my chest. stopped in the den on the way to the garage and just looked at him and choked out "No, no, I don't want to! I can't!". We stood there and both cried and then he took my handand we forced ourselves to walk out the door of our home together for the last time for a year. I was able to text back and forth with him throughout some of the night. But as soon as the plane took off, we lost all cell phone communication. He won't be able to communicate with me through his cell phone again until his deployment is over. Knowing he is not going to have a cell phone as of tomorrow is so much more painful to me than I expected it to be. He has gone on many trips over the years, but he has always been at least somewhat available to me by cell phone. When he goes on those trips, I am always glued to my phone, waiting to see his name pop up. But now I know that it won't for a very long time. I feel like I've been completely cut off from him. I don't know when I will hear from him again. Presumably not until he gets to a base in Afghanistan that has phones or email-whether it be the one he will stay on, or not. I expect it to be a few days at least. We are doing ok. We are very, very sad, but it has to be that way, I guess. After he left, Eric sent me a text that read "the hourglass has flipped, and now it's counting down to something good". So very true! The build-up to this was very long and hard, but it's over now. It's on now, and we get to start the countdown to his return.

The Time is Here

Almost.

Deployment is almost here. I said those words the other day when I had a talk with Caleb about it, trying to prepare him. "The time is here. We've been getting ready for this for a long time, and now the time is here. Daddy is going to leave soon, and I want you to be ready".

We have been getting ready for a long, long time. I can hardly remember a time when impending deployment wasn't the first thing on my mind, nearly all the time. We've know this was coming for almost 3 years. It's hard for me to even comprehend how close it is now. That it is really about to start.

I'm very thankful to be in a community that understands deployment. I have so much support here, and that is such a blessing. I have my church family, our small group, my fellow army wives, and PWOC. It is such a comfort to be around people I don't have to "explain" my life to. They already know what we are going through, and while they acknowledge the hardship and pain that goes with it, they don't have the same fearful reaction to it that I get when I'm talking to people who haven't come to view the military lifestyle as...a sort of normal.

It's hard to describe the way I've been feeling these last few days. I have peace in my heart that we are doing God's will for our lives, and that this is the right path for us. But Eric is my best friend, and I have never had to be so far away from him for nearly as long as I will have to be. He has never been nearly as unavailable to me for support or help or just companionship as he will be for the next year. I am dreading it. The thought of it hurts my heart.

We are in the height of the anticipation phase. It's like a roller coaster car, slowly creaking to the top of the first huge drop on the track. We are in the moment where the very front of it starts to edge over the hill and you are waiting for it to plunge you downward at a break-neck, completely uncontrollable speed. I know it's coming, and I know it's going to rip the air right our of my lungs, I just don't know exactly which second it's going to hit.

I am begging God in my heart, almost constantly, to please just help me deal with the pain. To calm my fears about having to raise my family alone for a year. The thought of such a long separation from my husband is just so very painful. I have accepted that we are going to do it, and a great deal of peace comes along with that. But there is still pain, frustration, and fear. And I know that, even though God will sustain me through the pain, He won't take it away before the time is right, because it's part of the perfect path He's chosen for me to walk down in this life. I want to be in the path He chose for me, and if that means walking through some pain, I am willing to. I know it will be worth it when I get to the end.

No promises that I won't cry, though. And no promises that I won't occasionally have a brief urge to grab something glass and throw it into the wall so I can watch it shatter like my heart does inside my chest, over and over again, every day as we get closer and closer to the day we have to say goodbye. I don't want to say goodbye.

Psalm 126:6 says that anyone who goes out weeping, while bearing seed to sow, will come back singing songs of joy, carrying their sheaves. The Message actually says "armfuls of blessings". I believe that whole-heartedly about this journey we are about to take. We will start out with pain and sadness, but we will ask the Lord to give us seeds to sow, and when we finsish this journey, our arms will be filled with beautiful blessings we never could have recieved if we hadn't been willing to go through the hard times.

Thanks to everyone for the prayers for our family! When you pray for us, please just ask the Lord to make our paths clear for us, and to comfort us while we are missing each other. And no one should worry about our well-being. We are safe and secure and every step we will take has already been ordered by God. He has placed every resource we will need around us already, even the ones we can't anticipate needing yet, and He has made us ready for this.