Mission Ready Marriage (eBook)

My Life as an Active Duty Wife

Claire Roberson Wood (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2015 | 1. Auflage
256 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-63192-930-4 (ISBN)

Infos

One of the most challenging aspects of life in active duty military service is working to keep your marriage intact amidst moves, deployments, training and transitions. This book takes a firsthand look at the typical stages of military life and those trials and tests that accompany them. Each chapter ends with questions for personal reflection and/or small group discussion. Claire shares the intimate and often painful insights into her own foray as an active duty military spouse. Spoiler alert: she blew it more times than she didn't. Claire views her mistakes and triumphs through the lens of her faith and how God can use all things for his good.

---

Our nation has been at war for over a decade. This means many active duty military personnel have been in a constant cycle of training, deployments and reintegration. Unfortunately, the stresses and difficulties of being on the job aren't only affecting soldiers but also their spouses and family members. These prolonged and significant pressures are taking a devastating toll on many military marriages. As a relatively new active duty military spouse, Claire walks readers through many of the common trials of active duty life. From assignments, relocation, making friends and reinventing yourself at each new duty station, to the painful moments of the deployment and reintegration, Claire shares her personal struggles to make sense of what it means to be a supportive military spouse and do her part to keep her own marriage mission ready. As a Christian, Claire explores the idea of what it means to live her life in full submission to God, her husband and her country. With humor and deep emotion, she shares how this isn't her natural, typical response. You might even say she has gone kicking and screaming (and sometimes crying) at every turn. Claire hopes that her own experiences and reflections will inspire other military spouses to stay the course, keep the faith and find hope for the future. You don't have to be a military spouse to relate to and understand the ideas presented in this book. Mission Ready Marriage is for anyone who has ever wondered if God had the right person in mind for their current assignment. God has called each of us to honor our husbands in our partnerships and he has given us everything we need for the mission field in which he has placed each of us. You will find a series of questions for reflection at the end of each chapter asking you to think through some of your own experiences, trials and victories as a military spouse. Optionally, this set-up (13 chapters) is designed to be used as a semester-long study in a women's Bible study, spouse group or book club. One of the best resources I have found for military spouses is other military spouses sharing their wisdom. The questions at the end of each chapter have been formulated to prompt meaningful discussion and sharing of such ideas. Table of Contents:ForewordIntroductionChapter 1: Life Before the Military: How in the World Did We Get Here?Chapter 2: Homesickness and Longing for What WasChapter 3: Leaving and CleavingChapter 4: Home is Where the Army Sends Us: Broken Furniture and Mending DreamsChapter 5: Preparing to Say GoodbyeChapter 6: Thriving Through a DeploymentChapter 7: ReintegrationChapter 8: Making Limonada Out of LimonesChapter 9: Moving? So Soon?Chapter 10: The Art of Reinventing YourselfAgainChapter 11: The Friendships of WomenChapter 12: The "e;S"e; Word and Other ProfanitiesChapter 13: He Gives Us What We NeedAcknowledgements

Textauszug

Chapter 1

Life Before the Military: How in the World Did We Get Here?

I did not grow up in the military. My dad never served and only one of my grandfathers did a short stint in the U.S. Navy right out of high school. He never saw any war time. My dad’s uncle, a man I saw only at Thanksgiving is literally the only person in my family of origin with any significant military associations. Uncle Carlos never spoke much at our family meals each November. I think the most I ever heard him say was “Move out of the way so I can see the television.”

Simply put, the military has never been on my radar. I joke that my only serious observances of anything military related were getting days off from school on federal holidays. My gratitude for anyone serving at home or abroad was found in my ability to sleep in on a Monday instead of sitting in class. I have pledged allegiance and stood during the National Anthem, but this is where my understanding of the military ended until a few years ago.

Many of the wives I have met during these past few years after my husband went on active duty have a much different experience. Many have grown up Army Brats or Navy Brats (a term I still don’t know how to translate). Many were married right out of high school or the minute their soldier finished Advanced Individual Training (AIT). Many wives have known more years as a dependent than they ever did in the civilian world.

Such is not the case for me. I grew up in the same town where my parents and grandparents grew up. I saw my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins on a weekly basis. I went to elementary school, junior high, and high school with the same group of friends. Even when Ryan and I married in 2001, we were only living about half an hour away from our entire extended families.

Our three children were born in rapid succession in 2003, 2005, and 2007. Looking back, I don’t know how we would have made it without the extra sets of hands and all of the support of our extended families. During those years, Ryan was a full-time seminary student and full-time youth pastor. Between pregnancies I worked part-time as an adjunct teacher at the university I attended. Life felt full and easy. We felt like we really had everything we needed. Our entire world could be found inside the bubble of a few surrounding zip codes.

It was during this time that we felt a divine stirring in our hearts. The plans we had laid out for ourselves and our intentions of eventually being in a full-time role as a senior pastor of a local church in our denomination, were shifting and changing. Life was good, yes. But we felt God getting ready to move us out of our comfort zone.

Through the course of almost two years of much prayer, counsel-seeking, and tearful discussions (on my part), we finally felt a specific plan forming for our future. In May of 2010, Ryan submitted a cache of paperwork and began a series of interviews both with our denominational Chaplain’s Commission and the U.S. Army. By December of that same year, he had been picked up for an active duty slot for the May 2011 Chaplain Basic Officer Leaders Course (CHBOLC) at Fort Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina.

We literally had no clue that we had just signed our lives away! Throughout the spring of 2011, our family finished up our tenure at the church where we were serving. I finished my last semester of college teaching. Our kids completed their school/pre-school year and spring sports. We packed up and moved out of our parsonage we had lived in for six years. Ryan kept out his personal belongings for a twelve week school, and our three children and I kept out a few things to go live with my parents during that transition time. The familiar life we had known for the past three decades was being boxed up and neatly arranged on a transportation truck headed to our first duty station.

There was some low level anxiety already brewing in me. I began to get nervous that maybe we’d made the wrong decision; maybe we’d heard God wrong. “Lord, are You SURE You picked the right family for this adventure?” I seriously began to doubt that our marriage would survive the twelve week separation. I knew my parenting limits would be tested as a solo parent for three months. I started to really sweat the big and small stuff. We had been living warmly and cozily in our nest with many warm and cozy nests of everyone near and dear to us all in the same tree. I wondered, “Why did we think joining the Army was a good idea?”

When Ryan left for CH-BOLC, it felt as if we purposely jumped right out of that nest into the free-fall of zero control over our future. It was as if we had said with a certain sense of gullibility, “Here Army, we are yours...send us where you want. Our life is in your hands. You are at the helm, you make the decisions and call the shots. We will go where you send us.” And for me that felt like I had given up way too much control. It felt unnatural and honestly, it felt crazy.

Who in the world gives up their freedom and life, their wishes and choices about where to live and raise a family? In those early moments when we realized that we were really doing this thing, I had many doubts and fears. We had signed our lives away for at least a three year active duty commitment with an additional five year add on of Army Reserves or National Guard. There was no escape plan. There was no backing out. It was time to fly or take a nose dive out of that nest right into the ground.

In hindsight, all of my worries about giving up control and not holding the reigns in our own life were absurd. You see, Ryan and I had already been living a life in submission to God long before the Army came into the picture.

Individually, we had each submitted our lives and bowed our knees to the Lordship of Jesus Christ as young people. As a couple, we had both submitted our lives as we knelt and took communion and said our vows at our wedding ceremony. And every year since, at the heart of our decision making was always a period of prayer and seeking the face of God as the master Author of our story. We had already begun our journey with Someone else calling the shots. God had called us and guided us at every step of our marriage, vocations, and ministry thus far. He was still doing it. We were just placing ourselves in His hands again, only this time, that submission took on the form of the United States Army.

What I Needed:

During this transition, what I needed was a sounding board. It was difficult to express many of my concerns and worries to our families. For starters, they didn’t have much wisdom or expertise in the matters of military life either. Our families had no basis for knowing what we were in for. They kept us on our toes with questions for which we had no answers. As someone who wanted to feel like we had a firm grasp on and new confidence in our new future, it felt embarrassing to respond to their queries with “We don’t know.”

I also felt at odds sharing my fears about this venture because in all honesty, it was hard on our families seeing us say goodbye. It was painful for them to imagine their lives without us right around the corner to share in memory making, holidays, just-because drop-ins, or last minute dinner plans. Although it was never spoken out loud, the unspoken tension was “If you are so upset or unsure about this undertaking, then why did you choose it?” And that strain was difficult for me. I felt as if I couldn’t vent, cry, or process my concerns because no one really understood why we were doing this. No one could grasp why we signed up for this life in the Army.

At this earliest of junctures in our military career, I had no network of other military spouses to glean encouragement from or with whom to find solidarity. Truly, other than our denominational endorser and his precious wife, Richard and Brenda, there was no one in my life I could get answers from about what we should expect. At the time, that friendship was new and so I felt out of line assaulting our endorsers with a million silly questions. Without a sounding board or some seasoned military spouses speaking their wisdom over me, I felt exceptionally alone and without proper resources to help me settle into what our new life was about to look like. I wanted a bulleted list or handbook that would spell out very clearly what being an Army spouse entailed.

During Ryan’s final week of CH-BOLC, the families were invited to attend several days of activities. To say the week was traumatic for me is a gross understatement. I was like a volcano ready to erupt with all of the emotions I had been holding inside for months.

I was happy to see our children reunited with their daddy. I was overjoyed to have my partner back even if we were in temporary bachelors’ quarters, still living out of our suitcases. At this point we were days away from making the trek to our first duty station. And the closer it got to pulling out and driving away from our old life the more fearful I became. The second guessing about what we had signed up for became nearly constant. I was exhausted from the weight of being a single parent, living in my parents’ upstairs, and a summer of travel. I was anxious about the particulars of leaving South Carolina...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 18.5.2015
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Gesundheit / Leben / Psychologie ► Partnerschaft / Sexualität
• ISBN-10: 1-63192-930-5 / 1631929305
• ISBN-13: 978-1-63192-930-4 / 9781631929304