Deployment Post Series 10 of 10

celebrations 

Picture: a girls weekend with my friend Rachel who hiked with Eila in the pack for me, Jemma spending time with her uncle Brad, Jems and I getting ice cream, baby Eila’s tiny hand

I had to end on something fun. So my last deployment post is a list of some of the sweetest memories from this last year.

⁃ Jemmas sweet voice singing the words to “come thy fount” (I sometimes cried when she memorized hymns and seemed to sing them to me when I needed it most. My little two year old encourager)

⁃ Jemma reminding me “mama take a deep breath” when she could tell I was overwhelmed 

⁃ Eila belly laughing at Jemma being silly 

⁃ Some friends who brought over chocolates and flowers from Tony when he couldn’t be there on our anniversary and Valentine’s Day 

⁃ A sister who on my first day in Texas made me a bubble bath, took the baby and said go and enjoy 

⁃ Christmas time in Texas with my Texas family and lots of sweet cousin time for Jemma

⁃ Pizza and movie nights on Fridays with Jemma’s Grammy and Gramps

⁃ A stranger on the airplane who was a grandpa and held the baby for me, offered kind words of encouragement through a couple long flights 

Here’s what helped me in the worst moments: remembering to be thankful. Thankful for family and friends who carried us through. Thankful for my two healthy sweet girls. Thankful to simply have breath and life and food and a home. Thankful to know Jesus. 

I am thankful that Tony is home with us now. 

When I have hard days, I make lists like these. Every day is another day to see gifts to thank God for. A healthy body. A mind to think and pray and remember what God has done. Eyes to see a world filled with joy and hope. Little feet scampering across the wood. Little fingers reaching for snacks. Reaching for my hand. I can thank God for the sweetness of these things and shout of His goodness and glory. The enemy wants us to be silent but we should shout of the goodness of God! Thanks for reading along with me and joining me in celebrating what God has done and is doing.

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Deployment Post Series 9 of 10

Picture: Jemma as a baby when we went to celebrate the end of a training for Tony 

As a selfish person, I want to share my version of the hard part of the story often. I had a gut check often during deployment when I would stop and realize: what Tony is doing is hard too. Yes what I did was hard. And I focused on that a lot these past months (admittedly it is hard to see past your own struggle sometimes). But man what our military does is crazy hard. I am so unbelievably proud of my guy and our soldiers. Our soldiers give up family time and “normal life” and holidays. Some of them live in a strange place, with a different language and culture.... a good thing to experience but also a hard thing. They do their best to push forward together, forging friendships with each other, remembering home and hope. They give their time, their energy, their determination, their heart. Some soldiers give their lives. And for what?

Because they all believe in the value of serving others, of giving the best life to others even at the cost of their own. 

I am proud to live in a country where freedom is important and valued and gained even with sacrifice. I will be honest: some days I was bitter and angry and frustrated. Some days it was hard that all Jemma had was a screen to talk to her dad. But I am proud. Tony would remind me that they were helping families where he was. And I would do it all again if I knew we could give another family peace that they deserve. 

“If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.” – Martin Luther King Jr

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Deployment Post Series 8 of 10

Picture: the sweetest girlies who are gifts to me and Jemma jumping into being big sis 

In an effort to share my own journey, because it helps me process, and because I think deployments should be talked about more, here are some snippets of real life from deployment for me.

⁃ Tony only having certain times to talk on the phone which happens to often be the worst possible times for me (baby crying, toddler tantrums)... not always.... but the time difference can make it hard sometimes 

⁃ Checking the news worrying and then checking myself for worrying and telling myself to trust God with Tony’s life (you can’t live your life in fear, it cripples joy and true living)

⁃ Holding the baby crying late at night, wishing for relief, wishing for my partner in crime / best friend / love 

⁃ Watching your babies meet milestones, wishing Tony could see them (Christmas, birthdays, every day things like the baby eating solids or Jemma learning shapes and colors)

⁃ Feeling the burden of caring for your home and keeping your family together with main man gone (things breaking, finances, kids dr appts, kids sick)

⁃ Torn between wanting to hold it together positively when talking to Tony so he doesn’t worry about us but also wanting to share honestly so he can walk with me in the hard

Specifically, the Army Guard can be hard as the families can be all in different places. Tony’s unit has soldiers from different villages around Alaska, in Fairbanks, in the Valley/ Eagle River area, really all over. It can be hard to get support because it is different from active duty folks who often live more closely together (although I know this is not always the case and active duty can be just as lonely). 

Sometimes when people would ask how I was doing, it was difficult to articulate two things being true: 1) it’s hard 2) God is still good in this and still a provider. 

In a thousand ways, our community has walked with us in this deployment (see previous posts). But I also don’t want to shy away from sharing the loneliness and the hard and the reality that was our every day on deployment. 

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Deployment Post Series 7 of 10

Picture: Jemma hugging “daddy bear”, a stuffed bear that the Army gave her before Tony deployed 

It’s a hard topic. Help. How do we accept it humbly and stop insisting we can do everything alone. How do we give it in a way that truly does help. I think about it often. I don’t want to say the wrong thing about it but I don’t want to say nothing about it so I’m going to be brave and try to articulate my thoughts. As a person who has given help poorly and received help poorly and basically just failed at help all around, I know there has to be a better way.  Or at least I want to try for one. So here are some thoughts. 

1. sometimes in my own life I’ve wanted to help others but maybe not because I truly wanted to maybe more because I felt guilty like I had to. But if I’m being honest, I want others to help me out of a genuine love for me not because they feel they have to. I think we should all do each that same service. I think we should say no to helping others out of guilt. It is exhausting to live a life in the prison of wanting others to see our help.

2. We should say no to busying our lives so much we don’t have time to stop and help others. But we should also realize that help takes sacrifice and is never comfortable or easy. 

3. I once had someone I knew who I would see at a weekly function who would say every week, “I want to have you and Tony over for dinner soon.” This happened every single week. And it was always “soon”. It bothered me because this person never, ever followed through with an actual “let’s meet Wednesday at 6 pm does that work for you?”. It was always “soon” (possible translation: when life gets less busy, when you actually become someone I can make time for or maybe this person just didn’t have the social awareness to remember they invited us to dinner 17 times with no follow through). Every interaction has a responsibility on my end. I could have said, hey how about Wednesday? And set a time myself. But the point is the offer of kindness wasn’t followed through with. 

4. I think it’s important to others to commit to an act of kindness. Don’t offer if you don’t mean it. Maybe don’t over commit to a million volunteer things. Maybe find what you are really wanting to give to or are passionate about and commit fully to those. Maybe make margin in your life to have time to actually have people over or bring a meal to someone or whatever it might be. I’m saying this because I have over committed. I have been the worst helper to people I’ve cared about. I want to be better. 

5. Helping others how they really need help. This is hard. When tony has been gone for the military at times, it is sometimes hard for me to figure out how help is best needed. But when I can communicate it, it’s helpful when others can hear and see what I need most and help meet that need. I think sometimes we help others in the best way we can (meal, time, child care). I think this is amazing. Evaluate how you can help someone and do that. But also evaluate what is most helpful when helping.

6.

I think it also comes down to this: be willing to do the hard things for people. When I was visiting my sister in Texas, a stomach bug hit us all. Jemma was barfing , the baby was crying and it was hard. My sister and her husband didn’t just stand by. They literally cleaned up bits of vomit for me and held the baby so I could rest when the waves of nauseous came over me too (gross but making my point). I needed people to help in ways I didn’t even have the energy to communicate so many times on this deployment. Sometimes I think just having eyes to see how to do the hardest things for people is helpful.

Here’s what helped me most (if you are wondering how to help a friend going through a deployment or just a hard time):

⁃ friends who hung out with me just doing our normal life. (Ex: helped me with putting our babies to sleep, making dinner, the normal stuff)

⁃ Friends who looked me in the eyeballs and said “how are you?” And then actually listened 

⁃ Friends who offered to help and then followed through on what I said I needed help with (ex: how’s Wednesday for a meal? How is next Thursday for me to watch your babies)

⁃ Friends who pointed me to Gods truth when the loneliness and the hard and the worry and the fear and the anger became too much

Help is hard. Hard to figure out how to give help to someone sometimes and hard to accept. But I want to be better. Better at accepting it in humility instead of saying “no I’ve got this” and better at being fully committed to giving it to someone. I pray God gives me grace in seeing how to do both. Yes I’ll fail at it. But I hope I can learn how to both give and take help in a way that honors God. 

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Deployment Post Series 6 of 10

Picture: Gramps, loving on his granddaughters (a very present male figure for my girls when Tony was gone)

Sometimes you just miss your guy.

My heart would sometimes ache when I saw dads holding their babies in carriers and kissing them on their heads in the store. Tony didn’t get that with Eila. Yes, he gets it now and I am thankful for that. But he missed a lot. And it hurt a lot. I tried to block out emotions sometimes, simply out of a need to emotionally survive, I felt I only had so much in my emotional bank and had to protect it to have enough to care for my girls and myself. I couldn’t let myself think too hard about the hard. But as a counselor I know, this isn’t the healthiest or best choice. If you don’t let it out, it will force itself out. When you least expect it. Like when you see a dad kissing his baby in the store, clearly taking his babe on a little dad- daughter date. Or when someone posts a picture of their family, complete with dad and baby together. We didn’t get that in its entirety with Eila. She spent most of her first nine months with me. 

My reflections on all of this? See the good God has in the moment. Cry out to him in the hard. Let it be okay to not be okay. And find someone you really trust to share the hard with. Yes, Eila didn’t get Tony for the first nine months. It was lonely and I cried sometimes and we missed him. But while she didn’t get Tony, we had a crew of dads from church who held her, loved her, calmed her, snuggled her. She had her Gramps. She had uncles. She had real aunties (by blood) and adopted aunties (my girlfriends) who loved her and loved us in a million ways I could never even count. She wasn’t forgotten. 

So I guess my challenge is: do you know a family who has a missing person? Who has a gap in it somehow? For us, it was deployment that took our Tony away for awhile. How could you love and serve a family who needs it today? A meal? A text? A coffee? Call someone (or zoom) and listen while someone vents? With COVID maybe we have to be more creative. 

These little things made ALL the difference to us and I am thankful to every person who stepped in to serve our family. 

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Deployment Post Series 5 of 10

Gods faithfulness in Eila’s birth story

Picture: Tony meeting Eila for the first time during his 12 day paternity leave during deployment 

I remember when we first found out Tony’s unit might deploy and we tried to plan our pregnancy and birth around this. That was around March of 2018 and we ended up miscarrying. It was so devastating and hard BUT enter God’s plan. I finally gave up trying to plan around the Army and we found out in October 2018 we were pregnant again. Then later that spring we found out his unit was going to deploy in May. I was still holding on to my plan because I remember thinking I can do a deployment but I could never have a baby without Tony there. Again, ENTER God’s plan. 

“A man plans his course but the Lord determines his steps.” Proverbs 16:9 I held onto hope that Tony could be there for her birth, planning with my OB to do an induction if I was still pregnant by a certain date. But I went into labor 2.5 weeks early (Jemma was 2 weeks so this is apparently normal for me). I started having contractions but they started out small. As they got bigger, I thought maybe I should go to the hospital and check them out. My sister in law Holly spent the night and helped me during this time and my other sister in law Abbi was home from college and able to help out with Jemma as well as Tony’s parents (God’s provision). I still thought to myself, maybe they will be false labor pains and Tony could still come on our planned date. I ended up leaving the hospital the first time and the pains did taper off. I thought perfect Tony can come later next week. But as the day went on they got worse and by the end of the day it was looking like the babe was coming. Holly held my hand as I doubled over in pain. She prayed for me. She cried with me in the hardest pains. She made me laugh like only she can. She reminded me God was in control. She called our team “the girl squad” and an amazing group of nurses came around me. My OB even came in on her normal night off to help with my birth. My other sister in law Jessie came in and helped us all remain calm and steady. Eileen Grace was born on June 10. She has been a champ at eating and was able to breastfeed from the start which has been an incredible experience (Jemma had feeding issues which made for a miserable time figuring her out and I ended up half formula half pumping with her so I had anxiety about Eila but with Eila I find myself thanking God and being reminded of His faithfulness every time she eats). I can look at her sweet face and see at this point ten months of God providing. All I can say is we can plan and plan and fret and worry and over analyze and worry again but God provides. He has a plan. Trust Him to carry your hardest burdens. I look at Eila and I see the gift God has given. If it had been my plan, I never would have gotten to experience the sweetness of seeing Tony’s sisters love me so well during Eila’s birth. 

I never thought I could do a birth without Tony. We are all capable of so much more than we realize. God gives us the power and strength in the hardest of hard. He surrounds us with His goodness and faithfulness when we have eyes to see it. Thank you, my God and my Jesus. Thank you to the village that has loved my family. Not for a moment does He leave us. God was faithful through our miscarriage and timing of our pregnancy. God was faithful in Eila’s birth. God was faithful in Eila’s ability to eat well. God was faithful in providing many who have loved her and I so well during this deployment and the time right after her birth as well as the many months after. God is faithful you guys. In whatever you are facing, I promise He is. Dwell on His promises and His truth and watch as they remain true (maybe not in ways you would expect but they remain TRUE). 

“Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” Deuteronomy 31:6

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Deployment Post Series 4 of 10

Picture: Tony coming home from a training and Jemma is so happy to see him. Just as a way of explaining to others who don’t know, part of Army Guard life is also knowing Tony will be gone sometimes out of city or state doing trainings and is committed to one weekend a month doing Army Guard drills. Most of those in Guard with Tony have civilian (non-military) jobs and commit to the Guard in addition to those jobs.

For me, deployment this year taught me that your everything can’t be your therapist, your pastor, your favorite podcaster, your friend. It can’t be your husband or wife or kids. We can’t put all that on any one person. No one person can give you all you need. Only one fountain will not leave you thirsty and that is to drink deeply of the well of Jesus.

The amount of support my community showed me during Tony’s deployment was so incredible. I am so so thankful. 

But I also learned how much I needed people. I am an extrovert and have a tendency to always look to people. I learned I had to turn to God, not people so many times.

Ultimately, people will disappoint you and fail you. People can’t be everything to you. They can’t sustain your every need. If you continue to look to people to meet your needs, you will feel empty. The only one who can truly fill us is Jesus. But people can carry you, walk with you, love you, encourage you, and point you to the one who can sustain you. Drink deeply of the well of Jesus and you will find yourself never thirsty and fully satisfied, surrounded by others desperately loving Jesus with all they have and loving you at the same time.

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