The Gratitude Project: Week Eight

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Excuse the beginning of this post – Lil’ Miss stole the computer and briefly thought she would share her thoughts. And, I decided to keep them there for everyone else to enjoy!

Getting to my real intro, now…

This week has been a good week – but I have struggled to identify what I am most grateful for… at least, as it pertained to having enough content to write a blog post! I imagine I could do a “7 Quick Takes” post, but I’ve never linked up with that crowd, and it’s kind of tough teaching an old dog new tricks, even when it comes to blogging.

So, I’m not ready for that link up yet.

The latter half of this week, I had resigned myself to not having anything to write about, outside of a “microblog” post on Instagram – something which defeats my personal purpose of my Gratitude Project. While I encourage others to link up in whatever manner they feel called to do so, my personal goal is to write an actual blog post every week on at least one thing for which I am grateful. And, I was beginning to become disheartened as Friday loomed on my horizon, doubting my ability to meet my personal goal.

I have noticed, as I try to identify moments of gratitude, the moments seem to multiply! I am recognizing the moments now, more than I ever have before, which is why I am a huge believer in this Gratitude Project!

This morning, I called my husband after he’d left for work. He said he was in the process of calling me, but I had beaten him to that task. A couple minutes later, I asked him why he was intending to call me, and he invited the three of us at home to meet him for lunch, since that hasn’t happened in a while.

Obviously, I said yes. But, as we hung up, I realized what I am most grateful for this week.

This week, I am grateful for being able to meet my husband for lunch.

It may seem like such a small thing – and, yet, in a military marriage, it’s something to treasure. Soldiers (and, Airmen, Marines, Sailors, etc.) work long hours, and don’t have a typical 9-5 job that their civilian counterparts enjoy. My husband’s particular job has irregular hours, marked by middle of the night phone calls asking him to come back to work. Even trips out of our town have to be approved, in order to ensure there is coverage in the event of some need for my husband’s area of expertise.

And, I am not complaining!

I’m proud of my husband, proud of the job he does, and support his chose career field whole-heartedly.

One thing I have learned, though, is there are never any guarantees in this military lifestyle. No guarantees on the next job, no guarantees on the next place we live, and no guarantees my husband will be home before 7 PM on a daily basis.

There’s also never a guarantee he will not be gone for up to a year at a time “this time next year.”

And, while I can joke about how deployments allow me to run a schedule that I can stick with, and while I am resilient by taking separations due to military deployments in stride, deployments kind of stink.

A part of your heart is in another part of the world. 

You are left at home with the kids, helping them adjust to “Daddy [or Mommy] being gone,” while you, yourself, adjust to having another part of your heart out there somewhere. The separation comes with a stark reminder of the evil in the world, and you rely mostly on the mantra, “No news is good news.” Because no news, means nothing bad has happened to your other half. For sanity’s sake, you typically avoid the news at all costs, and you get busy – burying yourself in your kids’ lives (lucky them), volunteering, or a career of your own. And, hopefully, you don’t develop something awful like insomnia, which keeps you awake in the middle of the night.

So, this week, I am most grateful to be able to meet my husband for lunch.

I am grateful my husband is not deployed this year. He gets to come home more nights than not – to enjoy dinner and tucking the kids into bed. He is safe – as safe as one can be on a daily basis in the United States. He gets to experience life with our kids as we prepare our oldest for starting PreK. He is on hand to help when the car, the yard, the house begin to make us jump through hoops.

Every Friday is known throughout the military community as “RED Friday” – RED is an acronym for Remember Everyone Deployed. Caitlyn, over at Mrs. Andy, Anchored by Faith, is spearheading a weekly prayer chain for everyone whose service member is deployed. She is committing to personally praying, by name, for all those she knows of who are deployed.

If you know someone deployed, please consider giving her the honor of praying for them by sending her their name – she will only post their first name, for security reasons!

I highlighted her project because, as military families, our Servicemembers are never far from our thoughts and prayers. We grieve with each other when something occurs, we watch together as events unfold across the world, and we try to support each other with words of encouragement and little tokens of appreciation.

And, we pray for each other.

So, I encourage all of us to take a moment to pray for those whose hearts are elsewhere in the world today. And, for those of us who have our spouse coming home to us today, take a moment to appreciate having them present today.

Or, go meet your spouse for lunch…

(Even if the kids tag along!)

What are you grateful for this week? Let me know in the comments, or link up with a picture and description using the #bctgp hashtag on Instagram!

Until next week, dear reader…