Psalm 145

The Character of God:

   If you ever wonder who God is and what is his character all you have to do is spend some time reading through the Psalms and you will find Him.

Character of God revealed in Psalm 145:

  Some words I found that the Psalmist used to describe God and their definitions:

Gracious: marked by kindness and courtesy
Compassionate: feeling or showing concern for someone who is sick, hurt, poor, etc..
Faithful:firm in adherence to promises, having or showing true constant support
Loving: feeling or showing love
Righteous: morally right, free from guilt or sin

All that He does:

"slow to anger, rich in love..."
"upholds all those who fall, lifts up all who are bowed down..."
"satisfy the desires of every living thing..."
"is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth..."
"fulfills the desires of those who fear him..."
" hears their cry and saves them..."
"watches over all who love him...."


My response after reading, learning and experiencing  God is none other than praise to Him. Standing in awe of the things he has done and what he is going to do. I praise his name so others will come to know who he is, as the Psalmist put it. So others will know of his might and great wonders he has done.
 Verse 21: " My mouth will speak in praise of the LORD. Let every creature praise his holy name for ever and ever".

Be Still Little One.....

Be Still Little One....

Be still and listen little one for my direction....
You are worried and anxious,
fear not for I am with you....

Be still and rest little one....
You work hard and spend your time running around trying to hold things together,
let me hold the pieces in my hands and mold you to be the one I created you to be.....

Be still and rest little one....
Tears fall from your eyes and your heart is bursting in sadness,
 cry on my shoulder,
pour out your heart to me....
I am listening.....

Be still and know the I am God.....
You don't know where to to turn,
turn to me...
I hold the world in my hands and I am holding your hand,
I am there and I will not leave

Take courage little one...
When you feel like you have nothing left to give,
let me step in and fight for you and give you MY strength to finish the tasks at hand

Fear not little one.....
When you look at the future and don't know where to go next,
follow me,
I will direct your path ONE step at a time,
You may slip but I will uphold you with my righteous right hand

Feel my love little one....
When you feel alone,
when the world is beating on your tender heart,
when tragedy and the unexpected strikes,
MY love will be there.......

I AM the Lord your God.....NEVER will I leave you.....NEVER will I forsake you....This my dear you can count on.....I am here and I always will be.......

Psalm 150

      "Let everything that has breath praise the LORD....."


Prayer of Praise and Thankfulness:

   Praise him for a week of sunshine and warmth. When you step outside you are wrapped in the sun's comfort and warmth. A feeling I have missed. For the joy that comes in the sunshine. For the beauty that I can enjoy in the sunshine. Relaxing time spent by the water and for putting color back in my pasty white skin. 
 Thankful that in times of loneliness God has placed friendship. In the hard moments he is present and there by my side. 


"Praise him for his acts of power; praise him for his surpassing greatness..."

   I stand in awe and wonder at the works of God's power and majesty. That he paints the sky at night with color and beauty as the sun sets. In his power there is gentleness. The same God who can bring winds powerful enough to destroy houses can bring a gentle breeze to cool the night off. His mighty. With his strong hands he he holds the world together. With those same mighty hands he gently forms a baby in a mother's womb. How great mighty HE is. 


"Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens....."

Thankful that one day I will get to praise and honor my King in heaven. "In his mighty heavens"......what an amazing picture that brings to my mind. A place of wonder and majesty. There is a place for me one day. A place of peace and joy. No more sorrow, no more pain or struggle or strife. My heart longs for this place. To be with my God. 

   While I wait here in this earth I am thankful he is there with me. Thankful that no matter where I go he is watching over me. 


"PRAISE THE LORD!" 

Am I Enough

     Got an e-mail today form the EMT instructor about what will be coming at the end of the month. After going through all of the information four times, one resounding feeling of FEAR hit me in the face. While it is so exciting to think I get to be a part of an ER rotation and ambulance ride alongs, it is also so very terrifying. I get to finally learn how to save lives. What wouldn't be exciting about that? As soon as I have a slight feeling of excitement I am afriad. The question that comes to my mind every time is, can I do it? Will I be able to learn all the information I need to so I can pass the tests every class period? Will I be able to pass the midterm and final practical exams? Will I choke during the field work and totally mess up a patient? Will I be strong enough to lift and move a patient without causing more harm to a patient? And the answer to all these questions is............. I have no idea.

     It is going to be the hardest 11 weeks of my life. I do know this much. I am going to be pouring over my textbook and studying till all hours of the night. I am going to get stressed and exhausted. Thomas is going to start his in and out schedule during this time. So there will be times I will be doing it all by myself again. Which just makes my heart sad. I know my brain can take in a lot of information in a short amount of time because I have already made it through anatomy. If I can make it through a class that demanded 40+ hours a week from me and a scary teacher to boot, I should be able to make it through the course work. I know one more important fact that supersedes it all. God has brought me here and he will see me through till the end. He will be there when I am alone. He has given me the ability to love on others and see their needs. He has given me a brain. Yep if God hadn't given me the brain probably wouldn't be here right now ;-) His grace is suffienct. He will give me what I need to finish. In the end he is the one who saves a life not me. I will just be a piece in a gigantic puzzle. These are the things I am going to have to remember for the next few months.

    So much is going to happen in a short amount of time. It is hard to imagine that I will finally be able to make a real impact and be able to get a long term job. That we are down to 8 and a half months and Thomas will be moving on from the Navy. I have defiantly been compartmentalizing. If I think about everything to often my heart can't handle all of the different emotions. One day at a time. That is all I can do. Taking it one hour, one task at a time. In the hard moments knowing God will be there to carry me when I can't stand. That it is ok to have my weak moments and not have everything together. That in my weakness God will make me strong. His strength will shine through. That is my prayer. That I won't give way to fear. That I can stand confident in Christ not in my own strength. And that the people I will be spending a lot of time with will see where my strength comes from. There is more than one way to change and have a life be saved. :-)

I am humbled and in awe of my opportunity. Cannot wait to buy my stethoscope :-)

"Where you Lead I will Follow...."

              It is still hard to believe that a year ago Thomas and I were preparing for deployment. It just seems like night and day when I think about where we were and where we are now. It has been a crazy year of surviving, seeking and learning about where God is taking us. Like he usually does, God has some different ideas than how I thought things were going to be, but that is ok. I am finding out his way is so so so much better than what I had originally thought. We have crossed the great adventure of an almost 9 deployment and now Thomas is back home. So now what does that mean as far as concerns with the makeup of our little family, what are Thomas and I doing now and the direction we are heading this year?

       

Burt and Annie still manage to keep us on our toes :-) Do not know what I would have done without these two crazy critters during deployment. They make our life interesting. They have both successfully learned to consistently use the toilet so that is an awesome accomplishment. They complete our family perfectly for the time being. My heart has worked through a lot on the area of family. Through conversations with Thomas and just coming to a place of peace and contentment with my condition of Endometriosis. Realizing that God is really in control. That it is ok and just as admirable to seek after a career that honors and glorifies God. He has given me an special heart of compassion and understanding for the women out there who are wives who do not have children yet or in the future. My personal note out there to you women who do have children, remember to be sensitive and compassionate to those women out there who do not have children, and who choose to seek a career. You do not know there story so be slow to make a judgement or make them feel insignificant. 

So what is up with Thomas and I now. A year ago if you asked me what I would be doing this Spring I would easily have said Nursing School. Well God sure had a different idea :-) When I finally was still and listened to him through ways of my husband and other people in my life he showed me something different. And that was becoming an EMT. Who would have thought? Not me. When I finally stopped pitching my hissy fit I was able to see just how amazing becoming an EMT would be. So starting March 29th I will begin the EMT program at Everett Community College. I am excited and extremely nervous. I am doing my best to get physically stronger and bring to God my anxious, stress filled heart. Learning to deal with my anxiety and how I respond to stress has always been a struggle for me. This gives me the great opportunity to see just how God can give me a peace that transcends all understanding. That when I am weak he is strong. When I was in the Fire Science office at school turning in my application for the program, another girl walked in ,and commented after seeing me, how she had better confidence after seeing me there because I was so small. Let's just say that was not the greatest confidence booster. Especially after sitting across the desk from a huge, buff tower of a man. This opportunity just allows me to put my money where my mouth is, and show just how much God can do. I hope to be a testament to that. This does not mean that I am completely giving up on Nursing school. Just giving God a chance to work in my life and show me all that he has in store for me. And I am excited to say that in June I will finally have an Associates Degree. Took some hard work and patience but it is finally paying off. 

For a year Thomas and I have wrestled and stumbled though trying to figure out where to go next. Thomas gets out of the Navy November 23, 2013. Yep, 9ish months from now we will be saying goodbye to the Navy. We have been seeking and searching  all the many options. Trying not to give into fear and just go with the safest option available, but allowing God to work. Thomas has been praying and seeking out what would be the best way he can honor and glorify God. At first my expectation was that he find a career that would provide everything we needed. My fears and expectations got the best of me. We had lots of "fun".....debates on the subject. God's patience and grace has shown through Thomas in a great and powerful way since he has been home. He is not Mr. perfect and I am not Mrs. perfect but God is working through our imperfections. I am so incredibly thankful God has blessed us with family who love us so much. It was such a blessing to know if we could not put things together in time, especially with the extended deployment, that we had plenty of places available to go to help us bridge the gap between the Navy and civilian life. 

  So then what is the direction Thomas is heading you may ask? :-) Well......after going down to Tukwila yesterday and finally talking with a Coast Guard recruiter, Thomas has decided to follow that direction. He finally got to ask all the questions he had, and see what the reality of what that option would look like. He wants to become an Aviation Survival Technician. If any of you have seen the movie The Guardian, then you would know that, that is the person who jumps out of the helicopters to rescue people stuck in the water. So what does that timeline look like then? First Thomas has to fax in just some initial paperwork. He has to take the ASVAB again over different sections that are specific to this rate. He has to send in the paperwork to show his end date in the Navy. 3 months out he has to turn in paperwork showing that he is indeed getting out of the Navy. Some information we were not aware of was how it would look getting into the Coast Guard and then into the specific rate Thomas wants. How long would he have to wait to get into the Coast Guard, what would the boot camp and training schools look like, etc. Thomas biggest concerns were that it would be a very long wait time and that if for some reason things did not work out with his school then what? So the basic ideas that I understand. are as follows. 

Once released from the Navy and everything checks out with medical and his paperwork he would have about a month to wait to go to their around 18 day boot camp. Going into the Coast Guard everyone enters in on the same playing field. No special contract for a certain rate. So that means that unlike when he was going into the Navy where he signed a piece of paper saying his track in the Navy would be special forces, it is not until you are fully in after boot camp do you put in for a specific school. That is good because the waiting time to get into a specific school is not waited out outside of the Coast Guard. So Thomas would get through boot camp, put in his packet for the school for AST and then wait his turn for school on a cutter ship somewhere in the U.S. The length of time is 6 months- 1 year. So during that waiting time Thomas would be getting paid and all the benefits of the Coast Guard. That is the case for Thomas because of his prior service time in the Navy. He will enter in the Coast Guard as an E-3 and will only have to wait until the next available spot in a class. I was so thankful that the recruiter Thomas talked with was a guy who works closely with ASTs. He was able to give Thomas an idea of what life looks like in that rate. It was encouraging to hear the over all mood of people in that line of work loved what they did. Just an overall more relaxed feel and that they love what they do. There are only about 300 ASTs in the United States. So it is a very small community of people. The best way to describe it is just thinking about the Navy and what it is, and then thinking of the exact opposite and that is what life would be like working in the Coast Guard. :-) 

After Thomas came out of the recruiter and we talked about everything, just a feeling of peace about the situation just came over me. Thomas is excited. It would be a job he would love. It is a job where he could stay physically active and make a difference. And I would actually see him every now and then.

;-) The specifics and timing on everything is still pretty vague, but we know the general main ideas on things. And we also know that at any moment life events can happen and change everything in a moment, but we are so thankful for the peace of what we do know and what is coming next. :-) We just have to continue to be faithful and obedient to what God has in store for us. 

A New Beginning

After almost nine months of being away my husband is finally home. It is still hard to believe. I am afraid if I close my eyes to long he will be gone again. I am so thankful it will be a little bit before he leaves again. It has been fun to not be alone any more. We have gotten to do some fun things together and just enjoy some time away from life for a little bit. 

As much as it is fun and nice to have Thomas home it is a challenge. I have been alone for so long I have forgotten what it is like to really share a daily life with someone. And I have gotten a little bit more of a spit fire and need to relearn how to hold my tongue and be submissive again. It is also so crazy to see how much we each have grown and changed this year. It is literally like starting over at square one again. All the feelings of when I first met him. The good and the bad. Totally nervous and self consoius. Afraid of saying the wrong thing. Mourning the loss of who Thomas was and how I missed it all. How I am still missing the whole picture of all the little things that have changed him. It is not a bad thing just a huge in your face message of how much I missed. How I will never get that time back, and how I had really nothing to do with any of it. I had some input into is life on deployment, but only as much as an e-mail can. I am just sad I guess. I actually counted the days on how long we have been married and how much of that actual time we have ben together. We will have married three years this month which equals to around1,095 days I think. And he has only been home with me 405 of those days. Reminds me of the reason I quit counting and looking at the numbers. I can't change the facts. I am so thankful for my faithful Father in heaven who has kept us together. Through him we beat the odds. As many memories we have missed we have so many many more to look forward to.

 We have a lot of new beginnings starting this new year. Learning how to be married for the first time since we have gotten married is going to be a challenge amid all of the other changes. God is really going to stretch and refine me this upcoming year. I am going to have to face a lot of my fears I have been avoiding. I am thankful though that this year I won't have to figure it all out by myself. One step at a time. One day at a time is all I can really do anyways. That is all God has asked me to do. Daily pick up my cross and follow him. The verse in Psalms that talks about God's word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path comes to my mind right now. I don't know the whole picture I just can see the steps in front of me. 

I close my eyes...

               I close my eyes and there you are.......
  Your sweet handsome face with a smile that stretches from one ear to the next.
Your hand is in mine and I look down and see your wedding ring, and
                      remember that you are mine.

              I close my eyes and I see the tears....
The tears that fell down your check as you held me close.
Knowing that it would be a really long time before we would get
          to hold each other and see each other again.

          I close my eyes and I remember the starry night...
The starry night sky we stood under together and you kissed me for the first time.
      I can't help but smile and remember each time I see the stars.

    I close my eyes and I remember the sound of your heartbeat...
After a long hard day I dream about the night I can fall asleep
next to you with my head on your chest listening to the sound of
                      your strong steady heartbeat.

I miss you my love. Every time I close my eyes you are there. I miss my strong man. We have made it so far and we will make it to the end. I wish with everything inside of me I could hold you tonight. But I am so thankful I have a life time to make up for the moments we have missed. Stay safe my love. I will see you soon. :-*