Praise God for Grace, Humility and Prayer as an AF Wife!

Well, I have decided I am extremely bad at posting recent updates on blogs…. Even if I’m not that busy! It just seems so much goes on in my life that I can hardly record or remember it all. It’s a great problem, but I’m just horrible at good, quick solutions. Thus, I have FINALLY come up with a plan: rather than just record what has been happening in my life about my life, I feel it’s better if I recorded what God’s doing in my life and teaching my soul.

Like my friend Emmy, I have struggled in figuring out where to start reading the bible. However, my wonderful husband was there to guide me to a bible study plan that has helped me tremendously in how I should be governed by God’s word. And one of the biggest challenges my heart has been presented with is the way I’m trusting God with a desert time, learning how to fully enjoy a blessed time I could think is cursed, and learning to weight the time I give him as either spiritual ritual or spiritual health. So much God has been working out on my heart and so little time to share it all!!

First off, I can’t tell you how humble I have been made from the position I am in currently: a wife and a follower of Jesus. That’s all I can really claim. Yet, my calling is so significant to God, but to the rest of the world in whom my heart longs for their approval, it is nothing. I am nothing. And the more I walk out this journey, the more I depend on God for how I feel about myself in the world’s eyes. I have been very affected by Oswald Chamber’s advice about keeping your life concentrated only on Christ: “The golden rule for your life and mine is this concentrated keeping of the life open towards God. Let everything else-work, clothes, food, everything on earth-go by the board, saving that one thing. The rush of other things always tends to obscure this concentration on God…[let] other things come and go as they may, let others criticize as they will, but never allow anything to obscure the life that is hid with Christ in God.” Our concentration shouldn’t be on this what-the-world-thinks-of-me mindset, but on the will of the Lord, the only opinion that will EVER matter. Thus, the most encouraging model God has given me to gain strength from his humble ministry is Christ. Think about it: Christ, Lord and Creator over all, the WORD, the ALMIGHTY, the GREATEST of all that exists, came to earth in the most humble position of all: as a mortal. To top it off, he came as a lowly, average carpenter that made no outstanding trade that would distinguish him from all the other carpenters. That is all except the fact that he was lowly and just another man with a position that mattered nothing to the kings and rulers of this earth. However, even though we know who he really is, the rest of the world saw him as we saw would have seen a jobless wife in our day and time. And yet, not ONCE did he ever try to unnecessarily brag about who He was or complain about what He was sent here to accomplish. Yet he did it in LOVE and FULLY joy, knowing that greater joy lied ahead in future glory. This has encouraged me that when in the times of the shadow of the valley (the times I feel pressured to fill my empty slate with an activity or a task just to make me feel like I have a purpose or an accomplishment to brag about so that I may feel worthy) I should instead turn to the Lord and be still, throwing my day up to him, my worth up to him and saying “Here I am Lord… The Lord is my trust and I trust only in you” (Is.6:8 and Jer.17:7). God has given me this time to draw closer to Him and understand by His word and by prayer what He has in store for me, preparing me for the road ahead. I need to take this time to be still and listen to him, letting my heart enjoy the peace that surpasses all understanding (Phil 4:6-7) while I do the most important thing this life has to offer: knowing Him!!

I think Chambers says it best when he simply quotes, “Turn to me and be saved” (Is 45:22) We can almost lose sight of the Lord when we are too concentrated on our life as a Christian instead of our life hidden in Him. God wants us just to “cast all about in our minds as to what we shall do this summer, or tomorrow, and let them vanish as we come before Him. Your life will never go according to your plan if God has something greater than you would have expected, so it’s good to learn to have an open heart to look to him and celebrate in what he gives! And as a part of the military, you learn fast never to get stuck on your plans, for they never go as you would have planned anyways! Thus, my hope and prayer is to “build my hope on Him. No matter if there are a hundred and one things that press, resolutely exclude them all and look to Him.”—Chambers. He will align your life with His will and only then will you understand how giving your everything is really gaining the only things that ever mattered (Phil 3:7-10).

Another thing the Lord has made as a very important is the power of prayer. We went to a bible study on Wednesday before Andrew’s classes started led by a Lieutenant Colonel and the lesson was on prayer. It was funny how much God was teaching me about the significance of prayer, even in my unspoken concerns my spirit brought before Him. I was very nervous to come in to this study (being the only spouse and the only one not in uniform), but God made it clear to me by giving me a heart of peace that He would take care of me if I just had faith to go. And God always makes good on his word! I got there and the Lt. Col. started off by directing the group to get their attention off the fact he was in uniform or the ranking on his shoulders. Instead, he encouraged us to see him as a man, an ordinary man that has been saved by the Lord. It seemed everybody was more relaxed after he said that and my heart was definitely ministered to! God taught me so much about the power of prayer through the lesson as well… it was definitely His will that I was there and I’m so thankful He encouraged my heart to keep stepping out in faith so I may receive all of these wonderful blessings.

Just to encourage your heart, I’ll share with you what God taught me about the gift of prayer. First, God gave us the gift of prayer to talk WITH him. Sometimes, we can get so caught up with praying at God we can forget we were given the great gift of hearing what He wants to teach our hearts and listening to our cries, concerns and petitions so that we will know that “The Lord is at hand [and we are not to be]anxious about anything” (Phil 4:6-7). God also gives us wisdom to see what we might not have seen before without his revelation of such things (James 1:5) (Jeremiah 33:2-3). We can also be assured that God answers these prayers because He loves his son and sees His son in us—thus, he hears the Holy sprit, who cries out on our behalf, and blesses us with our requests, for they are from Christ (who we are now, with redeemed hearts, delighted with!) and not worldly passions—Psalms 37:4-5. He wants to help us when we come to him with willing hearts! It’s amazing to know that it is humility and admitting our need for the Lord that allows us see him working more fully in our lives! (2 Chron. 2:14). He has also led my heart to see that I need Him as early as the time I rise in the morning just as much as I need Him all throughout the day (Ps 5:3, 2 Thes. 5:16). It seems it is in the early mornings that my weakness of being tired and prone to acting off my feelings can led me to act oppositely of how I feel towards my husband and how I want to serve him (Ps 66:18, James 4:3, Ps 139: 23-24). Thus, we need God to change our attitudes so we can be still before him and come humbly in our weakness so He might make our motives and intents pure (James 4:10, Ps 46:10, 51:10). Thus, I encourage you to really think and pray that God reveals to you the essence of pray in our walk with Christ... because this is not a spiritual ritual to be taken lightly, but it is our key and our privilege that has been given to us by Christ so to grow our relationship with him more and more daily. What a gift to praise God and know God hears our every praise (Ps 19:3)!!!

2009 Maxwell ASBC Training with the love of my life

Well, day 2 and 3 in ASBC Maxwell has been filled with more adventures, awesome people and lots of God’s grace and love in Andrew and I’s lives. Every morning starts out pretty early, but as you know, that’s no problem with me. I enjoy getting up and getting Andrew started. After his breakfast and lunch is all accounted for, we scoot his booty off to work and I start my day with some time for the word of God. The past couple of mornings, I’ve had some time to do some running—and with my running sheet, it’s easy to get motivated! However, we think the scale’s mileage is not marked properly and the mile markers are badly marked. I thought I was the only one that thought that, but it seems the other wives complain about it too. Oh yeah, and that’s another great thing! Almost every wife I have gotten to know either runs or are very physically fit. I actually got to go workout with one named Emmy today and tomorrow another girl, Emily, and I are taking her GPS to go see REALLY how long the trails are and do some adjusting to the running map! Haha—we have a mission of our own at Maxwell: to ensure that the map truly reads face value so other wives don’t suffer as our own classes’ spouses have! No more injustices here! Watch out, Maxwell, because the military wives are on the job!! Haha—I’ll let you know how that goes after we get finish with our first attempt tomorrow.

And it was totally the Lord’s grace that I have made friends here that are either strong Christians or are very willing to hang out with us anyways (my hopes are that through our testimony they might too come to know Christ as their Savior!). One of my better friends here is Emmy. She runs a lot, loves the Lord and has a very sweet heart which is always so warm towards everyone she meets (including the housekeepers! It was fun to sit around and talk with them today—who knew we’d have such a good time with the cleaning staff!). Her sweet spirit allowed us both to become fast friends. Some of her friends live around this area and have told her where some good churches are here. That was so encouraging to me—so pray we find a good one to attend while we’re here for a while! It’s important we find out because all training is always in Maxwell--thus, the odds are very high that we will be living here again during Andrew’s career. It’s also good that the chapelins here are so good about introducing themselves and inviting you to bible studies, which we are going to this Monday. Super exciting! SO BE PRAYING FOR US! God has been so faithful to us by spending us friends and good fellowship, but pray we are aware to the many blessings He is going to shower down on us—including finding a church!

What I like most about Maxwell so far is everybody is really friendly here—that’s God’s grace. It’s also a lot bigger on this base (it’s easy to get lost) and its usually pretty warm (today was a challenge because it had a touch of chill in the wind and spit rain at times). It’s been really nice. I’ve also really enjoyed having everything you need in the proximity of a short drive or possibly a nice walk. Besides the 6:00am wake up trumpet calls, the 9:00am Taps loudspeakers melody, the 5:00pm pausing for the ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬_____, the listing of times and dates (all in military standard), grocery shopping is also a very unique experience. Yesterday, I did our grocery shopping at the Commissary, with my objectives to shop smart and healthy, but staying in our fixed budget as well. (And Mom, you were the greatest example of that, so thank you for your example!) It was actually a lot of fun to grocery shop! All the people there are very diverse, ranging from older individuals (which had trouble remembering who they were, making remembering what they came to get also troubling!) to prison inmates who took your groceries to your car (that’s another large difference here: even if you can handle your groceries without need for assistance, the bagboys and women depend on your tip, so you have to let them take your groceries… I’ve been told its unspoken policy). The women are very sweet here too (I actually ran to get some forgotten items for this one woman with coupons that stated BUY ONE GET ONE FREE and another I helped her with a toilet paper avalanche! It’s never a dull day in Maxwell’s commissary—I laughed all the way through my shopping experience!) I took two trips because Andrew got off for his lunch half way through my shopping and so I went with him and his buddies and came back later to finish the job. I had to make another trip later to pick up his new running shoes, a notebook and some more plastic baggies at the BX, so I pretty much spent the whole day shopping and carrying groceries up to the forth floor! Ha! But, the good news is we got a ton of food for the next two and a half weeks…. However, I did go over our food budget by $14. Yet, for the amount we got and the tax break, we actually got a sweet deal! And mom, you would appreciate this one: all the reduced fat or healthier foods they usually charge you more for (because they know they can charge people who care about their diets more than people who don’t) are all the same price as the regular or fatty foods! And since Andrew is in training, I took advantage of this great opportunity!! It is really awesome!

But, yes, my life does have more to it than just shopping and running-- I have been doing financial balancing, studying the word, making sure our new home is fully supplied (another cool thing is the Loaner’s Locker at the Family Center, where you can borrow almost anything you need for no cost), doing needed errands for my husband, getting to know the women better, participating in the spouse activities/bible studies/social events, planning our trip to Hawaii… etc, etc. I plan on doing my online class sign up tonight… so with all of that, I seem to keep myself busy, no matter where we are! No boredom here =) I’m excited about the days to come, because they have all been planned by the Lord (and if I keep asking for his eyes on every aspect of my day, they will be like today: completely surrendered to the Lord and filled with hope and inspiration to share with others about him!)I’m not sure if Emily is a Christian or not, but be praying I will have the courage to share the gospel with her. She loves German Shepherds—and her puppy was just born today!!—so I know there’s hope, right?? Haha!).

I got to talk to Eva today too, which was exciting! She was so glad to see you guys at church. Emily and matt also text me yesterday-I enjoyed talking to them! (And Matt would be proud: I’ve taken up listening to more country since our honeymoon- it seems like the only channel on the radio dial to listen to here and it makes me think of home when I do—I’ve grown very fond of it) And after talking to both Mom and Eva, plus hearing from Emmie and Mattie, I don’t feel that far away from home! Praise the Lord for technology and ways to communicate, right?!

Anyways, I miss you all and can’t wait to hear what’s going on in Knoxville. I have another early day ahead of me again tomorrow, so I’m going to go spend some time with Andrew before we head to bed! I love you all and am praying for you daily (btw, this is so random, but Dad, I’m so glad you choose to get Andrew the Oswald Chambers devotional—that has been so helpful in keeping me in the word while I’ve been here, just like it does when I’m at home! So thanks, you’ve really blessed my spiritual life tremendously!! Like so many other ways you have blessed my life!). Call when you can!