preggers = emotions

It's been a whirlwind of a week here in the Pacific Northwest. Mom flew in on the 14th and we've been gogogoing ever since. Well not really, but it feels like that. It's been so nice to have someone here to motivate me and help me get projects done and cross off things on my two page long to-do list, but it's amazing how overwhelmed, stressed out, and tired I get.

Sidenote...I'm eating yogurt right now because I know it's good for me, but I'm eating it at the pace of a 2 year old because it's grossing me out. At least it's not all over my face and I'm using a metal spoon rather than one wrapped in rubber.

To top our busyness off, I got frustrated with friends because I feel like I'm the only one available to come over whenever they need me to watch kids or run to the store for them or help them with errands. I love helping them out, don't get me wrong, and I know that with several husbands deployed and flocks of children everywhere, they need all the help they can get. And maybe it was just that my mom was here and I was busy already, but for a few days it seemed like someone was calling me everyday for help and I wanted to say, "What about me?? I need help to! No one calls me to check on me or see if I need anything!"

But lets refer back to the title of this post...emotions. All of this was underscored by the fact that I'm pregnant and hearing (not seeing) sappy commercials on the radio causes me to blubber. And of course people check in on me and offer help so it's not fair to say that NO ONE ever does, but during a week where I wanted to hang out with my mom and have her dote on me (which she did an excellent job of), I dreaded when the phone rang.

All of the "drama" during the day plus Phil still being gone (I know, he's still not back yet. Strange, I thought it would go by quicker than this) turned into nightly sob fests with your host, Allison. Tonight she will be featuring crying so hard her eyes swell up to golf balls and being so stuffed up she sounds like an old man when she sleeps. It usually starts off as me thinking about how Phil should be laying (lying? I don't feel like looking it up. English majors, sorry.) next to me and how I miss nuzzling on him. Then it will progress to how I want to tell him everything that mom and I got done and how great that feels. Next comes feeling badly because I feel great but he's not here to share in that, followed by, "What if we're growing apart? What if when he comes home he'll feel like everything changed and he won't like it and we become distant?" And then that usually escalates to, "Oh my gosh our poor baby is going to have parents that don't love each other because Mom didn't tell Dad when we got a new couch or sent pictures!"

Oh my.

I then remember the verse that says, "God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind," (2 Tim. 1:7) and I realize I have the complete opposite of a sound mind and I usually then start the sniffle prayers where I say two words, can't catch my breath because I'm crying, continue praying in my head and once I can breathe again, I'll get out a few more words. So it sounds more like, "And I pray....[sobsobsob]...and keep our hearts knit together and....[sobsobsob]...safe at his base...[sobsobsob]...June 24 come fast."

At least God knows.

It is getting better though. He finally is getting wireless internet on 1 December and I mailed him a webcam and a MagicJack with phone (plugs into your computer and you can call anywhere!) so soon we can talk whenever for however long without him having to go to MWR and wait in lines and having to get off because they called his name over a loud speaker to get off. We're coming to a place of hopefulness instead of anxious waiting and never sleeping because what if he calls and I miss it. I hope the webcam works because I'd do anything to see his face. Our conversations are so short now and we have to get all of the business covered...we don't have fun or joke or be silly like we usually are. I miss that...he used one of his voices the other night and I couldn't stop laughing because it was like I forgot about how marriage was fun instead and not just a business partnership.

Hope on the horizon...God is good. I'm reading a book by John Piper right now called Future Grace and he talks about how we live in the joy of the future grace God will give us, remembering his goodness in the past with gratitude. We don't owe God...we don't have to be good Christians just so that he'll still look down from above with favor...if we had to pay him back for grace, it isn't grace; it's a business transaction. So knowing that God will love me in the future just as much as He loves me now is huge! I don't have to earn or do anything to please Him - He's GOING to give grace because He loves us and killed His Son so that we might live in grace and freedom. It's helpful in thinking about that because I know God has given me grace with this deployment, is getting me through each day by His grace, and He's going to get me through it.

I get overwhelmed by the length of a year when it hasn't even been one month, and yet God doesn't tell me to look at a year; He tells me to look at today and be satisfied in Him. I don't want to wish away this year because I know He's got big plans for me. So one day at a time!

I'll end by saying Happy Thanksgiving and I hope you experience grace in a tangible way....and maybe without those pregnant emotions.