Transitions Pt. 1

"Sometimes their homecoming is the hardest part."  She said to me.

That was at the beginning of deployment.

Yeah right, I thought.  How could Daniel coming back home ever be hard?

There is truth to her statement, though: there have been moments that have hurt, moments that are so hard I just stand there and know not what to do.  

But I wouldn't say it is the hardest part of deployment; 9 months away from my best friend was the hardest thing you could ever have asked of me.

And close behind?  The battle that rages in my mind as I struggle to overcome my own selfishness and my own pride and my own expectations of life after deployment.

Waiting. . . and waiting. . .

"Can you see him yet?!"

To be honest?  I was ready for and expecting a break.  I mean like a complete break.  A break from being alone.  A break from being alone with Tirzah, a break as in like completely getting away, for several days and nights and being rejuvenated, refreshed, energized.

I didn't quite know how high my expectations were until I fell, and fell really hard.  Monday morning.  3 full days after Daniel returned home from 9 months of being away.  Monday morning; 6 AM.  Out the door and off to work.  Albeit a half day at work, but seriously?  That was all we got??

Thursday, just one week after he returned home, an almost full day of work, like him leaving early and getting home around 4.  And that is when the floodgates opened.  Tirzah ran to the front door to welcome her Daddy home and the first thing she said?  "Mama sad" and pointed to me on the couch.  And yes, I was there.  I was there crying, trying to hold it in, but doing nothing of the sorts.  I tried to blame it on being sick, but Daniel knows me much better than that.  And in talking with my best friend, who got down on his knees and got face to face with me and wiped away my tears, I realized why I was having such a hard time.  Because my expectation was that when Daniel returned home: I would be done.  I would have completed this huge journey and this huge task and I would finally be able to be free and to not carry this burden.  But in reality?  Although having him home does mean that life is completely different, there are some aspects of my life that have not changed with his homecoming.  For example, Tirzah and my routine day in and day out.  Although he is home, our days still look the exact same as when he was gone: wake up and read, eat breakfast and go for our walk. . . and I had not quite processed that aspect nor that expectation yet and the breaking of that expectation broke over me hard.

Coupled with my expectations was my pride and thinking, no, believing that I deserved a break.  What we have just walked through, deployment that is, has been HUGE, the biggest task of my life, and I truly and honestly believed that I deserved a break, I deserved to be wined and dined, I deserved to go out with my husband for several nights of alone time.  Ann Voskamp writes on pg. 169 of her book One Thousand Gifts: "My mama, valley wise and grief traveled, she always said, 'Expectations kill relationships.'"  And she goes on to say:

"Only self can kill joy. 

I'm the one doing this to me...

Joy is a flame that glimmers only in the palm of the open and humble hand.  In an open and humble palm, released and surrendered to receive, light dances, flickers happy.  The moment the hand is clenched tight, fingers all pointing toward self and rights and demands, joy is snuffed out.  Anger is the lid that suffocates joy until she lies limp and lifeless. . . The demanding of my own will is the singular force that smothers out joy-nothing else" (pg. 177).

That was exactly what I was experiencing.  Joy being snuffed out right in my own life, right when the desire of my heart for the past 9 months was right before me.  And it is a battle that I will have to fight with myself again and again, until true humility and true thanksgiving, (for good and bad and hard and  moments that are against my own will, too) reside completely in my heart.  Just the other night, I had to choke them down, not first without tears and a soul to soul conversation with my husband.  The fact was, Daniel along with several other work peers, are on a trip to D.C. visiting with Cpt. Kline and several other of their peers who were wounded during their tour.  My mind and heart were ok with the fact that he was leaving, just for a weekend.  But when he decided to call his parents and they all decided to meet up together and go to Raphine for a night, that was when the hand clenched tight and all fingers pointed towards me, my self, and my demands.  It is ugly, but this is exactly what I thought:

"I have so been desiring "a break" a "get-away"for myself and now, here I am again, by myself, for yet another weekend alone while Daniel is the one that gets to get away."

After fighting in my mind, and crying on his shoulder, and prying my hand open once again to receive, I was able to openly share those thoughts with my husband.  And gently, ever so gently he reasoned with me and showed me the true way: "look at it this way, Lovie, that it is just a soldier, going to visit those with whom he fought and those whom have given their limbs that we might stand, right now, here together.  It is just a soldier going to encourage those whose lives have been forever changed because of their service."   Oh.  Right.  How embarrassingly selfish of me.  And, "it is just a mother and a father getting a chance to see their son after he has been away at war.  Look at it this way, my Love."  And the tears fell yet again, even harder this time, for I have such a long way to go and how could I ever be and when did I ever become this selfish and this demanding?  

Yet the Lord knows we are made of just dust, and He loves and He understands and He doesn't turn away but continues to strengthen us.  And He graciously showed me another way, through the book Kisses from Katie:

"I sometimes got caught up in "I deserve this" moments; I still do. . . There are still moments when I believe I should be able to relax and do nothing some afternoons, instead of taking care of one more sick person.  There are moments when I think that because I have worked hard all day, I deserve to be able to sit down and eat my food instead of answering the door for one more person who needs help.

The truth is that these thoughts are not at all scriptural.  Nowhere in the Bible does it say that I deserve a reward here on earth.  Colossians 3:23 says, 'Whatever you do work at it with all your heart.'  It does not end in, 'and after this hard work you deserve a long hot bath and some 'me time''.  It does end with, 'since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward'" (pg. 176).

Ah.  I see a little more clearly now.  

I remember when Daniel and I were first married, some older couples told us that "marriage is like a mirror", in that you see yourself as you really are in that person who knows your ins and outs, your faults and your successes.  Maybe Daniel's homecoming has been one of the hardest parts of this past season, but it is only because it has forced me yet again to see myself, as I really am.  But let that not be the end!  But let it be that which takes me to the place where I can:

"Humbly let go.  Let go of trying to do, let go of trying to control . . . let go of my own way, let go of my own fears.  Let God blow His wind, His trials, oxygen for joy's fire.  Leave the hand open and be.  Be at peace.  Bend the knee and be small and let God give what God chooses to give because He only gives love and whisper surprised thanks.  This is the fuel for joy's fame.  Fullness of joy is discovered only in the emptying of will.  And I can empty.  I can empty because counting His graces has awakened me to how He cherishes me, holds me, passionately values me.  I can empty because I am full of His love" (Vokamp, pg. 178-179).