Much to contemplate while mopping

I've learned a lot since Jason has been home. He left for three days last Monday. Came back Wednesday. I was in such an emotional slump while he was gone and I did not even realize it until he came back. Nine months away, one month back, one month gone, two days back, three days gone, and now thirty days back on leave; it's been an emotional roller coaster. And that was just in the last year. There were times more often than not that I was sure we would fall apart. I wanted only to stick it out for Emma's sake. Our marriage and life plans were not going according to plan at all. What should I have expected from a couple who having never met before, were friends, dating, engaged, and married all in under a years time? Then we had a child with in another years time; and all the while, we had literally been apart for more consecutive days than we had been together. My family and friends couldn't know how we struggled until it was too much to hide. The world was telling us to give up. I was listening. But Jason's faith grew stronger the farther apart we seemed to get. The more I wanted to leave the more Jason wanted to stay. I sought solace everywhere but the only place I could find any answers was my Bible. God was telling me to listen. He didn't want me talking or asking for things. I was in no condition to be making requests. So, instead, I just listened to what God's Word had to tell me: "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him."

"...but let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed."

"Even so faith, if it hath not works is dead, being alone."

"For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work."

As I continued to listen, I did not know what all I was learning was going to do for me. I tended to still doubt. There was a part of me deep down inside, beyond the doubt, unfaith, bitterness, and sorrow, that was telling me I was in the right place. As badly as I ached to run away to something or some place more comfortable I somehow knew that I needed to stay exactly where I was at. If I could only have some time and space to figure out what was going on in my life I knew things would be ok. Jason struggled to give me my space and I counted it a blessing to have some time to think while he was underway for 30 days.

When he came back, I was still unsure about many areas of our marriage and my life. I felt like I had been shorted by leaving the Navy so soon. I felt like I had made bad decisions in the beginning causing me to be in this grief stricken life that I thought I had found myself in now. I struggled to find the truth. Jason struggled to let me find the truth at my own pace. He so desperately wanted me to see in the same way, what he saw so clearly. But, amongst it all, there was a still small voice always in the back of my mind that was telling me to just keep reading the Bible, to keep trusting in the prayers I knew where going out for me, and to keep searching for the peace God was longing to give me.

Often times Jason and I will have a real heart to heart talk that eases both of our hearts and minds. We had just such a talk on Sunday, before he left for 3 days. It was the kind of heart felt talk that makes you feel like you like/love that person even more for the insight that the both of you have shared. So, on Monday when Jason left, I started to feel like I was really missing him. This was the first time I had really felt this way since his deployment back in December and I felt an inkling of hope arising in my heart.

Suddenly, I was overwhelmed with my other half being gone, as that is how it truly felt. My body was physically in pain every day, my emotions were shot in the head and dying, my ora was down. It's like God was pouring on me my every day emotions but this time unmasked by the bitterness and anger that so cleverly disguised them and pushed them away. I found myself excessively tired all day long, enduring migraines, nausea, and thoughts of wishing I could pass out til Wednesday or that some how Emma could learn to take care of herself, the laundry (that was spread all over my bed) and the housework that was piling up. I was experiencing every emotion I had pushed aside in the last year all in a 3 day period and I was counting down the hours until Jason got home. Then and only then could I crash into my bed, smother myself with "sniff" and not get up for a week. Life could not stop, however, just because I was feeling depressed. I was fortunate that Emma was quite happy to entertain herself with playing outside and watching "Princess woobie" (The Little Mermaid) But I found myself in tears chasing Admiral down the street more than once. During one chase, I even gave up. If I didn't go back home I would have surely fallen in the ditch out of sheer inability to run and cry so hard at the same time. (Luckily, a couple hours later, Admiral came home on his own.) On the second day, I was physically sick to the point that I could not get out of bed even if I wanted to. Emma ruled the roost and finally on the 3rd day Jason came home and took over.

But, upon his arrival, I noticed that I suddenly was starting to feel better. It was only then that it dawned on me the last 3 days had been a result of me missing my husband so badly and wishing so fervently that I could be closer to him. I had not had these feelings in over a year so it was like new and strange to me. But I embraced him and asked him for extra kisses and knew in that moment that I was beginning to see why God wanted me to stick it out. I was not sure what I was feeling so I did not embrace the feelings. I was thankful to be feeling better, but did not want to jump to any conclusions and had spent over a year pushing my feelings aside (or rather I tend to do that in general) and I was not ready to embrace what I thought for sure God was trying to tell me.

What is love to you? I went back and forth contemplating this question through out my whole life. At first I believed in the love of God, parents, and friends. Over time, my friend's love was failing me, I was failing my parents, and in my state of life, I was finding it difficult to find God's love. Then I started to believe love did not exist, but in fairy tales. I was certain love was only found in hollywood. Sometimes I refused to see that love was even in the Bible. I had told Jason I loved him and I had even established three different kinds of love. Emma being in one category, Jason in another, and family in yet another. But when I looked back on my life and marriage with Jason I often wondered if I truly understood the meaning of love. I felt silly for trying to figure it out thinking that only hollywood seeks out the meaning of love. I did not want to appear foolish so I pretended to understand it while all the time confusing myself and those around me for refusing to find the answer. Further more I was getting irritated at the unconditional love that Jason was bestowing on me after all I had put him through in the last year and all that our marriage had been through. The only love I can truly understand is that of a parent for a child. I had become certain that I had never truly "loved" anyone besides Emma and my immediate family in all my life and that all this time I was going off of hollywood's meaning of love. I knew what God's love was for us so I knew that it existed. But, I also knew that I had not loved Jason in the proper way and I did not know how to love him now.

Wednesday night, I felt some things I had never felt before. I was feeling drawn to Jason in a way I had not known possible. That night we shared in an intimate evening that I had never experienced before and when it was over and we were laying on the bed contemplating what had just happened, I started to cry. For, in that moment I realized what was happening. I was falling in love with Jason for the first time. The way my entire heart, body, and soul was so completely drawn to him was something I had never experienced before and I was ecstatic to be experiencing it with Jason.

God needed me in this place. I suddenly realized the pieces of God's puzzle were all falling into place. Having a child right away kept me from going anywhere when things got tough, and the last stressful, trying year of our marriage needed to take place so that I could push the reset button on my heart and learn what it was truly like to be a wife. To be loved. To be a real family.

I've always explained myself to have canned emotions because on a whole I've never really known what I should be feeling. It's like I was just opening a can of emotions, reading the instruction, and applying to my life or situation. Nothing was real. I cried because that's what other people seemed to do during hard time or pain, I laughed for the same reason or because I did not know what type of emotion to have. I was sad, hurt, happy, or forgiving based on what I had seen other's feel during those situations before.

But for the FIRST time in my life, I felt a REAL emotion all on my own. My entire life had been leading up to this point. Jason is the ONLY man who could have married me. None other would have put up with all that I have made him endure. The Navy was the only way we could have met. Emma is the only reason I stayed, and our hardship was the only way for me to learn how to love the man that was meant to be my husband. It all made perfect sense for the first time and my faith was completely restored. I doubted God all this time, thinking he wasn't working in my life, when really the trials and tribulations were all part of his master plan and I was too unfaithful to just let him have is perfect way.

I feel like Jason and I are dating new again for the first time. I've fallen in love with him for the first time and it's not a puppy dog love or attraction. It's an honest feeling. It's something that came from my own heart. I wasn't copying a film or idea. It was my own decision, my own feeling planted by God. I feel special that I have finally experienced this feeling and I feel confident that I will have more faith in the future. God has been so good and patient with me. I think my family is going to do great things from here on out. I know Jason couldn't be happier now that I've figured it all out. Emma is growing up in a loving house hold and she is getting cuter, prettier, and smarter by the day. What I tried for over a year to figure out, God showed me in one day. Half a day really. All I had to do was open up my heart and let Him talk to me. I'm excited to know what else he is going to do with me and my family from here.