I fell off the bandwagon as far as posting deployment updates, partially because I didn't want to violate OPSEC or PERSEC, partially because I was really busy and never made time for the blog, and partially because some things were just really private. But, now one of my classmates (or former classmates, I guess, which is really sad when I think about it) is about to experience deployment and I thought I would brush up on my experiences of the year. I jotted down some notes from time to time, so here are my (mostly) exact words. I also wrote about how I felt the night he told me that he would be deploying, and our thoughts later, and things becoming real (and you know it's really real if I'm at an FRG meeting--I haven't attended one in almost two years).

about 5 months before deployment
He snores a lot. It's annoying now, but it'll be too quiet in a few months.

about 4 months before deployment (Alan was in the field)
Day one of not seeing Alan for over 16 hours. Good deployment practice and I managed the dogs, house, and [foster] kids by myself.

about 1 month before deployment (1:29 a.m.)
I'm not at all tired ... and now, due to the extra time spent awake, I'm devastated about Alan leaving for a year. I'm so sad that we'll be apart. That's a huge portion of life that we'll miss together. I don't want him to go. I just want to hold on to him forever.

about 3 weeks before deployment
"That's what you need to show the cops when you get pulled over."
[Alan pulled out the insurance and registration in the Jeep.]

about 2 weeks before deployment
I was about to start creating a grocery list on an app so it would appear on both Alan's and my phones. Then I realized that the next time I go shopping, I'll do it alone.

do over

We've put another quarter in the slot – free play! Hit the reset button on a moment this year: what would you do over? Whether or not you analyze your actions – how would you act differently? Would the outcomes shift, or stay the same? From a single sentence to a whole day (and everything in-between), feel free to explain your choice, from how you felt immediately after the moment passed, to any thoughts that ran through your mind beforehand. Take a mulligan!

Graduate school has taught me so much about counseling, relationships, and myself. I would not trade the experiences that I have had over the past year, but something that I have shared with friends in other cohorts is that tending to your self-care and giving yourself permission to make mistakes is vital.

If I could do something over, it would be to learn that lesson faster and relax a bit more, especially during the spring semester. Burning myself out didn't help anyone (certainly not myself), and I hope other students realize this sooner rather than later. Society seems to expect us--or, perhaps more accurately: We seem to expect ourselves to keep full and active lives across a variety of areas, all while uploading filtered photos, tweets, and statuses that lead everyone else to think it's all effortless.

We take full course loads (and sometimes overloads), participate in our churches, volunteer in our communities, tell our supervisors that yes, we can take another client, make room for our families, keep up some semblance of having social lives, and feel our anxiety levels raising because there's another 14-page paper due and a presentation on theory on probably something else that we've forgotten. Not to mention the fact that we come last, because putting ourselves any higher on our list of priorities would seem selfish and wrong. (Or, maybe that was just me spring and part of summer semester. ...)

So, if I could do something over this year, it would be to take better care of myself from the beginning, instead of waiting for stress to build up to the point where I begrudgingly started putting myself first more often and realized that I wasn't going to be struck down by lightning for doing so.

goals with grace: december

I currently use a bullet journal to keep track of my daily goals and to-dos and finally-got-dones, but I like the idea of goals with grace, so I decided to link up!

My goals for December are:

+ practice self-care. The day before and the day of graduation are going to be extremely busy for almost the whole 48 hours, so if I don't take care of myself, I'm going to be very burned out and grumpy. And that's not how I want to remember earning my master's degree. Specifically, I plan to run a minimum of 35 miles this month (approximately 3.5 miles twice weekly). My bonus goal is to work back up to running at least 10k by the end of the month.

+ host a brunch. I really love the heart of the International Justice Mission and I'm currently reading The Locust Effect. I've been wanting to host a casual brunch for some ladies to talk about justice and raise money for IJM.

+ advent. Along with hosting a brunch, I want to introduce Advent Conspiracy to our home life group. Alan and I are talking about the sort of traditions we want to establish for ourselves and the sort of life we want to lead and I think the philosophy of Advent Conspiracy, which I discovered on another blog linked up with Goals with Grace, reflects that.

arbitrary 03.

So, my final semester of grad school happened and I forgot I had a blog. Fortunately, I'm graduating in less than two weeks (God willing)!

+ remember. Please consider supporting a friend's daughter on March of the Living--she is the granddaughter of a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Dachau. March of the Living will enable her to travel to Poland and Israel.

+ nudity. Recently, nude photos of Kim Kardashian made their way around the internet. I found this article, 5 Things I Plan to Tell My Teenage Boys About Kim Kardashian, and bookmarked it because I think the points could be relevant for a variety of situations. On another note, I think we need to talk about the church's view of purity (or at least the concept of purity that I grew up with), because those photos popped up in one of my social media feeds and I wasn't even looking for them.

+ free. Relevant Magazine released a free-to-download Christmas album.

+ vlogs. My friend, Annie, vlogged about youth ministry because I asked her to. I'll be creating a response vlog at some point, especially because she mentions She Reads Truth and some other cool things. (I say "at some point" because if I give myself a deadline, I'll most likely just watch it pass by.)

+ running. Several weeks ago, I broke one of my toes. By walking into a chair. In my own home. I didn't realize how important running was to me in regard to my personal self-care routine, so I'm grateful to be back on the roads again--and just in time for Alan's brigade run coming up soon!

God + The Yellow Conference

A month or so before The Yellow Conference, I started to have doubts about going (again). The newness of buying my ticket had worn off and I realized that it was going to fall during the first week of classes. Plus, I stress myself out with worry over making it to the gate on time. And I would be going to California by myself.

But I joined the Facebook page for attendees and God used it to reassure me of His plan for me to go. As I got to know some of the ladies, I realized that many of them posted about working in ministry or wrote about grace and blessings. In spite of the fact that The Yellow Conference wasn't advertised as a "Christian" conference, I realized that God would be with us.

That boosted my confidence about going for a while, but then about a week or two before the conference, I really dug in my heels. (Seriously, I didn't even ask my friend for a ride to the airport until a few days before I left.)

Sunday rolled around and I overslept and missed Sunday morning life group. On Sunday night, I started to worry about everything I still had to do but felt like I had no time for (i.e. packing). On Monday, two of my clients called to reschedule and I suddenly had a whole afternoon to pack and make arrangements.

I told my friend that I'd been feeling like God had worked out everything for me to go, but I still didn't want to go. She said that she wished I had been in Sunday morning life group because the lesson (the final chapter of Priscilla Shirer's "Discerning the Voice of God") was on obedience.

When you hear God speak and you know it's Him, just obey.

Hearing that gave me such peace that whatever resistance I'd been feeling before then disappeared.

So I hopped on a plane and headed off to California.

arbitrary 02.

+ she reads truth. I recently read the justice reading plan and thought it was amazing.

+ just breathe. Headspace is an app that teaches meditation. I use it and look forward to my ten-minute sessions at night--sometimes, I don't even make it the whole way through before falling asleep.

+ 9 social justice books. Several of these are already on my to-read list.

+ pillsbury melts molten fudge cake filled cookies. If you have not had the immense pleasure of trying them, I'm sorry. They're amazing. I even sent a PSA text to my home life group on Group Me about them. And then I took three packages to home life group.

yellow conference

A couple of months ago, I was searching for a Christian women's conference to attend. I've been feeling passionate about a couple of different things, but I lack direction. I know my starting point and sort of my ending point, but everything in between is a giant question mark. I hoped that a conference would help direct me to some answers. For the most part, they were either out of my price range or scheduled at an inopportune time.

And then Hannah Brencher posted about a conference for women who want to change the world. Women who have passions and aren't quite sure what to do with them. I immediately checked out Yellow Conference and felt excitement bubbling in my chest.

But also doubt.

Should I really be spending money to attend a conference that isn't Christ-centered? I should probably put that money toward Influence or Hope Spoken or something like that. On the other hand, perhaps I'm meant to go to Yellow Conference, anyway. After all, Christ didn't call us to lead insular lives surrounded by believers.

I battled with signing up for several weeks.

And then I realized that the conference is in El Segundo, which happens to be close to Hermosa and Redondo beaches. I'd been thinking about those beaches a lot, lately. I've really been wanting to go back to relax. Plus, the conference falls in between semesters. It could celebrate surviving Internship I and refresh myself before heading into my last semester (God willing). And then one of my friends prayed for me to attend Yellow Conference. And then God really blessed Alan and me--I'll share that story another time, but one of the results was a travel voucher for an airline, which Alan immediately said would go toward my flight for the conference.

And that's how I came to be the proud owner of one ticket to Yellow Conference.

give when it's not fair.

 

I'd love like I'm not scared
Give when it's not fair
Live life for another
Take time for a brother
Fight for the weak ones
Speak out for freedom
Find faith in the battle
Stand tall but above it all
Fix my eyes on you

I may or may not sing along with this song every time it plays on the radio.

Lately, I've realized that giving when it's not fair seems like a mostly Christian value that isn't shared in the world. And I'm not saying this to be puff up or draw attention to myself, but it leads to a lot of "You'd have more money if you'd stop giving it away" conversations that end up going in circles. Not that we're struggling financially--if anything, it's the opposite, but the concept of not putting every extra cent into savings just seems wrong to some people. Still. I believe that I am working toward being content with less.

arbitrary.

+ paper. I forget how I discovered the Bullet Journal, but I've been using it for about a month to help me organize my life.

+ digital. Along with the Fantastical app for iPad, which has been totally worth every cent to me because I find it super helpful to know just when I have a spare hour.

+ pura vida. Handmade bracelets that support charities. I currently have three: adoption awareness, mental health awareness, and manatee conservation awareness.

+ calling + career. The crossroads of should and must.

+ this dog. just caught a fly in midair and ate it.

one today

I recently discovered Google's One Today app, which allows you to choose a category of causes:

• animals,
• environment,
• health,
• civil rights & liberties,
• poverty,
• arts & culture,
• crime,
• governance,
• economy & employment,
• education,
• food,
• housing,
• infrastructure,
• science & research, or
• sports & leisure.

The app then highlights three different organizations each day that pertain to your general category; I chose civil rights & liberties. You can read some background information on each cause, click through to find out more on the causes' websites, or choose to donate $1 or match another donor's $1.

I really like the app because it shows what your dollar is going toward and it's great to know that even a dollar can help make a difference. Here are some of the causes that I've supported; I wanted to share them in case they interest you, too.

Human Trafficking

• The White Aisle Foundation, Inc. > Daughters of Cambodia
• Selah Freedom
• Sanlaap North America
• Thorn: Digital Defenders of Children
• American Himalayan Foundation

Education

• International Hand Foundation

Animals & Environment

• Honey Bee Research Institute and Nature Center, Inc.

Military

• K9s for Warriors

Water

• Iraq and American Reconciliation Project

the rainses

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

After sticking with Est. 14.06.2012 for over two years, I thought that it was time for a change to reflect a new phase of life. June 14, 2012 will always be the date that our family was established, but as God directs us, I've come to realize that 1 Samuel 3:10 has not only been my go-to verse, but also that a Bible verse reflects the true head of our household more than our anniversary date.

depression: that's not very Christian (or is it?)

My friends and I were recently talking about "Moms' Night Out" and I mentioned that I thought it was great that the main mom, Allyson, was able to find happiness as a stay-at-home mom of three young children (which, at the beginning of the film, overwhelmed her). In just two semesters working with clients, I have seen moms who are living their dreams as stay-at-home moms but who just aren't happy.

There are moms who are overwhelmed with rearing children. Moms who fear they're losing control. Moms who end up across from me in the counseling room because they just don't know what to do anymore and they've become depressed.

My friend said that of course it ended with Allyson finding contentment--it wouldn't have been very Christian if she ended up depressed.

Not very Christian?

So I started thinking about depression--and mental health in general--and the way the church overall seems to view it.

Oh, you have depression? You don't have enough faith. You just need to pray more. Stop being so anxious. You're blessed; you have no reason to be sad. Here, read these Bible verses. ...

But have you looked at how the Bible views depression?

Or maybe even just Psalms?

Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am faint; heal me, Lord, for my bones are in agony. My soul is in deep anguish. How long, Lord, how long? Turn, Lord, and deliver me; save me because of your unfailing love. Among the dead no one proclaims your name. Who praises you from the grave? I am worn out from my groaning. All night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears. My eyes grow weak with sorrow; they fail because of all my foes. -Psalms 6:2-7

Now, I'm not saying that I could go down through the DSM-5 criteria for any diagnosis of depression and say, "Yep, that's his principal diagnosis." But let's think about this: David's "bones are in agony" and his "soul is in deep anguish." He says, "I am worn out from my groaning" and his eyes are weak with sorrow--which makes sense when you consider that he's been spending his nights flooding his bed and his couch with tears. (So maybe he's having a hard time sleeping and can't decide whether the bed or couch is more comfortable?) It sounds like he's having a hard time getting out of bed in the morning. ...

... which sounds a lot like some things I hear from people who have depression.

But even if David doesn't meet depression criteria by current mental health standards, I think there are some people who have depression who could identify with David's thoughts.

So if David, mighty David, great king and a man after God's own heart, could experience depression, why is it so taboo among Christians today? David's words are Scripture. And if "all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3:16), are you really going to tell me that David didn't have enough faith and just needed to pray more?

Now, I'm not saying that all Christians should/will experience depression at some point in their lives. But I think it's a lot more common than we would like to admit, both today and in the Bible.

Elijah, a prophet, prayed for God to kill him (1 Kings 19:4), even though God had just used him in victory over prophets of Baal. Paul, apostle and writer of a lot of the New Testament, says that "we despaired of life itself" (2 Corinthians 1:8).

However, none of these people stayed in despair. Shortly after asking God to take his life, Elijah traveled to the mountain of God and heard the voice of God. Paul came to a new understanding:

Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us. ... -2 Corinthians 1:9-10

And David, in spite of his anguish, still wrote praises to God and knew that God listened to him. And by Psalm 9, David's enemies are being defeated. I don't think depression itself shows a lack of faith. God doesn't promise to remove all hardships from our lives after salvation--John 16:33 says that we will have trouble in this world. But it also says that Christ has overcome the world; we have hope. Likewise, these men also kept their eyes fixed on God in spite of their hardships. Their faith did not immediately fix everything and remove every problem they came across, but it carried them through the difficult times.

Your faith will not immediately fix everything and remove every problem you come across, but it can carry you through the difficult times.

i wanted the shock and awe one

+ moms'* afternoon out. My closest friends and I--we've decided that we could write our own Army Wives book based totally on fact and it would still be a hot seller--went to see "Moms' Night Out" at the on-post theater. Our tickets were $1 each and the national anthem played before the screening, complete with patriotic images and footage. I'm not sure which version we watched, but I know some of us wanted to see the "Shock and Awe" version.

"Moms' Night Out" was both funny and sometimes too realistic to actually be relaxing for me, but I appreciated the fact that it's a faith-based film.

+ independence day. We celebrated Independence Day with a last-minute cookout and ended the day watching fireworks from a friend's balcony. The conversation and time together was a better end to the day than the actual displays.

+ yet = still and other PA Dutchisms. My friend told me that my oldest goddaughter recently said, "It is really hot yet." I'm super proud. Also, she brought to my attention that I have a habit of asking my dogs, "Must you go out/potty?" I didn't realize it but it's pretty much the only sentence I use when I ask my dogs if they have to go outside and I'm pretty sure it's a Dutchism.

+ meal-sharing. A month or two (or more, who knows) ago, two friends and I decided to get together to cook for the week, because two of us typically end up cooking one big pot of soup and eating it for the week. And that gets boring. But it's also a pain to come up with meal plans when I'm only cooking for myself and I'm trying to save money. Hence, getting together to cook and then swap food. The first time we got together, we ended up making three pots of soup. This time, we made two soups, macaroni and cheese, and sloppy joes, three of which came from the Daniel Plan cookbook (one of our friends is starting the Daniel Plan).

+ blogging + life. Part of me was surprised to see that I haven't blogged since January and the other part of me doesn't even remember what I've been up to, aside from volunteering, classes, practicum, internships, home life group, church, and attempting to keep up some semblance of a social life. For a while, I was also getting up at 5 a.m. to go running during PT hours, but that's when the temps were in the 30s. Now that the day gets hotter faster, I don't have time to shower in between running and getting to my internship site (but I'm working on that). R&R also came and went somewhere along the line, though I intentionally didn't write about that for OPSEC reasons (but I plan to). And I went back to PA for a few days to visit family and we went to Walt Disney World.

*because we're all at various stages of momhood.

less.

I refrained from posting this earlier because I realized that I wasn't living according to what I was writing.

At the beginning of 2013, I chose "extend" as my word for the year.

to spread or stretch forth; to make available; to cause to reach; to increase the scope, meaning, or application of

And then, I promptly forgot about it.

Nonetheless, looking back over 2013, I would definitely say that I extended myself and my life in several ways.

There was, and continues to be, the Baking Brigade. (Except, next month marks the one-year anniversary and I feel like it's the same now as it was then, but more on that later.) The end-of-the-year decision to develop more community within our home life group. (Like asking others to facilitate discussions or lead a devotional.) The start of volunteering at a counseling center on post. The season of opening our home, our lives, to two children. The start of a deployment. The deeper growth of my walk with Christ. (It was amazing, but personal, so I don't want to share it here yet/ever.) The process of helping friends move. The +3,415 miles I drove across the country in two weeks.

So, given that I didn't intentionally focus on my chosen word during 2013, I decided to go with less of a word and more of a theme for 2014. I debated about whether to even bother with it this year, especially because I couldn't even think of a word, but God worked this year's theme into my heart pretty quickly.

Recently, a friend posted a video about Pastor Lee Jong-Rak and his baby dropbox. I watched it and sobbed through most of it, deeply saddened by the need for such a ministry and inspired by the love and faith of Pastor Lee and his wife and staff. I felt driven to do something but stuck where I am. I also thought of Meggan Murkli and her ministry in a Romanian orphanage.

And I was like, "God, why am I not doing something amazing for You?"

I thought of the violence in the Central African Republic. Why is our media not reporting more about this? And then my thoughts turned to me. Me. In my house with lots of furnishings and clean water and interior plumbing and more clothes than I need and three dogs that are fed more regularly than many people across the world and climate control and so much else. And that's when I realized what I need to do this year: learn to live with less.

My goal is to learn to be content with less and to become a better steward of the funds and resources God provides.

2013: a year in books

Last year, I wrote about the books I read in 2012 and the books I planned to read in 2013. Only two on the to-read list were ever actually read (Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and The Soldier's Wife). But, I did read 15 other books!

• Flyboys: A True Story of Courage
• Surviving and Thriving in Stepfamily Relationships: What Works and What Doesn't
• Ephesians
• Galatians
• Jonah
• Even From a Broken Web
• Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
• Love's Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy
• What You Need to Know about Spiritual Warfare in 12 Lessons: The What You Need to Know Study Guide Series
• The Birth Order Book: Why You Are the Way You Are
• Organic Outreach for Families: Turning Your Home Into a Lighthouse
• Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
• How to Be an American Housewife
• I Hate You -- Don't Leave Me: Understanding the Borderline Personality
• Your Beautiful Purpose: Discovering and Enjoying What God Can Do Through You
• An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
• The Soldier's Wife

In 2014, my goal is to read 18 books--about one and a half books each month. So far, there are 10 on my bookshelf waiting to be read.

• Hitler's Last Secretary
• Undaunted: The Real Story of America's Servicewomen in Today's Military
• King Leopold's Ghost
• Standing By: The Making of an American Military Family in a Time of War
• Wait No More: One Family's Amazing Adoption Journey
• Revolution in World Missions
• Handbook on Thriving as an Adoptive Family
• Counseling Couples in Conflict
• The Peacemaker: A Biblical Guide to Solving Personal Conflict
• Community: Taking Your Small Group off Life Support