God is Good

In February of 2001, my husband enlisted in the Army. He joined to be a Calvary Scout. He joined for adventure, adrenaline and danger. He had nothing to lose. The average life span of a Calvary Scout at that time was 2 weeks in the field (or so he tells me).

Halfway through Basic Training, the Drill Sargent called him out of formation and told him that his clearance had come through and he was leaving Basic Training early to go straight to Intelligence School (crack the jokes about the Military having Intelligence HERE ).

He was shipped off to Intel school despite the fact that his military entrance test scores were all too low to be in this field and he had no interest in Intel whatsoever. He sat through this school for three iterations, failing, studying in the assistance lab every waking moment...failing some more.

They ended up passing him and sent him onto his first duty station. He struggled a bit, but found some people who looked out for him and found a job he could get by doing.

At this point, he was generally miserable in his job--no adrenaline, staring at a computer underground-and decided to try for Special Forces. After completing the assessment/selection course for Special Forces, he was not selected because his academic test scores were too low.

This is where I met him. The day before he left for Special Forces Assessment School (SFAS), I was sitting at the next table over from him in Starbucks. I thought he was cute, but I was there to read my Bible and felt really guilty about fighting distraction about a boy during my devotional. Wait! He was reading his Bible too! I fought distraction even harder. After an undetermined length of time, one of my friends came in and instead of sitting at the table with me, she sat next to him. I instantly forgot my devotional time!! We spent the rest of the night together. We finished at Starbucks and then he and some other friends came to the restaurant where I worked and hung out there until my shift was over. Afterward, they all came back to my house and stayed until 1 am the next morning. My overall impression of him that night was that he was a cocky and self-absorbed. I wanted nothing more to do with him. He left for SFAS at 5 AM...that morning.

The next month was supposed to go by as normal for me, but it didn't. Every day, I couldn't get that cocky kid out of my mind. I prayed for him everyday he was gone. When he came back, he was in pretty bad shape physically and we didn't even see him for about two weeks. After that, we were inseparable. Two weeks later, we were talking about marriage and freaking out that we were talking about it so soon. Five months later he officially proposed and we were married the following year. I fell in love with him for the depth in his heart, for his strength as an individual, for the way he never has given up on anything and the way he pushes through to finish a goal. I fell in love with him for his handsome face and his amazing body. I fell in love with the way he seemed to know the answer to every question I had about the world and life and whatever. I also fell in love with the way he loved me. He communicated with me not so he heard what I said, but so that he understood my heart. He pursued my heart and I fell hard.

My husband is an amazing man. Sorry for the digression.

A little bit of life happened that isn't really relevant to what I'm trying to say here, but after a short while, we ended up in Paradise as two-month newlyweds. The palm trees and the never ending beach were the exact opposite of the freezing island we just came from. One month later we found out we were expecting our first child. Life has only picked up speed, as you might have guessed. Twenty months later we welcomed our second child into our family. We've begun our family here, built the foundation to our marriage, grown stronger as individuals and as a family with a lot of support from our awesome church. Our time here as a family has been wonderful, with a lot of rough patches that has made us grow (and grow up!) a lot.

His professional time here has not been marked by many successes, but he's kept trying and kept pushing through. He's been back to SFAS and was not selected, again because of his academics. He's failed multiple job qualification tests and has been bounced back and forth from one job to the next. Nobody knows what to do with him or where to put him. He's been fine with that and has focused his energy on his academics; last week he received his AS Diploma. But it's almost time for us to leave and so it became time for him to contact the guy who decides which duty station each person goes to next. This guy is called "Branch".

Branch has one opening for James to go back to England. Our first choice, my home, is not available and will have nothing available in the time between now and when we are scheduled to leave. This slot that is open in England requires that my husband gets more advanced job training before he gets there. Okay, but he's struggled and not necessarily passed every job school/training/test he's faced. Nonetheless, he was up for the challenge and after a lot of prayer, gave Branch the green light.

It was supposed to be three weeks until he would be gone for 5 months of training. The kids and I had planed to go visit my family and my husband's family and travel around having a grand 'ole time.

Within a week, my husband's command pulled the orders to school and England. They refused his next promotion and promised that he would never get the next class to advance in his job.

It's been a few months since all this started. Each day has been a process of remembering to trust that God is more in control of James' career than the Army. His command has refused to submit his request to become a recruiter. His command has tried to pressure him into choosing another job in the Army. Obama hasn't released the funding to take tests, so James cannot raise his test scores to get another job in the Army or go back to Special Forces. Often, we feel trapped.

One day, three of his bosses (Commander, 1SG and Platoon SGT) pulled him into the Commander's office and shook his hand, congratulating him on the fact that he is getting promoted. They gave the impression that they didn't want to promote him, but another commander put James in for this promotion last year, and so James' current command can't do anything to stop the process, now that this paperwork has been found. All three of them said outright that the only reason he was getting promoted was because he was a praying man and they know that his faith in God is strong. Like I explained, they didn't want to promote him and there was nothing they could do about it. They clearly attributed this to James' faith in God. Yeay!

We are still waiting to see what will come of all this. One day we are hopeful and the next we are worried that they are trying to pull something behind James' back, but the one thing we know for sure is that at each point that we've felt scared about our future, God comes through really clearly and shows us that he's got it all under control. Looking back at James' career is perhaps the biggest thing that gives me faith that our future is secure. If the paperwork hadn't been switched, James could easily be a casualty number today. Instead, God put James in England, where we met. Hawaii has been the perfect place for us to find our feet as a couple, as individuals within that couple, as Christians, as parents, as adult friends. Looking back, we see very clearly how we have been taken care of each step of the way. Whatever happens, I KNOW that we will continue to be taken care of!

God is so good.