Nine months. That is how long the Lord has given parents to prepare for the joys, hardship, and responsibility of childbirth. Some mom’s go through sickness, back pain, tiredness, food aversions, and other not so subtle reminders of how her body is changing and how a new image of God is miraculously being formed inside of her.
Nine months. That is how long Barrett and I have been awaiting our orders and new home. We have had joys, hardship, new responsibilities, sickness, pain, tiredness, aversions, and tears. We rejoiced in finding out the location of Okinawa like learning the gender of a child. We explored all our exciting options, prepared purchases, planned rooms, and psyched ourselves for when it would happen. Yet still we wait.
Good news: we have been medically cleared to go!!!
New News: we now have to wait for someone to sign a paper to clear us to enter Okinawa.
Newer News: Barrett has been told they are thinking of assigning him to a MEU (Marine Expeditionary Unit) that deploys at the end of January.
I sat in a pew on Sunday with new pregnant pains reminding me that babies and mom’s don’t wait on Navy orders. I rubbed my belly and cringed with each sounding of my back screaming to the Christmas music. The long flight ahead looks more ominous with each passing day.
The sermon was on the Lord’s Sweet Sovereignty. Yeah, you read that rightly, SWEET sovereignty. He has ordained this waiting for us and continues to stretch us. Barrett and I discussed our newer news on the way home from his brother’s house while I was rubbing baby and back and blowing my endless supply of mucus while being tired. “I understand the Lord’s sovereignty, but I also am fighting my bitterness against our boss. What company moves a husband and pregnant wife across the country close to her 3rd trimester and then sends him off on a long business trip…let alone sends them across the world?” My trust in that SWEET sovereignty was waning in my weak state.
Bring on the morning time with Barrett in 1 Timothy where we read about slaves honoring their masters even if their master’s are not just or fair as to be a witness of Christ. Really? Do you have to convict me so quickly when I have made so many good and just arguments in my own favor and disfavor of the Navy? Ugh. So I repent of my complaining toward this new company…again. Do I trust the Lord’s sweetness with this new job? Do I trust the Lord’s sweetness that He knows the needs of me, Barrett and Minus? Do I rest in His sweet sovereignty and use this time to be a sweet aroma to Christ where He has us waiting?
I am thankful for the body of Christ and husband who remind me when Im not.