From the category archives:

Deployment

Painfully Transparent

by Mandy on August 17, 2010

I am feeling like such a huge hypocrite today. Who am I kidding? I have been feeling this way for months! I have shied away from even writing here… the pain was so harsh, the shame so deep. So today is the day that I pull back the curtain… Brace yourself.

PTSD is a monster. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The one demon that we cannot seem to conquer, to break free from. Although our reconciliation is a miraculous thing, there has not been much of a happily ever after for us yet. Not for lack of trying though, I assure you. After three very intense overseas deployments, my husband is scarred. He is changed. He is at war inside himself.

The result… Our family is often at war with each other. My marriage often feels more like a war zone than a partnership. And for the three years since his last return home, I have had a front row seat to the dark progression that is Post. Traumatic. Stress. Disorder. All of which has come to an impossible “head” within the last 72 hours.

The choice… To have to choose between staying in my marriage and protecting my children from the war zone is an absolutely impossible choice! They do not understand any of this. They just feel the fear, the hurt, the chaos that seems to surround us for now.

The solution… I am hopeful that there is an existing solution. An answer to all the pain. For all of us. After many hours of prayer, tears, pleading, and weeping, last night my soldier finally agreed that this was a problem bigger than us both. He has finally agreed to go for “help.” After an unbearable ultimatum. I hate ultimatums. But I had to give him one. Either we go for counseling, for healing, together…TOGETHER… or the children and I would have to move away.

My fingers still shake from saying…writing… thinking those words…

I am so raw today.

My face is swollen.

My eyes ache.

My heart aches.

I am grasping… clinging… death-gripping the very hope that we may finally be on our way out of this dark pit. This place of horror and pain that has consumed the man I love.

I am begging you to pray with us. I am asking for your compassion, your prayers, your encouragement. Not your judgment, condemnation, or criticism. Please pray for true healing in the very depths of my husband’s heart and soul.

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Half My Heart Is In…

by Mandy on May 20, 2010

If you have been anywhere near a military town, or have ever known anyone in the military, chances are you have seen that bumper sticker… the one that says “Half my heart is in…” usually Iraq or Afghanistan these days. Unless you have been the one with the bumper sticker, though, chances are you truly have no idea what it really means, or what it feels like. Neither did I until half my heart deployed.

I was unprepared and resentful. More than that, I was scared and lonely and not sure I had the strength to get through it on my own. For the record, those feelings were still there for the third deployment, just as much as for the first – almost as if I was missing half of myself. I suppose in a way I was.

He was fighting “bad guys” and dodging bullets…

I was raising our children and maintaining the house on my own.

He was losing sleep because of mortar rounds…

I was losing sleep because of an empty bed.

He was standing in lines to use a satellite phone to call home…

I was clinging to my cell phone, living for the moment it would ring.

He was counting the days it took to complete his missions…

I was counting down the days until he came back home.

He was waking up to the sounds of religious chants…

I was waking up to the sound of children crying for their daddy.

He was the leader of his squad…

I was a situationaly single parent again.

Half my heart may have been in the desert, but the One Who holds my heart never left my side. Deployments are torturous, but He carries us through. What my soldier does is dangerous, but my God has kept him safe every time. My bed may have been empty; my heart may have ached like nothing I had ever known; and my children may have missed so much irreplaceable time with their dad. But the lover of my soul was comforting me; the Great Physician was healing my broken heart; and our Heavenly Father was watching over us all in His always perfect way.

Would I choose to go through that again? Never! Could I survive it again if I had to? No doubt. I would find the same strength, grace, and comfort in the arms of an Almighty Savior, just as I have before. Our life may change and be so very uncertain, but He never changes, and I am learning to rest in that promise.

My God never leaves, never fails, and never changes – and not even a deployment can take that away.

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Resentment vs. Pride

Image via Wikipedia I never wanted to be a military wife. It never even crossed my mind, until I was one. Even then, I held dearly to the hope that my husband would be released from duty and life would be normal for us. Military life, the Army way of life, was not my idea [...]

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Preparing for Deployment

Image by The National Guard via Flickr We had only been remarried for a short eight weeks when Hubby deployed to Afghanistan the first time. I was beyond unprepared for that deployment!! When we remarried in June 2002, Hubby was on track to receive an “early release” from his contract in order to attend school [...]

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