The Jonah in Me

Went to worship service today and we learned about Jonah.  The book of Jonah is in the Old Testament.  It talks about Jonah’s inner struggle with doing what God requests of him.  It was a pretty amazing story, actually.  God told Jonah to go to Nineveh and Jonah went the complete opposite direction because he did not want to go.

Well, God threw a storm at him, then created a huge fish (probably a whale or something) to swallow Jonah.  And it did.  Jonah spent three days and nights in the belly of the whale before his prayers for forgiveness and promise to fulfill God’s request were answered.

When God let him out of the fish, Jonah went immediately to Nineveh and did what God told him to do.  But he was still very angry about doing it. 

You see, the Ninevites were very barbaric and merciless when they killed their enemies.  They were vicious, vicious people.  Their enemies died slow and torturous deaths.  And God sent Jonah to this city to preach the Word to them so their hearts could change and they could be saved.

Can you imagine being Jonah, told to go and preach the Word to murderers so that they could get to heaven?  It is such an honorable thing to be requested by our wonderful Father to save people.  But murderers?   People who tortured other people? 

While I was in the service, listening to the Word, I realized that my faith has always had a little hole in it.  Before I became saved, I had this ugly hardness in my heart about men who raped and molested children.  I remember learning about a man who was going to be executed after facing about 14 years in prison for participating in a gang rape and murder of two little girls of about 15 years old. 

The men were young at the time, probably around 18 years old or so.  Well, these two girls were walking home from school.  They took a shortcut.  They were attacked by a gang of guys.  They tried to get away, and one of them did escape.  But she ran back to try to help her friend.  The men beat and raped them both repeatedly.  When they were done, they took them into the woods where they strangled them with their shoe laces.  One pulled one end of the string and another guy pulled the other end.  The string actually broke and they then used belts to strangle them.

This story, as well as others, has always brought so much anger and pain to me.  It reminds me of my ex and the things he used to do to me.  I can imagine what these girls went through.  The fear, the pain.  Such cruelty.  It makes me sick.  It was stories like this and my own past experiences that kept me from coming to God in the beginning.

Like Jonah, I’m so quick to judge those who are so evil in their hearts.  I’m so quick to say they shouldn’t get the opportunity to get to heaven.  Why the hell should they after the horrific things they’ve done to people?

God is a compassionate god.  And I know He wants all his people to come to Him.  I know it’s not my right to judge others.  But it’s so hard for me to accept that with God, ALL things are possible—even the salvation of rapists.

So tonight was a reminder that I still have issues I need to pray about.  I still have a wall between God and me and I need to really work on taking it down. 

I told myself tonight that I need to pray about it.  To be honest, a part of me didn’t even want to.  A part of me WANTED to be hard and unmoved.  How do you take something like that, something like hate, out of your heart?  Maybe someone could pray for me so that I could have the will to pray for myself.

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M Saves Me From My Fear of the Dress

Last night, a bunch of people and I were scheduled to attend a fundraiser dinner for a local orphanage.  It was a pretty big deal so I decided to wear a dress.

I love dresses.  I love putting on something that makes me look and feel like a woman.  But I always feel so embarrassed when I'm all dressed up.  I feel like I would fall or that my dress would get snagged on something and fall off or something.  LOL I get really nervous! 

So anyway, my wonderful friend who I'll call M met me outside and he was such a huge comfort!  He escorted me to the smoking area and spoke to me to calm my nerves.  He was such a gentleman that I felt like I could keep him at my side and everything would be all right.

I am blessed to have such wonderful people in my life.  And last night, even just for a little while, I had an angel at my side telling me that I'd be all right and that I looked beautiful.  I know it sounds silly to get all worked up about being in a dress, but my nerves were pretty shot nonetheless.  And that's all that matters sometimes- having that one person to tell you that it's going to be all right.

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JT the Sweetheart

On the camp, I'm surrounded by tons of ... men.  Women here are just not that many.  Personally, I think it's a good thing.  Haha!  Not that I don't like being around other women, it's just that most women are catty by nature.  We're emotionally charged.  You put a bunch of us together and you get:  the drama queen, the slut, the loner, the innocent, the bitch, the weird chick, and the one we all hate- the two-face.  You put us all together and this is what happens: The first week, everyone clings to each other.  The second week, people figure out which one of the above mentioned categories each other is in.  By the third week, all hell breaks loose. 

The drama queen talks shit about the slut because she's getting all the guy attention.  The two-face is best friends with the slut but she secretly admires the drama queen's in-your-face methods so she talks to both of them about what each of them have said about each other.  The weird chick doesn't give a crap about the drama except for times when she needs entertainment and she'll watch the show just for fun.  Usually the weird chick is pretty damn cool and gets along with most of them until one of them crosses the line.  Anyway, the bitch picks on the innocent for fun but slaps the shit out of the two-face who is her rival enemy.  Meanwhile, the loner talks to herself about all of them and prides herself on being better than the rest of them, yet secretly longs to be one of their friends.  Oh and the innocent wants everyone to love each other and usually gets emotional that everyone's fighting.

My favorite is the weird chick. 

Anyway, I say all that just to emphasize why I like hanging with the guys.  They have far less drama and usually their things are - who's the biggest asshole and who has the biggest dick.  I can tolerate that type of drama.  It's still retarded but just not as complex and annoying as the women's issues.

So anyway, in the People blog you'll find me talking mostly about guys around here because 1) I hang with them and 2) they greatly outnumber women so I come across them more often.

All right, tonight's People blog is about a guy named JT.  JT is the boy next door.  Sweet, American boy.  Everyone loves him.  He's always friendly.  Remembers people's little details.  Just an all around nice guy.

The first time I encountered JT, it was because he needed to borrow my office projector.  He knocked on the door and came in looking like a Ken doll.  Such a nice smile, so polite while he asked for the favor.  It wasn't a problem and I told him when I needed it back.  He was very appreciative.  I just got such a nice feeling about him.  Have you ever been around a baby and just felt a little happier inside?  It's kind of like remembering that the world has beauty.  Just a really cool feeling.  Well, that's how I felt when I first met JT.

One day, I was walking towards my office and he was passing by when he stopped me and said he had something for me.  He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and said that in one of the outstations, there's a little store where he uses the bathroom and he always feels bad if he doesn't buy something if he uses their bathroom.  So he bought a pack of cigarettes even though he didn't smoke.  I guess he remembered I was a smoker, so when he saw me he remembered the cigarettes.  It wasn't that he gave me a pack of cigarettes that humbled me (although that was very sweet of him), it was the fact that he would buy a pack of cigarettes just because he felt bad if he didn't buy something from a store he visited just to use the bathroom.

Anyway, I just wanted to write about JT so that one day I could read this blog and remember that there are some really nice people in the world.

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Saviors in Metal

I have a huge thing for taking photos.  I usually just use my phone -- I love my iPhone.  I know it isn't one of those really expensive cameras that take award-winning photos.  But I don't care.  If I see something worth capturing, I'm going to capture it!

I took this one while we were at an outreach.  The boat transported food for the people of the community, who were in need of many things like healthcare, food and clothing.  We try to participate in outreaches as much as we can and it never ceases to amaze me how much help the community needs.  But as hard as it is to deal with that knowledge, I absolutely love that we are able to help if even just a little.  The people are grateful that we are there to give and show them that we care about them.  The children give us huge grins and hugs.

 

I took this picture while on a walk.  It's a picture of a plane that was used by the U.S. during WWII and was given to the military of the country I'm deployed to as a memorial.  I absolutely loved how majestic this plane looked with the sun at its back.  It was a hero in its fighting days and I wanted to capture something so historical.  Maybe I could try to take a better shot of it another day.  For now, it's one of my favorite pictures.

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Chopper Ride!

Today, we flew on a helicopter to head to an island for tomorrow's memorial service.  We will be honoring two young men who gave the ultimate sacrifice last year.  It will be a remembrance memorial service.

I've never flown in a chopper before so I was pretty excited.  It makes number two on my list of cool transportation in the military, the first being a B-1 Bomber.  Yeah baby!  Anyway, so the chaps and I got to ride in the chopper for just about a half hour to forty-five minutes. 

The view was really cool.  It's not much different from an airplane but it was still so exciting!  We got to see little islands.  I have to say, the view was quite beautiful.

The camp is very small and very quiet.  I actually like it.  Not many people, laid back, and you're not surrounded by brass (meaning pretty shiny ranking officers).  Everyone here is mission-oriented.  Get the job done and relax.  Do your work.  But you can have a life too.  It's not as uptight as my camp.  You don't have to look over your shoulder to see who's watching. 

I won't talk about it much more than that, but I will say that my first few hours are pretty cool.  We'll have the memorial service in the morning.  Will talk about that tomorrow.

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Unconditional Love

Although this story didn't happen today and it didn't even happen yesterday, it happened on a day I least expected it so I thought it would be appropriate to label it under the "Daily Goodness" topic.  I'll have to give you a little bit of a history by starting in the past and ending in the "daily goodness."


When I was married to my kids' dad (I'll call him X), I always had little suspicions that he was cheating on me.  His phone would buzz at 2am and he would crawl quietly out of bed and head to the computer.  I'd go and check on him and immediately the sites on the monitor would be minimized and he'd give me the innocent look and tell me he was just looking at "xyz" online and couldn't sleep.  Sometimes he'd leave in the middle of the night.  Anyway, long story short I just had too many little clues and no proof. 


While married to him, I was never a perfect wife.  But I tried hard.  If we disagreed about something, I always tried to maintain a calm disposition and keep my emotions to a minimum.  I always made sure I laid my thoughts out politely and with logic as my structure.  I tried to be fair.  He resorted to name calling and insults and of course when he pushed too far into the right buttons, I would retaliate with emotion.  And I will admit that there have been a few times (I can count the number on one hand) that I lost my cool.  But for the most part, I tried to be a good wife.  When I became a Christian a few years into the marriage, I learned to strive to continue to be a good wife and a good representative of God to my husband despite the difficulties.


So, while I had these suspicions, I kind of used them as motivators to try harder.  I figured if I was a great wife, he'd want me instead of whomever he was turning to.  I tried to cover all the bases: no nagging, be supportive, be sexually cool, treat him the way I wanted to be treated, etc.


But I never had proof and finally I just learned to live with it and continue to try harder anyway.


Well, when I left him the judge allowed him to call the kids.  So I used one of his cell phones for the calls.  One day, our toddler was playing with the phone and had accessed the messages section.  I took the phone away, afraid he might send a message.  After clearing out the jibberish he had typed, the screen went to the "sent" box.  In the sent box was a list of previews of sent messages.  This caught my attention because a few of them started very sexual and were to a number that was not mine.


To sum it all up, I found these messages several months after I had left him.  They confirmed that he was cheating.  And I sat at the steps of the staircase crying.  Not because I wanted him back but because after all those years I got resolution to my suspicions.  And because I was hurt and angry that despite my best efforts to be a good partner, I could not "make" him stay faithful to me.  I felt betrayed and embarrassed and just heartbroken that I loved someone and he didn't love me back.


As I sat there with my face in my hands, my toddler came and sat beside me.  He said, "Oh Mommy, you sad?"


And I wiped my face and nodded my head and said, "Yes, honey.  Mommy's sad."


So he took my face in his hands and wiped my tears and said, "Don't be sad, Mommy."

Looking into this innocent child's eyes and seeing nothing but the purest love, Agape love, I knew that the truest form of love will come in the palms of caring hands from someone who sees your pain and wipes your tears and holds your face with empathy in their eyes.


My heart was lifted immediately and I hugged him tight.  "I love you soooo much," I told him.


"I wuv you too!" He said.


That was the last time I cried for something sad and the first time I truly realized that love doesn't have to come from a lover to be true.  And that although my heart was broken by someone, there is so much beauty in things that are right in front of my face that I can't possibly allow myself to dwell in any sadness.

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Cinderella!

My kids are the sweetest people in my world.  Of course, like all kids, they have the capability of driving me a little nuts at times.  But they make me smile, laugh, grin, and remember what it was like to walk in innocence.  They amaze me every day.

One day, I was folding laundry in my bedroom while my boys "helped".  While hanging some blouses up, I came across a summer dress that I got at a thrift store.  Just for fun, I slipped into it and let my hair down.  Immediately, my older son's eyes grew wide and a grin formed onto his face and he said, "Oh Mommy!  Cinderella!"  And he took my hands in his and said, "Let's dance, Cinderella!"

Just then I felt like the prettiest girl in the world.  I laughed and danced with him to no music but our own.  Ahh.  I love my little guys.

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Strong Little Boy

When I left X, my older son (I'll call him Caden) was about two and my younger son (Sean) was three months old.  Little guys.  Throughout the months following our departure, I would wonder if I was putting them through too much.  I felt truly ashamed for dragging them through such rough changes.  But I would remind myself that I was doing it to save them.

The night we left, I packed a gym bag of our clothes, a plastic bag of baby bottles, and a bag of diapers.  I had no where to go, so I took the kids to my office to think.  I called a women's shelter and was told that once I got there, I'd have to stay for a full forty-eight hours and couldn't leave until after.  I wanted to be able to see my victim advocate before the weekend, so I decided to try to find a place to stay for the night.

I dragged the kids to Wal Mart at ten at night because I didn't remember to bring any formula for Sean.  After that, I waited in line at a cheap hotel to see if they had any space.  My arms were full with Sean and the bags.  Caden was busy getting into everything a toddler could possibly manage and I was in and out of the line, trying to keep him from causing too much trouble.

Our room was a far walk from the parking lot.  I had Sean in my arms, the gym bag, the bottle bag, and the diaper bag.  Caden wanted to help, so I gave him the bottle bag.  As we walked, I'd keep my eye on Caden to make sure he was keeping up.  I was tired.  I was scared.  My arms ached and I had a migraine.  I wanted to just get to the room.  I found myself getting ahead of Caden and had to stop to wait for him.

Halfway to the room, I stopped and turned to wait for Caden and my heart dropped.

There he was, a two year old little kid, standing with a plastic bag almost as big as he was.  He had the biggest frown on his face and his eyes looked so heavy.  It was almost midnight.  He looked up at me, dropped the plastic bag and said, "I tired Mommy."

Tears rolled down my cheeks and I knelt down in front of him, setting the bags down.  "We're almost there, honey," I said.  I gave him a hug and kissed his cheek.  "We're almost there, okay?"

He nodded, the frown still on his face, and picked up the plastic bag.  "Come on," I said, trying to sound reassuring.  He said "Okay" and contined to walk with me.

During the next several months, they'd changed daycares, saw their dad on supervised visitations, moved to a different house, and went through more changes that I knew were stressful for them.  And my heart still breaks when I think of that frown and the little voice that said, "I tired Mommy." 

I pray every time I think of it that God will continue to bless us and to always guide me to making the right decisions for them.  I don't ever want to have to run again, dragging two innocent little kids with me.  Every decision I make that involves a change for them will always be made after remembering that frown.

I pray that I will always keep my eyes on God so that I would make the decision He wants me to make.

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What the World has Seen

I got this in an e-mail from a friend today. I think it deserves to be given out. It is beautiful.
_____________________________________

Ladies - below is an a poem by a young woman named Katie. Her husband was stationed here but he returned back to the states when Katie took her life. Her husband, who shall remain anonymous, sent me Katie's poem (he discovered it after her death) and asked me to share with it with as many people as possible. Please feel free to send this out to anyone you wish. The husband has given us his consent. I found the poem moving and even caught glimpses of myself.

What the World has Seen
I've been told I was "invincible,"
Also, I "Manipulate."
Yet some have even declared
that I was their "Soul-Mate."
It's been said that I'm "Mysterious,"
and then a "Prophetess."
When a butterfly landed on me,
I was told I that I "Was Blessed."
"The Epitome of a Great Girl"
was written long ago.
It has since been retracted,
yet I've been told that my "Eyes Glow."
"Selfish, Cold and Heartless,"
but then "Sincere and True,"
And when things fall to pieces,
I've been told that I was "The Glue."
I was once called "Miss Diamond"
after "A Diamond in the Rough."
Though said that I'm "Pathetic,"
I have since been told I'm "Tough."
"Guardian Angel, Guardian Devil,"
and a "Ghetto Superstar."
I'm "Overly Opinionated"
and "Unusual" and "Bizarre."
A reverend with moral lacking,
once referred to me,
as "The Light of the Lighthouse,"
and declared my spirit "Free."
I used to be called "Darlin,"
but I became a "Trophy Wife."
And though I've been a "Genius,"
I'm also a "Wasted Life."
A joke was once apologized for
due to the presence of "A Lady."
My company just laughed and said,
"You just don't know Katie."
I've been called a "Crazy Bitch"
I've been called a "Whore."
And to those who've tried,
I'm "Impossible to Ignore."
"I'm always nice unless provoked."
Yet I "Deceive and Lie."
Those who don't know me well
have even referred to me as "Shy."
"You cannot knock her out."
Though I've nearly been defeated.
Even through my "Brick Wall,"
I've still let myself mistreated.
I may just be "Difficult to Love,"
But I've also been witty.
And to some I have been
"Consumed by my Self-Pity."
I've been called "An Oracle,"
I've been called "A Trip."
I've been called "White Trash,"
And I've been called "Unfit."
If I'm "Difficult to Love,"
how am I "A Warrior for my Cause."
I've been told I'm "Perfect,"
As well as "All my Flaws."
Some say that I am "Scrappy,"
but defend those who "Need it Most."
I've been called "A Gypsy,"
And I've been called "A Ghost."
But sometimes I wonder,
If maybe one was able to see clearer,
if I am nothing but their own,
"Reflection in a Mirror."

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Can't We Go Back Home?

I have many days when I feel like I need some “me” time.  I want the kids to stay at a friend’s house, I want to be in the house by myself, I want to be able to do grocery shopping alone, or I just want to sleep!  Each waking minute that I’m not at work is spent wiping spills, changing a diaper, picking up toys, kissing boo-boo’s, vacuuming the carpet, budgeting, chopping onions, and so much more.  It gets exhausting.  And one can understand why the single mom wants some “me” time.

But today is different.  I dropped my youngest son off in his daycare room and watched as he grinned and quickly hunted down his teacher.  She grinned and scooped him up, returning his outstretched “hug me” arms.  Every day before today, he cried if I even bent down to put him on the floor so I could sign him in.  Not today.  He didn’t even glance over his shoulder to see if I was still there.

I held Caden’s hand as we walked down the long hall to his “big boy” class room.  As we walked, he pointed out the fish tank and said his goodbyes.  This is the second week he hasn’t been screaming to get back into the car.  I smiled down at him and said, “Do you want to do the choo-choo train?”  He grinned up at me and said, “Yeah!”  and immediately started taking quick, short, choppy steps.  “All aboard!!”  We started our train regime and laughed ourselves to the classroom.

As he passed the threshold, his mouth formed a small frown and he stretched his arms out in front of me for a hug.  I scooped him up and said, “I love you,” as I carried him to his teacher. 

Mrs. Paula smiled and said, “Good morning Caden, go put up your jacket and bag please.”  This was always the hard part.  He always cried when it was time to go.  But not today.  He was still quite sad.  I saw his eyes tear up.  But he didn’t whine.  Instead he walked away and started undoing his jacket.  I took that as the perfect opportunity to say goodbye and head out. 

As I walked down the hall, I glanced through the glass window at him and watched as he hung his jacket up in his cubby.  My heart hung heavily in my chest.

Today is the day I want to call in sick and take the boys back home for a big breakfast and have some family time.  I guess I’m just a little sad about being at work instead.

I think I’m going to have a dedicated “us” time on Friday nights. 

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