Unofficially Official

It's official. Drew is slotted for Iraq this Dec. It'll likely be the end of the month. He'll be there likely through the end of June. Of course, nothing in the military is official until the orders are in your hand. Sometimes that can be literally weeks or days before departure date.

We've known this day would come. In fact, we had the fortunate opportunity to more or less select the date that would work best for us (or that wouldn't work for us for the matter.) Yet I still found myself in shock and awe upon learning of the no-longer-hypothetical deployment date.

My friend just experienced the joy of her husband's return from Iraq. She has four kids (her oldest is just older than my oldest) . Get this, number 4 was born while her husband was deployed. She then flew all of them to Idaho (from Fl.) for Christmas. What a woman. (Nice shout out to you eh, Juhasz?) Now, if she can do it, I can do it. Right?

The theme of this year seems to be "someone else always has it worse." I hear that said at church. My friends and I say it to each other in conversation. I'm glad this is the year for such a theme. Such a mind set will get me far when Drew is gone next year.

An unforeseen happenstance of this deployment announcement has been the realization of how much I love my husband. In life we experience the bitter and the sweet. Usually the two take turns. Sometimes it is bitter. Sometimes it is sweet. I think next year (and in the coming months) we will see the two come hand-in-hand. Family life already feels more precious in just the last 24 hours.

So here's to the future ... I'm so grateful for the knowledge and blessing that our family will be united together forever ... for eternity. In this statement I find peace.