If you can't say anything nice...

I was just chatting with Ben (well, texting with him really since he's actually at work tonight) and we realized that it was exactly one year ago that he relinquished command of the 66th Military Police Company. Wow... at the time I thought that command would never end! The late nights at work, middle-of-the-night phone calls, never ending disasters and countless hours of work. I am so proud of my husband for the job that he did as the Commander of the Fightin' Double Six!

Looking back on it now I think that the 19 crazy months of command time were just training for the chaos we have had since then. In the past year we have endured failed adoptions, a deployment, a PCS (permanent change of station), multiple serious illnesses, a very broken vehicle, a whole lot of craziness with the house that we are renting (sewage backed up into our yard for weeks, wasps and fleas in the house, mold issues...) along with some other things that I'd rather not share. It has been one wild ride over the past year and I have to say that I'm hoping that it is over!

After dealing with a whole lot of health issues over the past few months I am really happy to say that I am finally starting to feel like myself again! Which is a huge relief to me and I'm sure that it has to be a relief to my family as well, especially Hunter since he is done with school now so he's stuck with me all day! Ha!

I certainly don't want to sound like I am whining or complaining, what I really want to say is that life is hard. Really hard! And it is so easy to let it get the best of us sometimes. While I don't yet know what God has in store for us, I know that we haven't been drug though the muck and endured all of the trials of the past year simply so that we can give up. Before we entered this year of chaos I completed a Bible study on the book of James that seriously changed my life. I have never been so challenged as I was during this study and so it only seems appropriate to turn to James 1:2-4;

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 

because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 

Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

I want to consider all of these trials to be joys. I really do. And it is NOT easy. God has surely been working in me, and in Ben as well, to produce perseverance. I can't wait for perseverance to finish it's work, mostly because I am tired, but also because I want to be complete. I want to know what it feels like to not lack anything. And although I am certain that on this side of heaven we will never be free from trials because we will never be complete, I am trying to be content knowing that all of the trials and tribulations in this life are for our own maturation and so that we can be complete. That makes my heart so happy. 

 Complete:

all, entire, exhaustive, faultless, full, hook line and sinker, intact, integral, integrated, lock stock and barrel, outright, plenary, replete, the works, thorough, unabbreviated, unabridged, unbroken, , uncut, undiminished, undivided, unimpaired, unitary, unreduced, whole, whole enchilada, whole nine yards

I ache to be complete. And until I am I will do my best to consider it joy when I face the inevitable trials of life - or at the very least I will stick to what my mom taught me:

"If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all"

Love you all, and thanks for reading my ramblings!

E