Luvtlee

The pics above are from the morning my husband left after a visit from his tour of duty in Iraq.  We got him home from 1-17 July.  Although I don’t count the 17th as having had him home because we had to wake up at 4 am to get him to the airport in San Diego on time for his 6:30 am flight.  We have done this so many times, at so many different bases and airports.  Each of these trips have combined into one long, dark and sad trip in my mind.  I’ve thought about writing a poem about it, gotta title it something cheesy like “The long dark car trip into loneliness”.  This time when he left us again was the hardest ever.   That first weekend having him gone again was like pure torture…I got sick to my stomach, literally, whenever I would think about him.  I missed him so terribly.  He was feeling the same way.  It’s been really, really hard this time around and neither of us can wait for this tour to end.  I still miss him but I no longer get that sick feeling because I’ve gotten back into my separation mode and don’t allow myself to think of my misery without him.

He’s not just my husband, he’s my confidant, my biggest fan & supporter, my hero, my best friend, my lover, my provider (he and God that is), my partner in raising the kids.  He is a man of great integrity and morality, his loyalty knows no bounds; I trust him implicity.  He is a man of great courage and fears nothing; he would protect anyone with his life, whether or not he knows that person.  His favorite bible verse is this:  Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. - John 15:13.  It’s why he is a Marine.  He wrote an essay on it in his college English course a few years back.  He truly feels that he is making a difference in the world; he wants to save people from tyranny and injustices.

He always makes me laugh, he can bring a smile to my face in any situation.  He knows me better than any one else (aside of God) and knows at any given time how I am feeling and knows what to do to make me feel better if need be.  He is not in touch with his feminine side, I truly don’t think he has one, but that’s okay with me.  One of the things I love best about him is his manliness.  But he is the kindest, most gentlest, considerate lover.

I love him with everything that I am.  He is my life and all I’ve ever known, all I ever care to know.  So much so that when I first came to Christ I had a really hard time putting Christ first, and I do still struggle with it from time to time.  Although, I have come to learn that it’s not just me and my husband in this relationship, there are three of us here now since we became Christians, and I think that is what has enriched our lives the most these past eight years.  I am so thankful to God for having so richly blessed me in giving Brice to me as a husband.

We’ve been together since we were 14 years old.  Married at 18, had our first child at 20.  The kids and I have followed him wherever he was stationed, never without question nor hesitation.  August 8th is his 20th year anniversary for being in the Corps; and aside of all of the deployments, the Marine Corps has treated us well.  He so very much loves being a Marine, to the point that it has defined him for all these years.  It used to be that he was a Marine first, husband and father second, Christian third.  Over the past two years he’s shifting and becoming a Christian husband and father first, Marine second.   Either way though, being a Marine has always been a huge importance in his life.  He loves it so dearly that the thought of not being one has always been a thought he couldn’t bear to think.  He has been phenomenally successful at it, too.  Started out as an enlisted E-1, went up to an E-6 and then got promoted to Warrant Officer and is currently a Cheif Warrant Officer 4…the highest a Cheif Warrant Officer can currently go is a 5.

Which brings me to the purpose of my post today.  Yeah, I have more purpose other than to brag about the most awesomest man alive!  :oP  It breaks my heart to see him in any sort of pain, physical or emotional.

We are in a dilemma that needs much prayer.  Brice is in the zone for promotion to CWO-5, which is something we’ve both wanted for him.  It comes with a huge pay raise and of course the prestige.  BUT, it comes with limits.  We will be limited on where to go for his next duty station.  We’d be forced to move to Okinawa and at this point in our lives Okinawa is not somewhere we want to go.  If we’d gotten orders there 10 years ago, we’d of gone with no hesitation.  But, our oldest is turning 18 in a couple of months and wants to marry her boyfriend.  How could we leave to move to another country so far away when her new life is just beginning?  We want to be here for her if she needs us for anything.  Plus, we want to be active in her life and that just isn’t possible from so far away.  There are other reasons we don’t want to move to Okinawa.  Brice’s parents are older, in their mid 60’s, and his father’s health isn’t the best.  What if something were to happen and we were so far?  Even if nothing did happen, we want to be able to spend time with them, and time grows short for these sorts of things.  There is also my mom to consider.  She’d likely suffer severe depression if we were to move so far away at this point in our lives.  She needs to get her “Thomas Family fix” every couple of months at least.  There is also our pets to consider.  When you move to Okininawa, bringing pets is a huge deal.  You can only bring two pets, and we have four (two dogs & two cats)…first problem…how to decide which two?    Japan hasn’t had a rabies case since 1957 so the rules are very stringent.  First you have to get your pets microchipped then you need to get them two rabies vaccinations after the microchip, then a FAVN test and even after all of that your pet has to be in a 180 day quarantine.  To start the whole process you have to fill out paperwork and fax it to the port of entry at least 40 days before you move, and from what I hear the whole process can take up to seven months.  It’s just insane.  We do have other pets also.  A guinea pig, three rats, a hamster and some fish.  By the time we had to move the hamster will likely have died of old age.  But the guinea pig and rats will still be around and we love them…what would we do with them?  Of course, if we had to go, well then, we’d have to go….and deal with all of this as it comes.  But, we don’t want to have to deal with it all.  Especially leaving our oldest child to deal with her new life on her own.  So, it is with a very heavy heart that my husband now has to write a letter to the board requesting that they overlook him for promotion.  It is without doubt the hardest thing he’s ever had to do in his career.  He knows it’s the right thing to do, but that doesn’t make it any easier.  Please pray for him that he find peace in this matter, because it is truly tearing him apart.

So where do we stand now?  When he comes home from Iraq in February (he is on another 13 month tour), he is going to be teaching his job to new Marines down at the Schoolhouse in Coronado.  He’ll do that for about 2-3 years and then it’s possible he’ll be in the zone to promote again.  At that point we hope that the position here at Camp Pendleton will open again and he can be transferred there rather then the Okinawa position.  If not, he will feel forced to retire.  The thing is, we aren’t quite sure what to do now.  As of the day after tomorrow he will be eligible to retire.  We are debating whether or not he should stay in and take the tour as a teacher down in Coronado (don’t know how we’ll pay the gas money for him to travel there and back each day…that’s 150 miles round trip daily) or if he should just go ahead and put in his retirement package when he returns from Iraq in February.

Putting in for retirement now sounds like a good option up front, but we have concerns with that also.  He makes really good money right now and we’re going to lose a lot of it when he retires.  In order for us to continue with our way of living, he’d have to find a job that pays $60-70k a year (we don’t live richly but the cost of living here for a family our size is just outrageous).  That’s on top of what retirement money (right around $30k a year) we would be getting.  We’d most likely want to move out of state, go somewhere cheaper to live.  We’ve got several options, the best one is to move near Scott AFB in southern Illinois.  The biggest problem with that though is trying to sell our house, it is not going to be easy.  With the way the housing market has plummeted in our area this past year or two, we’d most likely have a hard time selling, and even if we were able to sell we’d most likely take a big loss on it.  We’d most likely lose so much money it’s scary.  It’d be a miracle if we’d break even.
This is one of those situations where we wish that God would give a SHOUT OUT and tell us what to do.  But, we all know that God no longer works like that.  I know, I know…free will and all that.  It would just be nice if we knew without a shadow of doubt that we were doing things within God’s will.  Because then we’d know that we were doing the best possible thing for the best possible outcome, you know?  It’d be so nice if God would just tell us what to do because then there’d be no doubt that we were doing the right thing!

Last Sunday at church God lead me to this verse: We may throw the dice, but the Lord determines how they fall. - Proverbs 16:33.  This verse was totally unrelated to what the sermon was about in church, it just kind of jumped out at me, if you know what I mean.  I felt God was telling me to share it with Brice and that He wanted for us to both meditate and pray over it.  So, I told Brice about it and he has been praying about it, and felt compelled to read all of Proverbs 16 and found 16:3 to say: Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.  So, we feel that with these two verses together, that God is telling us that as long as we commit ourselves to him, it doesn’t matter which we choose, that He will take are of us.  It’s just a bit scary and a bit frustrating when we worry…what if we are interpreting it all wrong?  What if our human minds are reading things into the situation that we aren’t supposed to?  You know what I mean?

We both think that at this point, we are needing to just completely hand the situation over to the Lord and trust that He is going to take care of us no matter what we choose to do.  But, that doesn’t help us to choose what to do.  So, please, pray for us.  In particular, pray that my husband finds peace in his decisions.

Thank you for bearing with me through this long and lengthy post!  I love you guys and I am thankful for you all!

His new mode of transport (haha):