This past month has been a season of growing for me. Jason has traveled for work before, but never for a whole month at a time. This left me with our four year old, our four pets, the house, and other obligations I’m a part of to manage solo. Tonight, after 30 long days and nights we are finally picking Jason up from the airport, and I couldn’t be more ecstatic. Jason and I were both in the Navy, stationed together, however two of our 4 combined deployments we spent away from each other. First – I was in Okinawa Japan, while he was on the remote tiny island of Diego Garcia, smack dab in the middle of the Indian ocean, and once more when he was sent to a city just north of Baghdad in harms way while I was safely in Guam. Both of these times we spent six months apart from each other, and I absolutely cannot imagine ever spending that much time apart again. One month was difficult enough. I can’t imagine if we were only 1/6 of the way through. One month was still a very big change for us. Usually when Jason has had to travel for work he would be gone during the week, and would come home on the weekends, or at most every other weekend, which before [this trip] I thought was excruciating! The first night after Jason left I just crumbled, and wept. I thought I’m never going to make this work, how can I do this? I reached out to God, and told Him [audibly] that I couldn’t do it on my own, and how much I needed Him. “From the depths of despair, O Lord, I call for your help.”Psalm 130:1 I’ve heard of people calling on the help of God, and I’ve called on Him before, but never like this. 1 Peter 5:7 says, “Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you”, and Proverbs 3:5 states, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding.” I decided in that moment to fully surrender my life again to His command and trust that he would get us through. By obeying God in this way – to let him be in the drivers seat, He provided in ways I never could have imagined. Everything always seemed to work out. If I had things to do – that required concentration, Kirra seemed content to entertain herself (which is new). I had more patience with everyone, and amazingly everything seemed to get done. At times it was like God made time stand still so I could get everything done I needed to, because my evenings never flew by. I saw his Word fulfilled in my life this past month through Isaiah 26:12, “Lord, you will grant us peace. All we have accomplished is really from you” and from Paul in 2 Corinthians 3:5, “Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God.” God provided me with people as well. He provided me with friends and family members to watch Kirra when things came up, or when I needed a much needed break last weekend to go downhill skiing with my siblings. He provided the neighborhood girl to play with Kirra two weeks ago when I was trying to get a particular task complete. God provides! People ask me how I do it. How do I go for 14 days to a month without my husband. Without his support romantically, as a father, and as an extra set of hands to help, how do I do it? I was able to do this – because my Father was along side me the entire time. When asked that question in the past, I usually said, “I don’t know”, or “I just keep busy”, or “we’ve done it before”, or “I only have one child”, but those aren’t really what gets me through it. God gets me through it. I do it with Gods help. So tonight we’re picking up my best friend, my husband, and Kirra’s daddy whom we’ve both missed so incredibly much. I cannot wait to run into his arms at the airport. Instead of doing the “drive by”, I’m parking my car,and waiting at the end of the escalator inside, so I can run to him with Kirra and embrace each each other. My eyes are filling with tears at the prospect of our reunion in a hopefully fast 11-12 hours. I won’t cease needing Gods help, and my prayer is that I don’t become complacent about needing to rely on God even with Jason now home. “My lover has arrived and he’s speaking to me! Get up,my dear friend,fair and beautiful lover – come to me” Song of Solomon 2:10