October | 2013 | Turquoise Tomatoes

Today marks a special day for our family.

Our Prince Charming has been home for a FULL YEAR!!!!

As you can imagine, it was a VERY emotional day!

The day daddy arrived home, he had spent a total of 5 weeks of this girl’s life with her (she turned 1 twenty-one days before he came home). Thankfully, they are big buddies (it must have been all of those skype dates.)

I’m so thankful that we have a year of new memories, ones that include daddy at every turn! Our family has adjusted beautifully back to normal this past year, and for that I am so grateful. We have quite a few friends who are deployed/have spouses who are deployed, and I hold each of you close in my heart and prayers. Rest in Jesus my friends, it will be over soon!

One of the biggest blessings during our deployment year was our church family (and still is!). They wrapped around us as we did life for a year. They emailed and loved on my husband on the other side of the world. You will be cherished in our hearts for life. Thanks to all of you who came to the airport that day, and waited hours, to honor our soldiers and our family. We love you!

Thank you Lord for your blessing of family.

So, it has been quite a while since my last post. 😦 This has been a very busy season for me. I write MANY posts in my head, and they just haven’t found their way to words on a screen yet. Maybe one day….like December when microbiology is over…( insert happy dance HERE!)… So the real reason we’re here tonight….

Lately, I seem to see marriage encouragement just about everywhere (I love Darlene Schacht who blogs at Time-Warp Wife). Did you see this post on 25 Ways to Communicate Respect (found over at www.lovinglifeathome.com)? Well, tonight, I want to share some encouragement with you from my little corner of the blogger world.

So..before we EVEN get started, lets be honest…sometimes we all have better weeks than others in our marriages. Sometimes, we don’t communicate well for a few days. Or we let the tiniest (and not so tiny) things ruffle our feathers. We had one of those “few days” recently. And thankfully, we are on the other side. I love the words of Exodus 15:13

“With your unfailing love you lead the people you have redeemed. In your might, you guide them to your sacred home.”

Praise God we are redeemed people….and that He leads us. One place He has lead us lately is to pray together each night. Rob started this new tradition just last night (well, restarting something we did before he deployed) – we each mention one (or maybe two) things we would like the other to pray for, and as we stand in each others arms, we pray specifically for each other. People, there is POWER in those sweet moments we spend together in communion with our Creator – the two sinful humans, redeemed by His blood that He brought together for His purpose. I find myself praying for him more throughout the day and excited for his return in the evenings. It seems to be centering my heart in finding joy in our journey (even in the midst of lots of dishes!)

I just want to encourage you to be listening to the Holy Spirit and His leading in your heart, and be asking specifically for Him to strengthen your marriage with His touch– and adjust, if necessary, its reflection of Christ and the church.

**and just a note to any dating/engaged readers….please be careful praying alone together, it creates such an emotional attachment that can lead places it doesn’t need to outside of marriage**