How Do You Choose?

Welcome to Five-Minute Friday, where writers madly scramble to respond in five minutes to a one-word prompt. No editing, no revisiting, just the page, the thoughts, the words, and the timer. The word today: Free. 

Our Creator was. And is. And is to come.
Eons passed in His Void before He spoke.
From His breath, emptiness became.
Darkness, light, heavens, earth, oceans, and sky.
All that we know, all that we are, fashioned and molded
Lovingly, purposefully, with great gentleness and quiet command.

Thou shalt not eat of the tree...

But we did. And we do. And we will continue.
Children of Mighty Jehovah
Created with free will

And there are wars.
And there is poverty,
And slavery,
And abuse.
Neglect,
Manipulation,
Great sadness,
And terror.

But there is also kindness.
There is sacrifice,
And humility,
And community,
Joy,
Hope,
Seeds of faith,
and grace.

Created with free will.

How do you choose?

I wanted to respond to the shooting in Chattanooga, a terrorist act against our military. My husband is military. I am military. I remember the shooting on Fort Hood. The shut-down of schools - the scrambling to pick up my daughter - the frantic phone calls and text messages to know that my husband was safe. For our family, peace in the moment. For others, a forever reminder that our world is not. Not  

And now this. Again. It is one thing to know, intellectually, from a distance, that we are hated. It is another to feel it, see it, in acts of terror in our own home. 

The problem is free will. The answer is free will. In all things. I choose to not be frightened by circumstances, both beyond my control and beyond my comprehension because I believe in Jesus Christ, my Savior, and my hope for a new world. A better world. A world I will be a part of. I choose hope. I choose love. I choose joy.

You Are My Home

Therefore a man leaves his father and mother and embraces his wife. They become one flesh.

Genesis 2:24  The Message

I am a military wife.  I am proud of my husband and the choices he has made to serve his country and to provide for his family,  He has been deployed three times - away from us,  his family, three times.  Many have handled more separation; many have handled more separation with younger families and little or not support.  Even so, even though we understood the circumstances, even though we were able to communicate on a regular basis, even though we knew the limits of the time we would be apart, and even though we had amazing support through family, church, and my own work - even so - deployment is difficult.  Worry is always lurking - worry for safety - prayers for wholeness - physical, mental, and spiritual.  The families left behind find ways to pick up the slack left by the absence of one of their members.  Find ways to attend to the emptiness, the missing, the hole in their everydays.  Lives get smaller, or busy-er.  Lives are torn apart, or pulled closer.

I heard something the other day.  You are my home.  So true.  It allowed me to better understand my husband's deployments - our separations.  Sometimes, in the moments, it's too hard, too close to label.  I'm one of those people who believe if you can name it, admit to it, take responsibility for it, then you can better determine how to handle/change/fix it.  You just can't fix everything.  At least, not without the waiting. This poem is my label.  The part of me without my daughter, without my job - the isolated connected-body-and-soul-to-my-husband part of me that just wanted him near.

You Are My Home

She tried them on

Like new clothes

Words

In her mind

Treading softly

Through cathedral caverns

Of memories and 

Threads of conversation

You are my home.

Not lost

Not afraid

Not timid

Outside of herself

She roamed

In the needs of others

Winding and twisting

Like a mountain road

You are my home.

Busy

Hovering, pushing

Thoughts and images

to the periphery

Away from living 

Away from yearning

Moment by moment

Today

You are my home.

She accomplished.

She did

What had to be done.

As anyone would.

Not special.

Not strong.

Leaning 

Like a tree in the wind

You are my home.

Soon

Boots on the ground, soon.

The hardest part

The looking-forward part

The can't-forget-him part

The getting-ready part

Anticipation

And restless waiting

"You are my home."

She breathes to her soldier

Upon his return

From far-off

From far-wide

From worlds away.

Bodies grown together

Like a lifetime.

No letting go.

"You are my home," he whispers back.

I am constantly amazed at the works of God.  I don't believe in coincidence.  We are always in His divine plan.  After writing this post, I was looking through and catching up with my friends on facebook.  I would like to share this video - posted by a friend in Texas.  Timely and beautiful - called Shadow Dance.  

Heavenly Father. you are an awesome God.  Thank you for small reminders, everyday, of you, you who are in charge and in whose hands we live.  Thank you for my husband - for the gift of his being home.