Seasons

Well... I'm back! Patrick was scheduled to deploy at the end of of October, but his deployment got moved up 2 months and we found ourselves with only 9 days to prepare for his early departure. My husband, along with countless other husbands and wives who are part of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, deployed aboard the ships of Kearsarge Amphibious Ready Group in late August responding to an order by the Secretary of Defense to support Pakistan flood relief efforts. As of now, we don't have a solid return date- some sources estimate 9 months, but Patrick and I are praying and believing for him to be home *SAFE & SOUND* within 7 months.

This photo above was taken of Marines with 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit and sailors aboard USS Kearsarge as they "man the rails" as they deploy from Naval Station Norfolk, Va., Aug. 27, 2010.

As I looked at these pictures, amazed by how this HUGE ship was literally lined with men and women (one of them- somewhere- my husband) I couldn't help but wonder how many other wives were looking at the same photos....

It's never a fun thing to be torn apart from the one you love. Days get lonely and the security of having that other 1/2 next to you is gone. It's long, lonely, overwhelming and sometimes it just plan SUCKS. Let's face it: Deployments are hard.

Life is hard.

But life is also good.

We may not have a choice in this deployment, or whatever other hard situation life has thrown our way, but we do have a choice in how we handle it; how we react to it, and how we live through it. Make the choice today to look for the good and focus less on the bad. Remember, no matter what you're going through, this is just a season, and all seasons, thankfully, come and go.