Ever since I started dating Jason, I have had many people tell me that they could never be a military wife. I know what they are trying to say, and I certainly don’t take offense when I know that they mean well. They mean it as a compliment to me, or they mean it to be sympathetic to the challenges that we go through. But one thing that I have realized in thinking today about what it means to be a military wife (or husband, for that matter if you fall into that category) is that it is often not something that we chose.
I didn’t choose to be separated from my husband for months at a time. I didn’t choose to drive back and forth from college to his house every weekend for a year just so that we could spend the day together. Of course I don’t want that. But I do want to be married to Jason, and I did choose to fall in love with him. I opened my heart to the possibility of love, and with that vulnerability comes the possibility of getting hurt.
The hurt of being separated is strange. But I don’t think that it is any more strange than the pain of a loosing a spouse, or the pain of a sick child, or the pain of financial hardship.
Jesus tells us that in this world we will have trouble, but to take heart because he has overcome the world. Right now my version of that means being separated from the one that I love most on this planet. But you have a version of this too. If you don’t, then you have not lived long enough. It will come. When it does, remember that there is a reason that you are going through these challenges.
So no, maybe you would not choose to be a military spouse. But I bet that if you fell as deeply in love with someone in the military as I have, you would think twice about it. If you felt like God was leading you to be with someone in the military, you would think twice about it. Just because you don’t spend months away from those you love, doesn’t mean that your strength is less than mine.
Don’t belittle yourself. You are strong. Your strength does not look like mine, but it’s there. My strength comes from God, and I know that without him I certainly could never be a military wife either. But here I am! And I am blessed a thousand times over because of it.
The Airman's Wife 