fannie and joseph

i read the life story of lance's great-grandma, fannie, while we were at the beach with his family. i had requested a copy to read at the beach because i'm a big genealogy/family history geek. fannie (how was that name ever popular?) was amazing and lance's grandpa, dad and uncle all tell me, "oh you would have loved her!" 

fannie's husband died when he was 32 and they already had five children, ages seven and under. he was killed in a farm machinery accident and lance's grandpa still remembers his mom carrying in his dad's bloody body from the barn after it happened. he was only six - what a memory to carry!

fannie writes that after that happened and she was DEVASTATED, she went upstairs to change out of her blood-stained dress and saw a vivid vision of Jesus. she knew that He was with her then and always would be, and that somehow everything would be okay and He would give her the strength she needed. AMAZING.

she had a few verses that she clung to for the next few years, and different verses that were dear to her during each and every trial in her life. her oldest son died in a car accident in a blizzard when he was maybe 20, and her youngest daughter was killed in her 50s in a wretched plane crash along with her husband and their newlywed daughter and her husband. (such a destructive crash that everything disintegrated and the bodies were never found.)

i wish i had written down fannie's favorite verses (so forgetful lately, hmm) but i'll seek out some just for me for this upcoming season ... of lance deploying. gulp. i am dreading it. i have some sanity-preparedness-plans in place, but it's still overwhelming. that feeling of loneliness with your husband/very-best-friend far away for a chunk of time is just lurking over my shoulder. must. fight. it. with. scripture. no better option.

marriage has been hard and challenging FOR SURE, but i can ALREADY see how much we've grown and how much closer we've become. and that's fantastic, glorious really ... but it makes deployment scarier, because i love him more than ever before, and more than i've ever loved any other person.

our first few months of marriage have been a greenhouse for growth. getting married is a huge change in itself, but getting married ... moving to a new state (and culture - hello deep south!) ... leaving a job you love and searching for a new job ... trying to make friends ... adjusting to military life (hard!) ... AND finding out you're pregnant!?! WHOA. greenhouse for growth might be an understatement.

as disheartening as it is to hear and read over and over about how the hardest times produce the greatest growth, it is so true. (do you hear and read that all the time or is it just me?) before marriage, it was pretty easy for me to think/pretend i was a good person. i didn't really have to "go deep" in relationships. marriage shoved my selfishness, immaturity, brattiness in my face and sometimes (like this morning) i'll be at church worshipping or singing at home and i think, 'poor lance must think i'm the biggest hypocrite in the world! i'm so horrible to him and he sees all of my faults and ...' on and on i could go.

but somehow lance still loves me, forgives me, and sticks with me ... and that's what you call being very blessed. one of the things i love most about life and growing up, is seeing the goodness of God in everything He ordained for us - He designed marriage for our good and it is so, so good! i love it! i love having a best friend and someone to share everyone with, and i love starting our own family together - yet another awesome part of God's plan and design for us.

and no one loves the hard stuff, but anyone who has seen tom hanks in one of the greatest movies of all time knows: "it's supposed to be hard. it it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. the hard is what makes it great."

God is so faithful and loving, and the stuff He plans for us is so better than what we'd come up with on our own.

so i think i just wrote myself a lesson without meaning to: even though deployment will be hard, and you'll probably feel really lonely and a whole range of other intense emotions, you're going to grow. and you shake your head and say you don't want to grow anymore, you've had enough growth for awhile, but the stuff that comes from growth is fruit, and that's way better than the stuff that comes from immaturity, comfort and complacency - they yield nothing but more of the same ... and perhaps added misery.

gulp. need to find those verses ASAP ... but here is a verse i read yesterday and loved. you know how sometimes God gives you fresh eyes or a fresh look at scripture, and it's like you're reading the verse for the first time ever, even though you've likely read it many times, and you're wondering how you missed such a gem?! that's how deuteronomy 33:13-16 hit me ...

"About Joseph he said: 

May the Lord bless his land with the precious dew from heaven above 

and with the deep waters that lie below; 

with the best the sun brings forth and the finest the moon can yield; 

with the choicest gifts of the ancient mountains and the fruitfulness of the everlasting hills; 

with the best gifts of the earth and its fullness 

and the favor of him who dwelt in the burning bush. 

Let all these rest on the head of Joseph, 

on the brow of the prince among his brothers."

[Deuteronomy 33:13-16]

i am praying this blessing over our baby - especially: "the favor of him who dwelt in the burning bush." i could say something about each of the above verses, and how beautiful and powerful it is to me, but lance and i both get bored at church when the pastor dissects a verse that just jumps out at him, repeating the same exclamations, but it's not necessarily jumping out in the same way to the hundreds of people in the audience ... so i will spare you. 

i will say that it's extra special to me because my dad's name is joseph benjamin. i love that name! (but it is not in any of our baby names, ha. keep guessing.) i so wish i could ask my grandparents how they picked it out, or why it was significant to them. my dad recently compared his relationship with his dad/my grandpa to that of the one in johnny cash's song "a boy named sue," but he sure got a better name out of his dad than that guy did. i vaguely remember him saying one time that pappy hated his name (ephraim benjamin, which i incidentally also love) so he wanted to give his son a more normal sounding name, or something like that. 

i plan to send the verse to my dad this week and pray it for him too. i miss him. he is excited to be a grandpa and that makes me so happy. having a dad who has confidence in you is so reassuring. like whatever i have ever embarked on in life, my dad has had full confidence in my ability to succeed at it and i love that. (EXCEPT for the time i proudly told him i was in the gifted class in elementary school, with only a handful of other students. he said something like, "oh special education huh? we used to call those kids the speds and make fun of them. so you're gonna be a sped?" damn it dad, not that kind of sped, come on. but i guess that's not to say he didn't believe in me then too.)

i think we all crave that - knowing someone you love and look up to is confident in you. it's something we should give to people more. believe in them and their ability to succeed and let them know you do. encourage their dreams and endeavors instead of crushing them with criticism or who knows what.

i love the verse about benjamin too. moses declares about benjamin in deut. 33:12: "Let the beloved of the Lord rest secure in him, for he shields him all day long, and the one the Lord loves rests between his shoulders." 

sounds to me like the greatest peace you could ask for - resting secure and protected between God's shoulders, knowing your identity is His beloved one. looks like i just found one of my "deployment" verses!

seems like writing this post was more for me than anyone else, but maybe it encouraged someone else out there in internet land too. have a wonderful week, friends!