Don't Worry. Be HAPPY!

Here we go again!

Another business trip is looming on the ever- nearing horizon.

Steve is being sent out again, last minute with no preparation to head to all places, Las Vegas, for a few weeks to complete a project.

I am struggling with finding the smallest bit of happiness with this bombshell after it was dropped on me last night.

Immediately my mood changed, not for the worse, but more melancholy.

Like the air was just let out of my balloon that I had just had blown up. Not popped thankfully, but like, the spitting sound that it makes when you let go of it, just after you got it blown up.

Then you watch it scatter all over the air and then land in a flop on the floor.

Yup, that’s me.

The balloon flopped on the floor.

God has been preparing me, often times in the harshest of ways for this time once again.

Call me co-dependent, but I honestly love having my husband home at the end of the workday.

I could live with a trip through the weekend, I am still OK. Missing him terribly but still OK.

Then God expanded that thinking for me. He stretched it out for two weeks.

Yikes, I often questioned God’s ability to know just how much I could take without popping. Exploding all over the first person who became my pin. Miraculously I dealt with it.

It wasn’t so hard and I loved the feeling of him coming home. Wait God isn’t finished yet.

Then Steve came home for 4 days only to leave again for three more weeks. Get out the padded cell, Mom’s going in!!!

Yet, I came out of it alive. I got phone calls daily and I think we as a family made it through a tough war, scarred but still intact. Time away changes things. You have to deal with all the little things alone.

You don’t have that extra pair of hands to help you when you need it.

You have to regroup and deal without dad. Everyone does. Until he comes home.

God eventually stretched this out to a full 5 weeks before we saw that it was straining our marriage a little too much and church counseling was necessary. Mostly because I couldn’t deal with the fact of talking to friends only to hear the same old excuses, “be happy your hubby is working when so many aren’t” “It’s just a few days away, others have done it.”, “at least it will pay your bills and you’ll still have a home?”

What we needed was our pastor to tell us that the sacrifices we were making for our marriage were too great.

It doesn’t really help. The excuses, part.

I already know all those things, it just doesn’t make it any easier to watch my hubby leave, and we aren’t sure exactly when he will be headed home.

So we prayed a lot! Daily, nightly, two or three times, or whenever we had a low moment. God answered and kept him home for a little bit.

Now we are at the crossroads again.

Just when things are starting to seem like a family again, we stand at the door and knock.

At this point, I believe I am pounding on the door, pleading and begging for God to tell us, what to do? Does my husband continue with this job and we trust God to know when enough is enough for our family? Or do we try and find something else that will pay the bills and still keep us together as a family?

I feel that we are to wait at this point. Wait for God to open that door for us, or to close it entirely.

So until that time, we wait.

I learn to deal with things.

I try hard to imitate the Proverbs 31 woman, and be all that I can be to him while he is home.

I lift him up in prayer and ask for God’s hand in dealing with this.

I trust.

I trust God knows what He is doing.

I trust that God will work this out for us.

I trust that all the temptations that may face him in Las Vegas, he will overcome thanks to God.

I pray that God will remove him from that situation as soon as he can, but for now I believe in God.

I believe in what is written, "that all things work for the good of those that love the Lord". I hold onto to that and trust God.

What else can I do? I believe it is enough for now.