The Waiting Place

That's where we've been the last few weeks/months. I don't "do" waiting well. I'm the type who will take a longer detour just so I don't have to wait in traffic, and if I'm stuck in the waiting room at a doctor's office, my blood pressure WILL go up if I don't have something to do- give me a magazine PLEASE!!!

What are we waiting on? Decisions to be made about my husband's career in the Army. If things had gone the way we had planned, he would be coming home in a few weeks and we would take off for most of the summer and just have family time. However, I mentioned it a few months ago, but my husband had some health issues that prevented him from returning to Iraq after his two week R&R- a mixed blessing of sorts. It's a very long story, but he had blood clots in his lungs (could have been due to a variety of things) and had to go on blood thinner. Blood thinner and war zones don't mix. This is not the first time, so many questions have been raised and what it boils down to is that he is having a medical board done which will decide his future with the military. In the mean time, we have to hurry up and wait, lots of speculations and no real answers. Plus there is a grey cloud hanging over my head in that he could potentially have to go to a base (the nearest one being 5 hours away) for about 8 months while the medical board is being done. We've already endured a year of separation as a family- is that really necessary to go through another one?

In spite of all of this, I consider us blessed. That realization came when hubby was told by a very well qualified doctor (several degrees from both Harvard and MIT) that he should congratulate himself on being alive. This was after the doctor had reviewed his CT scans and saw how bad the pulmonary embolism (blood clots in lungs) were. I don't want to imagine what would have happened had hubby not gone to the hospital.

Dr. Seuss calls the waiting place a most useless place, but that is where I will disagree with him. Although I don't like it, it is a necessary place. My faith and trust in God is being tested and strengthened. I believe He holds our future in His hands and I trust that ultimately He will work all things together for the best (Romans 8:28). Whether that means we stay with the Army or not, well, that remains to be seen (and not apparently any time soon either.) Isaiah 40:29-31 has been my comfort during this time: "29He gives strength to the weary, and to him who lacks might He increases power. 30Though youths grow weary and tired, and vigorous young men stumble badly, 31Yet those who wait for the LORD will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary."