From The Chaplain's Wife

I am the wife of a Chaplain in the United States Navy who is currently serving with the United States Marines in Afghanistan. He has a blog in which he chronicles, as much as he is able, some of his journey through life as a chaplain. This is my blog in which I am very hit or miss simply chronicling my life, mostly as a mother, actually mostly the lives of our children. I think I have posted once on my husband's blog, and very rarely do I mention on this blog how anything with the Chaplaincy affects me. That is partly because one of the main reasons I started my blog was simply as a way to let family know through pictures and some text what was going on with the kids since, at the time, we were living away from both sides of the family. The blog wasn't so much about Philip and I. Grandparents want to know about the grandkids! Not their kids! LOL!

A couple weeks ago I was driving home from my parents' cabin with all four kids in the back of the van. I spent most of the trip with the IPod coming through the speakers set to just randomly play through my Christian music. An hour or two from home a song by Steven Curtis Chapman came on and it got me thinking about my life in general, but specifically about the last two years. It got me thinking about where we are today and what brought us to this point. The song finished, but I needed to hear it again so I flipped the IPod to the Steven Curtis Chapman CD and began listening to it again. I was lost in thought when the song finished and the next song, randomly selected from within the CD, began. Another song totally relating to our journey toward and in the Chaplaincy, as well as a topic both of us have been contemplating and discussing for months both before and during this current deployment! Not surprisingly, the third randomly selected song from his CD was also quite a propos to the situation, as well. My brain was turning a mile a minute! At that point, for a reason quite unknown to me now, I had to pull off the highway for a stop - gas, food bathroom, discipline? Who knows. Who really cares? Anyhow, when we got back on the highway, I don't know if I even turned any music back on immediately - I had so much going through my mind. Already I was thinking I ought to blog my thoughts.

Over the past two years, Philip and I have gotten many questions and many confused looks, and many people who have known us before we headed in this direction didn't really seem to support or agree with our decision. This post is the beginning of a short series I want to do on our journey in the Chaplaincy from my perspective - the why's and how's and how are we doing.