How God used a discharged Navy Seaman to change my life forever and I don't even know his name
The 18 year old me had a lot of big dreams, really big dreams. She had this plan all worked out in her head that she was going to join the Navy as a cook and some day rule the world. This naive young woman boarded a bus heading for Peach Tree City, Georgia from Baltimore, Maryland and by the Grace of God after sitting next to a real creep was rescued by an upstanding young man who had just been discharged from the Navy. She told him of her lofty dream, the one about being a Navy cook not the one about ruling the world, and he told her the facts about being in the Navy. The short story was that it sucked being a woman in the Navy and he encouraged her to look into the Air Force instead.
Fast forward a few months and that is just what the 18 year old me did. However being a cook in the Air Force instead of in the Navy was not how my adventure went. I was home schooled which meant I enlisted Open General and was given whatever job the Air Force saw fit. I was too smart to go into Security Forces haha (seriously that is where most OG, brains or not, get slotted ) so I got Medical Technician. The rest is history as you know I married one of those Security Forces (his choice, not OG) guys and started a family leaving my military dreams behind me, at least in the active duty sense and fully embraced the active (in)dependent stance I am in now. I still plan to rule the world.
If I had never met that young man on his way home to mama how different would my life be? Looking back at just how life lined up to get me to where I am now it is very clear God used this guy to change my course of history. It was that conversation that not only changed my branch interest but really got me to take the plunge and enlist. Once enlisted I was told it would be months before I would head to basic. I went back to my old job and two weeks later I quit again, had a going away party and was off, I guess someone was not able to go and I took their place. I sprained my knee in basic training and was still able to graduate thanks to a high pain tolerance and good old stubbornness. I made it to tech school where I excelled in a class that over 50% of my classmates recycled, that means they had to retake a section and did not graduate with the class. My grades afforded me the opportunity to change my orders from a base on the East Coast very close to my family, to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. It was a huge decision, I was pulled out of my class and told that this was being offered to me and I had to let them know by the end of the school day what I was going to do. A Staff Sargent who was cross training told me it was the best thing I could do for my career and that I needed to do it. So I did. I can't say it was the best career move I ever made but I can say that God was moving my future spouses orders around at the same time so that we would ultimately end up in the same place at the same time.
Two days after arriving in Colorado Springs while standing in the common room at the dorms in walked the cutest guy I had ever laid eyes on! That was October 2000 we were married April 2001.
Things happen for a reason. Not all things are good, that path was not all peaches and cream trust me, but in the end God knew what He was doing and got me through it. I was saved at a very young age, and while my relationship with my Savior has been constant (meaning He is always with me) my faith in Him has not. It wavers, it wains. It is often down right pitiful. I don't take the time to look at the big picture and the landscape He has painted for me. If I did my faith probably wouldn't plummet the way the thermometer does here in North Dakota. If I knew the end result was this even with the pain and the hurt that went beyond physical then I would start the journey with more faith. Instead I always seem to end the journey with more faith then I started with. I think that is human, it is human to approach life's journeys with fear and trepidation instead of faith. If the Israelite people knew what the Promised Land was like and that winning it was already done in Gods hands they wouldn't have been so fearful to just go in and take it.
I will just leave you with this from Jeremiah 29
10This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. 11For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity.b I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”
Fast forward a few months and that is just what the 18 year old me did. However being a cook in the Air Force instead of in the Navy was not how my adventure went. I was home schooled which meant I enlisted Open General and was given whatever job the Air Force saw fit. I was too smart to go into Security Forces haha (seriously that is where most OG, brains or not, get slotted ) so I got Medical Technician. The rest is history as you know I married one of those Security Forces (his choice, not OG) guys and started a family leaving my military dreams behind me, at least in the active duty sense and fully embraced the active (in)dependent stance I am in now. I still plan to rule the world.
If I had never met that young man on his way home to mama how different would my life be? Looking back at just how life lined up to get me to where I am now it is very clear God used this guy to change my course of history. It was that conversation that not only changed my branch interest but really got me to take the plunge and enlist. Once enlisted I was told it would be months before I would head to basic. I went back to my old job and two weeks later I quit again, had a going away party and was off, I guess someone was not able to go and I took their place. I sprained my knee in basic training and was still able to graduate thanks to a high pain tolerance and good old stubbornness. I made it to tech school where I excelled in a class that over 50% of my classmates recycled, that means they had to retake a section and did not graduate with the class. My grades afforded me the opportunity to change my orders from a base on the East Coast very close to my family, to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. It was a huge decision, I was pulled out of my class and told that this was being offered to me and I had to let them know by the end of the school day what I was going to do. A Staff Sargent who was cross training told me it was the best thing I could do for my career and that I needed to do it. So I did. I can't say it was the best career move I ever made but I can say that God was moving my future spouses orders around at the same time so that we would ultimately end up in the same place at the same time.
Two days after arriving in Colorado Springs while standing in the common room at the dorms in walked the cutest guy I had ever laid eyes on! That was October 2000 we were married April 2001.
Things happen for a reason. Not all things are good, that path was not all peaches and cream trust me, but in the end God knew what He was doing and got me through it. I was saved at a very young age, and while my relationship with my Savior has been constant (meaning He is always with me) my faith in Him has not. It wavers, it wains. It is often down right pitiful. I don't take the time to look at the big picture and the landscape He has painted for me. If I did my faith probably wouldn't plummet the way the thermometer does here in North Dakota. If I knew the end result was this even with the pain and the hurt that went beyond physical then I would start the journey with more faith. Instead I always seem to end the journey with more faith then I started with. I think that is human, it is human to approach life's journeys with fear and trepidation instead of faith. If the Israelite people knew what the Promised Land was like and that winning it was already done in Gods hands they wouldn't have been so fearful to just go in and take it.
I will just leave you with this from Jeremiah 29
10This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. 11For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity.b I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”
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