Guilty as Charged!!!

The first post that I read this morning, was Barb's contribution over at "Faith Lifts". Barb is an amazing lady and she inspires me in so many ways, but one thing I've always looked up to, is her faith. It was surprising to me to read how her faith has been shaken the past week due to something her and her husband are dealing with.

It shouldn't have come as a shock, I'm guilty as charged of doing the same thing, and mind you, not just once, but time and time again.

I love the Lord and I'm pretty strong in my faith. I know He's there, I know where my blessings come from, but yet from time to time, when life is going great and everything seems to be running smoothly, I tend to overlook Him. I become complacent, I push Him aside with excuses of not having time, or being too busy. I forget to thank Him daily for the blessings in my life and ashamed as I am to admit, days will go by when I don't speak to Him.

Usually that's when He will decide to send me a wake up call. Something that will phase me, now mind you, it can't be something little, because I'm so caught up in my perfect little life, that I don't see it.

For me there have been a couple of times, and one would think that by now I would have learnt my lesson, but I'm only human and in His eyes, I'm only a child, I'm going to make mistakes over and over and act without thinking from time to time.

One of the biggest wake up calls for me, was about 2 years ago. Again, life was great, my husband had just sewn on his Staff Sergeant stripe, which meant almost $500 extra a month. We were happy, after the two miscarriages, I had just had Nicholas, he was 6 months old, we had extra money, we were all healthy and life was good.

That is until one morning. Hubby was working midshift, which was from 11pm to 7am. He would come home, go upstairs and kiss me goodmorning, before heading to bed himself. I was laying there and heard him come in, he walked up to bed, sat down and said "I almost died tonight". I jumped up and said "WHAT?!?!? What do you mean?".

Seems that one of the airman he was supervising that night, decided to mess around and fill some plastic bottles with liquid oxygen. A big NO NO!!! When my husband went to dispose of these bottles, one of them exploded in his hands. The impact was so big that it shook the hangar doors and the bottle was impaled on a tree a couple of feet away. But my husband walked away with not a single scratch, just deaf for a few days.

That wasn't the only thing, they had just gotten a new commander the day before, and he had expressed the need to "make an example" out of the next person that messed up. Because my husband was the supervisor when this happened, both he and the airman lost a stripe. The promotion that he had worked so hard on getting and studying for, was removed and so was the money.

I remember the day he went in to talk to his commander, to find out his punishment. I stayed home and prayed so hard, I literally begged God to please, please not let him loose his stripe, anything but that. The minute my husband walked through the door, I knew THAT was exactly what had happened.

I was angry, at him, at God and at everything. I felt betrayed, I remember thinking "Why??? would would you say you love me and then let something like this happen? Didn't I beg you hard enough, didn't you hear me pleading with you?".
The reality of what had just happened hit me like a bomb. We had the same bills, but less money every payday, the people my husband had been supervising were now HIS superiors and he was given 6 months to retest for his stripe and if he didn't make it, he was OUT. His whole career thrown out the window because of a stupid mistake someone else made under his watch.

Now became my fight, my fight for sanity and my fight to remain faithful to God. My hardest struggle??? Keeping my husband sane and from turning away from the Father. There were days that I cried myself to sleep, it was hard, it was the hardest time I've ever gone through. Our paychecks were around $400, and now I had to juggle, pay bills and buy groceries. If I paid the bills we wouldn't eat, and if we ate, the bills would suffer.

But in that minute that I found out about his punishment, it was a HUGE wake up call. I yelled and God was there, I complained and whined and God was there, I cried my eyes out and God was there. Then I felt ashamed and regretful for needing something so big to make me remember Him again. I got down on my knees and sat at His feet every night, I told Him how hard things were and how tired I was of trying to make ends meet.

It wasn't easy, it took 6 months of hardship, but one thing that never shook was my faith in Him....not after that first day.

I think I learnt my lesson, do I believe that I'll be complacent again in the future? Oh it's a sure bet.
Do I believe that He will have to use something big again? Probably, but I've grown so much closer to Him the past year that I doubt it will take something as big.

But for today, I'm thanking Him, for everything. For all the good and for all the bad, because if it wasn't for all the struggles I've been through, I wouldn't be the woman that I am today, I've seen the ugly side and I'm still seeing the wonderful and beautiful side of being with God, and I'm going to try my hardest to NEVER let anything come between us again.