December 10, 2020
Jeremy had his interview board for the Air Force this afternoon. I want to write some thoughts down while it's fresh. The last several months have been quite the roller coaster, to say the least. From getting accepted to the Army, going to CHBOLC, getting ready to move, and then rejecting the appointment (while still at CHBOLC), and then coming home and reevaluating what we are supposed to do, then requesting to be discharged from the National Guard while getting our Air Force packet together, and now waiting on the board.
We have learned so much. About faith, about trust.
Back in August, I remember just bawling during a FaceTime call with Jeremy while he was clear across the country. He was feeling like staying Army wasn't the right thing and I basically had a meltdown. I had been in full on find a house and get ready to move mode, and then it was full stop. Our plan had always been to been an Army chaplain, so to think of doing something different after everything we had already done seemed like too much. But we prayed, and fasted several times, and felt that we needed to reject the appointment. We felt crazy. Not just crazy, like, literally insane. Everything had fallen into place so easily for Army, we got into the earlier boards, we got into the earlier (and shorter) CHBOLC, we got assigned to Benning in Georgia (same base as Jeremy's aunt), he was assigned to a basic training unit which was really cool, and we were going to have enough savings left to cover our 3 month emergency savings. But the Lord told us to reject it.
We had only a little money left from the sale of our house, no job, no house, all our stuff had been in storage for months already, and we are living with my parents. It took every single bit of faith I thought I ever had, plus more. We rejected the appointment. They even offered us a second chance, we still said no. Jeremy graduated and came home, and pretty quick found a temporary job, and then we started reevaluating. We had talked about Air Force while Jeremy was still at CHBOLC, and we started feeling the "turbo" to get started. To do so, Jeremy had to ask Frank (military relations for the church) to pull his endorsement so we could get out of the Guard. He did, and we received word just last week that Jeremy was discharged. Frank wrote a new endorsement for the Air Force for us and we got our packet in really quick.
A few miraculous points I want to mention here: Cccllllleeeeaaaaarrrrrr back when we were first talking about being a chaplain we had to make a choice between staying with the National Guard, or, switching to the Reserves. I remember it being a stressful situation because we didn't know which one would make for a smoother transition, but we felt inspired to stay with the National Guard. Because the Lord inspired us to stay with the Guard we were in a very unique situation. As a chaplain candidate, Jeremy already had 12 years of service and we found AFTER we rejected the appointment that we had NO contract because of it. Second, because the Guard paid for him to go to CHBOLC, he didn't have to swear in when he got there, he didn't have to "commit" until we got to Benning in October. Because of this, we had the chance to change our direction. I would say this situation is rare. If we had gone Reserves he would have sworn in the first day there and we would have been committed for the next eight years. My point in writing all of this out is to show that the Lord has a plan. He KNEW. He KNEW we needed to stay in the Guard and prepared a way for us to be where He wants us to be. I don't know why we didn't think of switching to Air Force in the beginning, but I know He knew we needed to switch and He provided a way.
Throughout this entire experience the last few years we have seen tender mercies and miracles. I have tried to write them down and I always try to share them personally with the kids so they realize that the Lord is in the very details of our lives.
We fasted last Sunday for Jeremy to do good at the interview board, he also received a father's blessing from Dad and it said it would go smoothly and that we are where we are meant to be at this point in our lives, which gave us so much peace after all the big changes we've made over the last few months. We practiced and went over interview questions throughout the week. About a week ago, we received an email that showed what time Jeremy's interview would be in Central time. Throughout the rest of the week we, for some reason, remembered it being scheduled for 1 PM. Well, this morning we went about our usual business, and Jeremy went for a run. At about 11:20 I had the thought that I should double check the time for the interview, but I got distracted and busy with lunch. At 12:30 I had the thought again that I should double check the interview time, so I checked the email and was surprised (and slightly panicked) when I saw is was at 1 PM CENTRAL TIME. I quickly confirmed that Central time is an hour earlier, which meant that his interview was in less than thirty minutes!! He was still out for a run, but I quickly called him, hoping he had his phone on him and he answered. He had his phone on silent and had been listening to music through his earphones, but had turned it off to enjoy the quiet of the outdoors. He'd decided to leave his earbuds in and run back (instead of walk) the last mile and was stretching when I called. If he had taken the earbuds out he wouldn't have heard my call. If he hadn't decided to run the last mile, he wouldn't have made it back in time. So many tender mercies. The Lord is there. He got in his car and drove back and was ready just in time to login to the Zoom call about 5 minutes early, as they requested. He then felt the Spirit with him as he answered the questions throughout the interview, it was amazing.
They told us we should hear back in a couple of weeks. We are so grateful, our hearts are full of gratitude for the Lord and His guidance and help. And it was such a good reminder to always be ready to hear the Spirit. We could have missed the interview this morning if we hadn't acted on the promptings we both received, but because we were willing to obey, the Lord helped us.
