In the Chaos.... and In the Calm

There it was, on the counter, green gunk left over from dinnertime, dried on and stuck in grooves, dribbled sticky-ness on a napkin, hardened splatters on the counter. It was icky nasty-ness. I could have walked on by. After all, it wasn't my mess. It was someone else's spill, someone else's gunk, and I was tired and I had a headache, and  it was almost time to help my youngest brown eyed boy settle in bed. But... I couldn't just let it sit there. Not all night. If I did not at least bring a little liquid to soften the hard edges, I might forget- and the mess would be harder to clean in the morning, once the kids were in school. So I stopped, and I poured on a little water, and began to wipe and scrub- just for a moment, to get the worst of the stains out. It put me in mind of a story... the story of a man with living water, who met a woman at a well. She was world weary, passed from one man to the next, baggage from each torn relationship left in the crevices of he...

It's good to have a reminder of what I already know. Lessons learned in previous seasons can fade; as time goes on and life gets busy, I forget to dwell on that which once impacted me deeply. So I was thrilled when The 5 Love Languages, Military Edition arrived in the mail. I am always excited when I get to be a part of inspirational author (and friend) Jocelyn Green's work- and although I did contribute a short anecdote to this particular project (in the Combat Redeployment section) reading this book was most exciting because it jogged my memory about lessons learned years back, before multiple deployments and diagnoses; before PTSD and trauma and the stress of living with the complications of war come home. I first read The 5 Love Languages when my husband, then an army chaplain, decided to lead his soldiers through this book. I remember how much the original version helped strengthen our marriage. We learned that, like many couples, we show love in very differen...