Has God ever made a promise to you?
In November, 2015, we were living in Arlington, Virginia. Alan was stationed at the Pentagon. We were expecting any day to hear news of a new assignment the following summer. There was a short list of places we might move to, and we had submitted our "preferences" several months prior. (Which is such a haze, by the way, because I don't even think anyone reads those. Or they save them for when they need a good laugh.) A couple of the options were in the Washington, D.C., area, and we were hoping for one of those so that we wouldn't have to move because the new assignment would only be for one year. We discussed the possibility of living apart for that one year, but ultimately decided that wasn't what we wanted. I had decided that if we had to move somewhere new for just a year, then we needed a house with an extra bedroom because I would just keep everything boxes and store them in there. I wouldn't even hang pictures on the walls. Why bother? One year, in and out. Why even bother doing all the things? I was not on board with moving and quite frankly, I was making myself sick worrying about it. And we didn't even know if we would move yet! You know how women are: we have 1001 problems, and most of them are made up in our heads.
The worry over where we would move was stressing me out, so I turned to specific prayer. I asked God to give me peace, and to release me from this yoke. It didn't take long before I could feel God stirring in my heart, and I was listening. He was telling me that this, too, He had His hand in. I was able to release that worry and just give it to God, trusting Him to choose the right place for us. The news came almost immediately. Literally the day after I said, "OK, God, I'm giving this to you. I know you'll put us exactly where we need to be to serve others and glorify you," we got the news that we would be moving to Montgomery, Alabama. See what God did there? There is no coincidence. God reassured me that I could trust Him and prepared my heart for a move just before He gave us the news of the move. I'm not going to lie, my heart did sink a tiny bit. Why didn't He give us what we really wanted? Why couldn't what we wanted and what He wanted be the same?
We rented a house in Alabama based on photos we saw online. Signed a contract, put down a deposit, gave our current landlord notice, announced it on social media and in the Christmas card...all the things...
At the time I was also reading the daily devotions in Sarah Young's Jesus Calling. On January 20, a portion of the message seemed to jump off the page at me. It was almost like the rest of the message disappeared and one particular sentence just got bigger and bolder, and I knew it was a message God had for me. So I paid attention. I can still recite that sentence from memory: "I may be doing something important in your life, something quite different from what you expected." Whoa. I was very excited! I immediately thought about my Mary Kay business, and wondered if it could have to do with that?! I couldn't wait to find out!
But that was rather selfish of me, assuming it was all about me just because I was the one that received the message.
Fast-forward to February, 2016. Alan called me from work to say that he had received word that we might not move, after all. He was being invited to be part of a Fellowship program with a think tank in Washington, D.C. He could choose - school in Alabama or fellowship in D.C. We had a choice?! That almost never happens in the military! So we kind of didn't know what to do with that...we kind of panicked. They told him he had about two days to decide, so he called every mentor he had and started collecting as much data as he could so we could make an educated decision. I started praying. All of his mentors were telling him he was crazy to even consider not taking the fellowship. My Mentor wasn't telling me anything. One day passed. The morning of the second day, I was praying in the shower. I'm not the only one who does that, right? And I heard it. God spoke that same message from January 20th, into my heart. I don't know how you hear God, but that's the best way I can describe hearing Him. It's like my heart has ears and He speaks to that...I just suddenly know something came from Him. That morning, he said "I may be doing something important in your life, something quite different from what you expected." This! This was it!! Quite honestly, as time had passed, I had forgotten all about that promise because nothing had happened yet. But God did not forget. Also, I had assumed that the "something different" would be all about me (selfish), but I had failed to factor in that Alan, at the time, didn't think he could hear God. He just hadn't figured out how to distinguish God's voice yet. So OF COURSE God would speak to me! I quickly finished the shower and called Alan, who was driving to the Pentagon. He answered. I said "We're supposed to stay and do the Fellowship. God just told me. He gave me the message from January again, and that different thing is this! It's so unexpected - it's so different from what we thought we would be doing! We're supposed to stay here." And what he said next still brings tears to my eyes. He said, "Honey, now I also know we are supposed to stay. I was just-this-second praying, asking God for an answer of what we should do, telling Him I just wanted to be able to hear Him, then the phone rang. I literally thought Jesus might be calling me, and it was you with this message." (Bless his heart.) He was going to tell them we will take the Fellowship. Thankfully, we were able to undo the things we had done before, and we canceled the lease in Montgomery, renewed our lease in Arlington, and just continued life as usual.
Why would God do that? Why would He prepare my heart for the news of a move, only to have this other opportunity come along that means we won't move, after all? Did that mean I didn't hear what I thought I heard? Or that it wasn't God, after all? Or that this was not the fulfillment of that promise? I was full of self-doubt, but could hear Him say "Be still..."
In preparation for the move (when we were still moving) I had scheduled some follow-up medical appointments for myself. If you're new here, I'm a breast cancer survivor. I was diagnosed in 2007, when my oldest son was seven months old.
I'm going to take a minute here to tell you how God had a hand in that, too. I had felt a lump that I assumed was a clogged milk duct, because I was still breastfeeding. I figured it would go away with some warm compress. But I was watching Grey's Anatomy one night and one story was about a new mom who ignored a lump she thought was a clogged milk duct. But it was cancer. She waited too long to see a doctor, and she didn't survive. I called my doctor first thing in the morning. They did an ultrasound and didn't think it was anything serious, but wanted to get a better look. They asked if I would be comfortable weaning my baby so they could get a more clear image. I agreed and did a follow-up two weeks later. The spot was totally gone. It was a clogged milk duct. But about two weeks later, in the shower, I felt another one and I knew immediately that this one was different. I was diagnosed with breast cancer. The rest of the story doesn't really matter here. I had surgery, got treatment, and moved on. What's important is the way God spoke to me then. He presented me with a situation He knew would prompt me to act. Even if that was thru a silly TV show.
Back to 2016. I was still seeing an oncologist annually to keep an eye on things, and was supposed to see a breast surgeon annually, but had a bad experience with the first one I saw at Walter Reed so I just dropped the ball on that. Long story short, I saw a surgeon immediately upon moving to D.C. from Okinawa, and expressed my desire to have a prophylactic bilateral mastectomy. She told me I was being radical and she wouldn't do it. When we found out we were moving, though, I knew I better see all my doctors one more time before the chaos set in. Plus, remember, I wasn't going to bother with all the things if we were only going to live somewhere for a year. And, anyway, how good could the doctors possibly be in Montgomery? I'd rather see them at Walter Reed. I seriously thought that. My first appointment was on May 12th, with my medical oncologist, who reviewed my bloodwork (all good), said I was a couple of months past-due for my mammogram, and asked why she didn't see any visits to my breast surgeon in the past year. I told her what had happened with my first visit to the breast surgeon and that I hadn't been back because I didn't feel like she listened to me. She was upset about my experience and quickly assured me she could get me matched with someone she was sure would be supportive of my desires, even if she had to refer me to someone outside the military. She referred me to the Chief of Surgical Oncology at Walter Reed. If anyone could approve anything, it was him. We also scheduled my overdue mammogram, which was the following week, on May 17th.
After my mammo, they did as they always do: they asked me to sit tight, so they could review the images before I get changed, in case they need to take any additional ones. But what happened next was different. The nurse came back and brought the radiologist in with her. They displayed my images side-by-side with my last images, taken about 15 months prior. There wasn't one new spot. There were at least a dozen. It looked like someone splattered paint on the image. The spots were small, so that was good, but they were all over the image of my right breast. This was definitely not good. The next step would be a biopsy, so we scheduled that for June 9th. Afterwards, they once again asked me to wait before dressing, then escorted me to a private room to speak with the radiologist about the results. The good news was it wasn't cancer. The bad news was it wasn't cancer yet, and it needed to be removed. Since my medical oncologist had already been working my referral to a more suitable breast surgeon, I already had an appointment with him scheduled for Jul 6th.
Things began to happen very quickly now. My surgeon was completely supportive of a bilateral mastectomy, and felt it needed to happen pretty quickly, within three months. If that many spots had developed in just a little over a year, he was concerned it was going to progress and spread further if we waited too long. He referred me to a plastic surgeon to discuss the reconstructive portion. He referred me to the genetic counselor to re-evaluate any genetic predisposition I might have that they could determine since the last time I had this testing done. I attended both of those appointments five days later. The two surgeons coordinated their schedules and my surgery was planned for September 30, 2016.
Let me pause here to ponder something. Do you suppose I would have been in such a hurry to schedule my appointment with my oncologist if we hadn't gotten word we were moving? Nope. I mean, I would have done it eventually. In the fall, most likely, because as a preschool teacher spring was the busiest time of the year. Then, summer would have hit and there was no way I was scheduling any appointment I would have to drag the kids with me to, or pay a sitter for. I would have waited until they were back in school. Thankfully, God presented me with a situation He knew would prompt me to act, which He knew I needed to do to potentially save my life.
It's fine to fast-forward through some of the medical stuff now. In short, over the course of the next nine months I had three surgeries to remove and reconstruct my breasts. After my mastectomy, when I met with my surgical oncologist for the follow up, he told me we had made the right decision. By the time they removed the tissue, my left breast also showed lesions, which had not been present in the mammogram just four months prior. Confirmation was nice. Today, I shudder to think what might have happened had we not been given the news of the move. The process that started in May would have slipped forward at least four months, and who knows what would have grown by the time we got around to the surgery...
During this same timeframe, we also went thru a "selection" cycle. We were hopeful that Alan would be selected to a senior leadership position somewhere. But the cycle came and went and he wasn't matched. We just couldn't understand why. He had checkmarks in all the right boxes. And being selected for this Fellowship was another strong "check". This was something we had prayed for, hoped for, worked for...why would God not provide? All we could be sure of was that there was a reason...that did make it a little easier to not see his name on that list, but there was still a little sting.
Knowing we would be facing a move after the Fellowship ended in the summer of 2017, we started to look at some options. With Alan not being matched for leadership, we figured this would be our final assignment. Where would we want to go to finish with a bang? We filled each of the five preference spots with overseas assignments, and also applied for a special program that could place us in a number of overseas locations. Out of left field, we were sent to Langley AFB, Virginia. That wasn't even on the radar - we weren't expecting it at all.We had been preparing the kids by telling them Grandma might have to keep the dog and the bird when we moved so far away...they didn't even have to pack a snack to make this move. It was a total letdown. It felt like such a blow. Not only did Alan not get a leadership position, he also didn't get any of the dozen jobs he requested. What was going on? But we had to trust, once again, that God had this because so far, he hasn't NOT had anything. It's always worked out for the best. So in late June, 2017, we packed up and moved three hours south, to Yorktown, Virginia.
The time between listing preferences, getting an assignment, and actually moving is sometimes long - seven months, in this case. So you don't always know what life is going to look like when you get around to the actual move. As it turned out, the three surgeries I had undergone had not yet completed my reconstruction, so I would require additional procedures. Of course, it is plainly obvious to me now, that God moved us this tiny distance so that I could remain with my known and trusted surgeon. This may have been quite different from what we expected, but it was important for us to not go too far. Still, a year and a half later, He remembered that promise and He was in control. Again, I had forgotten. I had surgery number 4 in October, 2017. We knew afterwards that I would require one more, but decided to take a break for a little while. Give my body a chance to rest and recover.
Rumblings of deployments had begun almost immediately upon moving to Langley. I expected any day to hear Alan tell me he was deploying. There were several close calls. Another "selection cycle" came and Alan's chances of being matched to another leadership position looked good. We covered the possibility in prayer. But he wasn't matched, and we once again decided God had something else, and we would be fine. But there was definite disappointment. We're human. So we talked about what to do next. We could go ahead and retire. But that wouldn't be a good long-term decision, financially. We could apply for some other special programs. But our middle schooler politely requested we didn't ask for a move. I relayed that I felt strongly that God had something else in store for us - this was not our last assignment. I just felt Him telling me this wasn't it. We ultimately decided to just sit tight and see what happens, but we knew that not being on that match list left Alan a sitting duck for a deployment.
We made it almost a year. Around Halloween, 2018, Alan checked his email late one night and there it was: he would have to go for six months, leaving in early January, 2019. He could decline. Get out. We could just retire and not have to endure that. Surely this wasn't what God had in store for us. But declining would have been an emotional decision - not the right one, and we knew that. Alan hadn't deployed in over 10 years. It was his turn, and he was actually happy to serve in that way. In prayer, I still found God telling me He had something more for us, but I wasn't sure what that was.
A week later, on November 6th, I underwent surgery number 5 - the finale! This season was finally behind us. This was probably the toughest of all five surgeries, as far as my mobility went, so we stayed with friends locally on the night of my surgery and made the three hour trek home the following day. We got home around noon and I went to bed. A couple of hours later, Alan woke me up to tell me that he had just gotten the call. He had been selected to be the Mission Support Group Commander at Offutt (AFB in Omaha). WHAT?!? I still feel terrible to this day because I know I was unable to give that news the reaction it deserved, due to pain and drugs and sleepiness...but I was flabbergasted! I immediately recognized that this was not a coincidence. The very next day after my surgical journey was complete, we receive this news. God had been in control all along. I had once again forgotten, but God had never forgotten. He was still keeping his promise. God was always going to give us the desire of our heart, but he was going to take us there on a quite different path because that was what we needed.
We are looking forward to our move to Omaha for many reasons. The opportunity is the fulfillment of a career-long dream and goal. We have friends that live there. It's one day closer to Texas. Even though he won't be flying, it's still the "home base" for Alan's jet. The winters are lovely. But really, we are looking forward to this move because we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is where God intends us to be. It's the plan he had for us.
I don't know if this is the end of the story or not. I'll keep you posted. But in the meantime, I'm working very hard to remember the promises God makes to me each and every day. Because how beautiful is it to watch them be fulfilled? He's a promise-keeper.
