I’m afraid.  There I said it.  I don’t know that I even fully realized it until talking with a friend yesterday.  I want so much to be strong but the closer we get to Tyler’s graduation, the more real it becomes.  He is now, first and foremost, a Marine.  For 5 years (at the very least) he belongs to the United States Marine Corps.  His life is dictated by that.  Yet we are a country at war.  The closer we get the more I am being made aware of my roll as a Marine Corps mom and how important it is to be careful.  I was reading some information on OpSEC (Operational Security) and it just stopped me in my tracks.  It was about things I had not even thought of that can have an effect on my son and his unit wherever he is.  (Here is the link for any of you who are curious about what I am talking about…http://www.marineparents.com/deployment/opsec.asp.)  It’s not like I didn’t ever think about any of this before he actually went in, but there are some things that just become more real the closer you are.

My fear clouds things…it isolates me.  When I am afraid, I somehow buy the lie that “I am the only one.”  The confession is this:  I want people to see that I miss my son and that I am proud of him.  This is “normal.”  I don’t want them to see how really afraid I am.  That somehow conveys weakness…that I don’t have it all together.  Well, here is the truth.  I will NEVER have it all together.  Do you see how our minds can just twist things up?  The truth is, this is all new territory for me and I have to work things through to learn how to do them.  As an adult, I think I put an expectation on myself that I should just automatically know how to do something new.  I have no grace for myself in the learning curve.  It’s okay to not know how to do something.  It is NOT okay to cry ignorance forever.  I am responsible to learn and grow and change as God leads.  And boy is He leading right now.  My prayer is “Lord help me to be transparent.  Help me to be honest about where I am yet move forward to what You have for me.  I don’t want to remain in ignorance.  Help me to continue to pursue Your heart and keep “growing up”.  I want to be better, more loving, more peaceful.  Show me how to have grace in the changes that are upon me.”

And so this is going to be a long road and my desire is not to walk in fear, but I don’t know how to do this.  I have never walked here before.  I want my heart  to be so connected with the Father that fear is a foreign emotion to me.  But right now, I let it go for a second and the next thing I know, it is back on the brain.  I guess what I am trying to do by talking about all this is to process it and bring freedom to myself and other people who do the same things in their minds…the fears, the thoughts, the words that never get said out loud…I want to say them.  What is in the dark only gets darker, what is brought into the light is changed.  Light brings freedom and I’m just trying to walk that out.  I want freedom and I want God!