Story #1: About the child who made me a mom

So sweet Christianne came into this world as the perfect child.  She still is, for the most part.  Not quite as quiet and sweet as she used to be, not quite as obedient, but all around, she has been nothing short of a treasure for the 19 years she has been in our lives.

It's such a bittersweet time here these days.  I was pondering this morning about how nothing changed my life my more than becoming a mom, how nearly every day of the past 19 years has been spent hand-in-hand or at least side-by-side with my girl... and how that time is becoming shorter and shorter.

Our baby girl leaves home September 1st.

As life-changing as it was that first day in May of 1996 when we brought our daughter home, I suspect this new chapter in life will be life-changing as well.  Obviously it will be for her ~ everything about her life is about to change!  But even for us, adjusting to life without her... it will be strange.

Yet we are beyond excited and feel strongly this is the path the Lord has for her.  That is the story I want to share, because it's not just about another kid joining the military ~ this is the story of *our* kid joining the military. 

Last January I was working in the tax office.  We were open for business, but obviously there isn't much to do those early days of the year, except to get prepared for the season mostly by catching up on tax law changes and such.  We had a woman come in to the office that was a new hire (though not a new tax preparer) and she began to work on her requirements and such.  It turns out that she would end up working at a different office, and that was the only day I would actually ever see her.

As this woman was leaving ~ Karla ~ we were chitchatting about our families and such.  She is a Christian and she shared with me some of her ministry involvement, and talked about her family, and then of course asked me about mine.

I shared with her about Christianne ~ how she is beautiful and smart and has been working for the past year {Chris calls it her gap year} while she tries to figure out what to do with her life.  I told her how Christianne has this strange affinity for languages:  how she maxed out all the opportunities to learn Spanish at her high school and the community college before her senior year of high school; how she had a decent level of fluency in Finnish, entirely self-taught; how she taught herself enough German to test into German 2 her senior year of high school; and how she dabbled in some other languages here and there as well.

Karla had just shared with me that three of her four (I think) adult children were all serving in different branches of the military.  When I told her about Christianne's language skills, she said, "You really should check out the Navy!  They are looking for linguists!"

The Navy?  There's something I hadn't really thought about.  We weren't too excited about college for various reasons, but it seemed like the logical place to start.  The Navy?  Huh.

I came home, somewhat intrigued, and shared the story with Chris and Ro.  Ro was with me ~ we should at least get some more information.  But Chris was like: "Yeah.  NO."

And so the thought sat.  For the next several months.