August...the scary month

So here we are! Its August!!! (!!!)

I'm using extra exclamation marks because seriously that's how it has been written in my mind for months and months. August is the month of Baby and the month of Ranger School.

The two scariest things in Brett and Abigail's lives.

Now, just to be clear, one of them is a good kinda scary the kind of scary that you're like, "Hey, it would be super duper awesome if this scary-awesome thing would just go ahead and COME ALREADY." ( And that would be Baby Ransom).

But the other scary thing, Ranger School...well, I suppose it some ways even though its not a good kind of scary, I think we're pretty ready for it to come too.

You see, Ranger School , has been a part of Brett and my life together from the beginning. In fact, in some ways it PUNCTUATED the beginning. Brett went to Ranger School when he was a 2nd Lieutenant and he and I had just renewed a friendship. Before he left for this super scary ( yet I really had NO IDEA what it was) school he asked me if I'd write him letters while he was there...and so I did...and thus began our Romance of Sorts.

However, Brett did not make it through in one go ( if go to the link that I left you above, you'll find out that Ranger School is divided into sections and you can be recycled at any of those section) in fact, he did not make it through in TWO goes...and while he, in the end, he passed each section-there was a caveat that said if you had more "no goes" ( which is what they say when you get recycled) than "goes"-than you get kicked out.

And so there Brett was...he'd put in many grueling months of basic torture ( and that's NOT an exaggeration) only to be told he'd failed.

Now, I'm starting to get into Brett's story here...which is not fair, since this blog is called "Abigail's Day" not "Brett's Day"...but I'm just telling you this little bit of information so that you'll understand that Ranger School has hung over the heads of Brett and Abigail our whole marriage. Its the thing that didn't get completed, its the thing that defines so many Infantry officers and yet, here we were...lacking.

Or so we thought. I think God has done a lot of work in both our lives in the last few years and neither of us is the same person we were when Brett first went through Ranger School. And yet there is always a little part of you that fears that you HAVEN'T changed that much and that it WILL be just as awful this time around...WORSE even!! (!!)

There are parts of me that wonder just HOW we will go on if Brett doesn't make it through again, or what I'll say as encouragement when things get rough ( which I'm sure they will), or just how I'm going to cope with a brand new baby while my husband is off facing this "mountain". But those are all fears too. And so that's what I've been doing lately. Trying to identify fear.

Fear is a nasty little sucker who likes to lie and cheat you out of life ( or at least the living of it in true abundant form) and often times fear is what absolutely keeps us from the Joy that we have in Christ.

My dear blogger friends I'm going ahead and airing my fears to you today so that you'll know...so that you'll be praying for myself and for Brett as we face August ( and several months after...) that we'll be able to face our fears with not our own strength but with the Grace and Faith that comes from above.

And hopefully at the end of it all, we'll be able to rejoice together when these fears are officially conquered...

But, for now, we wait...we wait on a baby who's still happily chillin in my tummy...and for August 22nd which is when Brett reports to Ranger School...