Having Faith

"I have set the LORD always before me.  Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken." -Psalm 16:8

The last three weeks have certainly been difficult ones.  I am not so self-involved as to say or think that this is "the hardest thing in the world" or that thousands of police wives have not also survived this.  But the night Hubby Blue stepped out of the house and went on his first night shift, our lives changed in a big way.

This is not to say that I don't love being married to a cop!  I love that the man I married is selfless and giving; I love knowing that I won't ever need to call 911 in case of a crime because I live with 911!  I love that my husband can protect me.  And, yes, I'll admit, I sometimes even love the uniform!  BUT, I am not now or nor have I ever been good at dealing with change.  And three weeks ago, my lifestyle was pretty much turned on end.  For the two years we've been married, HB and I shared a very "normal" lifestyle.  He was still a student and I am a teacher, so we had every weekend off together and we even had some common time off in the summers.

Now, we work at opposite times of the day, and we rarely have any of the same days off.  Our time together is now SO precious to me that I refuse to give up any of it.  I can't sleep when HB is working - I still haven't figured out if it's the anxiety over his safety or the anxiety of being home alone in an unfamiliar house or both - and I can hardly sleep even when he is home.  I have bad dreams almost every night, and I wake up all the time.  I have been exhausted for three weeks!

Hubby jokes about my "crazy eyes" when I get really stressed out.  One time he told me he felt like "a mouse in a mousetrap factory" because he had to "tiptoe around you or I'll set you off."  Now there's a man who can make me laugh when I feel like I'm going insane!  I am pretty calm most of the time...but set me off and I prettttty much go off the deep end.  These days, I feel less patience with the kids I teach, I went off on a stranger on facebook over some negative comments about police officers (facebook-fighting is really not something I ever do, but get me exhausted and overwhelmed enough, and apparently I become a mother bear defending her cub), and then the icing on the cake was getting rear-ended on my way home from the grocery store yesterday.

There was absolutely no damage to my car, and the other girl didn't even get out of her truck to see if there was any damage to hers.  The last time I was in a car accident, I was 20 years old and I had kind of driven into the side of a building (no biggie, let's not get into THAT story) so there was really no question the police (...and TV news vans and city building engineers and ambulances) had to be called.  But a minor fender-bender that wasn't my fault?  Never happened to me.  Since there was no damage, the girl gave me her phone number but I felt comfortable just going our separate ways.  I called Hubby right after it happened and he lost it.  "You need to get her insurance information!  What if she blames you for something later!  You're supposed to call the police!  You just left the scene of an accident!"  Hubby Blue has always been so laid-back about things like this so I was really taken aback by this reaction.  I, in turn, flipped out at him.  I told him he was always "policing" me (he never polices me), that I always feel like I'm doing things wrong (he never makes me feel like I do anything wrong), and THEN it really happened.  My psychotic break.  (I don't actually know what that looks like.  This is just my best guess?)  You know that Mr. Rogers song "What do you do with the mad that you feel?"  If you don't know, go google it right now.  I'll wait. ...  I didn't have any clay or dough in the house, and I can't think of any friends who would play tag with me, sooooo I punched a pillow.  Then I paced back and forth, wringing my hands, pretty much going batshit crazy.  Finally Hubby Blue came over and hugged me until I stopped and got it together, but I just felt totally overwhelmed.  I had said things I really didn't mean, and overall I just felt really, really awful for losing it like that.  My exhaustion doesn't help, but I think it finally hit me that this change has been really hard for me.

And then I went to church this morning.  I don't know how it happens, but sometimes I get there and I see or hear something that is exactly what I need right at that moment in my life.  There it was, at the top of the announcements,

"I have set the LORD always before me.  Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken." -Psalm 16:8.

It occurred to me that all this time, I have been praying for God to keep Hubby Blue safe from harm, but I have not been asking God to help me through this too.  I thought I could do it on my own, I thought that knowing Hubby was happy would be enough to carry me through, I thought Hubby was the only one who needed God's protection through all this.  I'd forgotten that the Lord is walking right beside me, ready to carry me when I need it (like I probably needed it yesterday), and I have not been seeing it.  I need to remember that all the support in the world from friends and family and even from Hubby Blue means nothing if I don't trust the plan that God has for us.  I have always believed that things happen according to God's reasons: He brought Hubby Blue and me into each other's lives for a reason, He sent us to live where we live for a reason, He put me in my job for a reason, and He put Hubby Blue into police work for a reason.

I may not love the night shift, but I do love the Lord, and from here on out, I will be working much harder to trust in Him.  With God at my right hand, I will not be shaken.