As I was taking my walk today (in the amazing, wonderful sunshine and the awesome breeze!) I was thinking about some things I want. For instance, I want to be a writer. And I want to be close to God, especially through daily Bible reading and prayer.

If these things don’t happen, I have nothing/no one to blame. There is no excuse for not taking a few minutes each day to read a chapter from the Bible. There is no reason I have to let other things – things I don’t even care about – come before things I really want. I let it happen, and I have no excuse for it.

Am I not perfectly capable of choosing to do one thing instead of another? I am. I believe in myself at least that much.

There’s no reason for you or me to not do the things we want to do. I want to be a writer, so I choose to write. Just write! I don’t want to be the kind of person who sleeps till 10-11 every day; I do it because it’s easy. But I can choose to get up earlier, so I will!

Get More Out of Life

I’m not sure what I’m trying to say. I guess it’s something along the lines of this:

If you want good things in life, stop   and think for a moment about whether these are things you’re capable of. Singing, dancing, running, music-ing, writing, cooking, reading, sewing… Is there really anything stopping you from doing those things? Don’t you have a spare 10 minutes? Do the things you want to do when you can… I think that’s how we’ll get more out of life. Not really a profound thought, but oh well. It’s what I was thinking. Now you know.

“For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.”

First romantic Valentine’s Day poem, according to Wikipedia. Written by Geoffrey Chaucer in 1382.

I think I prefer a more modern poem, though. This was written in 1784:

“The rose is red, the violet’s blue 
The honey’s sweet, and so are you
Thou are my love and I am thine
I drew thee to my Valentine 
The lot was cast and then I drew
And Fortune said it shou’d be you.”

Although I don’t understand using an apostrophe in place the the L in should. I’m pretty sure you’d still pronounce it the same way, and an L is hardly any harder to make than an apostrophe. Just saying.

I’m sad to spend this day apart from my honey. After already spending our first anniversary apart, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, and my birthday, it’s disappointing to have to face yet another holiday. But our love can be celebrated despite the distance.

I remember our first Valentine’s Day, back in Jr. High, when we were just friends. He got me a mug with candy in it… The mug was black. I knew he didn’t mean anything by it; he was just dense, in the way that teenage boys can be. But really, a plain black mug? Once the candy was gone, I was left with a black mug, and I always thought of that one day and Marty’s token of affection… Or he thinks my heart is black? I’m really not sure.

For our first Valentine’s Day as a couple, I was all whiny and disappointed because he was stuck at Fort Campbell, and I was going to be all alone (except not really alone – I was going to be surrounded by happy couples), but Marty surprised me by driving down to visit!

He even got my roommate in on keeping the secret. In fact, he called me and sang a song for me, since he wasn’t going to be able to be there in person. But then Maycee and I got home, and he was hiding in my room! Wearing a flower made of pipe cleaners and felt!

Anyway, one of the good things about this year is that it gives us a good excuse to go overboard next year to make up for all these holidays. And I assure you, we will. Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!

I think this is one of my biggest struggles: to not only trust God with the direction of my life, but to be content and to thrive where he places me rather than just survive. It’s a struggle at all times, but it’s especially difficult during trials. Of course, most recently it has been difficult due to deployment.

I hate deployment! That’s understandable, right? My husband is gone, and not only absent from my every day life but placed in a dangerous situation! I have to miss him and fear for his safety, and most of the time I just want to go to sleep and wake up when it’s all over. I don’t want to live through this year of deployment, but I have to, so many times I have this mentality of needing to simply survive. Do what is necessary to make it through another day, and eventually it will all be over.

That’s okay. I mean, eventually I will have survived the year, Hubby will be back, and things can go back to normal. But I don’t think it’s what God wants from me.

Jeremiah 29: A Letter to the Exiles

God’s people had been carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon and were going to remain there in exile for 70 years. Of all the times to justify that survival mentality, you would think this would be a prime example. But God isn’t satisfied with that… God asks for more. I found this passage really speaks to me and where I am with this deployment… Here’s my paraphrasing:

This is what the Lord Almighty says to those He carried into deployment: “Make homes and settle down; plant gardens and work on other projects. Care for your family and friends. Don’t let yourself whither away. Seek peace and prosperity where I’ve placed you… When your time is completed, I will come to you and fulfill my good promises. For I know the plans I have for you; plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. You will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me with your whole heart and find me, and I will gather you from the places where I have banished you, and bring you back.”

God wants his people to know that he can be worshipped outside of the holy land just as well as inside. He is God over Babylon (deployment) just as much as he is God over Jerusalem. As one commentary says, “Real hope for the people, according to Jeremiah, lay not in some immediate relief from social and communal death, but in living through that experience as faithful people, awaiting the Lord’s ‘future with hope’."

Biblical Encouragement

People are watching us, so let’s follow Jesus’ perfect example:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
-Hebrews 12:1-3 (NIV)

Thrive, don’t just survive. Think on God and his goodness and all the good gifts he gives. Run with endurance, don’t let yourself whither. Keep praying and pursuing God. This is how you should live, regardless of where he’s placed you and whether or not you want to be there. This is how you get the most out of life and bring God the most pleasure.

Celebrate God all day, every day. I mean, revel in him! Make it as clear as you can to all you meet that you’re on their side, working with them and not against them. Help them see that the Master is about to arrive. He could show up any minute!

Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.

Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.
-Phillipians 4:4-9 (The Message)

Thriving

I’m still working on it, but I’m getting better at ridding myself of that survival mentality. It’s about time, since we’re almost five months into this deployment! God is really trying to pound some lessons into me, I think…lol. And I feel like I’m finally ready to start learning rather than burying my head in the ground and waiting for it all to be over. I’m finally ready to hold up my chin and start facing things head-on, with His help. I don’t know if I’m really thriving yet, but I’m doing a little more than just surviving, so I guess that’s good.

Anyway, that’s what I’m working towards, and that’s how I want to go through the rest of this deployment. I want to do more than just survive. So there are my disjointed thoughts for the day.

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I have the flu. Don’t worry; I’m getting over it. I credit Tamiflu and the power of prayer of many friends and relatives.

The last few days have been a blur, though… You know what sucks? Being exhausted and unable to sleep.

Tuesday was my first day of fever. I thought it was a bad cold. I went to a counseling appointment. I drove home feeling more and more lousy. (By the way, when I hear the word lousy, I always think of that episode of I Love Lucy…) I don’t even remember the rest of the day. I *do* remember taking Nyquil and going to bed and tossing and turning all night, waking up seemingly every hour. Wednesday morning came around, and I was still feeling rotten.

My body temperature goes like this:

• Normal Morning: 97.8
• Normal Afternoon: 98.6
• Normal Evening: 99.0
• Tuesday morning: 99.3
• Tuesday afternoon: 100.6
• Tuesday evening: 101.3
• Wednesday morning: 99.3

My throat was burning and dry and all I wanted to do all day was drink as much water as I possibly could to make swallowing a tiny bit less painful. I drank about 80 oz of water, not counting the cups of hot tea… And, for some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to do a 30-minute workout in my livingroom. I told myself I should do it in the morning, before my fever went up. So I did.

• Wednesday afternoon: 101.3
• Wednesday evening: 100.6

I was pretty sure, by this point, that I would wake up Thursday morning feeling considerably better. I took a sleeping pill with my cough medicine and ibuprofen and went to bed, but, yet again, I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned, dozed off, woke up to pee, and I was freezing.

Tip: If you are cold for no reason, do not bundle up.

I do it every time. I get sick and feverish, I get so cold that I swear I’ve never been so cold before in my life. And what do I do? I huddle under more and more layers, trying to get warm, all the while increasing my body temperature. Somehow, in the middle of the night in my feverish delirium, I got the idea to wander to the livingroom and pull a few throw pillows off the couch. I took them back to my bed with me and stuffed them under the covers around my body.

• Thursday morning: 102.1

I woke up earlier than ever, with practically no voice and a throat that was on fire. This was no “bad cold,” I decided. I sprayed some chloraseptic on my throat, which, by the way, felt worse than I remember it feeling even after my tonsillectomy a year and a half ago, and I called the doctor’s office. I was informed that I could walk into Quick Care between 8-4, so I threw on a sweatshirt and jeans, bushed my hair into a ponytail, and left. I barely remembered to check the time before I left the house and was surprised to find that it was just before 8am (good timing).

I’ll skip over the part where I thought I was going to die standing in line at Quick Care. Seriously? No chairs?! And the part where I had to wait for two hours with no food or drink or medicine. They did a throat swab (I gagged) and tested for strep, and then they said that it “looks more like the flu.” So I left around 10 with a little bag full of happy pills (tamiflu, mucinex, tessalon, and 800mg pills of ibuprofen). Somehow I convinced myself to stop at the shoppette for some essentials before going home (chicken soup, ice cream, bread, and gatorade – none of which proved to be very useful). I was home by 10:30 taking my first dose of Tamiflu followed shortly by a nap.

• Thursday afternoon: 99.3

I thought I was doing better… I took another nap.

• Thursday evening: 102.1

Dangit! Quick, more ibuprofen!

• Thursday evening: 102.3
• Thursday evening: 102.9

This can’t be happening! I’m getting better! I have all this medicine! It hurts! Make it stop! I finally dosed myself with some Tylenol and began applying cold compresses and stripping away as many layers of clothing as possible…

• Thursday evening: 102.7
• Thursday evening: 102.3
• Thursday evening: 101.5
• Thursday evening: 100.3

For the first time, I got semi-decent sleep and woke up during the night at the exact times I needed to take more medicine. I slept under a thin blanket…

• Friday morning: 98.3
• Friday afternoon: 98.3
• Friday evening: 99.0

Me:

Wait, what was I writing about?

Oh, yeah.

I took two naps today. Because I’m sick, and I’m supposed to rest, and I don’t really know HOW to rest. I’m not good at judging my body’s needs for sleep. And really, my body doesn’t seem to be too good at judging its needs for sleep, either. Otherwise, why would I wake up early in the morning when I’m sick, after not having slept well? And why would I not sleep well in the first place? I pretty much have to decide when it’s time for sleep and then force myself to lay motionless long enough to pass out. So I decided 2 naps would be the right number, and my eyes were tired, so it seemed good. And now it’s midnight, and I should have been asleep at LEAST 2 hours ago so that I can finish getting better, but when I lay in bed my eyes don’t want to close and my brain doesn’t want to shut off, and I have a feeling I took too many naps. And that’s what I was trying to say all along.

I didn’t post the Bible Reading Plan for last week, so if you were trying to follow along, well… be comforted by knowing that I’m as behind as you are. Thankfully, this particular Bible Reading Plan has only 25 days of reading per month, so that should make it easy(-ish) to play catch-up.

Anyway, please forgive me for being so behind! I posted the first 7 days of reading already, so here are days 8-21.

• Matthew 4:12-17, Acts 5:1-16, Psalms 8, Genesis 21-23
• Matthew 4:18-25, Acts 5:17-42, Psalms 9, Genesis 24
• Matthew 5:1-12, Acts 6, Psalms 10, Genesis 25-26
• Matthew 5:13-20, Acts 7:1-38, Psalms 11, Genesis 27-28
• Matthew 5:21-32, Acts 7:39-60, Psalms 12, Genesis 29-30
• Matthew 5:33-48, Acts 8:1-25, Psalms 13, Genesis 31
• Matthew 6:1-15, Acts 8:26-40, Psalms 14, Genesis 32-33
• Matthew 6:16-24, Acts 9:1-19, Psalms 15, Genesis 34-35
• Matthew 6:25-34, Acts 9:20-43, Psalms 16, Genesis 36
• Matthew 7:1-14, Acts 10:1-23, Psalms 17, Genesis 37-38
• Matthew 7:15-29, Acts 10:24-48, Psalms 18:1-24, Genesis 39-40
• Matthew 8:1-13, Acts 11:1-18, Psalms 18:25-50, Genesis 41
• Matthew 8:14-22, Acts 11:19-30, Psalms 19, Genesis 42-43
• Matthew 8:23-34, Acts 12, Psalm 20, Genesis 44-45

In Other News

Hubby and I now have bedroom furniture! These pictures are as much for him as they are for you, since he has only seen quickly-taken cellphone pictures. I bought a long dresser with a mirror and a tall chest of drawers from Goodwill, and my friend and Sunday school teacher helped me to get them home – and even helped attach the mirror. Not pictured is the matching headboard which I got Goodwill to throw in with the dresser and mirror. It is sitting in the hall, as I don’t have the screws to try and attach it to our bedframe.

Two soldiers from Hubby’s division, who were deployed to the same location as my hubby, were killed Saturday during a training exercise with US soldiers and Iraqi soldiers. It was only one Iraqi soldier who was out for blood, apparently, and the man’s own commanding officer also died trying to take him down… But still, just one soldier with a plan to use live rounds instead of blanks, and we’ve lost two of our men. I pray that God comforts their families…. I can’t even imagine the pain.

I know that a lot of us wives are finding that this is a wake-up call. Iraq, right now, is still unsafe. Yeah, it’s better than it was a couple years ago, and it’s better than Afghanistan. But there are still so many dangers there, from the vehicles breaking down or catching fire during mission to the people who make stupid choices and put others in danger, to the Iraqis who still hate us and don’t care whether they survive their attempt to take as many down as possible.

I’m reminding myself, however, that it’s not a wake-up call to worry. It’s a call to pray more and trust more. The God who loves us and gave his Son for us has all things well in hand, and I know he wants for me to lay my anxieties at his feet and allow him to comfort me.

Thankfully, when I heard the news this weekend I was occupied by a visit from one of my best friends! It was good to have a distraction. I think without Erika here, I might have spent the whole weekend saying to myself, “I know he’s fine, but….” and “what if….” and “…but if he’s okay, why hasn’t he been online?” I watched four movies this weekend with Erika…

1. 1. Knight and Day – Funny movie, but oh, so corny. The dialog was pretty bad, the stunts were pretty outrageous, and…I just expected more from Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise.
2. 2. Easy A – Liked this one fairly well. It was a cute movie and a decent story. My complaint is with the girl playing the main character. I’ve seen Emma Stone in several other movies without complaint, but I did not like her in this role. It didn’t seem like a good fit. She was annoying and kind of awkward, in my opinion.
3. 3. The Dilemma – Liked this one pretty well, too. It was funny – definitely has its moments… But it’s the kind of movie that kind of makes you cringe for the main character. He seems to always make bad decisions.
4. 4. The Social Network – Good movie! Although, it did make me kind of hate Mark Zuckerburg. The movie kept me interested all the way through and was just…very captivating and entertaining. And I liked how it neither spoke as to who was right and who was wrong, nor did it gloss over everything as if it was all just a little unnecessary drama. The characters seemed very real – in the sense that sometimes people just don’t THINK and sometimes geniuses are stupid jerks and sometimes friendships aren’t very deep… I guess I can’t really explain it.

I hope that y’all will help me pray for the families of those soldiers who died in Iraq on Saturday. And pray for the rest of the soldiers that are still there in Iraq and in other dangerous countries, such as my Hubby (who, by the way, is fine He was able to get back online last night and reassure me).

First blog of the new year! I’ve been at this for several months, now, and despite what my recent lack of activity might suggest, I am still interested in keeping this blog going. I do, however, think that this is a good time to reassess some things.

It seems I need to recognize that I’m in a different place in life than I was last February.

I am, for one thing, no longer an Avon lady, per se. I can still order products, but I don’t have the website to allow customers to place orders online, and I don’t order and distribute brochures. What do I do, then, ask my friends and family. Do I go to school? Well, no. I’m not currently going to school, either.

I am an Army wife who is trying to survive her first deployment through the help of God, family, friends, and a regularly-scheduled counseling appointment. Since deployment began, if I’m really honest, I haven’t done much of anything. At all. After deciding to finally give up on Avon (I’m not a sales-person…), I intended to spend “work time” each day doing blogs and working on my novel. But the truth is that I don’t spend my days doing productive things like that. I don’t do the things that are high on my priority list, or the things that are the most fulfilling for me. I do the things that are the easiest, and the things that pass time quickly, the things that take my mind off of reality. And I regret it, and then the next day I do it again.

I’m an Army wife trying to survive her husband’s first deployment. I leave the house a few times a week: to go to counseling, to go grocery shopping, to go to church, and to go to Bible study sometimes. I go walking for thirty minutes about five times a week. I try to read my Bible and pray daily. I write a weekly snail-mail letter to my husband in Iraq, despite the fact that we talk almost daily online. And I watch a *lot* of Netflix. And play Minecraft. And sleep.

But am I still passionate about writing? Yes. And am I still an aspiring novelist, an artist of sorts, a homemaker, a Christian? Yes.

So, what will Ocipura.com look like in 2011?

*More personal. I tried hard in 2010 to keep the blog from becoming a personal journal. And when I say tried hard, I mean hard. It was a lot of effort for me. You can ask Hubby – one of my most frequent complaints was that I couldn’t write about something or didn’t know how to write about something without making it too personal. I’m not too worried about that anymore, and I think that my friends who read won’t be too bothered by the blog becoming more personal.

*More fictitious? I’ve been thinking a lot about trying to post some of my writing on here. I haven’t decided for sure yet. Frankly, I’m worried about my work being stolen. Not that someone would necessarily take my words and pass them off as their own so much as they might take my ideas and write them better. So this isn’t something I’m saying you will see in 2011, but it’s a possibility.

*More pictures. I know I’ve mentioned before that this blog has a severe lack of pictures. I really would like to correct that.

*More interactive. I’ve already talked to my webmaster about the possibility of adding a forum, and I’m really hoping to get more feedback from readers this year. We’ll see. On that note, please, can you tell me what I can do to entice you guys to become more involved? I ask questions frequently and try to open things up for discussion, but that rarely draws a single comment. Any thoughts?