What kind of woman am I, to choose such a demanding profession during my childbearing years? How will my choice to stay in the Army for a few more years affect my relationship with my daughter, and with my husband? Is this really the kind of work I was born to do long-term, or is this a detour on the road to my true vocation? I do not have bulletproof answers for these questions, and there are better women than I who have chosen either to be professional Soldiers or to be homemakers. What I do know definitively is that the Army has made me a better mother in some tangible ways:

In the last pages of What Did You Expect?? Paul David Tripp summarizes his writing with this: “What has this book been about? It has been a detailed description of the daily work of love that must be done with commitment and joy when a flawed person is married to a flawed person and they are living in a fallen world." Did you catch that—“Daily work ..." So how do you do that under the challenge of deployment?

"This isn’t just a job for me. This is my calling, and I need you to share my calling." As he described his commitment to the Army, my husband’s voice was filled with emotion. It grabbed my attention. Rob and I were attending an intensive marriage retreat before the first of three deployments to Iraq. God opened my eyes that day to an essential element of both Rob’s service in the military and our marriage.

She was a strong woman. Perhaps that came from being the oldest of seven—no doubt a rowdy bunch. Perhaps it came from growing up during The Great Depression and having to work hard at home. Perhaps it came from having two pretty strict parents who expected a lot from their kids. She was strong even in the days when it wasn’t the “norm” to be a strong woman.

Growing up the daughter of a submariner, I was always fascinated by the raw beauty and power of the sea. Its proximity was partly to blame; until I went off to college, I had never lived in a land-locked place. The other reality that inspired my awe, however, was that the ocean was my father’s livelihood. Even as he knew how to navigate and operate within it, he lived constantly at its mercy.

The bride was stunningly beautiful. The groom was handsome and beaming. It was a starlit fall night—the perfect evening for a wedding in east Texas. And once the vows were repeated, the new couple was introduced to everyone in the joy-filled church, and the reception dinner was completed . . . . the bride’s father got up to give his toast before the cake was cut. Here's what the father of the bride said ...