My name is Jennifer. I am the wife of Bryan who retired from the Army after serving 23 years. I am the mother of a beautiful 17 year old daughter who is a senior in high school and has been accepted to Texas Tech for the fall of 2016 to study to become a physical therapist. I have a talented 13 year old son who is already an excellent chef and loves listening to the Beatles and Paul Simon. I am also blessed with twin boys who are 9 that are as different as night and day. One is very outgoing and loves puppies and makes people smile with his boisterous take on life. The other is quiet and very focused, he hears EVERYTHING and is always learning.
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Being Brave. I don’t think of myself as brave. Writing this definitely qualifies for me. First off, I am very lucky my parents introduced God to me as the ideal parent-one that is full of love, kindness, compassion and that wants the best for me. He wants me to make good choices, but allows me the freedom to go down a path that He would rather I not go down and then is there for me when I am stumbling and ask for help-He helps me find my footing and get back on a path.
With that being said I am one of the many who come from a broken home. For a while as a child I thought that God was punishing me for being selfish and being so focused on material things that when I got the preemie cabbage patch doll for my 10th birthday and found out that my parents were divorcing I thought that my focus on the doll that I wanted cost me my parents. Needless to say I struggled while my parents had a very bitter divorce that left me wondering if I was the least bit lovable. After all, if I was half of each of them and they hated each other so much how could they ever love me. This brings me to where I began to be brave.
I have had a long journey and God has been there with me from being a 20 year old single mom, to marrying a soldier and much more. I am going to share with you a little bet about this journey and how God has worked through me and helped me be brave several times.
When I was 20 years old I found myself pregnant and chose to become a mom. As I drove to work the song Unanswered Prayers by Garth Brooks came on the radio and I realized that God was giving me a chance to see Him answer a prayer, not the way I was expecting, but in another way if I was willing to let Him work through me. I had been praying for someone to love unconditionally for years. Here I was pregnant. Children are a lot of work, but I saw this pregnancy as a gift-a chance to step onto a new path. So I stepped out in faith and became a mom. I did not marry my daughters father-I had grown up in a house where my parents hated each other and I wanted my child to grow up knowing she was loved and wanted. Her biological was not ready to be a dad and said so, so we amicably parted ways and to this day-soon to be 18 years this March I have no regrets with that choice. I hold no ill will towards him and she knows of him and that he wanted the best for her. To be loved and have a family that loved her. Talk about being surrounded by God! He blessed me so beautifully by opening a door to allow me to see something differently.
My life changed a lot in March of 1998. I accepted that God loved me and wanted me. I then saw that I was going to need to be a mom that focused on my child. I was not going to look for a man in my life, just be the best mom I could be. Well after much convincing some friends convinced me that I could be a great mom and still go out with friends sometimes. In August of 1999 I met my husband out at a dance club when I went out with some friends. I was a preschool teacher and only out to spend some time with my girlfriends. My now husband asked me to dance and I turned him down. I thought that I did not deserve to have any one else in my life since I was a mom and had committed myself to being a mom and staying on the path that I thought I was supposed to be on. For some reason my husband came back and asked me to dance again. As you may guess I said yes. Talk about scary. I was sure that I was going to be single until my daughter turned 18, but that was not the case. Bryan was in the Army-super new territory for me-I had no clue about the military at all! We married in November of 2000 and I found myself learning to trust in God a little more. We moved to Fort Huachuca and had a son. God was slowly pushing me out of my comfort zones more and more. He was there as I learned how to be an army wife and lean on people outside of my family. In 2004 He was there in the form of human angels who helped me when we lost a baby while Bryan was in Korea. They took care of my kids and sat with me while I lost that little one.
When Bryan returned from Korea we moved to San Antonio and found surprise surprise we were expecting twins! I had a really hard time trusting and struggled with my faith while I was pregnant. I was once again in a new city and expecting. I knew no one and after the loss the year before I was just scared. Those first two years here were hard. I had not connected into the community and called my friends out of state all the time crying and praying that God would help me stop hurting. This prayer was answered when I called my friend one day and she had just gone with another friend who was speaking to a MOPS group in Colorado Springs. She said they would pay for me to go to MOPS. I would love it. We hung up and I looked up MOPS, I found a group near me and called to see about going-it was mid April and the year was almost over for them. I cried when I hung up the phone with that groups coordinator. They did not have room for me since I had twin 1 year olds. Too many kids and not enough space. I hurt so badly at that time. I needed a community and this had sounded perfect. Luckily my neighbor’s husband was on staff there and heard about me and helped me get signed up for the next year. I went and knew that I was supposed to be in a group, but just still felt like I was missing something there-most of my table was missing each week , so I kind of still felt alone, but I could almost hear God telling me “keep going, you need this”. When that group did not renew next year I called one of the other wives from my husbands unit. I remembered her talking about her group. I joined her group and my heart felt so full after the first few meetings! I knew I was where I was supposed to be again.
Well since God was pushing me and pulling me to grow I ended up stepping up into the leadership in that group. I helped put together their big fundraiser and being on leadership meant getting to go to the MOPS convention. That one I said yes to not for the sake of God, but because it was in Florida and meant 3 days with other women and no kids! Wow! A vacation for ME? I went and once again God found a way to work through me. Throughout the convention I heard them talk about “No Mom Alone” and how we are meant to be with others and help God work in us and around us! I cried most of that weekend. I came home with a love for MOPS and a desire to be more involved. I stayed in leadership and ended up sharing my testimony the next year. The next convention God put a conviction in my heart to step up and help other women by joining the MOPS leadership as a coach. To this day He amazes me when He calls me to step more and more out of my comfort zone.
I am now the proud wife of an amazing man who shows me how precious I am to him. I am also the mom of a beautiful high school senior who makes me so happy. I am also homeschooling my 13 year old son and my twin 9 year old sons. I always said I would never homeschool and then God softened my heart and opened doors that have been amazing. God will open doors for you and hold your hand if you let Him.
I loved the break that I got when they went to school each day. Then in February of 2013 something changed. I was finding myself very stressed and upset that my youngest son was struggling and just not getting it at school. We were spending 2-3 hours on homework and not seeing any improvements. I decided over spring break to see how it would be if we tried homeschooling. I pulled out the books I had from friends who homeschooled and we spent the week working on spelling, reading and math. It was great. By the end of the week my son who would struggle with reading, writing and spelling was sitting and reading a book willingly.
So I prayed. I had never wanted to homeschool at all. It was not me! I loved my time on my own. Time to cook, clean and more without all 3 boys running around the house and my daughter at the high school. I began to talk with friends and door after door opened. A friend suggested I go see the homeschool program her friend used. I loved it. It was just what I was looking for. I found a MOPS group that could accommodate me with homeschooling kids and I pulled them from public school at the end of the 2012-2013 school year. In all of this, I continued to struggle and have had to truly lean in on God. My husband’s job in San Antonio lost its funding and he had to move to Maryland at the beginning of our homeschool journey. He has been in Maryland since October of 2013 and the job was finally funded there for an extended time. We have had a lot of bumps along the way. We are now getting comfortable with the homeschooling. My 13 year old asked to be homeschooled when we began this journey and is thriving with the change. The twins are doing great too. My son who was truly struggling is going for Memory Master which is where they will quiz him on information from Latin, Timeline, History, English, Math, Science and Geography from the 24 weeks of school. My son who had no confidence and struggled day in and day out with feeling stupid is now going for this! I have found that handing this over to God and letting him lead has been amazing. I am so lucky that He has blessed our family with this journey and am looking forward to seeing what the next year holds for our family.