The Potty Chronicles: Confessions of a Madwoman

I wish I could say that our potty training adventures bring out the best in me; that I approach each saga channeling my inner June Cleaver with a happy sing-song voice and dazzling smile, full of encouragement and enthusiasm that assumes nothing less than success as my darling girl beams up at me with proud little eyes.

Not so.

I think I more closely resemble this gal:

Oh I can encourage, alright. I can coax, prod, and reason, offer up m&ms till I’m blue in the face, beg and plead...and eventually threaten and count to three while giving The Look. But at this stage of the game I’m about out of tactics.

It’s been a long battle: 6+ months if you count actively “trying,” closer to a year if you add in the initial novelty of sitting on the potty (which quickly wore off) or hinting at/talking about/reading about All Things Potty. To include the Elmo’s Potty Time DVD which plays on loop every time we get into the car. (Guess which little girl refuses to watch any other DVD since Elmo’s Potty Time came on the scene?) Suffice it to say I no longer enjoy waking up thrashing in the middle of the night as Elmo and his minions haunt me once again with their off-key chorus:

“Grandparents do it! Teeeens do it! Even famous kings and queens do it! You can do it! You’ll use the poooottttyyyyyy!!!”

Engrossed in Elmo's Potty Time

When our on-again, off-again efforts were on again these last few weeks, I started to get hopeful. Yet after all the celebration and jubilation of one step forward (along with a very timely blog entry from my favorite mom blog), that darn brick wall that we can’t get over, under or through emerged once again at the last minute, and futility once again seems to reign. Even as I resorted to Facebook laments and pleas for advice (I really try not to do such things, but thank you, Facebook friends, for the encouragement), the hope was fading fast for our almost-three-year-old, who obviously inherited a double dose of our stubbornness.

Let me be clear about one thing before I go on: though I speak as if I’m the only one stuck in the potty training do-loop, the real credit goes to Peter who took an entire week off of work (hooray for 'use or lose' leave) to work on potty training. And very special credit goes to our Nanny Dearest (she puts Mary Poppins to shame) who has been the one in the house every day of those past 6+ months trying to encourage Miss Bashful—along with her own daughter, who’s the same age—to do their thing.

But alas, it all came to a head this weekend after Peter closed out his week of big-girl-undies shopping and truly valiant efforts. Saturday morning, we picked out the Favorite of the Day (My Little Pony) and put them on. We asked every five minutes if the pee was ready to come out. (No). We got ready to go run errands and asked if the pee needed to come out before we got into the car. (No). We went to Lowe’s. Still no pee. We went to Panera. A very squirmy Marie. Finally after coaxing her the entire lunch hour, she relented to go to the potty with Daddy. 30 minutes of hogging the stall later (and traumatizing an unknown number of men using the urinal as she asked “Daddy, what’s that person doing?”), a defeated Peter and full-bladdered Marie emerged. Bed Bath and Beyond was even worse—after doing the “my bladder is going to explode” dance and shedding many alligator tears she conceded to going in to the women’s room with me, whereupon she had an out-of-body tantrum whenever she heard the sound of someone using the stall next to us. We lasted a good 20 minutes, but I gave up shortly after the final person sitting in the next stall had an unfortunate bout of indigestion, and I attempted to hold my breath in between Marie’s concerned questioning of “Mommy, what’s that sound? Does she have a toot?”

This is Mr. Froggy. Some days we
adore him.
Others we loathe him with
a fiery, fiery passion.

Back at home, Miss Hold-It-At-All Costs still did not want to emit the contents of her bladder prior to nap, so the ever-ingenious Peter (well usually he is!) argued that we shouldn’t put a diaper on during nap because she needed to understand consequences of holding it all day (yes, she has had accidents before and knows what it’s like). He even put Mr. Froggy Potty next to her bed. My response: “No way am I cleaning that up!” But after reassuring me that he would be the one to clean it up and nothing would get ruined, I gave in.

He then scampered off to finish the shopping trip that had been cut short by the potty saga, and naturally had not yet returned when I heard the first tortured strains of “Mommyyy! I’m weettttttt!” coming from the kids’ room. It wasn’t the gallon of pee everywhere that set me off, or even the fact that a key member of our clean-up team was MIA. It was the fact that our little girl was still wearing her nice, new, pretty dress shoes that Daddy hadn’t seen fit to remove at naptime, and the shoes that we had paid good money for were now dripping in pee. Nothing would get ruined, eh? I was miffed. A cranky Erik followed us as I dangled Marie in front of me and ran to the bathtub, and very soon a sheepish Peter returned to meet my wrath. (Poor guy). By the end of bath time, he had apologized a hundred times, started the washer, and allowed me to cool down a bit.  As we stood in the bathroom drying the kids off, I matter-of-factly began to lecture Peter about how My Way is best, but a strange sound stopped me short. I turned to see a completely oblivious Erik emitting a perfectly arcing stream of urine which was bouncing off the kiddie stool and splattering the bathmat. Peter and I both looked at each other in shock and confusion, trying to process what was happening before we burst out laughing. His comment (after telling me that I got what was coming to me): “You have to blog about this.” Happy, my dear?

The fabled shoes drying in the sun after a thorough
rinsing and some Lysol action. We'll
see if they pass the test.

My comment: At the expense of a few loads of laundry and the dress shoes we’re attempting to salvage, I think it’s finally getting through my thick skull that there are plenty of techniques, but no My Way or the Highway when it comes to potty training. Each kid is different. Forcing it too early—or based on an agenda— doesn't necessarily produce results if the environment’s not right. (And yes, I have an agenda: stop paying for at least one set of diapers before the next diaper-clad Hjelmstad arrives). But at the end of the day, we’re no worse off than when we started, and as Peter has so cleverly stated, if all his friends are potty trained then she’ll probably get there soon enough. Simply put, the kid’s going to go when she’s ready. Hopefully before we have to register for kindergarten.

So here’s to flushing the stress of battling with an unwilling subject down the drain, and letting nature take its course when the sweet girl is good and ready.

(But maybe Erik would be willing to start cutting our diaper budget in half…?)

Daddy's Girl

A Daddy’s Girl I am, and always will be. My earliest memories of my dad are the fuzzy kind, circa the mid-1980s. I remember playing with him on the jungle gym he built in the backyard of our tiny military quarters, and the day he taught me to ride my brand-new big girl bike with training wheels. We lived in Italy where his Airborne unit was located, and it didn’t take me long to figure out that the Army was a big part of our lives. We went to the drop zone to watch him float from heaven to earth in a parachute, and he taught me early on give him “head yabbas” (head butts) in lieu of kisses and shout “Airborne!” when jumping from the changing table into his arms. If he only knew how quickly he’d influence me to follow in his footsteps!

When we moved to West Point, I remember walking hand in hand with my dad to football games and telling him over and over how I wanted to be an Army Cheerleader when I grew up. One day my dad asked my brother if he wanted to go to a Sandhurst team practice (an annual military skills competition for cadets at the West Point). My brother declined, but I jumped at the chance. Using my pink-and-white-striped backpack as a rucksack, I gleefully ran along next to them as they navigated through the lake, woods, and swamp (although I was mad that my dad carried me through the swamp instead of letting me sink up to my eyeballs in mud like his cadets did).

He was always an Army man to me, but as I grew, he quietly demonstrated what it means to be a faithful and devoted husband as well. I watched him put his career on the back burner to do what was best for the family in the years my mother battled Lyme’s Disease, even moving to a dull job in PA and taking an early retirement so she could be stable. I also learned to appreciate his quiet but goofy sense of humor, and can vividly recall the trip when I learned that we were driving on the PA Turnpike, not the "turnpipe" as he'd taught us. He could easily revert back his boyish ways, and whenever we saw that mischievous grin or twinkle in his eye, we knew we were in for an adventure.

Ever the sports guy, he was my biggest fan when I started gymnastics, coaching me through the rough patches and cheering me on during endless gymnastics meets. As I moved from gymnastics to diving meets, he would stand on the pool deck in the suffocating chlorine air with the video camera to tape each and every team member’s dive. And during the hours of time spent in the car between practices and meets, he selflessly jammed out with me to my favorite radios stations and endured one too many renditions of Brittney Spears (or, has he dubbed her, “Broccoli Spears”).

Even as I became that and sullen and defiant creature known as the Teen Girl, he always knew how to reach me with the perfect combination of lighthearted humor, tough love, and a small dose of “I told you so.” It was in these years that I remember learning the most about his character. He was, and is, a stickler for honesty, and I clearly remember some rough moments when I had to answer for my actions. With my mom I knew what buttons to press, could continue to mouth off or argue my point. But oh, how I dreaded when my dad walked in my room. He didn’t have to yell or even say a word. His serious, disappointed stare could bore a hole in my heart—I would tear up in an instant, wishing I could just disappear through the floor. It just killed me to disappoint him. When the rest of my friends’ parents just signed off on their 50 required hours of chaperoned driving so they could get their license, my dad made sure to log every minute because it was "the right thing to do." No way were we cutting corners. I griped out loud plenty, but secretly respected him for it, and because of him I knew how to change the oil, as well as the flat tire on my date’s car a few weeks later (while my poor date could only sit and scratch his head in embarrassment).

And even after I left home, if the event was important, my dad was there. After a long first summer of “basic training” at West Point, he was standing there in the crowd watching me as we marched back from field training. In his excitement at the first glimpse of me, he forgot about the video camera in his hand and ran down the street trying to keep me in sight; watching the playback of the ground bouncing up and down is utterly dizzying.

A few years later he was standing there at the edge of the airfield in the middle of the night when I completed my final jump at Airborne School, having driven hours so he could present me with the first pair of Airborne wings he had earned on the same airfield 26 years earlier. 

And in the next months as the uncertainty of my future loomed—what branch of the Army I’d be in, where I’d be living—my dad was there again, driving 4 hours to West Point for ‘Branch Night’ to surprise me and simply offer support when I found out what my future in the Army entailed (only to turn around and drive the 4 hours back home that very night). 

Head Yabba!

Since then, he’s graciously walked me down the aisle and ushered me in to a new chapter of my life as a wife, mother, and as part of the ‘real’ Army. Though the Army has changed a great deal since he was in, my dad is still my sounding board, understands my frustrations, gets the endless acronyms, and supports me through it all. And I’ve realized in the past few years that the values and nobility that I thought defined our profession don’t really come from the Army, but from my dad. When I’m disappointed by things that are lacking in my organization, I realize that I expect these things because of my dad’s humble service and example. My dad’s values—his noble character, humility, and strong, quiet faith—translate to everything he does, in and out of uniform, and continue to be my inspiration in ways he’ll never even realize.

It's not lost on me how lucky I am to have such a wonderful father, and experience the love and involvement that many others never have. But my greatest joy is witnessing the similarities of my dad’s example and the interaction I see daily between Peter and our children. Every day he gives them the one thing that I cannot-- the Father they want and need. It's obvious that Marie is already quite the Daddy's Girl, and Erik is pretty smitten, too. Mommy is okay and all, but Daddy is the one they run to when we arrive home from work, the one they ask for when they wake up, the one who teaches them to throw a ball or hit the puck, the perfect human jungle gym. 

And he’s the one who reminds me how precious life is when the going gets tough, continuing to find meaningful ways to honor the lives of our babies in heaven. Peter’s sacrifice, patience, love, and understanding as a father have already influenced our kids--and me--beyond measure, and how thankful I am that their lives will be just filled with the kind of Father’s Love that I know so well. 

So thank you to these beloved men who have blessed our lives so abundantly, and Happy Father’s Day!!!

It's...A...

The results are in! 64% voted for a girl and 36% voted for a boy. And the majority of you were…

(Can you tell?)

(Now can you tell?)

(How bout now?)

…wrong! It’s a boy! And we are so excited. Of course I had no preference to begin with, but it’s exciting to finally say, “He is kicking me!” or tell Erik and Marie that mommy has a baby brother in her belly, instead of a brother OR sister. They have been great with giving hugs and kisses to “the baby” already, and now they know that it’s their brother they’re hugging and kissing!

My welcome home sign from the kids at the end of the day
(Thanks, De!!!)

Needless to say, we are incredibly grateful to celebrate today in such a happy way, thankful for our new son and for the gift of life in general.

*   *   *

I would also like to ask for everyone’s prayers for another life we are grateful for today. Our dear friends, Tera and Tyson, have been deployed to Afghanistan since February. Yesterday Tyson was very seriously injured, and while we are so thankful for the gift of his life, we beg for your prayers as he faces an uphill battle in the healing process and will live a very different life in the future. We are thankful that Tera is able to be there by her husband’s side right now, and ask for continued prayers for her and both of their families as well. 

Our beloved Quinks as they leave Ft. Drum

 

This goes for all other troops and their families as well. Even when the trials our soldiers face are not covered by the daily news or highlighted by some holiday, each and every day there are men and women far from home dealing with the tragedy of war, and others are trying to recover from life-changing injuries, and families are grieving a son or daughter who has given their life in service. Please do not forget them; they deserve our prayers, especially since it is the one thing we can always do to make a difference for them.

Boy or Girl--What Will 'It' Be?

Well, provided that Baby decides to cooperate, we will be able to find out on Monday! Which is a good thing, because my maternal “gut feeling” has been wrong now twice. You know how some moms just know? Well, apparently, I just don’t.

I swore up and down till the moment Marie was born that she was a boy. Yes, we tried to find out. No, she did not cooperate. So we took that as the sign that ‘it’ should remain a surprise, even when we had the opportunity to find out during subsequent ultrasounds. But I just knew she was a boy until the very second she came out and I exclaimed incredulously, “It’s a…girl!”

With Erik, I convinced myself for the longest time that I didn’t have any gut feeling as to whether ‘it’ would be a boy or a girl. Peter was about to deploy, so he got the vote to either find out or keep it a surprise, and he decided that he wanted to find out the gender at the same time. And ‘at same time’ would not be until the baby was born, providing that the baby’s timing lined up with Peter’s 2 weeks of scheduled R&R. (Thankfully, it did). So I told the ultrasound tech that we wanted to be surprised, and she kindly made us a CD chock full of ultrasound pictures that I could send to Peter. That night, I promptly whipped out the disk and spent the next few hours comparing our baby’s pictures to every last Google image I could find of boy or girl ultrasound pictures, from 6 weeks all the way up to 40 weeks. After all my sleuthing and studying, I was convinced we were having another girl. After all, I’d clearly seen the three lines that equal ‘girl’ (I still maintain that I saw them!) and I even felt a little guilty that I’d figured it out in all my cleverness without my husband’s consent. Eventually I told Peter that I had a hunch based on the pictures because I just couldn’t take the guilt any longer. Until, of course, Erik was born…boy parts and all.

This time, I got the vote as to whether or not we find out. I’ve felt very strongly from the moment I saw the positive test that I wanted to know whether this baby was a boy or a girl. I wanted some way to bond more closely with this baby, to call him or her by name while I was still pregnant, because I didn’t get that chance with our two children in heaven. Though we’ve given them special names and remember them in prayer every night, I still hate the fact that as their mother, I don’t know whether they are my son or daughter. The fact that God knows is a comfort, but I still wish I could. And since God’s given us the wonderful time we’ve had thus far with this miracle baby, I plan on taking full advantage of the technology that can allow us to get to know him or her better!



18 Weeks!

That said, I know that others will certainly still have their opinion. It seems to happen the most with complete strangers…you can see them look twice, trying to figure out if you just ate too many burgers or if that bump is indeed from a baby. The conversations always start out the same:

“When are you due? Is this your first? Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?”

If it’s your first, you have to be prepared to hear more advice and birth stories than you’d ever have time for. And if you don’t know what ‘it’ is, you have to then be prepared for a full blown analysis of how high or low you are carrying, what your birth order is, if you have the dark line on your stomach, what your astrological sign is, what the child’s is supposed to be based on the due date, what color hair you have, how tall you are, and whether or not you’re craving wasabi peas (among other old wives’ tales that originated in the middle ages).

My favorite encounter was the time we were shopping in the paint department before Marie was born, minding our own business while trying to decide between shades of green for the gender-neutral jungle-themed room. The questions from the employee behind the counter began, true to form, and when we got to the part where we didn’t know if ‘it’ was a boy or a girl because the baby hadn’t cooperated during the ultra sound, the analysis began. In the space of five minutes she swore up and down that it was a girl while inspecting my height, width, and bump position, and walking around behind me to make sure she didn’t miss anything (AWKward). She even called over another coworker to aide in the analysis. And by the end of the inspection, she’d changed her mind and was now 100% certain that it was a boy. I didn’t have it in me to tell the lady at the paint counter—the sweet, sweet lady who had never before seen me in her life—that maybe my anatomy had a little more to do with the ‘way I was carrying’ than my child’s gender. Because to my knowledge, the only non-invasive way to determine whether the x or y chromosome won the race is through an ultrasound. Unless you’re lucky enough to have a winged messenger appear and tell you you’re having a son (who will save the world).

But be it sugar and spice or snips and snails, we’re already thankful. And beyond lucky to be in this position, where people will ask such questions or make well-intentioned comments, old wives' tales and all!

3 days and counting!

Destination: Lourdes Part II (The Spiritual)

Why are you still searching...as if I'm not enough?  -Tenth Avenue North

I came to Lourdes for many reasons. The selfish part of me of course had signed up for the trip so I could be back in France for the culture, the food, and to experience a place where peace and tranquility supposedly reigned. But the other half of me felt driven to go for others who couldn’t make the journey, for friends and loved ones who are fighting some battle with illness—the visible and the invisible—or for those who live every day with the pain of past tragedy, seeking to somehow be whole again. Others in my group came for these same reasons, each seeking some kind of healing our own right. And truly, God did not disappoint. But to understand why one would travel halfway around the world to a little town in the French boonies to ‘get healed,’ one must first be a bit acquainted with the significance of the place.

Although we gathered with military from across the world for this particular week, Lourdes originally became known for reasons far removed from the Soldiers who originally met there during World War II. In fact, it was almost 100 years prior that Mary, the Mother of God reportedly appeared to a young and sickly peasant girl named Bernadette Soubrious at a rocky outcropping by the river. The townspeople of course assumed Bernadette was mad when the story of her ‘meetings’ with Mary surfaced, especially as they witnessed her strange antics at the grotto (or cave-like rock) near the river where she would run to meet with the ‘beautiful lady,’ praying and interacting with what appeared to be an imaginary character that no one else saw. But there were still some unexplained events that caused quite a stir: during one of the meetings, Bernadette reported that the beautiful lady had instructed her to ‘go wash and drink from the spring.’ Confused, Bernadette looked around, seeing only the river far behind her. She eventually began to dig under the grotto where the beautiful lady appeared, and within moments a spring began to trickle out of the ground. This same spring now produces over thousands of gallons of water a day, which you can see immediately upon arriving at the grotto. While it’s not unbelievably remarkable that a spring could be present in such a location so close to the river, the completely pure water coming from the spring, (submitted constantly to water quality tests with no explanation for its purity or acclaimed healing properties), is what has scientists shaking their heads as the years pass.



The Grotto

 Equally remarkable are the unexplained healings, incredibly well-documented by doctors and scientists alike, which tend to occur at Lourdes. The first was a woman with a withered and paralyzed arm who had watched Bernadette dig to find the spring. After the crowds of townspeople left, she went with her family to dip her arm in the water. Immediately upon touching the water, her arm straightened out and she regained full use of it. Since then, there have been over 65 approved ‘unexplained cures’ (of the hundreds of thousands claimed), all scrutinized by the most skeptical and impartial board of medical and scientific professionals that can be found, who question and test every plausible theory for a person’s healing to prove that it was not ‘miraculous’. And only physically quantifiable injuries or diseases are even considered to go before the board—others reported cures, such as stress and anxiety disorders and mental health diseases are dismissed as simply too subjective. The commission jokes that they must keep replacing the atheist that is required to sit on the board because he or she keeps converting after attempting to disprove the unexplainable.

At any rate, believe what you like, but it’s impossible to deny the fact that with or without explanation, things just seem to happen at Lourdes. Of course, I don’t necessarily believe that God only makes miracles happen at a place called Lourdes. I think that such miraculous healings, cures, or conversions can happen anywhere and anytime that God wills. But I believe that He uses opportunities (like our trip to Lourdes) to reach us when we decide to step out in faith and be open to His will, His love, and His peace in our harried lives.

I think this is why those soldiers—plagued by the terror of war—flocked to Lourdes in 1945, seeking refuge in a place where love and peace reigned above hatred. And I think this is why people today, plagued with whatever demons control their lives, continue to flock to an otherwise unimpressive French village: some small part of them knows that in searching for God—in the form of love, healing, and peace—He will not let them down.


The lovely convent where the nuns
who pray for us live--it looks out
over the Grotto

So with this confidence I did the best I could for those people who couldn’t be there, for the prayer requests I brought with me. You’ll be happy to know that I was able to deposit each one in a little box at the grotto, and each day they’re collected by sweet little nuns whose only mission in life is to pray for us. I spent every moment I could muster asking God to send help or comfort in some form or another to all those on my ‘list,’ and asked others to pray as well. In return, God granted me my own little moment when I least expected it, that left me with no questions as to His power to answer our prayers according to His will.

It happened in a crowd of thousands of people during a combined military event called the Eucharistic Procession. In Catholic speak, it means “face to face” time with Jesus in the form of a consecrated host placed on the altar that everyone can see. We were all decked out in uniform and walked or wheeled together in a parade-like formation to an enormous underground church. Once inside, multiple color guards marched past, and prayers and hymns were offered in multiple languages. A priest then placed the host—Jesus in bread form—on the altar. And then it was still, quiet. An amazing feat considering the thousands of people present. And at that moment it hit me. An absolute overwhelming feeling of love, acceptance, peace, contentment, all rolled in to one. It was as if I was completely safe, wrapped in a love so powerful that I could have stayed there forever. I didn’t want to leave, I didn’t want it to end. I didn’t even know what it was for, why it happened, what exactly I was supposed to do with it. All I knew was that it wasn’t something produced by this world. It was divine.

I slowly realized that it was for me to share, for others to experience. It was for everyone in our group who came to Lourdes with the heaviness of their own tragedies and brokenness; some of their burdens more visible than others. And the manifestation of this divine love shared by others became so incredibly evident as the week went on, revealing itself in life-changing ways.

On a daily basis, we attempt to survive in a world that is driven by competition, image, judgment, grudges, and revenge, a world where people are quick to belittle others and slow to give praise, where they avoid eye contact and encounters with those who are visibly handicapped or have experienced some personal tragedy. Some assume that when the life of another is not perfect, when it has been filled with pain or loss, that person has in some way lost the capacity to carry on a normal conversation or be treated like a normal person. But in Lourdes—in our broken, suffering group—this was not the case. Even in a wheelchair, with a cane, during moments of stress and anxiety, people were regarded as fully human. Others did not shy away from them. They did not look to someone else to push the wheelchair. They didn’t glance with skepticism out of the corner of their eye when the person in uniform with the cane hobbled through the military procession. They listened lovingly when the stories surfaced—stories of assault, violence, the terror of war, the loss of a precious loved one—and asked questions, offered support, and acknowledged the hurt that so many others are afraid to confront. And at the end of it all, the broken were still regarded as human…human with newfound friends who would treat them as such. Who refused to be annoyed by personality traits or discount their struggles. Friends who offered to push the wheelchair in to town for a shopping trip, to the hotel rooftop for a view, or up the enormous hill to the top of the cathedral. Friends who checked in on each other when there was a migraine, or an anxiety attack in the morning, then invited each other to dinner that night. It was clear that no one was avoided or considered less of a person simply because of their disabilities or circumstances. Like the parable in the Bible of the body and its many parts, each member of the group recognized the dignity and purpose of every other person. As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 12:

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

And what a beautiful thing that was to witness first-hand.

I know that this kind of love and charity absolutely exists in other parts of the world. But it takes so much time and effort and sacrifice to constantly put someone else before your own wants and desires. It’s the sacrificial kind of love that Christ spoke of so often, the sacrificial kind of love that the group shared so willingly; the love that literally dies unto itself to give life to another, that our broken world so desperately needs. And I truly believe it was this love—tangible, divine love that touched me so powerfully—that drastically changed the lives of so many people there in the space of a week. On the last evening, we met as a group to go over travel logistics, but also had the opportunity to share the ways the trip had impacted us. Two and a half hours (and many tears) later, it was clear that such fabled healing was real. I can’t claim any physical proof of the miraculous. But I heard the stories, I saw the bond of God’s love give those with no hope a family, a purpose, and a life worth living. And simply bearing witness to the peace and joy on the faces of so many wounded souls, not quite as shattered as they were the week prior, is enough evidence for me to forever thank God for His incredible, life-changing love.




"I'm So Blue" - Our mascot who reminded us wherever we went
to pray for all deployed Soldiers