It’s the last day of our last ever Month of the Military Child.
Later this year, two superheroes who were born in on-post hospitals and two who flew home from China to check into military posts will move from active duty “brats” to civilian children.
No longer will they move between districts, schools and states.
No longer will their goodnight kisses come through Mommy messengers or FaceTime apps.
And no longer will they wonder if Daddy will make it for this birthday, this Christmas, this special event this year.
After 11 deployments, eight mailing addresses, six duty stations and three full DITY moves, their soldier — their hero — will finally be full-time home.
But as these superheroes who have served our country in countless ways move from the only life they’ve ever known to a retired civilian life where Daddy practices medicine in a business complex and not a battlefield, they’ve also realized what else they will no longer do.
They will no longer be a part of a close-knit community of kids who picnic together, potluck together and play together nearly every week of deployment.
They will no longer be the frontline warriors who get the opportunity to serve when their country calls.
And they will no longer get the privilege of sending letters and packages and hand-drawn pictures to a deployed daddy who recognized and honored them constantly as his greatest battle buddies in this life.
This military life isn’t easy.
These superheroes sacrifice what many children take for granted every day. (Most children don’t thank their fathers in shock and wonder for actually showing up to their birthday dinners, and most don’t call a 12-hour day at the office “a short day.”)
But in their six to 14 years of life experience, all of them agree that, though it has been an even combination of brutal and beautiful, it has all been brutifally WORTH IT.
All four have an organic sense of service, sacrifice and gratitude that only comes from living out this unique life.
Two, including the one whose father missed his birth, want to join the military themselves. (The other two just want to have 16 children with “absolutely, positively no wife” and make their teenagers raise them all. 💁🏻♂️)
And the one who met his daddy for two weeks in the middle of a 16-month deployment firmly believes that this military life is what God used most to shape him into the responsible, respectful, resilient young man he is becoming today.
In a beautiful move I didn’t expect and could not have predicted, God used the military to instill in these superheroes what we alone couldn’t.
Resilience.
Flexibility.
The ability to CHOOSE joy.
A fresh dependence on HIM.
And in doing so, He wrote the most beautiful story in all of our lives. ❤️
Sweet superheroes, I know it’s been an epic journey fit at times for a comic book itself.
But the way you have embraced the story line and conquered every challenge and “villain” along the way with gusto and joy and tenacity fit for a superhero has brought me to humble, awestruck, absolutely inspired tears.
Thank you for teaching me what “super” looks like in this life. 🦸🏻♂️
#monthofthemilitarychild #thesuperheroesbehindthescenes