LEAD ME

I look around and see my wonderful life
Almost perfect from the outside
In picture frames I see my beautiful wife
Always smiling
But on the inside, I can hear her saying...

“Lead me with strong hands
Stand up when I can't
Don't leave me hungry for love
Chasing dreams, what about us?

Show me you're willing to fight
That I'm still the love of your life
I know we call this our home
But I still feel alone”

I see their faces, look in their innocent eyes
They're just children from the outside
I'm working hard, I tell myself they'll be fine
They're independent
But on the inside, I can hear them saying...

“Lead me with strong hands
Stand up when I can't
Don't leave me hungry for love
Chasing dreams, but what about us?

Show me you're willing to fight
That I'm still the love of your life
I know we call this our home
But I still feel alone”

So Father, give me the strength
To be everything I'm called to be
Oh, Father, show me the way
To lead them
Won't You lead me?

To lead them with strong hands
To stand up when they can't
Don't want to leave them hungry for love,
Chasing things that I could give up

I'll show them I'm willing to fight
And give them the best of my life
So we can call this our home
Lead me, 'cause I can't do this alone

Father, lead me, 'cause I can't do this alone

Your love is a song

I keep my eyes so wide open looking how all those young guys walks in the desert next to you thinking they want to be like you. what they dont know is that all those new wifes will have to be like me. mothers with hearts broken. Looking away and praying to God while their kids cry at night because dad is not home. Trying to smile not sure if what they feel is called happines or something else. I love you. More than I ever love anyone else. But i think you love the Army more than you love your family. In case you dont know what we have been through in a year and you dont even have orders to come home yet. Im going to tell you what ive been through in two weeks. only 14 days. The rest of the thre houndred and something else days just use your imagination. cause those 14 days dont include those dark days where i was on fire in the emergency room.

Im invading other people's life to see if my husband face is in their pictures to confirm he still alive. Reading people's profiles to see if someone have heard or see you. Praying that the morning news dont show your face on the news or that red cross message coming to our hospital is not for me. While I keep on with a full time job pretending nothing is going on, keep up with the house, the bills, go to the gym, take care of the kid, go to the appointments, my mom is sick, the truck was broken, did a three mile walk for breast cancer patients,  the house get floaded, mom crash my car, have to fix the car, Ian get sick,I get sick,  my liscence is suspended, I have some trainings pendings, both the truck and the car have expired tags, my acls is not updated, I have not enroll in college, did paperwork to outprocess, got orders to pcs to fort campbell, the orders came in wrong , you didnt call in a week, there is another armistead who die in the service, mom have alzheimer, the daycare lost the liscence, find another daycare, find a new house in another state(not done), pack the house(not done), ian cant walk im not able to help him he is too heavy for my back pain, i fix the truck, fix the car( not the outside), truck need paint, car need paint, miss my husband(week #2 without call or email), have a zeisure, my uncle die, the cat have more kittens, ian is late on walking, ian dont want solid food have severe ear infection, cant find brian to fix my orders to fort campbell have less than 90 days to move to fort campbell, have orders for fit for dutty, med board aproved wont move to fort campbell how am i going to tell brian??








Liar.... Just a liar.

I cant think about anything else when i think about you. All your love is a memory. cause your love sounds like a song. I keep my eyes wide open and i just see how lonely i pass the last two years. waiting to feel you here with me. whyle you wait to be that hero who save the world.

AT THE FOOT OF THE CROSS

At the foot of the cross
Where grace and suffering meet
You have shown me Your love
Through the judgment You received

And You've won my heart
Yes You've won my heart
Now I can

Trade these ashes in for beautyAnd wear forgiveness like a crown
Coming to kiss the feet of mercy
I lay every burden down
At the foot of the cross

At the foot of the cross
Where I am made complete
You have given me life
Through the death You bore for me

I'm laying every burden down
I'm laying every burden down

silence

Ian is sleepin in his room. I think he loves to see he have his own space. Thats something Raziel never experience in his life untill he live with his dad. been able to have his own room. His own space. With his own toys. I bet Ian feels special. A kid should feel important when in a home there is a specific space just for him with things that belongs just to him. That should make you think someone was waiting for you. or at least someone cares about you enough to give you a place and you feel you belong there.

My poor Raziel Im so sorry I could never give him that. Im so sorry. Once i divorce his father i didnt have the economical means to even give him a roof over his head. So we live like homeless people sleeping in the same bed. Stayin for a couple of month with my dad, staying for a couple of months with my mom, staying for a couple of months with my sister or who ever could give us some food and a roof. I try to smile for him as much as i can just to pretend everything was ok and temporary. But it was so hard to see that i didnt have anything to offer him other than that smile.

After that he never have a room of his own, he never have any new toys. My temporary situation was turning permanent and my permanent smile was turning temporary. I turn into the Army to give you those things I dream You deserve....

Now i see Ian Sleeping so happy like the baby I dream Raziel should be. And i ask my self. Why God allow my first baby go throug so much?  Why i cant still give him those dreams i always wanted for him?

Every night i thank the Lord for my precious Ian and every night i cry for my broken heart and my Raziel

Raziel Isaak 2010 (10 years)

IRISH LULLABY

Sleep o babe for the red bee hums
the silent twilights fall eeval from the Grey Rock comes
to wrap the world in thrall. A lyan van o my child my joy
my love and heart's desire. the crickets sing you lullaby
beside the dying fire

dusk is drawn and the Green Mans' thorn
is wreathed in rings of fog sheevra sails his boat till morn
alone the starry bog a lyan van o, the paly moon
hath brimmed her cusp in dew
and weeps to hear the sad sleep tune
I sing o love to you

a lyan van o, the paly moon
hath brimmed her cusp in dew
and weeps to hear the sad sleep tune
I sing o love to you

Rain

It’s been raining here since you left. Every night I just think about it. Cause every morning when I go to work I see the fog in the trees and I just realize how strange is the weather in the south.

It was so cold when you deploy. It snow and thank God we have an extra day together. I remember You told me you have this weird feeling like the same one you have right before when you are about to go kicking doors.

I never told you how beautiful was the weather after you left. The same day you left I get stocked in Tennessee. The snow was so horrible I couldn’t believe it. But the very next day all the snow was gone and the trees were cover in ice. I don’t know If it was a mix between the emptiness of not having you and the lost of my uncle Raul at the same time or the beauty of the scene driving back to Augusta.

 But I wear your jacket, I drive your truck, I wipe my tears, I wear your shades…we all make silence and I just drive on…

Since  that day when I go to bed and silence overcome the daily duties I start listening how slowly the rain start falling down. I pray for the ones I love and I kiss them good night one by one. I pray for the ones I love and they are already gone. And for the ones I can’t reach because the distance makes it so hard. During my pray I feel how God make my hart rest in the comfort that every day is a day as he planned. his peace comfort me and I felt asleep. my tears run dry and by the morning they are just mist hidden  in the trees ready to welcome a brand new day. No wonder why its been raining in Augusta every night since that January day.

In the silence of the night I still waiting

A thousand may fall at your side

And ten thousand at your right hand,

But it shall not approach you.

8You will only look on with your eyes

And see the recompense of the wicked.

9For you have made the LORD, my refuge,

Even the Most High, your dwelling place.

10 No evil will befall you,

Nor will any plague come near your tent.

11For He will give His angels charge concerning you,

To guard you in all your ways.

12They will bear you up in their hands,

That you do not strike your foot against a stone.

13You will tread upon the lion and cobra,

The young lion and the serpent you will trample down.

14"Because he has loved Me, therefore I will deliver him;

I will set him securely on high, because he has known My name.

15"He will call upon Me, and I will answer him;

I will be with him in trouble;

I will rescue him and honor him.

16"With a long life I will satisfy him

And let him see My salvation."

0

north

Smoking your cigarette with your shield on. Thinking about home. The same sun that burn your skin will be the one coming my way tomorrow. But at this time on my sky only the stars you name for my are shinning tonight. Those are the ones that matters to me. The other ones matters to the rest of the world. If I think hard I can remember very clear that feeling of been in the other side of the world. Where everything is so awkward cause life is backwards. While your family sleeps you are awake and when you are sleeping they are working.  No correlation with the weather. Nothing to talk about. Is like life makes a big pause. While everyone else’s keeps going. In the desert everything feel like is moving so slow. It feels so painful to call home and figure out that while other people keep up with their lives you are just there…. Wake up in the morning do PT; eat breakfast, shower, work, dinner, go to the MWR, sleep. Next day you will do the same thing all over again for the next 365 days non stopping.  Everything going on your side is OPSEC. Everything on my side is too much to do something about it especially because you are too far to do something anyways. Is like trying to live two lives.  I don’t think I will feel complete until you come home. In the meanwhile I feel abducted.

Last deployment was my time to learn how to meet myself and live with myself. I needed to make peace with myself. And last deployment was my basic training for it. It was a horrible deployment I never been disconnected from my family, friends, TV, radio, telephone and all common normal every day commodities ever in my life. And that’s what I have as a normal daily basis.  It was rough and it took me long and almost drives me crazy but at the end of the deployment I came home a more independent stronger person. I love it. I decide to throw away the dependent person and became self-sufficient. I promise I will learn things and I will try to do things on my own even if at the end I didn’t succeed.  I start risking myself to be open to new experiences wish gave me new opportunities and I met great people.

This deployment didn’t deprive me from anything other than you. I thought I have all I need to succeed and not been affected. But I thought wrong. Once you were gone. My life runs out empty.  I was running on my own strength and when my life went from bad to extremely overwhelm I couldn’t resist the outcome. I have gone too many times into too many situations where the ups and downs of life make me cry over but this time my entire world was sinking. My husband is in a combat zone as an infantry soldier and my world is collapsing piece by piece in my own hands. Is hard to cry over and tell the one you love over the phone “hey I’m broken” especially when you want to say “I’m ok and everything will be fine” especially when you know he is counting on you for lots of things and every tear just feel like a disappointment.   Just feel like you let him down. But reality is that sometimes when you have to be strong if you don’t have the right tools to be strong your strength goes away like water in your hands.

I feel God. As cliché as it sounds that’s all it happen. Just a simple recepy. Nothing out of the normal I didn’t jump out in the air or speak weird languages or see angels or a bright light stroke me or anything special magical happen.  I simply get tired of all the drama. One day I was so fed up with the pain and the arguments with my mother, the stress with my job and leaders that make no sense a baby that is growing without daddy. I get tired of not having a back ground that I can use as a guide whenever I have a problem because my family is a totally dysfunctional family. I get tired of trying to be normal and standard.  When I get into the point that I couldn’t take it anymore. I dress up take my baby boy and sit down in church.

And I pray.

Cause after 36 years I was needing to be happy… I was needing a change.

 

Psalm 27

Of David.

¹ The LORD is my light and my salvation—
       whom shall I fear?
       The LORD is the stronghold of my life—
       of whom shall I be afraid?

² When evil men advance against me
       to devour my flesh, ^[a]
       when my enemies and my foes attack me,
       they will stumble and fall.

³ Though an army besiege me,
       my heart will not fear;
       though war break out against me,
       even then will I be confident.

⁴ One thing I ask of the LORD,
       this is what I seek:
       that I may dwell in the house of the LORD
       all the days of my life,
       to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD
       and to seek him in his temple.

⁵ For in the day of trouble
       he will keep me safe in his dwelling;
       he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle
       and set me high upon a rock.

⁶ Then my head will be exalted
       above the enemies who surround me;
       at his tabernacle will I sacrifice with shouts of joy;
       I will sing and make music to the LORD.

⁷ Hear my voice when I call, O LORD;
       be merciful to me and answer me.

⁸ My heart says of you, "Seek his ^[b] face!"
       Your face, LORD, I will seek.

⁹ Do not hide your face from me,
       do not turn your servant away in anger;
       you have been my helper.
       Do not reject me or forsake me,
       O God my Savior.

¹⁰ Though my father and mother forsake me,
       the LORD will receive me.

¹¹ Teach me your way, O LORD;
       lead me in a straight path
       because of my oppressors.

¹² Do not turn me over to the desire of my foes,
       for false witnesses rise up against me,
       breathing out violence.

¹³ I am still confident of this:
       I will see the goodness of the LORD
       in the land of the living.

¹⁴ Wait for the LORD;
       be strong and take heart
       and wait for the LORD.

And now that I’m walking with the lord I have no fear. I’m not tired. Cause he give me the strength to keep going. He keeps me safe from the people who try to harm me and my family is growing by the first time in so many years as a family. And my hose now is a home where you can breathe peace.

Joseline