It's called Prayer, and it works!

Some of you may have heard and some of you may not have. But the big news around my side of town is that Steven is coming home a month early!! He will be home in 4 weeks! How did this happen you might ask? Well let me start from the beginning.
Before the deployment happened we were hoping Steven wouldn't have to go. He was supposed to get out of the Army in October of 2008 but unfortunately because of the Stop Loss policy, had to go on his unit's deployment to Iraq in December of 2008. Before Steven left for his deployment he hurt his shoulder during PT one morning. It was too soon before his deployment to get it looked at or taken care of so he just went with his shoulder injured. At the beginning of the deployment he and his guys were very busy, going on missions, doing patrols, etc. But after June when all troops were to be out of the cities he has been sitting around watching movies and reading books. As this time continued on he thought it might be a good time to see about getting his shoulder looked at. He heard it was a possibility that they would send him to Germany to get an MRI and hopefully back home early to have surgery on it. Then that idea was nixed. For no particular reason either. So as you can probably guess, Steven wasn't too happy being stuck in Iraq, doing nothing, with a hurt shoulder and not even supposed to be there in the first place.
At the beginning of the deployment Steven mentioned the possibility of coming home early with the ADVON party. Those are the troops that left early to get everything set up. They also come back early so their deployment is only a year. Well, after Steven knew he wouldn't be sent to Iraq, his SGT worked hard to get his sent with the Advon party in October. When he told me about that possibility I started praying like mad. I knew I shouldn't get my hopes up because the Army has a track record of ruining them. But prayer is always key.
At a bible study on Thursday night my friend Emily told me about a way her husband started praying. Instead of asking God for something, he tells Him. I thought, what? You can't tell God what you want and expect him to do it for you! But then we talked about all the times in the Bible that someone has changed God's mind. In 1 Kings God tells Isaiah to tell Hezekiah he will die but Isaiah pleads with God and Hezekiah lives. Abraham talks the number of people down from 50 to 10 to save the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. So I thought I'd give it a try. The next morning I prayed to God in a way I never had before. I said, "God send Steven home early so he can get his shoulder looked at. I know you can do it, so do it (please)." I had to add that please in there because I just felt bad telling God what to do. But I continued to pray like that for the next few days.
Sunday Steven called me and told me that it wouldn't happen. The Brigade did not okay it so he would come home with the rest of his unit. I was heartbroken but not defeated. I knew that God still had power in him so I continued to pray and told God what I wanted him to do. Less than 24 hours later Steven called me back and told me he was going to mess with my deployment countdown. He would be coming home in 4 weeks! You have no idea how excited I was. After I got off the phone with him it was all I could do to pray to God and thank him for listening to my prayers. I knew God could do it and he did! I had the faith and I was blessed because of it.
Now I'm in the process of getting everything ready for my husbands arrival. I need to clean the house, buy a lot of groceries, wash the car, mow and weed eat the lawn. It's an unending list but I'm so thankful I have to finish it 4 weeks ahead of time.
So next time you start praying. Try telling God what you want. It worked for me!

Surprise!

How beautiful are these flowers? I was surprised Tuesday afternoon. I got a call to go to the front office and on the desk was this marvelous bouquet! Of course I didn't have to look to see who they were from. My husband of course. It was nothing special, no birthday, anniversary, anything. He just wanted to let me know how much he loved me and missed me. (It's okay, you can say "aww" now.) I just thought I'd share them with you through the Internet since most of you can't see them in person. I wish I could capture the smell because they smell wonderful as well. I hope your days and weeks are filled with special surprises too!

Accomplished

I love three day weekends. Of course I would love it more if I could share it with someone but when I have a lot of work to do, it's nice to have that extra time to get it done. This weekend I was able to clean my WHOLE house. Yeah, first time that's been done all at once in like...ever. And it was actually the first time I cleaned the upstairs bathroom floor since we moved in. I know, I know. How dirty am I? But really it wasn't that bad. No one ever uses it. But I'm just making excuses for myself. I knew it needed to be done and I did it. And now I walk through my clean house and feel so much better. As much as I don't enjoy cleaning, I do enjoy having a clean house. My mom is so great at her cleaning habits and hopefully some of those are showing in me. I know it will be different when Steven gets home and I have less time but more cleaning to do. Hopefully I'll be able to find the time to not let it get too out of control.
I was also able to get two weeks worth of lessons plans done for reading so now I'm ahead of the game and can hopefully stay ahead. The rest of the afternoon I plan on watching a movie and just relaxing for the week ahead.
Also, if any of you want to join my countdown, I'm at nine weeks until a husband comes home! :) Yahoo!