the American dream

It's been nearly a year since I've been on post. Tonight, my brother and his wife invited us over to inaugurate their new house with a family dinner. They were so lucky to get into Senior Enlisted housing, which from what I understand isn't the easiest to get. Wayne and I used to walk by their neighborhood, dreaming of raising our kids in a place like this.

Their house is amazingly cute-- super simple with hardwood floors and new paint. They have a quiet little yard for their dogs and a nice, big basement. My sister in law has done a wonderful job of decorating with all the nice things they got from their big, beautiful dream wedding. Each room has a theme. In one of the rooms there are portraits of her grandparents at their wedding bordering a wedding portrait of their own. My grandfather's photograph in his Dress Blues. Paintings of the houses my brother and I grew up in in France. A basement full of memories from their childhoods.

Wayne and I sat on their front porch and looked out at the field in front of their house and the dozens of cute, matching houses across from them. We took in the giant Southern sky and the waving American flag as the wind brushed against us and TAPS played in the background. After dinner, the next door neighbors invited us over for S'Mores... they had set up a giant fire pit and camping chairs, and Annika chased a little boy around the yard while the dogs barked in the background. It was warm, windy, and totally magical--- the kind of night the South is made of. And it was so strangely nostalgic-- we could stare out at the rows of houses with warm light coming from inside and the bright sky and Wayne looked over at me and said: "this is everything I've ever wanted."

It might not sound like a big dream, but I know what he means. Our drill sgts always told us we would regret our decision to take off--- and we have. But never so much as days like today. Wayne's whole life happened on a southern Army base, so for him, it's a reminder of the kind of world he wants his kids to grow up in: one that's safe, and fun, and patriotic. One where people know the price they've paid for a life that's both serene and meaningful.
For me, it's a reminder of those seemingly endless days at Golf company at Ft Jackson, using polishing my boots as an excuse to trail under the open sky, looking up and wondering what God was going to do about me and my little green husband who was so close, two buildings away, and yet so far away and untouchable. I'd write him love letters there and pray and read my bible, and tell the Lord about the family I wanted and the life I was hoping to have.

Our life is, in nearly every way, the opposite of my brother and his wife's. We are what you might call "fundamentalist" Christians, they are Grace and evening prayer Christians. We are poor, they are wealthy. We are spontaneous, they plan every instance they can imagine in their lives. We are very anti-cheese, they are a walking Hallmark card. We are stuck where we are, they are world travellers. We have kids, they have only each other. But in all of those differences, I am able to, for the first time in my life, see God at work in their lives as powerfully as He is in ours.

Watching them tonight, settling into their home like a TV sitcom on the Army life, daydreaming about their future family and organizing their little universe in their perfect little house with the perfect street, I was almost jealous--- I WAS jealous--- because for the first time in my life I could see how a little planning and a whole lot of work could create what they had wanted out of life. The trouble with me is that I've never really known what exactly I wanted--- I've always been so unidentifiably DIFFERENT from the things I saw around me that I had to try everything out, always changing, always looking for new things to experience.

But looking at them tonight, Wayne and I both knew that THIS was a glimpse at what we've been looking for. And I think we both realized the cost, for the first time in a LOOOOOONG time, of following God. Because God has not promised us that life, as perfect as it looks. And because of that, we are challenged to the core by what lies ahead. But in the same instant, I can look at that scene and know that one day, we will have even more than that--- that our heaven will look even better than Ft. Bragg, NC on a perfect day. Better than my grandmother's house in Marseille on a Summer Night..... Better even than the little things (my children's laughter, a really good song, a pound of garlic steamed Dungeness Crab from Joes' Crab Shack...)

Wow.