Krista Lauren

Sigh, the tears are very few and far between in this relationship, but a deployment is still a deployment, which means there are lonely nights and times your heart misses your person even more than usual.

Do you want to know what one of my biggest downfalls is? It’s the way I sin the most and something I have worked really hard for years to correct — and although I’ve made slow and steady improvements, it’s still very much a journey for me.

I worry about my future.

This is perhaps why one of my favorite Bible verses is Matthew 6:26,

“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?“

Worrying steals your precious time, it and ultimately it means you are not trusting God with His plan for you. Deep down I know God loves me and has great things in store for me to help others. I know He isn’t ever going to leave my side — even when people might — yet I still find myself questioning whether everything really will be okay.

Did you know that an Achilles heel is something that can lead to one’s ultimate downfall? I think spending time worrying isn’t just leading towards a downfall, but it’s kind of it. I’m giving precious minutes — hours — days — of my time to create these scenarios that may or may not even happen. My biggest fear in my relationship is doing another deployment. I’m scared of getting perpetually stuck in permanent a long distance thing, and I feel like my life has become a string of long distance relationships. When my ex and I broke up I swore I would never get involved with someone I’d do long distance with, but God had a different plan for me and I really couldn’t be happier that I am in the middle of all of this right now. I wouldn’t have wanted anyone except the person I am with right now, even though he is more than 6,000 miles away from me.

Today’s lesson: My mother used to tell me growing up that most of what we worry about won’t happen, and if it does we couldn’t always have controlled it anyway.

One of my biggest struggles about being a Christian is learning to trust God with everything in my life. Sure it’s easy to trust something that I haven’t ever really had to worry about before, but when it’s things I’m all too familiar with — like being in a long distance relationship and whether or not I’ll have to deal with something like this again — it scares the hell out of me! My New Year’s resolution for 2017 is going to be trying to be more cognizant about handing my concerns to Jesus, rather than trying to control everything myself.