Seventeen years ago I left behind my predictably unpredictable life as a United Methodist minister and took on an additional identity. And if you had asked me if I would take such a leap of faith even four years earlier, I would have denied even the remote possibility that such a thing could happen. But it did, and in March of 1995, I became a military spouse.
Until I went to my first church, I really didn't know anything about the lives that military families live. But our congregation was filled with military families, mostly Air Force and Navy, and I began to meet the spouses and children of these military member within the first few days. There are two families that take credit for introducing me to a young Air Force pilot. Our church organist first introduced me to the handsome new baritone in the church choir and local scoutmaster... and our Evangelism chair, whose husband was also a flyer and whose children were in my youth group, took it a step further and took advantage of opportunities for us to be in the same space.
Our engagement came after almost two years of dating and our marriage fourteen months after that. Moving in together after the wedding presented a special challenge since we were both used to having our own space and our own way of doing things. At first, being a military spouse didn't really change my life very much. There was the opportunity to shop on base, and a spouses' meeting once a month. And the calls from the squadron: "Mrs. Teagan, your husband has just landed and will be leaving the base in approximately one hour" or "Mrs. Teagan, your husband's plane is broken and they are waiting for parts... we'll let you know when he's on the way back. [I got this one a lot!]. But this was just the calm before the storm.... our first PCS (permanent change of station).
The details are still bonded in my memory... driving away to a new life, a new house, and new jobs for both of us. I was very fortunate to be given a church appointment in southern Illinois... and fortunate again to receive one in North Dakota three years later. But in 2001, the appointment well dried up. We began a series of one year moves... one year in New Jersey, one year in Georgia, one year in Alabama. For the first time since high school, I was not working outside the home. In my head, I was just somebody's wife, and a big accomplishment for the day might be laundry, or finding a good deal on chicken breasts at the local store. We couldn't find a church that felt like home.... I felt cut off from friends and family.... I really didn't know where to turn.
But on September 11, 2001, all of that changed.
My phone started ringing soon after 10:00am. And as the day went on, a small community formed to ask the questions that everyone asked. "How could this happen?" "Where is God in the midst of this tragedy?" "How do I explain it to my children?" And it was as if God said, "Just because you're not serving a church doesn't mean that there isn't work for you to do." From that week's conversations, a bible study was started, true friendships were forged, and I found my way back to my call.
In the Old Testament book of Ruth, we hear a story of a young woman who left behind all that she knew to follow someone she loved and respected. But those heartfelt words from the wedding liturgy are not the words of a woman to her beloved husband... they are the words of a young widow to her mother-in-law as they seek to find a better life. Ruth says, "Where you go, I will go..." but she also says, "Your God will be my God," signifying a trust in a higher power to make sense out of a senseless situation.
We live in a society where "control" is a big issue. We don't like the feeling of not having control - of not making our lives work the way we want them to work. But there is something to be said for trusting that our control is not always the best way forward.... of trusting in a higher power - in God - to make something good come from something for which we had no backup plan.
I am blessed with many wonderful spouse friends - professional women and men who have changed tracks or made different plans in order to support being a part of a military family. Some of my friends are teachers, nurses, and accountants. Others are administrative assistants and physical therapists. One friend is a rheumatologist and another just got her cosmetology license. Each of them, women and men alike, uses their gifts and graces to support their spouses and the military communities in which they live. They pick up their lives regularly and follow on to places at every corner of the world. They do it for love of family and love of country. And each of them has realized something important throughout their military spouse journeys... that marriage is not just about being in love... it's about trusting that God can use us wherever we go in ways that we could not have imagined.
I visited a dear seminary friend last weekend and got to attend her church for the first time. And in a moment of vulnerability I wondered what it would have been like if I had a different life... If I had stayed in South Carolina and pastored churches close to home. I saw the love that her congregation had for her, and the relationship that she had experienced in her twelve years with that congregation. I looked that the road not taken and thought, "What if?"
But it didn't take long to think about all of the experiences that I would have missed out on or all of the people that I would probably never have met. And I knew that my comings and goings are a part of the road that I committed to when I said, "I do." And that has made all the difference....
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
--- Robert Frost (1920)
