Dear Mark...

Dear Mark,
It was so good to hear your voice on the phone last weekend...I did not want to hang up. Sometimes this fear in me swells up, you know. While you are talking to me on the phone I can be sure that you are ok. I can hear you breathe and laugh and sigh...you are real again, right beside of me. But when I hang up that phone, you are a world away from me. And it is a dream world that I cannot imagine...that maybe I don't want to imagine.
These past few days, I have known you are "out"...out of the protection of the "wire" (as you call it over there). So I just keep swallowing back that fear.
My trust is not in where you are (or where you are not), but in Who is with you.
I wish I could reassure you, sweetheart, that my faith was perfect and unwavering. But that would be disingenuine. Sometimes I waver. Sometimes I lie awake at night and ask myself questions like: "What if the CACO Chaplain comes to my door?""What will I do if I see a government car pull in the drive?"...stupid, destructive questions...But don't you think that all the other wives are asking the same ones? I wonder...but none of us would ever say it. That would be admitting that we think of such unthinkable things.
What do you think of? Do you wonder what the kids are doing in the evening? Do you imagine what it feels like to hug them goodnight? I ache for you over that one, darling. I know how badly you must miss them...I think in that way this separation is harder for you than for me. Yes, I am exhausted and lonely for your company, but I have the children. You, on the other hand, just have a bunch of sweaty guys!
When you called this time you sounded good -not discouraged like last week. I'm glad I could cheer you up then. I know that some days are harder than others. And we have an enemy who would like nothing better than to keep us in a pit. But Mark, you are right when you say that sometimes obeying God's call if very painful...sometimes I ask Him wouldn't He please like to give us another assignment? Preferably one we could do side by side? But the answer for now is a firm NO. So, like you, I would rather be separated and in the middle of His will than holding hands outside of it.
I love and miss you so much! Happy 40th Birthday!

Let us persevere, My Love...for His sake.
Stacey