God’s love for us is certain, even when life is anything but.

Not unlike many Defence families this season, my family and I find ourselves with a destination to report to in mere weeks but due to some technical difficulties with paperwork - no home to arrive at. We’ve no address to have our mail forwarded to and no truck arranged to pack and deliver our belongings. Yet in five days time, we’ll pack our suitcases - give our current house a final tidy - and say goodbye to the military base we’ve called home for the last 11 months. Hoping beyond physical hope, that our official orders come through and a home becomes available before circumstances dictate that hubby reports for duty and our eldest begins at her new school.

We’ve only been an Army family for around two years, and yet, with each step that we have taken in our Defence life journey, I have thought to myself: “surely we’ve seen the worst of uncertainty by now - everything must get more transparent from here”. I shake my head at myself now. How naive I was walking into this life. I realise now that there’s never a final destination in Army life, but rather it’s an unending journey: with pitfalls and triumphs, sometimes adventure, sometimes tragedy and always an opportunity to learn and grow. 

I couldn’t have known this before, but as soon as posting time comes around, our entire life begins to move at warp speed. Everything on pause and yet everything hurtling at us at a thousand miles an hour as our entire future moves at the speed of somebody’s inbox. The rate at which official channels process necessary paperwork determines just how many weeks we have to find a home, or how many months it will be until we see our furniture again and whether the school we have our hearts set on will have any vacancies left in their enrolments. 

I smiled to myself this morning as I remembered hubby and I praying during our first year of marriage, that God would give us a life of adventure and we committed then and there to give Him the glory in that life of adventure by living by faith. Army life was the farthest thing from our minds ten years ago when we were just kids youth pastoring at our local church. God knew of course what was in store for us, and boy is adventure an understatement when it comes to Defence life. 

Just the other day, I was reading my children the story of the sparrows. And it hit me anew, just how capable our God is of making the coming season a joy and blessing to our family, even though it is fraught with uncertainty. They adore the beautiful illustration which chapter 12 of Luke paints of God caring for even one of his smallest, most inconsequential creations. It is not hard to fathom, even my toddlers are awe filled, at the ease with which God can bless us and the eagerness with which He will do it, because we are worth infinitely more than the sparrows. 

I’m often humbled by the eyes through which my babies see the world. My middle child adores all wildlife, especially birds. To her - anything with a long narrow beak, must be a woodpecker. I don’t know where she developed this obsession with woodpeckers given that Australia is one of the few countries on earth where they cannot be found. But many times each week I will hear her shriek excitedly and yell “Mummy!!!!! … there’s a woodpecker!!!!!”. I’ll look out the window to see her marveling at a common magpie or myna bird, but even once corrected - she’s still completely breath taken by their beauty and I’m reminded once again of the care with which they were created and just how much more we are loved.

I can’t tell you what the coming days and weeks hold for us as a family of five, about to embark on a new posting with no home in sight. But for now I’m thankful for a Christmas about to be spent with loved ones and a heavenly Father who does know what the days and weeks hold and is brimming with excitement to show us what He can do if we believe His words about our worth in Him.