The following is an excerpt from Sara’s new book, GOD Strong: A Military Wife’s Spiritual Survival Guide.

One of the hardest parts of the military life is the deployment. Being separated from your spouse can be emotionally grueling, depressingly solitary, and overwhelming. If you let it be that way.

During our first deployment, I was determined that it would not be that way. I approached this new experience in our lives with the fervor and determination of the defenders of the Alamo; whatever happened, I would not let our family down. I had a plan. I would be the Great Communicator, keeping my husband and son and the rest of our family and friends closely connected.

I would be the Great Organizer, juggling all of my son’s activities, my work responsibilities, church functions, and aforementioned family communications with the ease and skill of one who knows no scheduling conflict.

I would be the Great Cheerleader, offering an unending supply of encouragement to my husband in Iraq and to our son here at home. And to do all of this, I would have to be the Great Health nut. Yes, that was my plan. I would eat right, exercise every day, and stay fit and healthy, stress free and positively motivated throughout the deployment. I would be physically, mentally, and emotionally strong. Those incredible endorphins would keep me going!

To help in this quest for uberstrength (or what I ultimately learned is Me Strength), I brought along my iPod to the gym, loaded with the music I thought I needed to “get in the zone.” There were songs on there I had never listened to before but had bought specifically for the deployment – titles like “Fighter” and “Push It’ and “Let’s Get It Started.” I chose songs that encouraged me to push myself, to make my life happen how I wanted it to happen, to be sexy (after all, I wanted to look good when my husband came home), to be a rock star or at least live the confident rock star life. The other songs I owned – songs praising God, songs that reminded me of his goodness, his grace, and his control – were left off my playlist because I’d decided they weren’t intense enough. Not motivating enough. I needed fast and loud. I needed tough and strong.

What I didn’t realize until months later, when I was so spent and worn out and sitting on my couch in the dark, was that I had overlooked God’s strength. I had fooled myself into thinking that because I was Me Strong, I didn’t have to be God Strong. God was there, but at a distance safe enough to keep me from being reminded just how weak I am.

After a wonderful restful day yesterday spending Mother’s Day with my two favorite guys in the world, my husband and my son (even though we spent the majority of time in the car driving to and back from Millington on a Navy uniform run), I must have felt energetic this morning when I woke up and decided to clean my shower.

At the risk of letting everyone in the world know what a bad housekeeper I am, I have to confess that it has been a while since the shower in our master bathroom has had a good scrubbing. I mean, the walls have been wiped down occasionally, but it hasn’t had a good elbow-grease kind of clean anytime recently. And it was time. It was VERY much time.

As I took stock of the situation, I decided that besides the shower walls, the drain also looked a little worse for wear. With the words I’m always saying to my son – “A job worth doing is worth doing right!” – I followed my own advice, grabbing a screwdriver from the garage to take off the drain cover. (Don’t you always just feel that more self-sufficient when you’re unscrewing or screwing in a nail? But I digress…)

Oh. My. Word.

Words fail to really convey to you the horror of what I saw, but I’ll just condense it for you: ooey, gooey, grimey, sludgey… I think you get the idea. GROSS!

Though the thought that I would now have to clean all of that grossness won the “Most disgusting” award for the day (which also beckoned my husband to come and stand behind me and offer a supportive “I love you” in a “I’m so glad you’re doing that and not me” tone), coming in a close second was the notion that we had been standing over that disgustingness for weeks (okay, months)! Again, I have to say, GROSS!

So I donned my trusty kitchen gloves I always wear when dealing with icky jobs. I got down on my knees. And I scrubbed. And got the incredible ickiness out. And rinsed. And cleaned and scrubbed some more. And pretty soon that drain, along with the rest of the shower, looked a whole lot better.

That experience this morning makes me wonder: what does God see when He looks beneath the surface of my life? What does He see when He removes the cover we so often keep in place with others? Does he see clean? Or does he see sludge?

I so want Him to see a spotless heart, a beautiful spirit, a perfectly clean mind and body. But I know that doesn’t happen. Not always. Certainly not as often as I wish.

My life gets dirty. My spirit gets sludgy. Too much worry, selfishness, and strife can cause grimey buildup in my heart that requires cleaning. Scrubbing. A new cleansing with His love.

Omar Hamada is a doctor who spent 15 years in the military with 10 of those in the Special Forces. I’ve never met him in person but he, his wife Tara, and their small group from their church have helped me and Wives of Faith a couple of times when we’ve had wives who needed help around the house while their husbands were deployed. Omar sent an email out this morning with a great piece of wisdom that I think applies to what I’m talking about in this post. Here’s what he writes:

I want to ask you a question that I’ve been wrestling with over the past couple of weeks. It seems that in the busyness of life at home, it’s easy to ignore, not think about, actually forget about. But in the quiet loneliness of a hotel room, it screams at me. In the absence of children’s laughter mixed with the frustration of defiance and disobedience, without the nagging of constant email and the ringing of phones, without being tied to such a strict schedule of daily chores and carpool lines, God’s quiet voice speaks.

How aware are you of God’s constant presence in your life? How often do you speak to Him? Really? We know He’s in our heart, but how much does He control our lives? When was the last time you really talked to Him? I don’t mean, “when was the last time you asked Him for something?”. I meant, “When did you last commune with Him with no other agenda save to get to know Him?” When was the last time you sat in still quietness to do nothing other than listen to His voice?

It takes a while to clear our minds of all our “to do’s”. We drift easily into day-dreaming and have to refocus ourselves onto the task at hand. It’s like talking to our spouses in some ways. Our minds so easily drift onto tangential highways that it takes effort sometimes to focus on what it is that is really being communicated. It usually takes me a few minutes to stop thinking about my to do’s, Tara, the kids, my dreams, my hurts, my embarrassments, my deadlines……and just, well, just quietly sit there and listen, and pray, and not ask for anything other than His Spirit to fill my life, His presence to take over my soul, His word to overwhelm my entire being.

Image by mufan96 via FlickrI think the thing that helps the most when we are trying to figure out what to say to God is that He already knows what we’re going to say. So let’s not try to be so formal, trying to make our prayers sound like those of a great preacher in the 19th century.

Let’s instead just be honest.

Some of my most intimate prayer times are times when I just don’t know what to say, when I cry out to God and say, “Lord, I don’t have a clue but I know I need you.”

This has been one of those days.

There has been a lot on my plate in terms of leadership as well as in my marriage and family and today is one of those days where I haven’t done a very good job of taking it completely to God. I’m just being honest.

But even though I don’t know what to say, I know God is listening. I know He hasn’t left me. I know He will be with me tomorrow. That this day will pass.

So since I’m having trouble finding words, let me share with you what my pastor told us this past Sunday about prayer.

When we pray, we need to do the following:

Confess. Confess where we’ve messed up, acknowledge where we’ve gone wrong. (You won’t surprise Him – He already knows.)

Offer praise and thanksgiving for who God is – not just what He does for us.

Pray for our most personal needs and problems – He will grant us what we ask, but we have to ask, and even then, He will grant us what we need.

Pray for our families – our spouses, our children, our extended family, our church family, our friends.

Pray for the burdens that hurt our hearts the most. When it feels like no one else is there to listen, God is, and He will.

So as you finish reading this, stop and take some time to pray. He’s listening.