Motivational thought for the day:

Growth means change and change involves risk, stepping from the known to the unknown.   ~author unknown

If you have time, allow yourself to add this to your journal and write about the risks of change and the risks of not changing.  Change is not easy but I have found that it is almost always worth it!!

This post is shared by Laura one of our amazing staff members.  She is a tremendous asset to our team.  Her understanding of  military spouses comes from her personal experiences and a ton of research.   Her husband is headed home from Afghanistan now.  Please pray for their family as they will be reuniting in the coming weeks.

During our retreat, Lisa shared how she received “the gift of time” in which to build the concepts for Compass.  Every day, each of us receives gifts, if we can open our minds to that concept.  In April, my family received the news of another combat deployment.  I immediately shifted into recognizing the separation as a gift to cherish my children like never before.   Gone were the days of, “No, honey, mommy’s too busy to _______ (fill in the blank) because of _______ (fill in the blank again, like a million household chores).”   It is so hard to imagine how hard it is for our loved ones to just walk away from family life and then casually step back in a year later…It’s not that simple.

I made it a priority to capture those cherished family moments, those intentional memories of scrapbooking, swimming, rollerskating, talent shows, bike riding, gymnastics, crafts, etc. into digital photos to send to him.  This allowed us to intentionally include him in our daily lives, hoping it was helpful and uplifting for him.  Showing the girls the importance of family, writing Daddy, sending him photos and artwork and care packages, getting involved in various military support efforts – these gestures are crucial values that show the love, respect, and honor we have for our troops.  After all, they are sacrificing their gift of time, and many sacrifice so much more.

The mission of Compass encourages families to spend “intentional” time together.  Life’s busy-ness can steal the gift of time, and sometimes, it can’t be recaptured in the same way.   Lessons learned from the first deployment of staying up and mopping at midnight, I am now recognizing what to triage and how to best manage my time for my family’s sake.  So giving myself permission to stop doing chores and read a book has provided just the opportunity to savor a wonderful story that supports this notion of intentional time.

In his book, Raising Kids for True Greatness, Dr. Kimmel shares a family vignette. “[The parents] prove that you don’t need a lot of time to make a difference in your kids’ life; you just have to be deliberate.  But when you extend that deliberateness throughout an entire childhood, there is no stopping the potential that you can harness in your children.”  Take to heart this lesson: extend deliberateness in all your relationships and use your gift of time to your advantage.  Together, we are so much stronger, stable, and the possibilities are endless.

As the weekend approaches I wanted to share with you a simple but often forgotten part of our plans, our family.  Yes, winter often leads us indoors, but it also takes us away to individual activities and isolation if we let it.  I want to challenge you today to  try something different this weekend -  Quality Family Time or some good old QFT.  You see, even when we have opportunities sometimes we neglect to take advantage of them.  Trust me, we will always find things to occupy our time.  But, these same things may not be valuable uses of our time.  So, this weekend Compass wants you to navigate some QFT into your weekend.   We won’t expect something crazy like a whole day together, but if you would start with an intentional hour where you set aside time without answering your phone (home or cell), texting, or checking your blackberry or email you might find that it surprises the ones you love.

We are expecting snow here in southern Ohio so I am anticipating a couple hours of sledding and tubing with our kids.  Will it be cold?… Of course, but will it create some great laughter and happy memories?  … Absolutely (and hopefully we will avoid the emergency room)!  Yes, I could be getting some work done or cleaning the house but you know what?  I will have years of an empty clean house but I will not have the laughter of my children filling the hallways as much as I do now.  Believe me, you just might find the laughter within yourself too.

My friend and mentor, Mario gave me a great book by Dr. Tim Kimmel called Raising Kids for True Greatness. Dr. Kimmel works to show us a different paradigm for success.  He calls it greatness.  It is not the same as the world’s definition of success.  In it Kimmel lists Ten Ways to Be a Great Member of the Family. One of the recommendations is, “Be upbeat, positive, and encouraging” (9).  How many times do we allow the negative perspective to enter the dialogue with our most valued and important relationships?  If we simply turn that around with intention this week it will have ripple effects far beyond the weekend.  A second piece of advice Kimmel offers is, “Have a lot of fun, just not at the expense of anyone else” (9).   Sometimes when the weekend comes many working parents feel as if they are spent.  Well, we better tap the reserves for our family because they deserve more from us than that.  If you fulfill Kimmel’s first step than you will find that you can get refueled simply by being positive and having fun with your children and/or your spouse .  Give it a try this weekend.  You have nothing to lose but everything to gain.  An investment in fun with your family is worth every moment.  Start with an hour.

Love big!
Work hard!
Forgive gladly!
Repent quickly!
Encourage graciously!
Speak humbly!
Play enthusiastically!
Think abundantly!
And … never stop dancing!
~Dr. Tim Kimmel

I hope that you can create an hour of fun this weekend and that the feeling it ignites becomes contagious!

Peace and Joy,
Lisa

Jon Gordon an author and motivational speaker has been a tremendous propellor in my life.  I would refer to him as a propellor because not only did he inspire me to get this program moving but he also taught me how to do it with a positive attitude.  He helped me realize the lesson his character Joy from The Energy Bus so aptly taught, “Sometimes we have to see what we don’t want, to know what we do want.”

Many of our military service members, particularly those who have served in war, come home having a clear picture of what they don’t want.  Unfortunately, without strong support, love, and intention often they do not know how to propel themselves in the direction of what they do want.  Life just feels out of order and messy.  The difficult piece is that there is really no one to blame.  Experiences have landed you in this place and this messiness is a part of each family member’s life.  Not one family member is exempt from recognizing the changes.  A husband or wife, son or daughter, mom or dad, sister or brother, aunt or uncle has walked back into life at home and time has passed.  All of you have experienced different things some traumatic, some life changing, some mundane, some necessary, etc.  The one common factor is that change has happened to each of you.  Now it is necessary to reach out and embrace one another.  You see it has been my experience that it is so much better to move forward with the people you love.  It is not always easy as a matter of fact some days it feels nearly impossible.  But, remember to start with what you have in common.  Rebuild the things that you loved.  Be intentional, spending time together.  Find an activity to share that you all love and add one thing at a time.  Realizing that it will be a process, you must attack it like a marathon.  Start slowly, know that it will take much time, effort, and that you will get tired along the way.  Remember that there will come a point where it will feel easier to quit than to move forward.  However, keep moving, don’t stop.  Remember how great the celebration is at the finish line.  Embrace each other.  Link arms and propel yourself toward a healthy relationship with one another.

Jon Gordon writes, “Every crisis offers an opportunity to grow stronger and wiser to reach deep within and discover a better you that will create a better outcome.” It is my hope that you don’t stop striving for a better relationship with one another.

Wow, what a remarkable weekend and thanks so much for being a part of it.  We had six families arrive on Thursday evening for the weekend and what an amazing group for this, our first retreat.

Friday morning began with a fantastic breakfast and then off we went. We held a session for veterans, a session for spouses, and the kids began their programming. Kids had intentional time with one of our staff member’s horses – Cherokee and Thunder – on both Friday and Saturday.  It was AWESOME!  The most amazing part was when a four year old with special needs met one of the horses nose to nose.  We captured the introduction on video and I have tears in my eyes every time I see it.  The younger kids worked to process some of their experiences with having a parent deployed and then the changes since the return. The older kids did tons of team building and all of them participated in the low ropes course.

Kids are resilient but it was great to introduce some new tools to pack in their toolbox that could help the communication at home. So off the kids went, hunting in the woods for the perfect stick to make “talking sticks”, a Native American tradition. They adorned them with feathers, leather roping, beads, etc.  They were fabulous.  It’s a perfect, simple way to let other family members know that you have something you’d like to talk about and deserves attention. Our family is going to use this tradition now too. To see kids laugh, smile, and interact was awesome but it was also great to see kids open up about the stress of the separation and to understand what makes it so difficult for them.

The adults also had a lot going on. In the veterans group we learned about the difficulties in seeking and receiving counseling and care as well as other issues they face.  Although we knew about these things, to hear their individual stories had some heartbreaking moments. They were also surprised to discover that we had small group encounters specifically for them.  One of the guys said, “I thought we were coming to have family time but I did not know that we would get opportunities to talk and learn from each other too. This is great!”

We spent a lot of time talking about how to find ways to let the stories out.  We worked to help them repack their family toolbox with communication techniques, and did high adventure team building and trust-building activities to strengthen family bonds.

Spouses worked on understanding the ways family roles have changed and understanding how to renegotiate those roles. It was fantastic to see the bond develop between them as they learned from one another too. The understandings that came from hearing their stories, concerns, and hopes helped us gain deeper understanding of the difficulties that deployment creates here at home.

Teaching spouses and veterans alike to look at the compass as a tool for helping your family navigate their way was terrific.  They each learned how every direction holds new adventures and learnings for them individually as well as a family.

The weekend was packed full but when it was time to wrap it up we got the best feedback ever, “Can we do this again?”  The desire to meet again and get back together is powerful.  I loved that we all took so much away from the weekend. Now we are working to begin the follow-up.

We had an amazing group of volunteers staffing this weekend including a remarkable set of  people from SpringHill.  The strengths and gifts here were amazing.  The food, adventure courses, and location was perfect.  SImilarly, the cold weather didn’t deter us.  Families smiling, laughing, and playing together was awesome!  One of the therapists that was with us this weekend said, “It was truly a Healing Community.”  I couldn’t have hoped for a better compliment.

Thanks for your prayers, love, encouragement and support. We look forward to more opportunities in 2010.  Please continue to pray for Compass and for these six families. Thank you so very much for the strength you have given us.

Blessings,
Lisa