To read part one: Testimonies from an Army Wife, How God Grew My Faith.
Soon, we had orders again, and our much smaller dandelion family was ready to be transported to a new location. God was taking us to the desert.
My best friend in El Paso was Trudy. She was the president I emailed, and we became fast friends with the first hello hug. She had just started her year, and her board needed a program vice president. Guess who she appointed. I would serve on her board and, for the next three years, as the prayer coordinator and the Titus 2 mentor.
After our West region conference, the new region president called me and asked if I’d accept her invitation to serve on her board as the prayer coordinator. After praying and getting Michael’s blessing, I joined her and other team members to serve the regional PWOC chapters.
Then Cinky called me. She said the international board was assembling a training team to train the new boards in every region and wanted me to be one of the trainers. Again, I sought the Lord in prayer, got Michael’s blessing, and joined the training team.
I remember going to Albuquerque, NM, for the Train the Trainer weekend, and as I sat there, I looked around the room and saw the giants of PWOC, or what I thought they were. These ladies were part of the history and the building blocks of PWOC’s beginnings. I thought about how blessed I was to be there. Then the very next thought was, why me, Lord? Why am I here? I have nothing compared to these women. And as soon as I had that thought, God spoke to my spirit. “You are here for a reason.”
So I went home, studied, and prepared for the four regions: Europe, Alaska, Hawaii, and the West. Oh, how excited I was. Then the time came for the European Wild weekend, and I got to return to one of the very special places I had been to for training.
We had to break off into sections, and I began the training. To make it personal, I shared that when I was president in Vilseck, I at first didn’t think I could do it, but with prayer and my chaplain’s encouragement, I accepted it. But before I could finish my year, we got orders to leave. To say I was upset was an understatement. I questioned God.“Why did he put me in this position only to have me leave before it was complete?” I received my answer at my farewell program. My spiritual life: V.P. told me she was glad I was there to show her how to lead and blessed to learn from me. Then she said she would never have been able to continue if I hadn’t been there to prepare the way.
After I shared this story during the training, one of the local presidents came to me in tears and hugged me. She said my story had encouraged her because she, too, wasn’t going to get to finish her year, and she was asking God the same question. As she tells me this, I feel the Lord speaking. “She is the reason I called you to this.”
Rachel attended Fort Bliss PWOC with me. We were never in a study, but often prayed together. I was working on March 31, 2015, when I received a Facebook message. I forgot about it because I was helping a customer and couldn’t see the message until I got home.
“Lori, are you free right now? I need somebody at my house. Emergency.”
So I replied that I had been at work and asked if everything was all right.
Her reply? “My husband was killed today in the field.”
It was a freak accident. He had been sent out to the field and, in the early morning, was asleep on his cot behind a military vehicle. One of his soldiers was inside the vehicle and backed up. Jon was killed instantly.
A couple of days later was PWOC, and we were all gathered. They asked me to pray that morning as we were setting up. I was standing at a table talking with someone when I heard whispers. “Rachel’s here.” I turned and saw her walking in, looking around for someone. When she saw me, she began running to me. I wrapped her in my arms and held her close. Finally, she let me go and hugged others around us.
It was time to start, and our praise team led us into worship. Then Rachel had a request. Could we sing“Blessed be the Name”? There was no dry eye in the room as we heard our sister’s beautiful voice praising God as she sang to Him.
Before they moved back to Ohio, she told me that when the soldiers came to her house that day, one of her first thoughts was, “I need Lori.” She shared her experience in a blog post, “Deployed to heaven,” and was also interviewed by an Army Times reporter. He titled the interview “Army Widow Forgives.”
I saw a real-life Job in Rachel. She and Jon had a wonderful life and three beautiful babies; they loved God with all their hearts. Then tragedy came, and God called Jon to a permanent change of duty. Rachel was alone, raising her children. Through it all, she praised God and freely forgave. She moved back to Ohio near her family, and in 2018, God blessed her again, healing her broken heart with a new husband!
On December 1, 2011, Michael retired from the Army after 26 years of service. We believed El Paso would be our home. Michael took a job as a contractor for Fort Bliss, and we built a new home and settled our roots in the desert sand.
During those years, God would allow us to learn to trust Him. The contracting job was downsized, and they let him go because Michael didn’t have a college degree. He was out of work for 2 1/2 months. The only income was his retirement check and my little check. I was stressed and didn’t know how we’d pay the bills or make ends meet. I knew God was our provider, but He was sure taking His time in providing us with income.
Then, a recruiter for a trucking company named Michael went to Dallas to learn to drive big trucks and earn his CDL. We now had income, but Michael was gone again, driving cross-country.
Another opportunity God gave me to trust Him was for my daughter. She permitted me to share. Something happened while we lived in Arkansas with the neighbor boys when she was 5 or 6. Then, when we moved to Vilseck, she was bullied. When we moved to El Paso, she begged me to homeschool her. She never told me about being bullied until later, so I didn’t want to homeschool. But because we arrived after the beginning of the school year, I agreed.
She spent much of her time in her room, and I chalked it up to being a teenage girl. She went with me to PWOC and to our venturing and scouting activities, but she didn’t have any friends she could hang out with.
The first summer we were in El Paso, she visited with her friend, who had lived across the street from us. The girls went to a church camp. I got a call one evening, and it was Ashley. She told me that her friend’s mom caught her cutting her arm, and she asked if I knew about it.
I didn’t know about it and wondered why my baby was doing this. We told her we loved her and thought everything was OK, but didn’t understand why she was doing this.
We moved into our new home, and she was asked to be on the Boy Scout summer camp staff. Of course, a boy was interested in her, and they soon started dating. He was not a good boy, and she later told me he had hurt her.
One night, I was in my prayer tub. (I do my best praying there.) And Ashley comes in and tells me she has just swallowed several pills. Michael and I took her to a behavioral health hospital, where she stayed for a few days. Thankfully, she did not damage herself with the pills.
We would take her back to this facility once more and to another in New Mexico twice more. At the facility in New Mexico, she was diagnosed with an eating disorder and depression. They would put her on medication, and we would find a Christian therapist for her to go to.
I felt like a failure as a mom and had no idea my baby girl was hurting this much. Wasn’t she happy? I knew she was skinny, but I thought she was just like me because I was skinny at her age.
Then she met Jeff, a soldier, and they soon started dating. They had a rocky start, but he stuck with her, and she seemed to be getting healthier. They married in December of 2015 and started their life together. With therapy and medication and a man who loves her, Ashley began to overcome her eating disorder and depression. She’s working on forgiving the boys from her early childhood and teen years, yet God has watched over her and kept her close to Him through it all.
As I said, we thought El Paso was our retirement home. But God had other plans. The guy I worked for at the Chihuahuas had a position for me as the warehouse manager for the Oklahoma City Thunder and then at the Oklahoma Sooners team shop. Our final job in Oklahoma was at the Fanatics Warehouse, where I produced hats, and Michael was a shipping supervisor.
In February 2023, we went to work as always, and around 9:30, the HR gal came and got me. We went to her office, where Michael was sitting. She then told me that he had been let go. The air left my body. We were back where we were—in El Paso—with no income. So we left, went home, and he started the job hunt again. This time, I prayed.
About a week later, with no one getting back to him, I talked with my son, and he said, “Mom, have you guys thought about coming home?’ Will is in Little Rock now, and you have a perfect house waiting for you.” When he said that, God whispered, “It’s time to go home.” Michael submitted job applications and scheduled an interview for that week. By Monday, He had moved his stuff out here and started his new job. I didn’t come home until August, so I kept working at the warehouse, drove back on weekends, brought carloads of stuff, and worked on the house.
Oklahoma was a time of waiting. We didn’t have any ministries as we had in other locations, but we were God’s light to our co-workers. We were physically in a desert in El Paso, but Oklahoma was a spiritual desert.
In the year and a half since we’ve returned, God has planted our roots again. I started my blog to write about what he had been doing and what he had been teaching me. In April, my friend told me she was retiring from cleaning, and God told her I was taking her place. In August, Michael had invited a co-worker to church, but the Sunday they planned to come, the wife and mother of seven passed away. So, we’ve been loving on and ministering to this family.
Like a gardener who works the soil, God prepared my heart. He planted the seeds of faith, joy, love, patience, self-control, hope, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and goodness, watered them, shone his Son’s light on them, and watched as a little flower bloomed under his care.
God worked the soil of my life in every place and every year. Sometimes, he pruned my growth, but it only strengthened my faith and made my blooms fuller.
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