The Connected Mom

Welcome to the Connected Mom podcast, where we have conversations about connecting more deeply with God, more empathically with your other fellow moms, and more intentionally with with your child. I'm Becky Harling, your host, and it's a delight to be here with you. And I have today with me my, uh, illustrious co host, Sarah Wildman. Hey, Sarah. Hello.

Who do we have with us today?

Hey, we have Megan with us. Megan Brown is the author of the Bible study called Summoned, which is fantastic. It's a Bible study on the Book of Esther. However, Megan has four children and her husband is in the military. And so today, we want to talk to all of you military spouses that are out there about how to survive military life and how to lean in and get connected more deeply with God, other military spouses, and your kids, even when dad is deployed. So, welcome, Megan. We're excited to have you here. I forgot to say one thing, Megan, so before I welcome you officially, megan is the founder of the nonprofit the Military Spouse Coalition. I love it. Welcome, Megan.

Hey, guys. Thank you so much for having me.

Yeah, we're excited. So, Megan, what's the backstory on, um, this nonprofit? Why did you start it?

So, really, we started milspoko as an opportunity to really reach the military community with Chrys. We, uh, are a military spouse mission sending agency. So what we do is we recruit, raise up, and release military spouses, uh, as functional missionaries, as paid and prepared missionaries to bring the gospel to, uh, the military community and ultimately to see it travel to the nation.

That's incredible. Okay, so what are some of the greatest needs of military wives?

Oh, wow. I mean, there are three really big needs. Uh, the first is that really the loneliness pandemic is kind of what we call it, like the loneliness issue. Um, there's so much loneliness in our community because we are either moving and grieving the community we just lost, or we are grieving that we are about to lose it. And so it's always, uh, this jumping from one thing to another. We're, uh, constantly moving every two to four years. Um, the big thing that really is the second issue is the disconnection we have from the local church. Um, my community has even prepandemic been, uh, really disconnected from the local church. M. We have a really hard time connecting in at our civilian communities. And so normal, uh, things like being able to call your mom to take care of the kids so you can run to the store or just, uh, the normal, everyday things that most people can do with ease, um, are really difficult. The running joke in our community around emergency contacts is that you'll meet your next emergency contact at the mailbox. So you're going to get your mail on the first day of moving in. You're registering your kids for school, and you're like, Hi, stranger. Would you like to pick up my child? If, uh, something weird happens to me, I know we don't know each other. I promise I'm not crazy. Can I put your name down as my emergency contact? And so there's this loneliness issue, the disconnection, and ultimately, my favorite thing about our community is that while all these things are difficult, there is such a potential for revival. Um, in our community, we're perfectly positioned to serve the Lord on mission. Um, we go to the nations every two to four years. And so, uh, if this particular community is given the gospel, I think we'll see a measurable kingdom intact.

I love it.

That's awesome. Okay, so obviously this comes from personal experience, these things you've just shared. So can you tell us a little bit about what the military has been for your family? How long has your husband been in? How many deployments? What does that pass looked like for you guys?

Uh, well, my husband has been active duty for, uh, almost 17 years. Uh, we are, uh, in the process of gearing up to transition out in the next two years. Um, my hope is that, uh, we will be able to finish, uh, out. Well, um, we've been at five duty stations, 13 houses, two deployments, a short tour, and a partridge and a pear tree.

Love it, Megan. Some of these challenges that Megan's been talking about are really challenging. The whole pandemic of loneliness and what it looks like to have to be moving every couple of years. And a lot of us, maybe in the nonmilitary world, don't necessarily live near family. And yet for the military world, it's almost guaranteed they don't live near family. So, Megan, how did you stay connected with your husband while he was doing some different deployments?

Well, there's a multitude of ways that we stayed connected. I mean, we tried really hard to be intentional with making sure that we were connecting as regularly as we could. Um, not every deployment did we have the same communication technology available. Uh, when he was first, uh, in Afghanistan in the mid two thousand s, the communications were not, uh, set up very well or not even set up very well. They just weren't available as often. Uh, in this last, uh, short tour, he was in Korea, so he was 15 hours in the future, so he was going to bed as we were getting up, vice versa. There weren't really any great times to connect. I, um, think the things that have worked for us is really having a firm understanding that the other person really is doing the best they can, um, because when you have the military spouses at home, we're primary parents. We are in charge of juggling our own emotions and all of our children, um, maintaining friendships, um, running households. I remember my husband asked me on his first deployment when we were very young and very naive, like, will you write me letters? Would you be able to write me letters? And, you know, that's so sweet and romantic. I was like, I would love to write you a letter all the time. But, uh, we had three children that were five, three and one. And so nine months went by. And guess how many letters got written? None. At the end of the day, I just kind of melted into a puddle on the floor. And I was like, wow, I don't, um, think that's going to happen. Uh, there's five minutes that belongs to me now that I'm not changing diapers or wiping boogers or all the other fun substances that come along. motherinlaw. Um, I have no bandwidth. So, uh, we really learned in that first deployment, you do the best you can with what you got, and you really just have to trust that the other is doing the same and really focus that energy and reconnection and reintegration, like, reintegration is where that connectivity picks up.

Uh I love that Megan. I love the concept about believing the best about your spouse, even when you're not hearing from your spouse, because it's easy to get annoyed in that situation, really, by either end. Right. Your husband could get annoyed or you could get annoyed. But the concept about believing the best about your spouse and for military wives who are trying to hold down the Ford at home, single parenting, I mean, it's a whole thing. Right? And so how did you stay connected with your kids, Megan, during those years when your husband was deployed?

So, really, we just came out of a season, and I'm just going to kind of be a little more real with this issue because it's fresh. Uh, in 2019, my husband went to the Middle East in an undisclosed location for nine months. Right?

Yes.

He came home two weeks before the pandemic shut down the world. So literally came home two weeks uh, not two months had passed and orders dropped for him to spend a year in Korea. And I remember the day we had to tell the kids, literally, he hadn't even been home three months. And we had to tell the kids that we were going to move across state lines. And then two weeks after the move, your dad's going to be gone for a, uh, calendar year. Let me just give a snapshot of the hardships of that particular season. We have four children ranging from 14 to seven. Now, at the time, they were two years younger. Right. It's 2019. It's early 2020. He's getting ready to ship out again. And my youngest son, who is now ten, spent two birthdays back to back without his dad. So did I, so did our older children. And so it's those things that really I don't think that everybody really understands that the grief that goes with a deployment or a long separation like that is layered and so when he came back in September.

Uh.

Of 2021. After literally not sharing a zip code with us for almost two solid years. Uh. I just want you to imagine leaving your house with an eleven year old daughter and coming home to a 13 year old. And the development that happens emotionally, mentally, even physically, just they're tall, they're huge now, and feeling like you missed a gap of their lives. And so then that responsibility on me is to keep their emotional connectivity with their dad while he can't be here and he can't communicate, and he's leading teams of men and women in the armed forces. Right. He's got a big job. I have a big job. And so I don't know if I would say that I did the best I'm the world's okayest, mom. That's where I'll say I am the world's most OST mom. When, uh, it came to keeping that connectivity with them, I think we tried to make the days that were special to them special in ways that included their dad. I would email like, what do you want to get Noah for his birthday? How do you want me to set this house up? What do you want me to say is from you? Right. Like, making sure that they know that he is still involved even though he can't talk and he's literally in tomorrow. It's pressure.

That's a lot of pressure. Wow.

Um, looking back, Megan, you had mentioned about the disconnect from the local church and how easily that can happen, and sadly, I can imagine that. Do you have an example, though, of a church that came beside you, maybe even presently? But, um, I just I'm thinking of those of us listening who don't even understand your world. We're trying to, as you're describing it, but what was a way, maybe, that some of us could mirror and how the local church m supported you?

What a great question. That is a great question. It makes my heart happy. Okay, let me tell you about that first church lady hugs all you church ladies out there, right? Um, there is a beautiful moment, especially after a deployment. Um, there was this one week, this lovely church lady came up to me at the coffee bar. It was about two weeks after my husband hit the boots on the ground somewhere else. Uh, and she, uh, just embraced me. And she said, I thought it was a time that you needed to be hugged. She's like, I can only imagine it's been a long time since you've had a hug. And I remember thinking, oh my gosh, it has. I can't even remember the last time I was hugged by an adult. Let me just tell you, church ladies remember our children's names, make church special for them. Because I can tell you, uh, if we have made it to church on a Sunday morning, it came at great personal expense. I, uh, just want to give you the snapshot. Y'all, our children are not sleeping at night. When their dad is off somewhere else, they don't sleep well. They cry a lot. We spend most nights trying to calm and soothe their souls because they are at unrest. At our house. We sort of made a joke out of it. And one day my kids will probably hate me for sharing this, but even with my kids being 14 all the way down to seven, none of them would sleep at night. And they all wanted to sleep in our room. And literally, we had two queen size air mattresses and we had a nighttime routine. We called it nighttime cereal. Like at 839 o'clock at night, we're eating Cinnamon Toast Crunch and watching Survival or Survivor reruns until we all fall asleep because none of them will sleep. So all that to say, like, to get to church on Sunday morning. We paid a lot. We are all tired and hurting and ailing.

You know what, Megan? I love that you allowed all four of your kids to sleep in your bedroom, because, again, that speaks to the connection and what a great way to connect when your spouse is gone, having family sleepovers.

It was a nine month sleepover. You all, yes.

Which is great, I love it. But that way your kids realize, hey, we're all connected. We're all in this together. And that feeling of togetherness, I would think, would go a long way. Megan, I want to ask you some practical tips for military moms. We'll get there in a minute. But first I want you to speak to women who are listening to this whose spouses are not in the military. What are some of the stupid things that women or men say to military spouses? I know for my daughter, okay, my daughter, my son in law, was in the military and they had only been married a year. And then her husband was deployed for nine months, and somebody said to her, oh, honey, the Lord is your husband. And my daughter said, you know, I just really wanted to punch her because it's like, okay, I know the Lord is my husband, but it's not my husband. So what are some other things we should never say, Megan?

Okay, so I have two that are at the top of my I hate this phrase list, right? Uh, the first one, the worst one, I actually wrote a book about it. It comes out next year.

Nice.

Uh, the one that we get is, well, you know what you signed up for. Oh, my gosh, barf in a bucket, guys. It is the worst. Usually the speaker being well meaning, right? Like, we're usually in a moment of vulnerability and we're like, I'm so lonely, I'm going to die. I don't remember the last time I had a home cooked meal. DoorDash is starting to run up a really large expenditure at my house because I mean, the kids only eat chicken nuggets and I just can't care. So I'm letting it happen and I am just miserable. And so the person we're talking to will kindly sort of it falls out of their mouth like unwanted garbage. Well, you know what you signed up for. Like, this is the job to it. And it's almost like that's not empathy. And then we're like, oh, no, seriously, I had no idea. I didn't know. I mean, there's things we did know. We knew that we were in wartime, right? We knew that. We knew the operations tempo would be crazy. Uh, when you go to those places to buy a new car and you have that little truth in lending bar, like, this is how much we're charging you, and over the course of your whole life, this is what you're going to pay. Well, we don't have that truth in lending. We just see this really good looking dude and rolled sleeves, man. Those rolled sleeves are the reason I have four children, guys. Like, there's rolled sleeves or where it's at. And so we're not thinking we're like adventure.

Yes.

Uh, we're going to get to go and move, and it's going to be so fun. But it's in the moments when you move to a new place and you're in the empty house full of full boxes and they leave to go in process or whatever, and you emotionally crash. And you look around and you make the painful realization that, you know, no people, that no one is coming, and that nobody cares in that particular moment. And you're just like, uh.

Okay, Megan, so what would you say to the woman whose spouse is in the military who's listening and saying, yes, that's exactly the way I feel right now. I don't know anybody here. I, uh, don't want to unpack these boxes. The kids are all screaming, my husband is out in Timbuktu wherever, and who knows if he's even going to get home because maybe he's in a violent situation. What do you say to her?

You know, uh, in the simple side of it? Open your front door. I know that sounds overly simplistic, but hear me out. Um, one of the reasons that Mill spoke co exists is because it was born out of necessity and pain.

Clarify what military spouse code is again.

Yeah. This mission sending organization, the reason that we started it, uh, really began ten years ago. My husband was in Afghanistan and one day his Foot locker showed up at the house. I hadn't heard from him. I had no idea. And you know the saying, no news is good news, but no news also means anxiety. And so, uh, he was not heard from. I didn't know what I was doing at a full freak out. Um, and in that moment, I knew I needed community and I didn't have it. I needed to know what the Word of God said and I didn't know. I knew I wanted to pray, but I didn't know how. I'd never been discipled that whole disconnection from the local church. And so the short story is that he was moving to a different location. His stuff wouldn't fit. They shipped it back. He couldn't tell me he was fine. Three days later, the most excruciating three days of my entire adult life, of every black car passing my house, throwing me into a panic attack. Uh, but thinking about that feeling when I moved to KEITHLER Air Force Base in 2014, so many years ago, I just opened my front door and I said, listen, I'm going to read this Bible that I don't really know how to read, but I want to read. And the first week, we had six women. The next week, there were 17. Week after that, 25 women. Women were dragging lawn chairs to get into this living room to figure out what the word of the Lord said about who God is and what Jesus has done and why that matters to us. Uh, that's when I became a Bible teacher. And it was really funny. If you met me, you'd be like, that lady was not a qualified Bible teacher. I am now. I went to Bible school. Thank you. Moody Bible. Um, but, uh, I know what I'm doing now. But back then, I simply opened my front door. You don't have to be qualified. You just open the door and invite women in. And I'll say it this way. The community you want is built. It is not found. It is built brick by brick. You cannot find community. You're not going to find it authentic, intimate, sustaining. Community is built. It is not found.

Man, that is so good. So what practical tips do you have for connecting with your kids while dad's gone? I mean, definitely the family sleepovers. I love that so much. I'm going to remind women of that. We used to say we had family beds sometimes because, uh, one kid or another would pop in or be sleeping on the floor next to us, and that's what they needed, and that's great. But what other practical suggestions do you have to just help your kids with this connection?

I think it starts with being able to build a vocabulary in your family around how they're feeling and allowing them to ask for what they need. It is traumatic to not see your family member for x amount of days, months, weeks, years, like, it is traumatic. And I know that we don't like that word, and that infer something horrid. This is not a bad life. There are bad days. I would not trade my life as a military spouse. I love this life. I love what it's given us. I love that my husband is a guy that runs toward the danger. That's who he is at his core. Uh, and, man, sometimes me too, bro. But here's kind of what I've done for the kids. I allow them to experience these feelings and to communicate them to me. We did agree to this life. We don't like it all the time. These kids are just on the road with us. They don't have the same emotional maturity. Their grief looks like bad behavior. Their wants and needs looks like selfishness. But, uh, if you, as the parent, can understand the language of loss, right. They have lost something valuable to them, and they are not, um, emotionally mature enough to communicate that to you. And so giving them a language. Right. So our nighttime cereal routine was kind of the treat.

Yeah.

I don't know anybody who's eating captain French and Reese's, uh, pups at 09:00 at night. Uh, but they wanted comfort, and man comfort to them. Looks like sitting around our kitchen bar, eating junk food every once in a while. Um, it looks like them saying, mom, I really need some quality time. But it never looked like that. It was like, mom, can we play fall guys? Yeah, I'm on the Xbox. I have an Xbox in every room of this house. I'm a gamer, right. Like, me and my kids, we connect over the things they want to connect over.

Yeah, i, uh, love that. I love how intentional you were. And I love the cereal snacks at night. And I love giving your kids the language of grief, because you're right, when they're grieving, it may look like if you have a toddler, a fit on the floor, or a screaming rage. Because, let's face it, a lot of us as adults feel like screaming and raging sometimes in grief. And yet toddlers do that because they can't say, hey, I'm really angry, or I'm really afraid, or I'm really anxious. Where's daddy? So I love that. I love giving them the language of grief, um, connecting where they are, even if it's not something you're naturally drawn to. Um, a funny story about gaming. I was trying to connect. I have a little grandson who has some special needs, and he's an amazing gamer. So he was trying to play, uh, minecraft with me, and he's eight, and I just couldn't figure this thing out. And he kept sighing, and he kept saying, come on, Mimi. And then he would grab the remote from me and do it for me and say, there you go.

I have not mastered minecraft.

I don't know that I ever figured it out. But I love that you're connecting with your kids.

It is a whole vibe.

It's a whole thing. Right. It's the whole thing. But you are being intentional. Yeah. And I love that. I love the point that you brought out about believing the best in your spouse. And I think that translates to believing the best in your kids. Yeah. They may be acting out right now, but they're having to deal with a lot because they're part of your family system and dad is gone. Um, I love that Grieving comes in layers and understanding that, I feel like we could do a whole podcast on that one. Huh huh. Sarah and I love opening your door because I think when you're moving every two years, you really have to be intentional in order to make those deep friendships. And so, if you're listening today, I want to invite you hey, Megan. Where can they get in touch with you? Where can our listeners get in touch with you? Because I think that's going to be really critical for them.

Yeah. So you can find me on social media at Meg Brown Writes. My website is meganbrown.com. Um, you can find me over at Moody Publishers. I've got, uh, the summons study that came out last year. And then, uh, this upcoming march, a new line of books is releasing that is specifically written for and by military spouses.

We will have all of Megan's contact information in the show notes because we want you to connect. We want you to get involved in the Military Spouse Coalition. Yeah, I know it was a few words, Sarah.

Uh, mills folk for sure.

Yes. Hey, Megan, would you close us out by praying for the military spouse who's out there who's discouraged today? I love your sense of humor. I love how you have managed this life, how you have made very specific decisions to connect with God, to stay connected with your husband, and to stay deeply connected with your kids. I just love that. So, Megan, close us out with some prayer, would you?

Yes, ma'am. Father God, thank you so much for this opportunity. Just a fellowship together to talk about all the ways that you are moving and reaching, uh, the military community. And, Father, right now, as I pray over all of our military spouses that are enduring loneliness or frustration, recovering or gearing up for a new PCs, um, as we are enrolling kids in school or preparing for home school, um, God, I ask that you would just grant that act 2042 Community. It's, uh, one of my favorite scriptures, and it talks about the fellowship that exists between believers, that we are devoted to Your Word, that we are devoted to fellowship, to praying for one another, uh, having everything in common. And, Father, we know that, uh, when community is centered around Jesus Christ, that, uh, not only is community restorative, but it is missional. Father, I pray that every single military spouse that is listening to this podcast would find a way to build the biblical community that they so long for through being part of your family in the local church, through being restored and shepherded, through pastors and elders, through, uh, leaning into women's ministries that are contextualized for them. I pray that you would help them build the community that you long for them to have. We, uh, pray for endurance, for rest, for sweet, intimate moments with you. We pray all of these things in Jesus name, amen.

Amen. Hey, friends, thanks for joining us on the connected mom podcast. We hope that this week you will stay connected with God, connected with your fellow moms, and really connected with your child. Thanks for listening today and we'll join you next week again for the connected mom podcast.