What a Military Spouse Needs From The Local Church

We’re moving! For us, this statement is our constant state. There will always be another move. Another house. Another city. Another culture. Another church. When people ask "Where are you from?" (maybe the most common question to a military family) they think that our roots and where we moved from are one and the same. But for us, it’s more complicated. Our roots grew wings and now we take home with us from place to place. We move our family, and we grow it. We have babies born in three different states and our kids will be immersed in a culture different than their own on our next adventure. I can tell you all with great certainty that I will take Albuquerque, New Mexico with us, and I will definitely leave some of myself behind when we leave.

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To us, and to your neighbor who serves in the navy, or your church member in the army, this is just part of the job—and it’s far from the hardest part, honestly. We pack up our homes and our lives every few years, and we make new friends, new families, wherever we go next. We say countless goodbyes, and find new houses and schools. We buy houses sight unseen and wait on orders and paperwork at the last minute. We replace things the movers break, and we do it like it’s our job. Because well, it is, and that’s the easy part.

When people ask me what the hardest part of this extraordinary life is, the answer is so very simple. The church. As a military family we get this gift of experiencing what the universal church really is. The churches we make as our local families will not see us through all our days, but they carry us through to the next season when once again, we’ll become part of a new family. Every time we walk into a new church and join our hands and hearts with them in worship and in service we get to actually experience what the universal church is like. Believers apart of one family join in worship of their one true King in different time zones, languages, and traditions. Churches with different structures, ministry focuses, service opportunities, demographics, economic burdens or blessings, all apart of one family. It is both an honor and a heartache to say goodbye to a church family that we’ve grown in love with. And while we know the loss of saying goodbye to our local church family, we walk with hope knowing God always has another one waiting for us. We know what it is to see believers the world over unite in joy and worship of our core beliefs. But friends, that doesn’t make it easy.

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We can make friends, and when we don’t we cling to Jesus who is a friend at all times (but please be our friends.) We can make a home. There are curtains we can buy, photos of our faces and adventures we can hang, and cozy candles we can light. We can learn to drive in a new city (and even new countries.) We can learn what the locals eat, and say y’all or Gutentag (whichever fits the occasion.) But there is nothing we can do to fill the hole of our local church. We need it. It’s vital. Without it we may simply survive our current assignment, but with it we can thrive. With the church hand in hand we come to meet our savior week after week. We experience our heaven on earth as we look forward to the day when our race is won and we sing these hymns of praise as one. All the people we’ve walked in community with, standing together before the throne. We need this church not just as a collective, but we need you, individual Christian, who brings the Gospel of Christ to us in this horizontal relationship.

Local church, your military spouses need to be known by you. Dan and I have been at our base here in ABQ for about 18 months now. We military families don’t have years to grow and develop bonds. We don’t have a couple months to visit and a few more before we make a friend. We may come off a little strong, but we need you. When we invite you for dinner; come. When we give our numbers, please text us. When we say we don’t need anything, we’re lying. Don’t believe it for a second. We need your compassion when our hearts grow bitter toward the country that takes our loved ones away from us. We need your hand on Sunday morning as we try to carry in our kids alone. We need a warm body next to us when the pew beside us is noticeably absent. We need your texts, checking in when the news looks scary. And we need our goodbyes to sting when we leave the parking lot for the last time, and none of it happens without you.

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I need the church, and the more I'm in it, the more I know this truth in my bones. But also, as a sojourner, and often a stranger in my local communities and churches, I need to know that this church, the one that God has called me to, needs me too. There are many days when the struggle to get out the door to worship with my family is great. It's humbling and hard to make my gifts known to a new body, who may already have people just as gifted as I am. It's easy to slide in the door and shake a few hands and think that I could just sit in quiet anonymity for the next few months without really investing. But friends, none of this is for my good. Your military friend needs to know that they matter to your local family...and that our presence is known, loved, and contributes to your local family worship. We are not warm bodies filling a space. We are brothers and sisters. We are the arms and legs, or the eyes and the ears. Or maybe we're just the pinky toe. But we are there. We are as much a part of the body as the person next to us who may sit in these pews for the next few decades. We need to be loved by our local churches, but maybe even more than that, we need to know that our church covets our acts of love, deeds of faith, and outstretched arms. To be loved well is a great gain, but to be able to love others— that's the whole point.

At our local church we take communion every week. Every single week I walk up to the table with my brothers and sisters and partake in our family meal. One Sunday our pastor challenged us to think of what it will be to see one another in glory. He choked up a little bit calling out our names, and the comfort of being known by my family here has drawn a tear every communion since. For me, this picture is poignant. In a few months I’ll eat my last family meal with my church. And the next one I’ll eat with them will be in glory. As the hymn says...."When we all get to Heaven..." When I get to Heaven I'll meet my savior face to face. But also, I'll enjoy a family meal with all the believers I've joined hands with across my lifetime. I’ll run to my friend Nena and I’ll see that the smile I know well, in Heaven has only brightened. I will embrace my women‘s

ministry leader Karin, and remember the moments she held me through tears, and feel that her warmth has grown beyond measure. I will look over and see that Leslie is even more hilarious in Glory now that her faith is turned to sight. Kristin’s gentility will be unmatched I’m sure, and her southern eyes will shine even brighter than they do already. I’m sure Matt will have his guitar, and while I will miss singing with my church family on earth—We will soon enough sing together for endless days. I‘m not sure that there will be cake in heaven but if there is, I know Charis will be the one serving it. Raybeau and Annie will be there, and to be honest I can't even imagine what will happen to the kindness in their hearts. Truly I can't fathom there is more space in them for further kindness, and yet, I know that Christ has only tapped the surface of it. We collect people not things and I can only hope that we have loved the people here half as well as they have loved us, and oh what joy to know that the things I love about my dear brothers and sisters will one day be made perfect. I get to see tiny glimpses of who they will one day be in Heaven, and I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

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Do you see it friends? We miss our earthly families dearly with each move—but this church family isn’t flesh and blood. Our bonds go beyond the grave into Christ’s marvelous light. If we’ve been blessed enough to worship with you for one of our passing seasons, know we carry you with us. I have been able to take with me the joy, wisdom, discipline, friendship, gentleness, kindness, service, love, peace, compassion, determination, ambition, (and so so much more) of hundreds of brothers and sisters, and I carry the faces that match these marks of character in my heart. It will not tarnish, and in Christ, I'm promised that it's only the beginning. You, church family, are God’s gift of providence to these wanderers, and it is not lost on us. I pray though, that this miracle of grace is never lost on you.

We Welshes are off to Germany and we are so very excited. But I can guarantee that I’ll need extra tissues for every Sunday between now and then. We have loved Albuquerque dearly, but without a doubt it has loved us back extravagantly. This is our pull, our lovely, heartbreaking, adventurous, and hard way of life. But this gift of people helps us turn our gaze heavenward. Oh that Christ would choose to build his church through people! Not a temple made by human hands, but a temple made through human souls. This church was worth all the cost for Christ our King, and so then it is worth every cost for me.