JOSH
The tension at home kept building because Paige and I kept adding things to our plates. Neither of us was good at saying no, and we had developed a pretty bad system of committing to things without consulting one another. The one mission we both committed to was pushing along our home build with Homes for Our Troops. When we first learned about Homes for Our Troops, I honestly wasn’t sure how necessary a handicap-accessible home would be. Of course, these are mortgage-free homes, and who wouldn’t want that? But I didn’t realize how badly we needed home adaptations until we had moved into our rentals after we left the hospital. By 2015, we had lived in two rental properties that had posed some major challenges for me. In both places I had to keep my legs on all day because there were areas in each place that my wheelchair couldn’t get to. This really started messing with my back and knee. I also didn’t have a handicap-accessible bathroom, so I ended up taking baths under the tub faucet. This really wasn’t a big deal, but I almost seriously hurt myself trying to hoist myself into my wheelchair from the side of a slippery tub. These are things you don’t think about when you are all of a sudden disabled. Other problems included not being able to take the trash to the road because the driveway was too steep, or use the stovetop in my wheelchair because I was at eye level with the pan, or go in the backyard in my wheelchair because it had steps. What worried me most was being at home alone with Harper, as I often was, and her getting somewhere that I couldn’t get to. My two-and-a-half-year-old could no longer be confined to the pillow forts I had built when she was a baby. There was no way we could buy a home and renovate it with the things that would make it safe for me to live in. We needed Homes for Our Troops, but we ran into a roadblock soon after we had finally picked out our land.
We bought the land, but then had terrible luck with the first builder. He seemed so enthusiastic to take on a veteran project, but then never showed up to the job site. We had a groundbreaking ceremony set for June 2015 that had to be moved to a restaurant parking lot because he hadn’t shown up to clear out the trees on our property. This was frustrating because the groundbreaking ceremony is not just meant to get the community’s attention on a veteran moving into the town, but to give the community the opportunity to get involved in helping the cause. It is a little counterproductive to gather sponsors, set up tents, bring in food, and invite city government to an event that is in a different location than where the home will be built. We needed to send a message to our community that legitimized both the need and the organization willing to fulfill the need. With a no-show builder and last-minute relocated events, our community was not getting that message. Entering 2016, we still had not found a new builder and our land was still covered in trees. We were in the same familiar place we’d been in at Walter Reed: providing all the warm fuzzies and the appearance of progress for our supporters while actually being at a standstill in almost everything. Paige was growing increasingly impatient with the process. She was tired of living with the daily risks of how I had to function in our home and worried about Harper the same way I did. Even though I was frustrated too, I just wanted to get the right person that cared about us the way the people at Homes for Our Troops did. The disappointments about the home build became another negative topic at home.
PAIGE
We had been civilians for two years, and I could have never pictured the stress I lived in. This secret baby, the ups and downs of my job, the demands from Josh’s job, Harper becoming more mobile, and this home project that just wouldn’t get started was enough to make me rub my temples in disbelief. I kept reaching for some level of control, and it would just slip through my fingers. I began to think about my unborn child. Harper’s gestation certainly took place in a less-than-ideal situation, but all my anxiety was about giving her a good life despite the surroundings. Did I feel that for this child? Had I spent one second wanting the same good life for the second one? I began to write down prayers again for this baby to help me drown out the distractions. I prayed that God would help me trade anxiety for excitement, knowing that with the way things were in my marriage, my attitude may have been the only thing that kept our family afloat. I also apologized to my baby, talking to him or her for the first time. I said I was sorry for not taking the time to show love and pray better. I committed to being excited and decided I was going to find an exciting way to tell everyone.
One day, after I had dealt with yet another house building setback, Rick called me and asked if we could meet. I wasn’t sure what it was about, but it seemed urgent. I had seen him out recruiting the weekend before and wondered what could have happened between now and then. We met up for coffee, and much to my surprise, he offered me a job as his director of volleyball operations for the Auburn Tigers! I had no idea what a director of operations did, but with everything else going on, it was absolutely God opening a door. Josh and I would both work at the same place. I felt such relief. My prayers had been answered with this job, and
