Technology

Today I want to talk about how grateful I am for technology.

Let's be honest - technology affects every aspect of our lives. How we clean, how we eat, how we take care of ourselves, where our clothes and belongings come from, what we do in our spare time, how we get places, our jobs, our hobbies, EVERYTHING. Compared to 100 years ago, the world is a completely different place. Even just 20 years ago was pretty different!

Technology is flying forward at a crazy pace. How many times have you gotten "the newest thing," only to have something better come out within a matter of months? It makes me wonder what the world will be like when I'm old. How much will have changed in my lifetime?

Evie and her favorite guy

Anyway, while technology of all kinds blesses my life in huge and meaningful ways, my particular focus at this point in time is on the technology that allows me to stay connected to my husband from across the globe.

This is our first holiday season apart. The "holiday season," of course, meaning Thanksgiving and Christmas. Ben has been gone for several summers over our eight years of marriage, which is hard enough, but it's that much more painful to have him gone now.

The holidays are all about love, and family, and putting greater focus on our blessings. My husband is my greatest blessing, and I love him more than I love anyone else on Earth. Our daughter is absolutely devoted to him as well. She misses him like crazy when he's gone. Our family truly isn't whole without him.

So with the holidays looming, it's already painful to have him away from home, and to know that he won't be back until Christmas is long over.

But then I think of the wives who lived 100, 75, even just 50 years ago.

My husband is hardly the first to go off to war. And the women who lived back then had to say goodbye and be almost completely cut off from their men. Sometimes a letter or a telegram would come through, but usually, all they heard from their sweethearts was silence. They were left to wonder what was happening, and to pray that their sweetheart would come home. And, if they had an overactive imagination like me, they probably made themselves gray from worrying about what might happen.

I can't imagine how incredibly difficult that must have been. People think milspouses today are strong, but we've got nothing on those amazing women.

And I'm okay with that.

A shot from a previous deployment. Yay, Skype!

I'm grateful that we have phones, and the internet, and skype. I can call, email, facebook message, or skype my husband every day. In a lot of ways I'm even more lucky than other modern milspouses, because my husband is usually around an internet connection. There are many military wives whose husbands spend their time out in the field, and can call home only rarely. But even for them, technology makes it possible to connect in ways that were impossible not so many years ago.

It's still hard having Ben gone over Thanksgiving and Christmas. But because of technology, I am pretty freakin' spoiled. I can see my husband (and his freshly shaved head), I can talk to him, I can even play online video games with him. We can actually spend time together every day from opposite sides of the planet! We are incredibly blessed.

I wonder what the women of 100 years ago would think of today?

And I wonder how the world will have changed in another hundred years?

Maybe we'll all be superheroes in 100 years!