Thank you for offering us the chance to ask questions. I don’t normally do this, but I see the wisdom in asking. I am between a rock and a hard place. I wish we could sit and I could explain this story to you detail after detail. I remember it well and it is still a healing wound. However, my God is a great physician and He heals what we can’t. He heals what we deserve to have hurt. What grace. I don’t ever know where to start, but starting somewhere is a good idea.

I am a Sailor. But I am a Christian first. I have only been in the navy for 1 year and 7 months. I really enjoy my job. I am in the Ceremonial Guard in Washington DC. What an absolute honor, and it was given to me by God as a wonderful surprise.

When I arrived in DC after boot camp, I was alone. I don’t know how many Christians have ever felt that kind of loneliness. In fewer words than I want to use, God started showing me awesome witnessing opportunities. He gave me a church. He gave me Christian sisters. In a command of 350 (at our top number) we still only had 20 girls in the command. And of those 20, I only saw 7 on a weekly basis. None of which talked about God, let alone wanted to talk with me about him. I was as alone as I had ever been in my life. Yet, I knew I was in the will of God. I was humbled knowing God had put me of all people here as a light for Him. I don’t know why God chose me…but I saw amazing things happen even in my loneliness. It can ware on a person to have no one. I didn’t even have a phone for the first 6 months.

I began to pray for a friend here where I work–a CHRISTIAN friend. I began praying specifically. For a Christian friend with whom I could pray for the lost here, who would work with me to reach them. I didn’t care if it was a guy or girl. I didn’t want just any saved Christian, I wanted a serious, God-respecting, Bible-studying Christian who would help me grow and fill my need for a friend.

October 2nd of 2012, God answered my prayer. I almost cried in front of HIM. I had never, and still have not met a man yet, in my life, who is like him. I have no words to describe the amazement I still feel when I think about how God had so perfectly given and surpassed my request. He not only met my request for a friend, but for a man I see as a marriage partner.

There’s not enough space in this box today to go into that story, so I will pass over it because I still have questions and I still pray and have to trust God in my confusion in it.

My brother is a man who believes in the inerrent word of God. He applies everything that he reads in the bible to his daily life. I couldn’t believe how natural it was for me to fall into service to him when we began talking and spending time with each other. My role as a woman became real. But it wasn’t until we had decided to step away from each other in January (because of growing temptation) that I realized later in February just how much I didn’t know about my role as a woman.

I work in a thrift shop on base. I found a book called “Feminine Appeal.” This book struck me right away. As I looked at the cover, I realized that this was something I had never put time into studying. I had the world’s understanding of just “go into marriage and don’t make the mistakes your parents made.” Well, needless to say, this struck an interest in me. I started reading so much more than I had ever read before. After I finished feminine appeal, I read: “The meaning of marriage,” “created…,” “preparing…,” “let me be a woman,” “To train up a child,” and “rock solid kids.” Plus some others that I had read while I was alone, also along the same category.

He and I, through God’s grace ALONE, have had reconciliation for the most part. He and I work together. In our job, I was his trainer for a long time. I had the opportunity to become what we call a “PC.” This is the highest honor one can have in our company platoon called “colors platoon.” It’s really the highest, surprisingly, I’ll ever achieve in the navy at this rank. It’s amazing. However, I came to the realization that women were not made to lead men. My brother never once told me what I should and shouldn’t do according to the bible. He was very respectful of me making my own decisions. He never gave his own two-cents about my position unless I asked. One day, it just struck me that that was not a position for a woman of God, but a man of God. We had decided long ago, not to give each other tests-for fear that it would look like conflict of interest. So, If I made PC, he would not. If He made PC, it would be because I gave it to him.

He made PC two weeks ago. And what an honor it is to see my Christian brother leading the carnal with an amazing testimony of God. It’s a privilege to serve just below him lifting his career up and making it possible for him to succeed. I love him dearly, and though for now, God has put space between us, we are still working together well. Satan likes to pull at my heart strings throughout the week because everything I admire about him, just gets better. Save a few parts that I’m watching right now.

So, all this to say, as a trainer and an authority figure to some extent over many men who do respect me, and having the greatest desire to build my talents and abilities in “preparing to be a help meet,” how on earth can I possibly show love and reverence and respect, while also showing meekness and QUIETNESS and wax softly in a place that demands all the opposite???!!! I wish I could fly you here to visit. I wish I could show you around and introduce you to my life. God has me here for a purpose and I’m not done yet. I can see that God has put a burden on me and somehow my brother is a huge part of my life, and might be one day in the future. But that is not clear right now. What matters is that I can somehow serve my brother and the other men as they aught to be served whether or not they are saved, so I can practice humility no matter the return, in a place that has me leading them! This is so incredibly difficult. I have to figure out every day, nearly every hour how to be both and glorify God in it. Sometimes it is so stressful that I fail in representing God because of the busyness mixed with my emotion for my brother, and my desire to focus on God.

If you have understood my question, or even feel the need to address anything else, please do.

Thank you again,

Tasha Lore’e.