Great News!

Or "When God inexplicably opens a door that by all accounts is sealed shut"

For those of you unfamiliar with military jargon, please don't be dissuaded by the occasional acronym. :)

We've been fighting bouts of spontaneous grateful giggles, since confirming an 'inside' rumor that Matt had been selected for promotion. We knew he was potentially eligible because he'd hit the first benchmark of 18 months since his previous promotion. That benchmark put him into the "secondary zone" for promotion, or the early promotion zone. Most promotions come in the "primary zone", which is another year to 18 months down the road. In December Matt received notice that his ERB (military records) were eligible to be sent to the promotion board, unless he declined. Several weeks earlier he checked his records and found that almost 8 years of his service had disappeared; including his deployment to Iraq. His ERB included his award citation from Iraq, but no other record of his even being there. (The personnel office at our former duty station has somehow managed to "lose" the deployment records for the entire Battalion that Matt deployed with!) Our local personnel office was proving unable to track down the missing records as well, so Matt nearly opted to decline submitting his records. He can't explain why he didn't decline because he "knew" he didn't stand a chance with an incomplete ERB; the promotions are too competitive from this point on.

But, against all odds, he made the list! He hasn't even completed the required pre-promotion school yet!! He'll be finishing the last half of the school in the fall, and his promotion number places him in line for a late fall/early winter promotion, so the timing will be perfect. When looking at Matt's incomplete record, it makes no sense that he'd be promoted above other soldiers we know with complete records, completed school, and great assignments; but he was. The promotion comes with a pay raise of almost 30%, which adds an extra layer to our gratitude. ;) It also provides the change of job Matt we'd been hoping for. His current leadership is more than a little challenging which has turned his work into drudgery lately. Because of the upcoming promotion, he's now overqualified for his current position and is being moved to from the company to the battalion level on the 15th.

One more reason we're excited about this, is that Matt will no longer be "traveling" with his soon-to-be former company, which MAY provide the opportunity for him to try to go to our family reunion with us this summer! Yea!!

The humbling lesson in this has been that nothing can stop God's blessings when you're truly in His Will.