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55. Bridging the Gap Between Military and Civilian Families with Licensed Professional Counselor, Author, Podcaster, and 2015 Military Spouse of the Year, Corie Weathers **Transcription Below** Proverbs 27:17 (NIV) “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” Corie Weathers is a wife, mother, licensed professional counselor, speaker, consultant and author of Sacred Spaces: My Journey to the Heart of Military Marriage. In 2015, Corie was named the 2015 Armed Forces Insurance Military Spouse of the Year® where she advocated for mental health issues and served as a media correspondent. Today, Corie continues to encourage others through her inspirational blog and podcast. She also serves as an Ambassador for the Chris Kyle Frog Foundation serving military and first responder families and volunteers with the Red Cross training mental health professionals to be more culturally competent in their work with military and first responders. At The Savvy Sauce, we will only recommend resources we believe in! We also want you to be aware: We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.comand affiliated sites. Corie’s Website Lifegiver Blog Lifegiver Podcast Sacred Spaces: My Journey to the Heart of Military Marriage by Corie Weathers Thank You to Our Sponsor: FabFitFun *Use Code "savvy" at checkout for $10 off your first box! Connect with The Savvy Sauce on Facebook or Instagram or Our Website Please help us out by sharing this episode with a friend, leaving a 5-star rating and review, and subscribing to this podcast! Gospel Scripture: (all NIV) Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.” Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.” Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“ Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“ Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” **Transcription** [00:00:00] <music> Laura Dugger: Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here. [00:00:17] <music> Laura Dugger: I want to say thank you to our sponsor, FabFitFun. If you want to learn more about their seasonal subscription boxes, which include over $200 worth of full-size products, but cost you only $49.99, visit them at FabFitFun.com. And if you use the coupon code SAVVY at checkout, you'll receive $10 off your first box. Today we're bringing back Corie Weathers. She is a wife, mother, licensed professional counselor, author, and podcaster, and she's previously been named Military Spouse of the Year. We're going to learn more about her journey and hear some surprising ways to bridge the gap between civilians and military families. I apologize for my cold today, and I hope that it does not distract you from this great interview with Corie Weathers. Welcome to the Savvy Sauce, Corie. Corie Weathers: Thanks for having me, Laura. [00:01:19] Laura Dugger: Well, it's such an honor to have you join us today. Can you just start us off by providing a little bit of your backstory? Corie Weathers: Yeah, absolutely. So I am a licensed professional counselor. It's something that I've always wanted to do and to work with marriages has always been a huge dream of mine. What I did not anticipate was that I would be doing that for the military community and the first responder community. My husband and I met in college, and we thought we were going to go more so into the ministry or go into the academic field of teaching college-level courses and all of that. Then one day my husband came and said he wanted to be an Army chaplain, which completely threw me. And it took me about a year to get on board. But once we got on board together on that it has completely altered our life. We are full-blown in the ministry of really serving military and veteran. My work has also expanded to first responders. So he is an army chaplain, active duty. We're currently in South Carolina. He is an instructor where he actually trains up chaplains. [00:02:22] So if you can imagine taking your local pastor and put a uniform on them and take them out into the woods and throw grenades at them, that's kind of what my husband gets to do. I'm sure it's a lot more work than just that. But that's where we are right now. I know we're going to get into this a little bit more later, but it's been a roller coaster ride of fun. And it is just my joy. My goal, honestly, is to breathe life into military and first responder families because of it being such a lifestyle of stress. That's the fastest way that I can give you a background. Laura Dugger: For anybody who hasn't used that term frequently, who are you specifically talking about when you say first responders? Corie Weathers: It's very interesting. You know, we really had been focusing for about the last 10 years on just military families because my husband being a chaplain, you know, we're assigned to anywhere between 400, sometimes, you know, even up to a thousand families at once. So it's not your typical role, like a pastor of a church kind of role. [00:03:24] A chaplain's role is very unique. My husband's family comes from a long line of police officers, and so we've always kind of had a passion for first responders. I found recently that when we say first responders, we include police officers, SWAT teams, firefighters, EMS workers, paramedics. Anybody that responds to a crisis on the civilian local level in their communities is what we call first responders. So we found so many similarities between what our first responders' experience of life and marriage is like compared to military. Bringing those two together has been a really easy, seamless kind of work, if that makes sense. Laura Dugger: Oh, definitely. That is so interesting to hear the parallels between the two. In 2015, you were named Military Spouse of the Year. So how has your life changed since winning that title? Corie Weathers: Believe it or not, when we first got into the military, our first assignment, our first initiation into the military culture was quite intense. [00:04:27] We didn't know that at the time. We thought that it was just kind of the normal Army experience. But our first deployment was very intense where we lost a lot of our soldiers, did a lot of work within that community, worked with a lot of what we call Gold Star families, which is basically a family who's lost their service members. So part of my role was to deliver support and kind of sit with that family when they first received their news of losing their soldier. A lot of that work leading up to 2015 was really focused on really pouring into this community in a very intense way. My husband actually came across a tweet one day, we kind of joke at each other and say, Wow, it's amazing what a little tweet can do. But he came across a tweet that said, Nominate your spouse for Military Spouse of the Year. And he thought at the time, you know, Corie's done a lot of work and she deserves a really great pat on the back and a certificate. So he nominated me for Military Spouse of the Year. We had no idea what that really meant. The general population, including civilians and military, vote on these different military spouses who've done really amazing things. [00:05:36] So I went on to win Military Spouse of the Year for my installation, our post, our Army post. And then from there, I was voted and kind of won this Army Spouse of the Year. And then that led up to one major event in Washington, D.C., where the winner of each branch, so we had Army, Marines, Coast Guard, National Guard, Air Force, I think I hit all that, and Navy. So the six of us all come together and they announce the overall Military Spouse of the Year for that year at a big ceremony in Washington, D.C. And so in 2015, I was given that name, the 2015 Military Spouse of the Year. As far as how my life has changed, it has changed drastically. It felt like falling from the sky without a parachute. A lot of military spouses really serve in the shadows and in the background, and we kind of are chameleons. Wherever we go, it's how can we serve and who do you need me to be. [00:06:35] Military Spouse of the Year really put me in the spotlight. I mean, the next morning after winning that award, I was on the Today Show sitting next to Hoda and Kathie Lee and having a conversation with them about the military world, and so many other things. You know, opportunities to speak to other military families across the nation, speak with a lot of our higher ranking officials in D.C. about the military culture and how we can make it better. But ultimately, I will say the biggest part of my year was the Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter at the time... Now the Secretary of Defense is who we nickname him Mad Dog. I don't think he likes that, but Mad Dog Mattis is our current Secretary of Defense. But before that was Ashton Carter. He took me along with him on his holiday tour to visit troops overseas to allow me to see deployment conditions. They realized that they had never taken a military spouse that wasn't an employee of theirs in the office to see what it's like actually overseas in deployment. [00:07:38] Like we always have kind of these snapshot pictures, just like every American does. You know, we see on the news, the welcome home ceremonies. We see, you know, our soldiers, you know, with their picture taken in front of some mountains or in the sand or whatever. And that's our only understanding of deployment. So, over the course of about seven days or so, I visited Turkey, two places in Iraq, Afghanistan, and then was on two different aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf, which really allowed me to see all of our branches working together—Navy, Marines, Air Force, Army—all at once for the causes that we're fighting overseas on. And so it was a truly remarkable experience that literally changed my life. Laura Dugger: Oh, I can't even imagine. I'm sure it was surreal on some level. Corie Weathers: It was absolutely surreal. Laura Dugger: But now you've lived on two very different sides. You've both served at home while your husband traveled and then, like you said, you experienced this season of travel for yourself. So what did you learn from being in both of those roles? [00:08:43] Corie Weathers: It was truly a remarkable experience because I think even if you're not in the military, all of us have this kind of the grass is greener on the other side. And it's really easy for us to, whether we look across the street at our neighbor and say, wow, I wish I had a little piece of their life or even looking at our spouse's experience. And I know even as a stay-at-home mom, I have been in that situation where my kids were young and there was part of me that was like, I just want to get out of this house and do something fun. And I see my husband going off to work every day, and gee, that looks amazing, right? And so I think as a military spouse, also having been through deployment, of course, I wasn't necessarily wanting to experience war and I wasn't necessarily wanting to go on a vacation to Afghanistan. But there was a part of me that really kind of wanted to do something exciting, that really wanted to experience my potential and my purpose. [00:09:40] And I'm wondering if I was going to find that outside of what I was presently doing at the time. And so I think this whole experience, the Military Spouse of the Year experience, the trip with Ashton Carter, and even some of the other experiences that I've had, I got to go to Japan and work with spouses there, and I think that what it really taught me was that there are times when God opens up definitely a circle of influence. And I think that that happens in seasons. I can look back now when I was raising toddlers and say to myself, I wish that I could give myself or gift myself really patience. I was so rushed and so anxious to see something else, do something else. It doesn't mean I didn't love my kids and enjoy what I was doing. But I think that most people listening can relate that, you know, no matter what you're presently working on, you're always wanting that next thing. [00:10:33] Like when you're in school, I can't wait till I'm out of school. When I'm out of school, I can't wait till, you know, people in this field actually listen to me, right? Or that I have something to give back or, you know, wherever you are in that season. And so I think for me it did a couple of things. I think, one, it slowed my heart down to make me realize that as much as I even still love the opportunities that I get to travel and speak with different groups of people, and I know now that my gifting that God has called me to is in teaching and speaking, that when I'm there, I want to be…
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