EOW (End of Watch)

Our goal is to now keep up with our blog as we make a huge transition in life. This transition included a complete job shift, which means I no longer am a police officer, and once again just a mere civilian! Now that sounds a little degrading to civilian life, but policing had some great benefits! I am excited about life as a civilian again, but leaving a job I loved was much harder than I anticipated. I am very grateful for the lessons I learned while employed as an officer of the law. It was a great joy to serve the community we lived in and to enjoy the camaraderie of a team. I have had some time to reflect on my resignation and am beginning to understand a little more about why it was difficult to leave, and also why I am grateful to move on. Being a police officer today is not a glorified job like it used to be. Everyday you leave for work you expect to encounter someone who would like to kill you, and to be ready for this you literally have to put on that mindset everyday. Obviously this requires a certain hardness which was necessary for the job. Within the job you often see the worst of humanity and certain things are harder to process than others. Because of the uniqueness of the job and the daily preparation and intensity that goes into the day, it is clear that leaving that life behind was difficult. Yet, I am grateful to move on because I feel the experiences and knowledge gained will be useful in the context of ministry. Being a police officer has given me a greater and different level of discernment, it has created a greater compassion for people, it has caused me to see the hopelessness of the world and it has mostly allowed me to understand more clearly God's grace and mercy in my own life. I thank God for the opportunity to be a police officer and how He will use that now in our family's life. I thank God for the many men and women in blue who daily risk their own safety in protecting us all in the communities we live in. The aspect of the job that will be missed the most is throwing the lights on and waving goodbye to my family everyday. See the last time captured in a pic below!