Ft Stewart PWOC Hosts Valentine Event for Military Couples, Friday, February 10, 2017, 6-9 PM

Corie Weathers, author of Sacred Spaces: My Journey to the Heart of Military Marriage, and her husband, US Army Chaplain Matthew Weathers, are guest speakers at a special Valentine evening for military couples. Hosted by Fort Stewart PWOC, the event takes place Friday, February 10, 2017, 6-9 PM Eastern.

An Evening in Paris – Fort Stewart
When: Friday, February 10, 2017, 6-9 PM
WHERE: Fort Stewart Main Chapel, BLDG 500, 10 Garry Owen St, Fort Stewart
Host: Protestant Women of the Chapel (PWOC) of Fort Stewart, Georgia
AUDIENCE: Military couples
Cost: $10 per couple, limited seating
To attend: Tickets are available on a first-come basis beginning January 28.
Contact Roxanne Walker, Stewartpwoc@gmail.com

An Evening in Paris, hosted at Fort Stewart, Georgia, will be an elegant evening for military couples to celebrate their marriage, spend time with one another, and be reminded of the joy of their relationship. The theme focuses on the power that love, faith, and hope have in a healthy marriage. The event will be catered and include giveaways and the 3ID Jazz Band. Tickets are $10 per couple and seating is limited.

US Army Chaplain Matthew Weathers and his wife Corie Weathers, a licensed counselor and the 2015 Armed Forces Insurance Military Spouse of the Year, will speak at the event. The couple will share their own story as detailed in Corie’s book Sacred Spaces: My Journey to the Heart of Military Marriage, and offer encouraging ideas for ways military couples can better communicate and see their marriage thrive in the military lifestyle.

If you are unable to attend this special evening, you may meet Corie and Matt at a Barnes & Noble booksigning, Saturday, February 11, at 2 PM at Oglethorpe Mall, Savannah. The booksigning is open to the public and does not require a reservation or ticket.

Matthew and Corie Weathers on Military Marriage:
Matthew, an active duty US Army Chaplain, and Corie, a licensed professional counselor (LPC) and the 2015 Armed Forces Insurance Military Spouse of the Year, have a passion for serving military and first responder families. The couple has worked together to support service members and families involved with the Global War on Terrorism. They cohost marriage retreats and offer an online marriage program designed to improve intimacy and connection. Corie speaks nationally on topics such as PTSD, grief, marriage, and military family culture.

“A surprising amount of military marriage is lived out separately rather than together. A couple can experience different perspectives of the same event at varying levels of intensity and sacrifice that can lead to a gap of understanding between them,” says Matthew. “Our own marriage changed for the better when we realized we needed to respectfully create a space where we could share our individual experiences with each other, without judgment or criticism. In those moments, we grew exponentially closer, thereby creating our own shared sacred space.”

Corie adds, “As a mental health counselor, I found that many military couples struggle to share with one another the deep toll deployments, loss, fear, and sacrifice have had on each of them individually. Over time, couples can feel misunderstood and disconnected. To save our marriages from years of deployment cycles, trauma, and the interruption of family life, couples must find a way to talk about the most sacred moments in their lives.”

Local Stewart/Hunter Ties:
During Matt’s second deployment to Afghanistan, he was stationed with Fort Stewart-based 3rd Infantry Division. A group of special operation soldiers out of Hunter Army Airfield gave him a ride back to the US for an important ceremony in Washington, DC, to support a fellow soldier.

Corie says, “Matt will be forever grateful for those guys. They had a part in changing our lives and our story.”

About the Book:
As the 2015 Armed Forces Insurance Military Spouse of the Year, Corie Weathers traveled on an overseas holiday trip with US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter in December 2015. She wanted to better understand her husband Matt’s deployments and share her experience with other military spouses.

Like many military couples, Corie and Matt accumulated significant unshared moments during Matt’s deployments. Matt lost friends and fellow soldiers to combat in Afghanistan. On the home front, Corie sat with bereaved military families and walked through dark days with new widows as a friend and professional counselor. When Matt returned, he and Corie began using the term “sacred spaces” for these and other significant moments they had experienced independently. After multiple deployments, sacred spaces were taking up a lot of emotional room in their relationship.

Corie didn’t choose the timing or circumstances of her trip with Secretary Carter—Christmastime, in the midst of her family’s second cross-state move in six months—but it seemed the perfect opportunity for Corie and Matt to gain a better understanding of each other’s perspectives.

Matt experienced life on the home front with new eyes as he moved their household belongings, prepared for the holidays, and settled their two young sons into their new school.

Corie’s trip brought her to Turkey, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Persian Gulf, where she spoke with military families stationed overseas and deployed troops on the ground, in the air, and at sea. As she sat in the belly of a C-17, where her husband had said goodbye to the remains of friends and fellow soldiers, as she touched with her own hands the memorial at FOB Fenty and reflected on her grief as a care team member following the battle of COP Keating, Corie realized this journey was about much more than the push-pull of duty away from loved ones.

This was a journey to the heart of her marriage, a place where she would have to leave behind her resentment in exchange for ground she and her husband had surrendered to hurt, misunderstanding, loss—and to Afghanistan.

Corie set out on this trip hoping to gain a better understanding of her husband and his deployment experience, but along the way, she discovered a whole new perspective of herself and her military marriage.