Seth and Danielle McAnally on Living for Christ as a Dual Military Family

Photo by: Tori Matthews Photo (@torimatthewsphoto)

Seth and Danielle McAnally are celebrating two years of marriage this August yet have only been physically together for a total of one year as Seth is a Second Battalion 7th Marines Infantry Officer and has been deployed on and off throughout their marriage. Danielle is also a Marine and serves as a Supply Officer aka procuring items or equipment for the unit. They describe what life is like as a dual military couple and living for Christ in a very secular industry.

divine intervention

There is much evidence of God’s divine intervention in Danielle and Seth’s story…one of those being co-located together in Twenty Palms, CA. Danielle and Seth met at the Naval Academy Preparatory School (in Newport, Rhode Island), and they were put in the same platoon - only about 30 people total. Seth fell in love with Danielle and told her so early on. When he approached her parents to ask her hand in marriage they said “no”. They wanted her to sign her contract with the Marines and it seemed her conversion to Christianity from her Catholic upbringing was also a factor in their refusal. But another divine moment happened when Seth and Danielle ended up together again in a 6-week program and spent nearly every hour of every day together. They had broken up, but it was the hardest, weirdest break-up as they remained friends and would see each other all the time. God clearly wanted them together.

testimonies

Seth grew up in the church, his dad has been a pastor since he was around 7 years old. He was raised in the church, involved in youth camps and went off to college and stayed involved through those years. He shares the Danielle he knows today isn’t the same he knew when he met her.

Danielle was raised a devout Catholic, and she even wanted to even be a nun because she knew a basketball coach who was both and she thought, “If I could be a nun and dribble a basketball, that’d be pretty cool!”

Throughout high school she went through a wild period of drinking and partying and didn’t have any faith. She was raised studying catechism, thinking she had a relationship with saints and other figures in the Catholic church but realized that didn’t compare to the intimacy of knowing Christ, she had never opened the Bible,  When she met Seth he invited her to a bible study, which she admits she only went because she wanted to hang out with him. She also attended a non-denomination service….and she started to know the Lord through those two things. It transformed her life.

She realized being baptized as an infant wasn’t the same as choosing to be baptized and she was baptized at the church she was growing in, and truly made the decision to show declare her faith in Christ. 

It put a lot of riffs in her familial relationships.

The Marine Corps

Seth and Danielle share the career paths that led them to the military, specifically the marines. I learned a lot in my time with them…learning that there’s a fleet marine corp, an admin marine corp, what a non-deployable vs. deployable unit is, what a platoon is, what a dual mil couple does when they’re home together, how to pray for our military families, strategic deterrent mission, and so many more terms.

They share with us the challenges of a military couple — when you zoom in to the infantry, you’ll see it’s very anti-God as in a lot of the men and women don’t live life with a biblical worldview. Being apart and not having a strong fellowship that is strengthened by the bond of marriage is incredibly challenging. Seth is the one who has to deploy while Danielle remains stationary. She shares how she spends her time while waiting for Seth’s return home. Seth says, for example, he’ll leave for 4 months of training and going out and coming to the field….he’s surrounded by a bunch of secular guys talking about secular things, and that is trying. 

serve like Christ

Being a soldier for country and for Christ is what Seth and Danielle live their life after. Seth touches on the amount of training he goes through just to be deployed into a completely safe environment in America, and how we should take the same approach to our walk with faith…it requires significantly more than just checking the boxes.

Danielle also reminds us that sticking to your convictions might lead you to meet your best friend….having decided not to live together before marriage, she met another woman in a similar circumstance, they bonded over that and have remained close. In both of their roles, they’ve had the opportunity to share Christ in a very vulgar, overly secularized workplace. Seth has mentored a lot of the young men put under him and Danielle shares her faith where God has placed her.

“Christ is such a compelling leadership model, because He said, ‘I’ll make you fishers of men and the disciples said, ‘Okay, we’ll follow you.’ That’s what we strive to be as leaders.” — Danielle 

Wedding Photos: TorI Matthews Photo @torimatthewsphoto