Seasons

No matter where you — it’s never all easy. A crop is made by all the seasons and the only way to have it all — is not at the same time… but letting one season bring its yield into the next.
This is how to have no fear — each season makes a full year.
-- Ann Voskamp

I love this quote. It is speaking of the seasons of life. The good months and years and the bad months and years all combine to create the entire season of our lives.

I am trying to remember this.

Trying to remember that it isn't just the good times that make up the entirety of my life. That it is the hard times and the fun times and the times of laughter and the times of tears that make up who I am and what I am and who I will become.

Confession: I have been feeling a lot of guilt recently.

To summarize it quickly: I feel guilty that the last year of my life was so difficult on my family. 

I don't like that the year of sickness and the depression that attached itself to that sickness was present for me. 

However, if it only effected me, I could live with it.

It's the fact that it effected others that hurts my heart.

Honestly, I know my kids won't remember it, and so I am able to let what it did to them wane. In addition, I often think the fact that I wasn't feeling good was good for them in ways. It kept me sitting in one place instead of racing around. It limited my activities and kept me home more.

But my husband. I feel guilt about what that year did to him.

Husband agrees that it was a, well, frankly, terrible year for us. We have discussed and concur that it was the hardest year of our lives. Much harder than the years of infertility which pulled us together instead of apart.

It stunk.

Guilt might not be the right word for it. I feel badly. But I know I shouldn't. I know it isn't my fault. I know, when I really think about it, that there was nothing I could do. I managed to care for my children and continue most of my activities, but it took everything I had in me. 

And so many things suffered. I was not a good friend during this time. I did not stay in touch with people well. My relationship with my husband came to grinding hault. It took everything the two of us had to keep our family running. And by family, I mean the lives of our children. Our own relationship skidded to a very small crawl. Actually not even a crawl. Slower than a crawl if that is possible.

We couldn't go out on dates. I was not able to communicate much at all. We were surviving. That was it. We were getting through until I wasn't sick anymore.

And this is why Ann's quote really ministers to me. 

She is saying that it is these events that make up the entirety of our lives. Whether it be an illness or a bad choice or a tragic event ... whatever it may be, it makes us who we are and the bad combined with the good is all part of who we are.

I hope to recall her words whenever the guilt gets me down.