The Trenches

This morning was such a happy one. The sun is shining, country music is playing, and we even saw a little bird outside our window. This Sunday in Lent we had honey in our tea and on our biscuits, and are still all in our pyjamas as we do very day-of-rest type things. 

There are so many instagram mommies and blogger mommies whose beautiful feeds and stories sometimes make me feel as though every day should be like our Sunday morning was today. However, the truth is that most days feel more like the trenches than the glory days, and I am quite sure it is this way for most. 

In the past few months we have had several bouts with the flu, work stress for Joe, financial realities for our family, and family stress on both sides. These are on top of the day to day realities of a toddler and preschooler whose needs are mundane and immediate, bills, chores, jobs, and the always pervasive questions about meaning and fulfillment that are in each human heart.

The last five years have been glorious years, and they have also been made up of days that are mostly in-the-trenches sort of days. Something has become quite clear to me....there is no one that I would rather be in the trenches with than my Joseph.

I think sometimes we have the tendency to fight wildly to get out of the trenches, without acknowledging that truly this is the human condition. We are always trying to escape the suffering that is so natural to this condition we all have - that of being alive.

Some days, weeks, months or years we have to be OK sitting in the trenches and fighting the muddy battles. Perhaps this needs to be the question everyone asks when they are considering marriage. "Will this person be content sitting in the trenches with me? When I am muddy, tired, broken and afraid will they sit quietly with me and fight the good, unglamorous, hugely important fight?" In other words, "can we suffer together and emerge united and with a deeper, stronger love?"

Perhaps this post makes it seem as though the days have been very difficult. No, on the contrary, they have been full of joy! However, we are in a stage where our days are plodding days, and sometimes they all melt into one another with more of the same. 

Yet, our children are happy, healthy, and learning to love others and God before themselves which is a difficult lesson to teach little cave men! Our marriage is strong and we love each other more than we could have ever imagined. Our dreams are being refined and reformed and our hearts detached from the things that truly don't matter. 

And so, perhaps I should not contrast the days in the trenches with the glory days. Perhaps these days in the trenches ARE the glory days.

I am grateful.