March 11, 2019

A season for plowing.

At the beginning-ish of February we went under contract on our Colorado house. On Friday, we closed on our Colorado house. There will be a bit more on this to come (like the pictures of the final product), but that day, aside from the day Wells was born, was the best day of the last 12 months. There was nothing special about it really, but just to know that the weight and shift of responsibility was off of Scott's shoulders was meaningful. To know that, symbolically, it was no longer his to work on and mine to worry about was huge. 

This is a post I wrote when we were in the thick of it. Or at least, when I was in the thick of it, mentally, back in December. This house was a mental battle for me over the last 9 months and a physical and logistical battle for Scott. As dramatic as that may seem, this was a hard-won victory. 

My mother-in-law sends us these every so often in cards. It told me something I'd never actually thought about before.



As an older millenial, I've been taught to believe that your life should always be increasing and improving in standards. We, between the ages of 30 and 35, aren't like those younger millenials.  They're happy with their $102,000 student loan debt, their parents' health insurance, their Ubers, their cheap travel, and their four roommates in order to afford city living, all while barely making enough to survive. That's the going rate as a college graduate over the last few years.

I was taught to believe that I would pay off my debt from college, I'd get a job right away, I'd settle down, build a house, and live the American dream. We say the American dream looks different today than it did 30 years ago or 50 years ago but, when I graduated from college in 2008, it was still a thing.

In the Army it works this way too: you get promoted on a schedule, you get pay raises on a schedule, you move up the ladder on. a. schedule. But as you grow up, things are supposed to sort themselves out and always get better, not slide backward or stall out or make you wait for what's next. That's what I always thought.

Then the last year hit me. Actually the last year and a half. It started in the summer of 2017 and has slowly been snowballing downhill ever since. I probably mentioned it in a blog post I never published, but there have been many days when the fact that I was pregnant with a healthy baby or the fact that we then had a healthy baby was the only. thing. that. was. going. right.

I've struggled (past and present tense) with how things are, how I want them to be, how they theoretically "should" be, etc. But sometimes you just need to go through things. And I never thought about it before, but sometimes it's just not our season for increase. Sometimes we need to plow. I knew I had been plowing, metaphorically, but sometimes when you're in a season for so long, you forget your focus. This season of plowing, to be honest, has probably been happening since we moved to Colorado and then it's intensified over the last 18 months.

It never occurred to me that that was just where I was, where we were, until I saw this devotional story. Everyone will go through a season of plowing. It's not a setback. It's not an increase. It's a season.

5 comments:

  1. I love how you said sometimes we just have to go through stuff. Its so true. Praying it continues to go up for you guys

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  2. Life goes on and I truly believe having the bad helps us appreciate when it's good...hugs! Annster's Domain

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  3. YES YES YES - I love you shared this. & its so true. This past year was DEFINITELY not an increase year for us as well but man, still lots to learn throughout it - to help you PLOW when the time comes...
    Oh man - I always loved those Our Daily Bread daily posts. I need to see if I can still get those. or if there's an app. I love the little books though.

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  4. We are forged in fire. I don't think we grow in the good times nearly as much as we do in the bad times or the plowing seasons.

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  5. I relate to this so much. Life is hard. We had a long spell of going backwards in life when Gracie was born. We’re on the other side of that now, but we’re in another really hard season. It’s exhausting. It’s a season. I love this post.

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