Trials

This time of year I try to look back and reflect on everything I have to be grateful for in my life. It has been a difficult year for Josh and I, but I know we will gain something from our current trial we've been facing. Looking back, I can honestly say that even though there have been times when I felt like I was being punished for something I must have done, I've always found a positive to every negative. For instance: I was bullied pretty badly in 6th grade. I guess I just rubbed this girl the wrong way and she quickly became the ring leader of the "I hate Kristen club". I quickly learned who my true friends were because those girls stuck by me even when they were tormented for being my friend. I'm not going to go into detail about all the torment that I went through that year, but I will say that I have learned to be compassionate for others. Those of you who know me, know that when I say "the more the merrier" I truely mean it. Ever since then, I've always surrounded myself with uplifting people.

When Josh was gone for a 16 month long deployment to Afghanistan I thought life was officially over. That is an extremely long time to be away from family and for a very long time I was very negative about everything. How could I ever gain anything positive from this experience? Well I did.... Up until Josh left I had never lived on my own before. I mean I lived with roomates, but never alone. It was up to me to take care of things while he was away. I was also still attending school at the time which added to all the stress. I became more independent that year, I didn't always have my husband or my dad around to take care of things and I had to learn to do things myself. I'm truely grateful for that. I feel like in that time I became my own person. Josh and I grew closer together during that time apart as well. I learned to not take things for granted. We were also able to save some money for the down payment on our home that we purchased a year ago. We would not have been able to save all that money had it not been for his deployment. I have learned patience and to how to cope with stress through that experience and I truely believe that is a gift because I don't know how I could have gotten through this year without it.

One of my New Years resolutions is to have a more positive outlook on my life. Even when things are dark and gloomy, we'll get through it and in the end be stronger for it. We need to learn to forget the negatives and think about the positives.