Star of Struggle

{~Another post from the past~

As I pulled the Star out again this year, 

it made me think of what came before ~ and all that is now.

~I had to share this once more.~}

As I shut off the lights of my (maybe-too-early) Christmas tree tonight, the star hanging by an old twist tie attached to the top branch of the tree caught my eye.

It was the star my husband of only 2 months had made with me.....

When we got married- 18 years ago- we of course had the typical struggles of most average newly married couples; student loans, still-going-to-school loans, rent payments, scarce furniture about the rented place, hunger pains.... 

(I remember openly "Yahoo-ing" in the grocery store when Kraft Dinner boxes would go on sale for 32cents...which we then would take home and make by adding the cheese packet with water (no milk or butter) and then have toast with jam (given by his mother) for dessert.

So when our 1st Christmas was upon us a mere 2 months after the wedding- it was quite the effort to scrimp and save but still have enough money to feel festive. 

Hence the cut-out star. 

He drew it on a a cardboard box we had used to move in with, 

I covered it with tinfoil, 

he attached a twist tie, 

and VOILA! - the top for our Charlie Brown tree.

All this to say....we struggled. I struggled moving away from home. He struggled to find a job in a new place. I struggled through nursing school. We struggled to adjust to married life. 

As years went by struggles came and went. But rest assured once a struggle was worked through...yep! a new one was around the corner.

This never-ending battling has persisted....not just with each other and marriage, but also on an individual basis.

And I see it everywhere. We all struggle . Through something. It may be a completely different issue from one person to the next but we're all doing it. Trying to get through our days, weeks, years - scrambling through the mess we call life. And it's hard. 

And sometimes you wonder just why it seems to never end.

When I looked at that cardboard star tonight, it made me think that the struggles I faced 18 years ago- are NOT the ones I face today. 

The ones I face today- I HOPE will not be the ones I face in the next 18 years from now. For that reason and hope alone, I'll keep dancing. 

And I will probably hold something else up in remembrance of the struggles of today, wave them in the air, 

and ecstatically "yahoo" that those struggles are over!

~beyond all that struggle~life is grand!~

~~~~~~

{Just a side note:

Guess what? 

The struggles I was facing a year ago when I wrote this~ are NOT the same ones I was facing back then;)

Yahoo!}