{"id":13761,"date":"2012-12-19T01:41:53","date_gmt":"2012-12-19T06:41:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/?p=13761"},"modified":"2012-12-19T01:42:00","modified_gmt":"2012-12-19T06:42:00","slug":"12-pearls-of-christmas-day-6-year-of-adversity-brings-joy-by-leslie-gould","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/?p=13761","title":{"rendered":"12 Pearls of Christmas | Day 6 – Year of Adversity Brings Joy by Leslie Gould"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"12PearlsOfChristmas\"<\/a>Welcome to the 12 Pearls of Christmas blog series!<\/b><\/p>\n

Merry Christmas from Pearl Girls\u2122<\/a>! We hope you enjoy these Christmas \u201cPearls of Wisdom\u201d from the authors who were so kind to donate their time and talents! If you miss a few posts, you\u2019ll be able go back through and read them on this blog throughout the next few days.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re giving away a pearl necklace in celebration of the holidays, as well as some items (books, a gift pack, music CDs) from the contributors! Enter now on Facebook<\/a> or at the Pearl Girls blog<\/a>. The winner will announced on January 2, 2013 at the Pearl Girls blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you are unfamiliar with Pearl Girls\u2122, please visit www.pearlgirls.info<\/a> and see what we\u2019re all about. In short, we exist to support the work of charities that help women and children in the US and around the globe. Consider purchasing a copy of Mother of Pearl<\/i><\/a>,<\/i> Pearl Girls: Encountering Grit, Experiencing Grace<\/i><\/a> or one of the Pearl Girls products<\/a> (all GREAT gifts!) to help support Pearl Girls.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Year of Adversity Brings Joy<\/b><\/p>\n

By Leslie Gould<\/b><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been writing Amish fiction for nearly three years now\u2014telling stories about non-resistant people who live a simple life. It\u2019s a nice reprieve from my own life.<\/p>\n

When my husband, Peter, joined the Army Reserve back in the mid 1980s, I wasn\u2019t thrilled about it. Nor did I believe him when he said he\u2019d probably never see action. Sure, the Cold War was ending and\u2014for a short time\u2014all seemed well in the world, but I had a degree in history. I knew better. I didn\u2019t want to be a controlling wife (as new to the job as I was!) and come out and say he absolutely couldn\u2019t do it. And it did help that he was joining a medical unit. Still I had my reservations.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been far more fortunate than many military families, but still it\u2019s been quite a ride. The first exciting episode began in 1990 when Peter flew to Germany on Christmas Eve to work in an Army hospital during Desert Storm, leaving me behind with our two young sons. During the next twenty years, Peter went from being a Lt. to being a Col. and commanding a unit. Countless maneuvers and a mobilization occurred during that time, but his Army Reserve career culminated in his deployment to Afghanistan in 2011.<\/p>\n

My days throughout last year were an odd combination of hearing the daily news from a war zone via Skype and then writing about the plain life of the Amish. By last December I was working on my third Amish novel of the year while, in contrast, Peter and his field hospital staff had cared for hundreds of NATO soldiers and Afghan nationals, endured ten months of rocket fire, and continued to grieve the killing of one of their own.<\/p>\n

Surprisingly, what seemed like it might be our worst Christmas ever, even harder than in 1990, wasn\u2019t. Our four children (one teen and three young adults now) rallied to help make it a memorable day. We counted our blessings\u2014Peter was well, we had all we needed, and God was at work in the life of our family. The result was an underlying joy, deeper than what we\u2019d felt during past Christmases.<\/p>\n

In reflection, I wrote:\u00a0When it started, I thought 2011 might be one of our worst years. But it hasn\u2019t been. Sure, it\u2019s been one of our hardest, but a lot of good has come from it.<\/i><\/p>\n

That was evident on Christmas morning as we Skyped with Peter. We were so thankful for the good connection and for all of us to be \u201ctogether\u201d that we hardly noticed we really weren\u2019t.<\/i><\/p>\n

This December, Peter is back at his civilian job (as a manager for a hospital corporation) and also commanding a nearby Army Reserve unit, which means one weekend a month and plenty of evenings\u2014but no rockets or causalities.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m working on a new Amish novel and still enjoying my \u201ctime\u201d with those who practice non-resistance, which doesn\u2019t discount the appreciation I have for my husband\u2019s service. I\u2019ve even grown to the place where I\u2019m thankful he joined the military. They\u2019ve served each other well.<\/p>\n

Our year of adversity resulted in a deep joy. I\u2019m pretty sure it will carry over to this Christmas as well.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Leslie Gould is the award-winning author of fifteen novels, including the #1 bestseller and Christy Award winner\u00a0The Amish Midwife, co-written with Mindy Starns Clark. Her latest release is\u00a0Courting Cate, a retelling of the \u201cTaming of the Shrew.\u201d Leslie lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband, Peter, and their four children.\u00a0<\/i><\/b>www.lesliegould.com<\/i><\/b><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to the 12 Pearls of Christmas blog series! Merry Christmas from Pearl Girls\u2122! We hope you enjoy these Christmas \u201cPearls of Wisdom\u201d from the authors who were so kind to donate their time and talents! If you miss a few posts, you\u2019ll be able go back through and read them on this blog throughout […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christmas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13761"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13799,"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13761\/revisions\/13799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}