“I daresay it seems foolish; perhaps all our earthly trials will appear foolish to us after a while; perhaps they seem so now to angels. But we are ourselves, you know, and this is now, not some time to come, a long, long way off. And we are not angels, to be comforted by seeing the ends for which everything is sent.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters.
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters.
Our trials do not seem the least bit trivial when we are in their midst. Tears in the shower, thoughts of despair, the 'black hole' place. I've been there; we all have, I imagine. But now that I'm (more than) middle-aged, I look back at those times with a bit more clarity. And I have to ask myself, "would I do it again?" Love that person, take that job, move to that location....what would I give up, had I but known? How I treasure the people who came into my life, those who surrounded me in those awful moments - could I imagine a life without knowing their presence? All in all, I look back over my life with smiles, not tears. Perhaps it is the balance of the scales in the end. - Beth Almond Ford
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