Hardest Moments From The First Year

Well hello lovelies, just as last Wednesday, today I am teaming up with nine other June brides like myself to bring you posts about our first year of marriage with different topics of discussion every week. Last week we discussed our funniest moments from the first year, you can read ours HERE, but today the topic of discussion is: Hardest Moments From The First Year. Join in on the fun, details below!

Calling all engaged and newlywed gals! 

What would you say if I told you 10 newlywed bloggers are linking up to bring you an entire year's worth of marital advice for a one time only June series!? Whelp, get excited! 

Meet the forever newly wedded Brides!

Ashley @ It Is What You Make It // Kalyn @ Love.Laughter.HappilyEverAfter  // Mallory @ From California to Kansas // Karla @ Forever Newly Wedded // Maggie @ A Weaving of Grace 

Samantha @ Designer in Teal // Veronica @ Passion.Pink.Pearls // Kaitlyn @ Wifessionals // Emily @ Newlywed Moments // Callie @ My Something New With You

Each of the 10 Brides shown above have been married exactly one year as of June 2013. We will be posting each Wednesday during the month of June on 4 topics of marriage, while including our trials, triumphs, and all that fell in-between. The goal of this link-up series is to encourage the pursuit of love, joy, and hardships within a sacred marriage, all of which are completely worth each minute the Lord provides with our better half. 

If you are engaged, or married, we invite you to write on the topics with us and link up your posts. It doesn't matter if you are engaged and planning your big day, are a newlywed, or if you have been married 25 years... All the marital advice contributed, all the better for everyone involved! 

Visit our blogs today to meet our spouses and learn about our weddings! 

The Topics: 

June 5- Funny Moments From The First Year

June 12- Hardest Moments From The First Year

June 19- What Have You Learned From The Unexpected and How Have You Grown as a Couple During The First Year

June 26- Anniversary Celebration Recap 

We look forward to reading about your engaged, newlywed, and marriage journeys! If you have any questions feel free to email Kalyn here. 

Looking back before the "I Do's" it seemed like everyone told me how the first year would be the hardest. Honestly, I'd like to ask those people that expressed that to me then "At what point was it suppose to be considered the hardest year?". Sure we had a few set backs because of health problems I encountered which I will discuss briefly later and there were a few occasions when we simply didn't agree about something, but nothing out of the ordinary that we just couldn't work out comes to mind, only a few things that just happened to make life uneasy just for the moment. Here are a few of those moments.

In sickness and in health: The first hardest moment that comes to mind for me is my health at the very beginning of our marriage. It all started the very day of our wedding and went on throughout our honeymoon and on to a few weeks into our life at home. Being newly married, it was very hard to be close to my husband then because of these problems I was having and I even felt less of a wife for him at times because of this hardship I was facing that I knew I couldn't help. After many doctor visits and continuous prayer we decided it was time to find a new doctor, and after that things began to change. The table had finally turned just as it always does and I got better within time and haven't had a problem since. Praise God. It was such a relief to finally feel like myself again, and we both realized afterwards that we had successfully practiced the "in sickness and health" part of marriage. This moment was very testing for us, but we held on to our faith and it pulled us through. It's hard for me to understand how couples go through life without God in such trials as these, sure you have each other but together you need more than yourself, you need Him the most in a marriage I do believe.  

Heartbreak: While it may seem silly for a couple like us to weep over a missing cat, we did. If you are a long time follower of ours, you know our balinese kitty Mila. We adopted her a few weeks after we wed and she is very much apart of our lives. At the beginning, she was an inside kitty all the way but before long the cat shedding began and the husby had, had enough of white furball tumbleweeds rolling in his path so we sadly had to put her outside. Well one day we realized she was gone, we looked everywhere (even the refridgerator) but she was no where to be found. Husband skimmed every trace in the woods every day of the four days she was missing. We were heartbroken and time just stood still in that moment for us because a part of our heart was gone and we were so scared something had happened to her. We posted a many of homemade flyers on every other tree and country store with a $100 dollar reward and people thought we were just insane. The very next day we received a phone call from a dear friend of ours telling us that she had spotted her just across the road from us being chased by a poodle. Tears filled my eyes and I even giggled a little after hearing a poodle of all things was the host of our problem now. While we didn't know for sure if it would actually be our Mila she had seen, we had hope that it was. And that was plenty enough. It was getting dark and the phone rang again, it was Husby this time. His voice was high in excitement as he told me he had her in his very arms! I stood at the front door until I seen headlights coming down the drive, my arms were more than ready to hold her in my arms. We couldn't believe that we had her back home, life was finally back to the norm. Read more about this story HERE and HERE.

Loss: Seeing anyone in pain over losing a loved one is bad enough, but seeing your best friend, your soul sister whom you had grown up with as a child having to bury her daddy, who was likewise a father figure to you.. is the worst. Out of all the circumstances we had been through together: our first menstrual cycles, our first crushes, first jobs, high school then college and so on.. I never thought I would have to help her through this, and I could never have prepared myself for it. It was hard. Harder to watch. And even though she is now miles away from me, I think about her everyday and what she's going through and that is the hardest. I can't imagine. From the day I received her text saying that her daddy had died, I was useless to this world. My hands were tied from all the things among me in that moment, and all I wanted to do was cry for her. I did my best to be there for her, and at the same time still be the wife I needed to be to Garrett. I was so overwhelmed with emotion but I found strength through my husband. He knew exactly what she was going through unlike myself and he was able to tell me how to be there for her in ways that wouldn't be too smothering. Read more into this story HERE and HERE, just be sure to have Kleenex's near and a paddle because it gets deep!

Well Friends, I'm at ease to say this is all of them.. We are blessed to have no more than these. I can't imagine what hard moments the years to come will bring, but I pray we continue to lift each other up just as we have this year. I know we will. I'm so proud of our marriage, when raging waters come our way we always stand strong until the storm has passed, and that is worth much more than anything the world could ever offer. What were some of your hardest moments from the first year? And how did you get pass them? Let me hear them!