Life is Good.

Life is good. There have been some days lately that I did not feel like I could honestly say that. But my heart has been opened to see my blessings again and to love life and the challenge it is. I write a few thoughts tonight that have lifted me in recent days and weeks. I also list a few other random thoughts and some of the things that have made life feel good this week.

-I felt overwhelmed one day by how hard life was. I wondered if my whole life will be as difficult as these past few years have been or more difficult. The thought made me shake in my shoes. Then the Spirit reminded me that God wants us to be celestial people and that is why this life gets to be so hard. The higher the heat, the more refined we can become. The Spirit helped me remember that I want to be Celestial material, and thus, why would I desire that life be easier? If I want it easier, then my reward will be less. This reminder made me less worried about having life be hard and instead made me rejoice in the difficulty, because for just a moment, I understood the purpose of it.

-Jesus Christ always has enough. He always has enough time, energy, love, peace, hope, mercy, compassion, etc. He has enough to give to me. He has enough to fill me up and make me enough. When I feel like I am not enough or don't have enough within me to bear the burdens of this life, He lifts me up with His great power, goodness, light, hope, and love.

-Goodness is attractive. I have always known this, but today it hit me in a deeper way. As I get to know different young men, and spend time around them, there is one thing that makes me love them or not love them more than anything else. It is their goodness (or lack thereof). Sometimes I get caught up in hoping that the person I marry or date looks a certain way or dresses a certain way or likes certain things etc. I worry about how we will get along and what he will be like and if my family will like him. Today it hit me that ultimately, there is only one thing that really matters to me. Goodness. I decided that if he is good to the standard I have, and I have the go-ahead from the Spirit, nothing else matters. Good looks might be a little plus, but I realized with gratitude how what I look for has changed over the years. Looks don't mean what they did when I was 14. Haha. Goodness, optimism, virtue and the light of the Spirit are what matter beyond all else. I pray that I can find someone who so enraptures me with their goodness that I feel no need to be concerned about anyone else.

-I have the cutest family ever. The little people who we have been blessed to have in our family are so delightful. I am blessed to be an aunt of some of the sweetest, cutest, funniest, smartest, kindest children. I love my family.

-The Atonement covers all things. As I focus on my relationship with Jesus Christ and my Heavenly Father, other relationships don't seem as difficult. When my eye is single to Them, nothing makes me afraid. I know all is well. ALL IS WELL.

Tears of Gratitude

I was given a beautiful gift tonight. I have shed many tears of pain and discouragement today. Sickness, pain, and discomfort in one way or another have been almost non-stop for the past couple of months, and especially the past several weeks. Preceding and following an upper GI endoscopy to stretch my incredibly painful, swollen, and restricted esophagus which had limited my eating for a good week (and felt like it was limiting my breathing), a nasty virus struck, complete with body aches, itchy and matter-y eyes, massive nausea, and fever. Family members who had a similar thing claimed it may have come back with my brother from a hunting trip in Argentina. This lasted a full week or so and also limited my eating. Only a day or two after that seemed to finally be clearing up, stomach pain began. I recently eliminated about half of the foods that were part of my diet due to food allergies. I'd had a lot of stomach pain, cramps, and acid reflux before removing these foods. After I removed them, the stomach and intestinal pains that I couldn't figure out were almost all gone. It was wonderful! So, this new pain was unnerving. It was intense and unlike anything I've experienced in the past few years that my body has been so sick during. It began the beginning of last week. Maybe I developed some new allergy? Who knows...All I know is that this has continued since then....almost two weeks. It seems to have been getting increasingly worse. At first I only noticed it after I would eat in the morning. It was pretty mild, but Saturday night, it began to hurt as I was going to bed. It was bad. Thankfully, some essential oils cleared it up quickly and I fell asleep. It returned after I ate Sunday morning and Sunday night as I went to bed it hit again. I was wide awake, writhing on the bathroom floor for a good hour or more. It had never been that bad. I tried eating different things the next few days, and not taking some vitamins that I thought might be hurting it, but to no avail. The pain still came after almost every meal. After I ate breakfast this morning, the pain began. I laid down and waited for it to pass as it has other days, but it didn't. The normal hour or so that is has been lasting turned into 2, 3, 4. I was exhausted by the time it finally let up a little bit, but didn't leave. The pain of all day has seemed like almost more than I could bear. I haven't wanted to bear it.
However, there have been bright spots throughout the day. The biggest came tonight as my mom read a few passages out of Stephanie Nielson's book, Heaven Is Here. We have both recently read it and the book itself is incredibly beautiful and inspiring. I highly recommend it. However, the tender mercy came as I heard my mom read. Her sweet voice telling a story took me back to childhood. We used to lay on her bed and she would read stories to me, often eating apple slices or carrot sticks. Haha. I LOVE this memory. I remember those carrot sticks and apple slices tasting better when they were eaten on her bed at story time than anywhere else. How I love the way she would read aloud, her voice so soft, sweet, nurturing and filled with love. I can't describe how her voice would fill me with love as she read those sweet stories to me. I somehow knew that all the love in her voice was love for me. The way she read those books to me let me know that she loved being my mother. I cherish her. She is my best friend. Tonight, the sound of her voice comforted me. For just a moment, it made everything ok as it used to. Knowing she was right there and that she has been close to me all day, and all of so many days that I have spent on the bathroom floor made me feel safe. I know I cannot begin to imagine all her sacrifices, tears, prayers, and hours spent on my behalf. But the fact that I can't is what makes me love her so much. That kind of love is so powerful. The love and influence of a faithful mother is incalculable. My eyes filled with tears as I listened to her read tonight. Tears of gratitude. Gratitude for this faithful woman who has consistently taught, tutored and stayed close to me. Gratitude for all her love, even when I am most unlovable. Gratitude for her constant presence in my life. Gratitude that her love has had the power to dispel fear, doubt, discouragement, and pain throughout my life. How grateful I am for such a mother.
As I lay on the couch, another thought came that made me feel safe. It was the hope of the future. The thought was that one day I will be laying on a couch and I will be well. I will be laying there to relax at the end of the day, and my body will no longer struggle as it does now. The person walking around the room won't be my mother but my husband. If I am laying there in sickness, perhaps it will be because another person is soon to join our family - another hopeful thought because being at that point would mean that healing had come to my body. I think often of this future and it gives me hope. It is a beacon of light in a circumstance that makes marriage and motherhood feel overwhelming, even impossible at times. Though I long for these blessings, I have recently come to appreciate the fact that they have not come to me yet as a total act of mercy from my Heavenly Father. Every time I am laying on the bathroom floor, I feel thankful that I don't have a husband in the next room and I feel the hope for recovery that will allow me to be closer to the kind of wife I want to be. I know this probably sounds funny and you may be thinking I am too young to get married anyway. All I can say, is that there has not been a day in all of my life that I have not longed for, thought about and wanted to get married and be a mom. It has always been the foremost thought and desire of the foremost importance in my mind and heart. So, as I think of the divine promises I have received over the recent years and months of recovery, I look forward. I look forward to the thing I want to be well for. I feel that I have lesser patience with my ill body than I ever have before because there is something that I soooo want to be well for. In the meantime, I am grateful that I am going through these physical trials without the responsibility of a family, though I feel assured that if I had those responsibilities right now, God would make me equal to the task. I am grateful for the hope of recovery. I am grateful for the hope and promises of a future husband and family. I am grateful to know that God sees all and hears all my prayers. I am grateful for every good day I have, for every meal I can eat. I am grateful that I have been able to hold to my faith through it all. And I am grateful that in moments of pain, I can have profound spiritual realizations and feelings of gratitude because of the hope that comes through the  Gospel of Jesus Christ and His atoning sacrifice.

Build and Rebuild

Yesterday I went to the doctor. This was my first doctor visit in over a year. YAY!! That is a happy record for me and one I feel truly and deeply grateful for. The reason I was there was less than desirable, as most causes for doctor visits are. The reason and what the doctor told me caused me to reflect on a life concept that seems to be abundantly on my mind lately: REBUILDING.

Somewhere during my high school years I developed an ambition to become a runner. In the first couple years of my desire, I had something wrong with my stomach that made me literally so worn out all of the time that I rarely had any energy to try to run. As that healed a bit, I was finally able to start to try to run the summer before my senior year. It was slow going. I couldn't do much. After run/walking for only a couple of months I became even more ill, and running took the back burner in the extreme sense of the word, as most days I couldn't move far from my bed. During this time, I dreamed about running almost every night. When I began to recover enough from months of that illness to exercise again, I slowly built back up to run/walking. I desired more than ever to progress. It still didn't come. Run/walking was all I could do. Long story short, a few weeks ago, I finally reached a distance goal that I have wanted to reach since I started running. It was a true triumph for me, though still not an incredibly long distance. (I'm tellin' ya, this running stuff has been a fight for me.) However, it gave me confidence that I might be able to reach my lofty running goals one day. Last Tuesday, I ran my farthest yet. I was thrilled. When I got home, I started stretching, and during my stretches my left knee popped painfully several times. By the next night, I was in a lot of pain. Not knowing what was wrong with my knee, I saw my running dreams and progress flash before my eyes. I felt pure panic at first, sure that I'd never be able to run again. As the pain increased over several days, I decided to see our family doctor, who is also a runner. I was hoping he'd tell me I have a mild case of runner's knee and to wrap it, ice it, rest it, give me some strengthening exercises, etc. He examined my knee and said he thought I had torn cartilage under my knee cap. "For now, do nothing. If it doesn't get better on its own, the next best option is to scope it. Don't do anything that irritates it for a week. After that, if it's feeling better, you can start to walk. After a week of walking, then you can start to run/walk a little. If it's sore when you start running again, that is normal, but if it comes right back when you start to run, come back in and we should probably take care of it surgically." Now, with the way it's going, I think my knee will heal on its own, at least enough to start walking again in a week or two. However, this diagnosis was a little different than I expected. Though a little bummed, I left the office feeling quite calm. The concept of rebuilding came into mind- a concept heavily employed in my mind lately. I have come to see that much of life follows this pattern... We work hard to build something good, something important to us. In a moment, it is gone. All of the sudden, we are back to where we were before. We have to rebuild. However, this time, though we may have lost the physical evidence of what we spent so long building, we have the character, and spiritual and emotional strength we have gained from the building process. The space of time immediately after the wrecking crane strikes gives us an opportunity to choose if we have the courage to rebuild, and how we will rebuild. Will we be bitter that we have to rebuild? Will we be grateful that we have the chance to rebuild? Will we use what we learned from the first building experience to rebuild with stronger fortifications.

In recent months, I have often felt frustrated by this life process. Only in recent weeks, have I come to some peace with it. I feel that this is why I left that doctor's office with calmness. So what if I have to rebuild back to where I was when I start running again? So what if my knee doesn't heal and I have to have surgery and it takes longer for me to be able to rebuild my running skills? This rebuilding is life. It is the process that makes me better. It is how I come to grow and find strength within myself. Needing to rebuild stretches me in ways that building alone cannot. I don't feel the need to hurry through the process anymore. I will take all of it. I will take the building in its season, the wrecking crane in its season, and the rebuilding in its season. And I will rebuild.

Sometimes I get afraid of building. I get afraid of building because if I build, there is something to be hit by the wrecking crane. If I never built, I wouldn't hurt. I wouldn't feel disappointment. I wouldn't have cause to wonder why the beautiful thing I built couldn't last. But if I never built, I would never feel joy. I know I haven't lived incredibly long, but I have had enough experiences to know that the wrecking crane brings pain. Many times that pain has been deep enough to make me never want to build again. Here, I turn inward and evaluate who I really am. I turn to the Lord. I turn to Him to help me find the courage I don't have, but that I need to keep going. And as I put my hand in His and start to rebuild, He provides. Sometimes I have to go quite a ways before I really feel the courage kick in, but He does give it.

I have seen this happen recently in my life. The end of a strongly and truly beautifully built relationship several months ago left me feeling afraid to ever build again. I withdrew, knowing that if I gave anything out, and built anything with anyone, I might have to go through that pain again. The thought was more than I could bear. The pain of this situation was so intense that I dreaded social situations- something incredibly unlike me. I have always been a very social person and it worried me that I didn't have the energy or desire to connect with people. I dreaded anything that reminded me of what had been and was no more. Now, you have to understand that I knew completely and assuredly that it was right for this relationship to end. So time and time again, I wondered why if I had done what I knew was right, the pain continued to be so intense for so long afterward. Only in the last couple of months has the desire returned to meet people and be social. It is still hard for me. It requires a lot of courage every day for me to "put myself out there." I am more shy than I have ever been in my life...and yet I have a determination to put myself in situations where I can meet new people and overcome my shyness. I am forcing myself to rebuild because there is no other way that I want to go than forward. I am learning that this rebuilding process is life, and thankfully I have the knowledge that none of us has to rebuild alone. We have a loving Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ guiding us through each step if we let them. Our Savior is the Master Trailblazer. He has traveled all unknown paths. He has built back up everything that has ever been wrecked and He can rebuild us every time the wrecking crane hits us. I have seen this in my life. As I have been sincere about moving forward in the ways He would have me do, I have been given specific, step by step direction that has led me to good places, holding exactly what I need to rebuild my heart. Through these sacred directions from Him, I have been blessed to meet a whole handful (and that is a lot) of the kindest, most genuine, most top-notch young men roaming UVU campus. Haha. But seriously... He has blessed me so greatly to come into association with people who have seemed to befriend me with no background, who have an obvious light and goodness in their souls, and who have given me confidence that there is something worth rebuilding for. So...here's to the zeal of building, the beauty of the wrecking crane, and the courage to rebuild. I'll leave you with a little Martina McBride to drive my point home. :)

"Anyway"

You can spend your whole life buildin'
Somethin' from nothin'
One storm can come and blow it all away
Build it anyway

You can chase a dream
That seems so out of reach
And you know it might not ever come your way
Dream it anyway

God is great, but sometimes life ain't good
When I pray it doesn't always turn out like I think it should
But I do it anyway
I do it anyway

This world's gone crazy and it's hard to believe
That tomorrow will be better than today
Believe it anyway
You can love someone with all your heart
For all the right reasons
And in a moment they can choose to walk away
love 'em anyway


You can pour your soul out singing
A song you believe in
That tomorrow they’ll forget you ever sang
Sing it anyway
Yeah, sing it anyway
I sing, I dream, I love
Anyway

Look Up

I created this blog several months ago, and then never did anything with it. I have thought about it a few times, and couldn't even remember what I named it. Something made me check it out tonight and I have to be honest that I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the title I had given my blog. "Look Up" became an inspirational phrase a few years ago for me, as I read 2 Nephi 2:28. I love this chapter in the Book of Mormon, and for some reason, as I read this verse that day, the phrase "look up" came to my mind. I wrote it in my scriptures, in journals, on sticky notes to put on my door and walls. In General Conference in October 2011, I was touched when Elder Carl B. Cook gave a talk based around this idea, and an experience he had with President Monson. It was a tender mercy of sorts.

I feel it so appropriate and important at this time of my life to have "Look Up" as one of my life motto's. Each day, I get up with many concerns and cares on my mind. I wonder about school and my ability to perform the tasks there. I wonder about how my body will feel that day - will I have the physical strength to do the things that are required of me and even more, will I be able to handle whatever physical suffering I experience in the day in a Christlike way? Will I have the charity in my heart to be selfless and kind enough as I interact with my family and others throughout the day? I wonder if I will be all I should be and do all I should do. As I kneel each morning and ask my Heavenly Father for help through the day, I am reminded of who and what I am looking to in my life and reassured that all will be well because I cannot fall if I am built on His rock. When I look up to Him and to His will, everything in my life falls into place. I am at peace.

This is a time of my life when I feel like there are so many different possibilities and sometimes that makes me anxious. I am seeing though, that as I 'Look Up' all the fear leaves. I find total peace as I obey the promptings of the Holy Ghost that come line upon line, precept on precept. It is becoming a sure pattern for me: I receive a prompting, and if I obey, peace follows. I am starting to worry less about what will happen and trust more in my Heavenly Father's love and power. I see His hand working so consistently in my life and I see the way He turns all things for my good. Looking up to Him brings peace. Wondering what is going to happen and how it is going to happen destroys my peace. I know that as we look to Him we can find grace to help us through each day. He is there, ever waiting. He guides us step by step, if we desire Him to, to get us to our happy ending, our Heavenly Home. Happiness and peace can be ours in the meanwhile, if we will but look up. After all, He is the Prince of Peace.