Come, Follow Me, Even if It Kills You

This is a talk I gave in a ward in my stake last week.


Today I am going to share my experiences implementing the concept of home-centered, Church supported gospel study and church with my family and for myself.

I would like to start by talking about resistance to change. Many times in life we are presented with an opportunity to change for the better. We are given instructions for how to do this. Often the instructions are step-by-step and easy in theory. And then we don’t follow them. And the positive change opportunity passes us by. We’ve probably all experienced this in our lives. When I was 14, I moved to Moscow, Russia. Shortly before going, I received my patriarchal blessing. In it, I was promised that I would learn quickly in the language of the area that I was going to and that I would have a great influence over the people there. I did have the capacity to learn quickly, but I did not have as great of an influence over those people as I should have had because I let a few things get in my way- fear, pride, and a resistance to changing myself. I was prideful and afraid of sounding stupid. Russian is a very difficult language. "The Russian language has six cases to show what function a noun has in a sentence: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, and prepositional. The endings of Russian words change depending on the case they are in.”www.thoughtco.com › Languages › Russian

I learned a lot of Russian, but I spoke very little. I was resistant to the change that was necessary in me to speak a foreign language well. Russian nouns have gender assigned to them and the ends of words would change depending on if you were speaking in present tense, past tense, future tense, and others tenses I can’t remember. The idea of a noun having gender was, well, foreign to me. You had to memorize the gender of everything and change the ends of the words accordingly in certain circumstances. Even though I took two years of Russian in college, with the passage of 20+ years, my brain has blocked most of my understanding of how this all worked. I'm not even sure if I remember it correctly. Suffice it to say, it was really hard. And I allowed my pride and my fear to hold me back from changing and becoming fluent. I did study and I did learn, but I mostly kept my mouth shut or spoke in English. I actually ended up helping a Russian boy become fluent in English because I rarely spoke to him in Russian. My prideful reaction to a hard change, and the lost blessings, are something that I will always regret.

Change is hard, especially change that places most of the responsibility on us. We have had many changes in church policies in the last few years. When I heard we were going to change to two hour church, I was thrilled. When the church announced “Come Follow, Me” for our personal and family study, I was all on board. It’s a fantastic change. As I started to live it, I quickly realized something- if I didn’t study the “Come, Follow Me” for the week, I might leave church feeling like I hadn’t had enough “church”. My spiritual reservoir wasn’t full. I think the biggest change that I have felt over the last 14 months, as I have studied Come, Follow Me by myself and with my family is that I truly feel the switch to a home-centered, church-supported gospel. I feel the responsibility that if I don’t study on my own and I don’t teach my children and teach them to study on their own, going to church will never be enough to protect us from the influence of the adversary in our daily lives. The bar is raised. Like oil in the lamps of the virgins, it must be filled drop by drop, day by day. And when I do that, I feel so much peace. I feel the Savior’s influence in my life every day. I feel protected. I feel the spiritual gift of discernment is activated and available to me at all times. And I feel a sense of togetherness with everyone else who is studying the same thing every week. While waiting in the temple, I often notice other patrons reading in the scriptures from the assigned reading for that week. I chat with friends and family about what we’re reading. Losing an hour of church has somehow made me feel MORE connected to my family and ward members than I felt before, but only if I do my part and study.

I don’t want to give a false impression of fake perfection at my household. The honest truth is that most of the time at least one of my kids chooses to misbehave during gospel study time in such a way that it’s basically ruined for everyone else. But, we keep doing it. I haven’t been keeping a perfect statistical chart, but I’d guess that roughly 5-20% of the time, we have a moment, or even a few minutes, if we are lucky, where everyone is listening and the Holy Ghost is present, we all feel it, and a little magic happens. I envy the families with better behavior percentages than mine, but at our house, a great study session might happen one to four times a month and the other 24-30 times, if we don’t miss any days, feel more like the impromptu wrestling matches in my college dorm during freshman year.

I would like to describe our most recent Come, Follow Me based scripture study session. Yesterday was a busy day and we ended up having our study at 9 p.m. in the car on the way home from my sister’s house in Orem. The car can be a great place to have scripture study if you have kids who struggle with staying put. We often have decent discussions in the car on a Saturday or Sunday, but last night was more average for us. To protect the innocent and the guilty, I will refer to my daughters by numbers. I told the girls we were going to read 8 verses, which is all of 2nd Nephi 11, and handed my phone to #1. She read a verse. I had to stop her because #3 and #4 had turned off the sound on their kindle, but were still playing it. “We didn’t know you wanted us to stop playing”. #1 said to #3, please get your feet off my head. Then she read her verse. #2 read her verse and passed the phone back to #3, who actually was doing a great job reading, but in the middle of her turn my husband randomly made a comment about the lighting changes he would like to see on the new structure in front of the aquarium. Luckily, everyone ignored him. Usually #3 mumbles whatever she reads, so I didn’t want anything to mess this up. #4 had actually been invited to read verse 4 but threw a fit because she said it was too long. As #3 was reading it I was thinking, “Wow, that is really long!” Eventually, when #4 started to wail and complain, we all realized that verse 4 was not that long and that #3 had read 4 verses. She does that sometimes. She knows it upsets #4 who has very strong opinions about which verse and how many verses she gets to read. So, I made them hand me back the phone. #4 cried some more. She does that a lot. I had #1 re-read verse 2. #2 re-read 3. I took the phone for verse 4 and started reading and it made no sense at all. That’s when we realized we were reading in the wrong chapter. The phone had swiped to the next chapter as it was passed up to me. That often happens when #3 gets her hands on the ipad or phone we are using for scriptures. She says it’s an accident. She also told us last week that she has no idea who the Lamanites are. We’ve been studying the Book of Mormon fairly regularly as a family for her entire life. Anyway, back to our scripture study. When I realized we were on the wrong chapter, I switched back and we started over on verse 2. Eventually everyone got to read and we got to have a discussion. Most of the girls didn’t want to talk. #2 had some good questions and thoughts and we had 5 minutes of relative peace and good conversation. So, I’m going to count that one as a good one, because we eventually got to a place where a gospel principle was pondered. You might think I’m exaggerating how our scripture study went, but the truth is that it was much crazier than I described. Those were just highlights of a very typical experience in our household.

I can make light of my kid’s behavior and it’s pretty funny when you aren’t in the middle of it, but, in all seriousness, we are in a battle for our souls and for the souls of our children. Most of us are not being asked to don protective military gear and to go out and engage a mortal enemy. We are being asked to put on the whole armor of God and to battle evil.

I was talking to a couple of friends about this talk last week and they both expressed feelings of inadequacy with their efforts to implement Come, Follow Me to this point. One friend said her family isn’t doing it at all and that she feels so awful because she knows her family needs the protection that comes from gospel study. Some of you might have similar feelings. Some of you might be fully implementing Come, Follow Me into your lives and can share ideas and support for those who are still struggling. For those who are struggling, first I want to tell you that I know it’s hard and that it’s never too late to start. Creating a home centered gospel isn’t quite like my missed window of opportunity when I lived in Russia. I did influence the people there, but not as much as I should have, and the time passed. I can’t go back and change it. I’ve let it go and moved on. None of us can go back and change what we have or haven’t done, but we all have today and every tomorrow. It’s never too late to start personal or family study. Start today. It took me 9 months to develop the habit of personally studying Come, Follow Me regularly and to find a way that works for me. What helped me was to treat my study time with equal importance as my work. It is scheduled on my calendar. If I need to change it, I need to reschedule it, or it can’t be changed. Our family scripture time is similarly scheduled, and you do not want to know what time my family gets up to have scripture study during the school week.

It is hard, but we do it. And every now and then, a few times a month, we harvest the fruit of our labor. At the beginning of this year, on one of those scarce but wonderful days, my 9 year old listened intently to the lesson and the plea I made to study and read the entire Book of Mormon this year. She asked me to help her. Nearly every day since then she has come to my room and we read together. “By small and simple things, great things are brought to pass.” This small habit, started at 9 years old, has set her life on a course that leads to eternal life. She is putting on the armor of God each day. She is nurturing a habit that will protect her, that will give her the ability to understand the scriptures, to recognize the Holy Ghost, to hear the words of scriptures come to her mind when she needs them because she has planted them in her heart. 

 

When I was a kid there was a really popular saying attributed to Jesus. “I never said it would be easy. I only said it would be worth it.” Jesus never said that, but if he had, I think he might have been talking about family scripture study. If you haven’t done it already, develop the habit of personal and family scripture study. It is hard. And it is worth it. The bar is raised and rising up to meet it has brought me increased peace in my life. I feel protected. I feel closer to the Savior. And my least favorite church class, Sunday School, has become my favorite. It’s funny, but the problem was me all along.


When we have morning scripture study, and the kids listen, even a little bit, I feel like they leave our house with the full armor of God to protect them. They are armed with the sword of truth and protected with the breastplate of righteousness, the helmet of salvation, girdled with truth, their feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, their shields of faith stand ready to deflect the fiery darts of the adversary. I bear testimony that even though it can be very hard, there is power and protection in putting on the whole armor of God every day, in making our homes the center of our gospel study so that we and our children will be prepared and protected.

Life Isn't About Waiting for the Storm to Pass. . .

I was lucky enough to get to speak in another ward last Sunday as a companion speaker with the high counselor. The topic was dear to my heart and I'd like to share my talk with my blog following friends.  Happy Thanksgiving. May we all find something to be grateful for today!

Finding Blessings in Trials- How Gratitude Blesses Me As I Face Adversity

I have read the beginning of the Book of Mormon dozens of times.  Many of you are thinking these very words right now “I Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father”  But, my memorization skills tend to falter right there.  I finished another cycle of studying the Book of Mormon a few weeks ago, so I started again. As I read this first  verse yet again, what comes next stuck out to me for the first time. It reads,        “and having seen many afflictions, nevertheless, having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days.”

Nephi had to leave his hometown, which was later destroyed, with very little notice.  He had to return two times, once he was required to kill a man, and later to bring back a wife.  He didn’t get to choose whom he would marry.  He was mocked by his brothers as he followed God. He was violently physically abused and nearly killed- by his BROTHERS. His life was full of trials.  And in his own words, in the very first verse we have from him, he also tells us that he was highly favored of the Lord in ALL of his days.  

Nephi knew how to recognize the blessings in his life, not just in the good times, but especially during the trials.  

President Uchtdorf taught us:

It is easy to be grateful for things when life seems to be going our way. But what then of those times when what we wish for seems to be far out of reach?

Could I suggest that we see gratitude as a disposition, a way of life that stands independent of our current situation? In other words, I’m suggesting that instead of being thankful for things, we focus on being thankful in our circumstances—whatever they may be.

Neph knew how to be grateful all the time, whatever the circumstances.  

“My dear brothers and sisters, the choice is ours. We can choose to limit our gratitude, based on the blessings we feel we lack. Or we can choose to be like Nephi, whose grateful heart never faltered. When his brothers tied him up on the ship—which he had built to take them to the promised land—his ankles and wrists were so sore “they had swollen exceedingly,” and a violent storm threatened to swallow him up in the depths of the sea. “Nevertheless,” Nephi said, “I did look unto my God, and I did praise him all the day long; and I did not murmur against the Lord because of mine afflictions.”4- Uchtdorf

When I was 13 years old, my father lost his job. He was unable to find employment for quite some time until he found a job overseas. For the next year, he worked in the harsh wilderness of Siberia for 6 weeks on and 6 weeks off.  It was very hard for our family for him to be gone so much. Eventually, my dad was able to secure employment that allowed us to be with him.  With only a few weeks notice, in the fall of 1992, just one year after the fall of communism, 6 of us moved to Moscow, Russia.  For a while, I thought my life was over.  Instead of starting 9th grade, I got to start homeschool in the large hallway of our 1100 sq.ft apartment. Instead of being 1st chair in the symphonic band, a right I had earned at the end of 8th grade, I played the clarinet alone for my private instructor.  Instead of mutual activities, well, nothing.  Instead of TV, videotapes.  Instead of sunshine, we had snow.  I had to get rid of almost all of my belongings. I was allowed to bring a duffle bag of clothing and one rubbermaid tote of personal belongings.  And I got to keep one apple box full of “treasures.” in storage. And this is why I’m not making the big bucks selling my original My Little Ponies on ebay.  Instead of a large ward in Dallas Texas, we attended a small branch of recent Russian converts- in Russian of course.  For a week or so after moving there, I allowed myself to wallow in pity. I was only 14 and hadn’t experienced very many hardships. This was new territory for me. This pity party culminated in my sister and I crying our eyes out until we started laughing hysterically on our blow up mattresses one night, until we decided- we were stuck there- we might as well make the best of it. So, we did.  And, isn’t it funny how, once you embrace a challenge, it changes you in ways that a stroll down easy street never can?  

Russia changed me.  I would NEVER have chosen it.  I would NEVER have chosen to miss going to High School and all the other things I didn’t get to do.  Once my attitude changed, I would NEVER want to take it away.  We had so many blessed experiences, from assisting with international adoption, to serving in orphanages, being member missionaries, supporting full time missionaries, serving in the branches, moving to Vladivostok and introducing the church in that city of 600,000 people, and learning first hand how very blessed we are to live in America.  I will never take for granted soft toilet paper, peanut butter, baking powder, clean streets, or fully stocked grocery stores.  I also learned how to be happy without them- except soft toilet paper.

But, most importantly, I learned in Russia to look for the blessings in my life.  I didn’t always have a perfect attitude. One day I sat in a youth meeting, conducted in Russian, and I was feeling bored.  I made some comment to that effect to the missionary sitting next to me.  He asked to borrow my scriptures.  I handed them over and he wrote in them.  At first I was angry at him, but I soon came to feel deep gratitude. On the blank page at the beginning of my Book of Mormon, he had written, “Your attitude determines your altitude.”  Once I got over the shame of the reprimand, I was grateful for the message.  I can choose my attitude, whatever my circumstances.  I can look for the good.  I can look for the blessings and truly experience a grateful heart.

As I have been studying the scriptures these last few months, I have noticed a pattern of miracles accompanying ongoing afflictions.  Like Nephi, the Brother of Jared was righteous and favored of God. We are all familiar with his story of his language being preserved at the tower of Babel, traveling in the wilderness and being directed to build barges to travel to the promised land.  After building the barges, he realized they would not only suffocate with no air, but would suffer greatly with no light, and he took the matter to God in prayer. He was given an answer to cut holes in the top and bottom that could be stopped to prevent the water from coming in, but could also be opened to allow air. But, for the light, God said to the brother of Jared “What will ye that I should do that ye may have light in your vessels?” The Brother of Jared is a pure example of true faith - he worked hard, went into the mountain and did molten 16 clear stones, and then came to the  Lord in prayer again and asked Him to touch them with his finger and give them light.  And his faith was so strong that he saw the finger of the Lord as he touched the stones and was told “ never before has man come before me with such exceeding faith as thou hast”. His faith was so strong that the veil was fully parted and he saw Jesus Christ.

I think we can all agree this is one of the coolest miracles recorded in the Book of Mormon and that the Brother of Jared was a very righteous person.  But, even after this miracle, Jared and his people loaded into 8 barges which would become their claustrophobic homes for almost a year as they traveled to their new home. Yes, they had air and they had light, but could the children run and play?  Did they have soft beds?  Books to read? Toys to play with?  A nice variety of hot meals?  Soap? Privacy? What was it like when the barges flipped over? The journey must have been very very difficult.  God allowed these people not only to have guidance to make the trip possible, but a beautiful miracle of light to make it tolerable.  He also allowed them to experience the afflictions of such a difficult journey. He could have put them to sleep and flown them to America in an airplane.  Why didn’t he?  Why did he allow them to still suffer?  I think the answer is the same answer for all of us.  God gives us tender mercies, and he even gives us miracles. He also allows us to have trials and afflictions to give us the chance to grow and to learn how to be happy and grateful in all circumstances.  

Heavenly Father has blessed me with opportunities to find the blessings in trials and to focus on gratitude during afflictions.  And I have learned, just as happened to Nephi and the Brother of Jared, and many others, it is often while we walk through the refining fire that life’s most beautiful miracles are given to us.  

5 years ago in September of 2012, I had the privilege of undergoing major jaw surgery.  The procedure, called a lefort osteotomy, included detaching my teeth by completely cutting through my upper jaw bone, reshaping it, and putting it all back together with 5 plates and 25 screws.  I got to keep those in my face as a lifelong souvenir.   My mouth was banded shut between 8 and 24 hours a day for a year. Before the surgery, I had been in some level of constant pain for over 2 years. Thankfully, once healed from that surgery, my mouth no longer hurt. Actually, for a few months I couldn’t feel my top teeth at all due to the nerves being cut during surgery! I learned a lot about patience and long suffering during that time. Just two months after that surgery, I elected to have another surgery for an unrelated condition.  I had met my max out of pocket for the year, so it made sense.  When they wheeled me back for surgery, I had to remove the bands keeping my jaw shut, and reminded them to be careful of my healing jaw when they intubated me.  Shortly after the surgery, Brother Gary Thomas asked to meet with me to extend a new calling to me. I hobbled to his house three doors down from mine, and accepted the new calling and eventually I was set apart at church when I was able to attend again. The recovery from my first surgery was so difficult that my surgeon had advised me to to research the surgery beforehand, but it was necessary and successful. But, the recovery from this second surgery had also been very rough, and in the end, the surgery had not only failed, but left me with new and worsened symptoms that were debilitating. Because of this, I was in a great deal of pain and struggling to function normally and care for my 6 young children.  I came into the room to be set apart by Brother Thomas.  Before he began, I said to him. “Brother Thomas, I am not doing well.  I need you to give me a powerful blessing so that I will be able to fulfill this calling.”  These words were an understatement of what I was really feeling.  I needed a miracle.  He took my request in stride and proceeded to give me a beautiful blessing, in which he promised me that the symptoms I was having would gradually improve. I hadn’t given him any details about what was going on, but Heavenly Father knew what was going on, and gave him the words and the power to give me the blessing I needed.  Over the next three months, bit by bit, those new symptoms did improve and resolve, but I was not magically healed from the original condition.  I still have that and I likely will always have it.   There are two ways I could have viewed this situation- I could express sadness, anger, and distress. I could question why God hadn’t healed me completely. These would be understandable reactions, and I did feel upset that the surgery had failed.  But, instead of seeing my life through the window of sorrow, I chose to see the trial through the lens of the miracle. God did heal me from the new symptoms- exactly as much healing as I needed to be able to fulfill my mission.  He was aware of me, my pain, and my suffering. He couldn’t take it all away. For some reason, it wouldn’t be best for me. But, I have noticed, that in every trial, there are blessings. Some are very easy to see, like physical healing or stones glowing and lighting a barge, or a ball of curious workmanship with messages and directions.  Some are more subtle, like burdens becoming lighter or strength to withstand chronic pain.  But, we must always look for them.  

When we are grateful to God in our circumstances, we can experience gentle peace in the midst of tribulation. In grief, we can still lift up our hearts in praise. In pain, we can glory in Christ’s Atonement. In the cold of bitter sorrow, we can experience the closeness and warmth of heaven’s embrace.- Dieter F. Uchtdorf

The older I get, the more chances in life I have to practice feeling gratitude no matter what.  I have been blessed with the trial of health problems and chronic pain for the last 7 ½ years.  Would I take away that pain if I could?  Probably.  Would I take away how it has changed me?  Never.  So, I guess I wouldn’t really choose to take the pain away either- because the refinement is worth the suffering. Although, sometimes I think, “I’ve learned it. I’m ready to stop hurting now.”    

President Uchtdorf taught us to keep an eternal perspective:

In any circumstance, our sense of gratitude is nourished by the many and sacred truths we do know: that our Father has given His children the great plan of happiness; that through the Atonement of His Son, Jesus Christ, we can live forever with our loved ones; that in the end, we will have glorious, perfect, and immortal bodies, unburdened by sickness or disability; and that our tears of sadness and loss will be replaced with an abundance of happiness and joy, “good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over.”10-  Uchtdorf

I know these things to be true and bear my testimony that when we are choose to feel gratitude, especially during trials, we will be filled with happiness and joy, no matter our circumstances, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

My New Friend Who is Not Really My Friend and is Actually Welcome to Leave At Any Time

A person might assume that another person, such as I, faced with more free time than I've had in the last 17 years, would be blogging more than in the past, but apparently, that person would be wrong. Since Emmeline started school in August, things have been. . . interesting.

I have done great at my goal of attending the temple weekly, achieving an average of one visit per week.  That addition to my life has brought me more joy than I ever could have imagined.  I love the temple! And reading the Book of Mormon every day has been peaceful and enlightening.

But, let's go backwards a little bit before we get to now.  Last Spring my awesome PTA board member friends were looking for some people to step up for this year's board.  I had my pick of President Elect or Secretary, or some other big and fun and wonderful PTA job. While stressful, I truly enjoyed my two years as Treasurer and I cherish the friendships I made. But, when I thought and prayed about taking a position for this school year, I felt what we Mormons call a "stupor of thought".  Rather than feeling a sense of peace or excitement about making this commitment, I felt restrained and a mental emptiness, a gentle impression that I was not meant to be on the board this school year.  I repeatedly felt the distinct impression that "something" was coming into my life that would prevent me from being able to continue serving at such an intense level at the PTA.   I remember telling my friend Kathy "I just hope that whatever is coming is something good!"

It wasn't.

Dang it.

School started. Everything was great for a little while.

Then, with no warning, I got a new house guest.  Her name is Anxiety.  She's kind of a bully and I don't like her very much.  Luckily, she's not always here.  She's very unpredictable that way. I guess Anxiety, like living and breathing house guests, affects people in different ways. For me, I feel worried about nothing at all, I feel tense, I feel like maybe hyperventilating would be good, and I feel this tight squeezing in my chest. Sometimes Anxiety invites her cousin Depression to join the partay!

About 6 weeks after Anxiety moved in, something went wrong with the progress I've been making with my leg healing.  I tore my calf in February of last year.  It was up and down but I was definitely up at the time and had finally made it up to running a mile.  I was one week away from being ready to try Spinning class again, when my foot started to hurt a lot - on my birthday. Rude. Then my calf muscle tightened up in this crazy death grip and it just went downhill from there.  To make a long and not yet finished story much shorter, I have nearly constant pain in my foot, calf, and hip.  I had to stop running and most walking.  I'm going to water aerobics and trying to manage the pain with a metal croquet ball( hip), golf ball, (foot) and my new buddy the lacrosse ball( calf).  I've tried motrin, heat packs, muscle rubs, electrical massage machine, stopping all activity, switching to soft inserts rather than my custom orthotics, a trip to the doctor and oodles of stretching.  It's been 3 months now.  I wonder if this pain might be a permanent resident.  This is making Anxiety stay at my house even more.  She's really attracted to stress.

On Friday, I'm going to the doctor again.  I'll be asking for a referral to a podiatrist, a referral to another sport's medicine doctor (cause this guy has seen me three times and wants a second opinion), and possibly asking to start the process again to get an MRI scheduled to check for nerve impingement.  The good news about that is that if I meet my max out of  pocket in January, I have 11 months of free medical left this year! I'm not sure what's going to happen.  I'm not sure if I'm ever going to get completely better.  But, I'm ready to do whatever it takes to find out what is wrong with me.

So, that's depressing.  It's been really really hard to keep my chin up,and sometimes I'm not keeping it up; instead, I'm laying on my bed in the fetal position and bawling.

And it's hard to be nice when you're in pain all the time.  To all the people in chronic pain who are still nice- I THINK YOU ARE FREAKING AMAZING!  I'm trying to learn to be like you.

Okay, now fast forward to now.  I guess what I'm saying is that I'm human.  I'm struggling and I'm going through some especially stinky trials right now.  For months I have wavered back and forth on whether or not to share this, but in the end, I think sharing it is the right thing to do.

I'm going to be okay.  I don't know when and I don't know how and I don't know what okay is going to look like, I just know that I'm not giving up until I get there.

I'm not sharing this trial with anyone and everyone who decides to read it merely in hopes of going viral. ( this is a good place to insert maniacal laughter, because that is just funny.  I'll never go viral) I'm not sharing because I want something out of anyone.  And I'm not reaching out for pity, although sometimes compassion feels good.

I'm sharing because that is what I do. I write. I share.  I hope that my blog entries make you laugh, make you cry, make you think, and help you feel God's love for you.

In spite of the last four months being crazy hard with no end in site, God has not left me alone to deal with these things.  He has sent me comfort in the form of family and friends and the Holy Ghost speaking to my heart, especially while I am studying the Book of Mormon.

  I am not going to let Anxiety or injury win.  I'm holding fast to my faith, even in the moments where I'm shaking with fear and/or sadness, my faith is what helps me wipe away the tears, take a deep breath, and go cook dinner or help my little girl with her homework.

And even while I desperately hope that there is something easier ahead, it's the warm little hand of that sweet young daughter holding my hand and trusting me to keep her safe, that propels my own legs forward.  Despite the discomfort, she is worth it.  All six of my kids are worth it individually. Getting to be their Mom is worth the trials of the past, present, and future.

I have a quote on my wall that my littlest girl (5) can now read.

"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass . . It's about learning to dance in the rain" -Vivion Greene

So, take that trials! My dance might be one legged and funny looking, but I'm still dancing.