Sunday, June 5, 2011

Capital H i m


Do you ever wonder how you got this way? As I watch as a flood of newly graduated seniors find themselves in pursuit of a bright future I can't help but reflect on where my life has taken me in just a short year. People that meant the world to me in high school have been replaced by people I can't imagine living my life without. I've changed my mind a million times. I've fiddled with the idea of boys; I decided not to play with the idea. I have been lost and then found and then lost again. There is one thing that I have come to count on though, and that is that no matter where I am in my life, no matter how seemingly perfect or undeniably awful things appear to be going, regardless of where I am and who I am with, life gets hard.

I had been told all my life that college would be the best years of my life, but the one year I have spent away from home has been a period of self discovery that I thought I went through as an insecure sophomore. My soul has been harrowed up. There were times when I felt alone and confused. I experienced discomfort and found myself in unpleasant situations. I was forced to deal with things I never dreamed would happen to me and I asked God why. I didn't understand. I thought that I could handle things on my own and all I needed to do was pray for a little extra help. In my blurred vision I saw myself in a way that ended up tearing me down. I tried to do what I had been taught since I was a child, but nothing seemed to be working. I believed I must be doing something wrong. I had already dealt with an excrutiating trial when I was twelve; certainly I didn't deserve this. No matter how hard I searched, I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to be learning or how I was supposed to be growing. Then everything fell apart. I fell apart. I realized that the specific experiences that we have in our lives that seem too much to bear aren't always for us. Sometimes we face trials so that we can "comfort those that stand in need in comfort and mourn with those that mourn." Sometimes we must experience exactly what they are experiencing in order to help them. Sometimes we must do exactly what the Savior did for us so that we can become like Him. After all, isn't that the reason we are on this earth? I realized that perhaps the reason I was experiencing such heartache and misery was so that I could become like the Savior. All of the tears and anxiety and utter sorrow was so I would learn to love Christ and make myself more like Him.
Whether you are pursuing a dead end job simply in an effort to pay the rent you never thought you would have to pay, or if you have found yourself crying yourself to sleep over that one person again, or maybe along the journey to find yourself you forget who you are, there is always hope. Life gets hard; we all know that. The important thing to remember is that life doesn't have to harden us. We can take each bad hair day and flat tire and turn them into experiences that bring us one step closer to who we are supposed to be. He knows exactly what we are dealing with and He knows exactly how to help. He loves us no matter how angry we get or how many tantrums we through. We just have to love Him back.

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