Congratulations!

So I have been thinking a lot about something that happened to me earlier this week. My relief society presidency came to see me on Sunday since my husband and I just moved into a new ward a few weeks ago. She was very polite and friendly and was easy to talk to. As we were talking somehow it came up that she was a little insecure and was a little hard on herself. When I heard this I was really shocked. All I could think was why in the heck was she? I saw absolutely nothing about this woman that should cause her to be insecure.

the very next day I saw the same woman at a memorial day BBQ and was further surprised by what I saw there. She told the funniest stories, I cannot remember laughing so hard for a long time! I saw her children there looking into her eyes with obvious admiration and love. She talked to other guests with the greatest of ease and by the end of the evening I was totally jealous of her. I could not believe that this awesome woman was so hard on herself  and I seriously wanted to let her know that she should be proud of who she is. I didn't though because it seemed weird at the time. Unlike writing about her in a blog post, you know, because that isn't weird at all (written with heavy amounts of sarcasm).

Before I start to sound really weird, I want to let you know that this post isn't about this one woman. It is about all of us. It is becoming increasingly rare to meet person who doesn't have something about themselves that they really just hate. I have heard numberless mothers say they are failures. I have talked to countless women who's mirrors and scales fill them with masochistic ambitions. I have know multitudes of people who think that there isn't anything special about them. I have been there myself and it really is a terrible feeling. Every time I hear people talk about themselves this way I am always surprised. I see these people as mothers who give everything to their kids and really should look at the amazing things they have accomplished and pat themselves on the back. I see people who look healthy and attractive and who should not let a number on a scale determine how beautiful they are. I see people who have a great deal of intelligence who have talents I could only dream of. Other people see these things in them too but how is it they cannot see it? How is it we can so easily see beauty, talent, and goodness in others then look at ourselves and sigh?

When did self-loathing become so normal? I know not everyone suffers from issues like this and I got to say way to go to those who don't! To everyone else I want to seriously congratulate you on being yourself. God did not make you into Jennifer Lawrence on purpose, he made you into you because he wanted someone like you on the earth. He gave you weaknesses so that you could learn how to become strong. This life isn't about being perfect, it is about working on it as best you can. See yourself as you are, flaws and all, and know that you are lovable. Please stop thinking of yourself so harshly because there is someone out there who is looking at you and  thinking, "Wow, I wish I was like you."

I Didn't See it Coming

So here is the truth about this blog. The reason I write this blog is that it is a kind of informal therapy to me. I usually have a problem and I find that if I write out advice to myself it helps me know what to do. If it just so happens that you, the reader, have a similar problem and are helped out by this post I'm glad of it. Well as you have probably already surmised I have a problem, and it is probably the biggest and hardest one I have ever faced so far.
As many of you know, I have serious academic ambitions. For almost ten years now my greatest desire has been to attend graduate school and get a degree in either social work or psychology. With the exception of a happy marriage, it was my greatest desire. So I did the work necessary to go, I killed my self in undergraduate schooling and graduated with a 3.84 in the behavioral sciences. I did volunteer work and researched the differences between social work and psychology; ultimately deciding that I wanted to pursue social work. So in November I sent off my hopes and dreams in a manila envelope and anxiously waited for response. That response came on Wednesday. I was rejected. Naturally I was surprised and disappointed that my first attempt was unsuccessful. When I informed others they gave me kind encouragement and tried to help me plan how to better prepare for next time. One of these good friends suggested that I get a blessing from my husband when he got home from work and I readily agreed to it.
He came home and gave me a powerful blessing that changed everything. I thought I knew what to expect. Encouragement and guidance on where to go and what to do so that I could go next year, but I was wrong. My blessing not only did not contain any of these things but it told me that God had work for me to do and that if I went to graduate school I could not accomplish it. Graduate school was a good path, but not my path and that I had to give up my dreams if I wanted to bless others. When the blessing was over both of us were shocked. I could not believe it. I had been certain that God wanted this for me. The guidance I received in this blessing hurt so much more than the rejection letter I received did.
I wish I could tell you that I acted like the good and great in story, but I didn't. I am not an angry or violent person at all. I hate violent movies and flinch at anger but not this time. I went into the kitchen, carefully selected our old crappy dishes and proceeded to smash all of them. I wanted to destroy everything. I wanted to take my collection of psychology-related books and light them on fire. I felt all of the pain of losing a beloved friend. I felt betrayed and wronged. I could not understand how my God could let me believe that I could go onto graduate school for so long and not tell me that it would never happen. I felt like nothing, I felt like no one.
My poor husband watched me destroy our old college dishes in obvious sorrow. When I was done turned to him in utter despair and asked, "What do I do now?" He took me in his arms and whispered, "We will figure it out together."
The next day I was angry still. I could not reconcile what had happened. It felt like God and pulled a bait and switch on me, but I knew God did not work that way. I questioned if God had tried to tell me I was going the wrong way and I could not recall a single instance. I still do not understand this and you know what? Maybe that isn't what is important. Perhaps I will never know.
What I do know is this:
After a lot of praying and crying I felt the spirit whisper this question, "If you did go to school would you be happy?"
I think I can safely claim that the spirit does not waste time with complicated explanations or grand displays. Its power has strength that does not make itself  impressive by thunderous excess but rather by its soft simplicity.
I knew the answer to this question was no, I would not be truly happy. I found myself saying, "Okay God. Okay," and it was okay. It is okay.
I still do not know what God has in store for me and I feel, ironically, like that lost kid on the first day of school.
I know someday I will look back on this time and see the purposeful hand of the lord guiding me to something else, something greater. I can not see what it is yet but I have faith that it is there. If you find your dreams have shattered and you face the the utter bewilderment of the unseen and the unknown know this: there is meaning in the seemingly madness. We can walk by faith in this life or we can stumble and fall. There is hope for the lost, the depressed, and for the frightened. I really do believe this. I hope it is not inappropriate to conclude this post in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

This is what I have for you

I am not going to lie to you, this weekend has been seriously crappy. I have had to watch bad things happen to people who do not deserve them and to see suffering that I cannot relieve. When I cannot help I get very frustrated, angry, and I get migraines. I hate those moments when you see things slipping around you, like watching glass falling off of a table and knowing that no matter how fast you run to it that it will shatter. There is nothing worse than the feeling of helplessness, it's like being lost but with the stark horror of knowing exactly where you are. Frankly, it pisses me off.

Sometimes things happen in life that just do not make any sense. We question the order of things and say that it is not fair. We want God to solve everything and for the pain to just stop. It just doesn't though because life does not work that way.

I realized that I needed a blessing even though I have suffered very little compared to those around me. The blessing was a very good one. It offered no promises of things getting better or that those that I love would get the help that they needed or that magical healing would occur. It offered me something true and honest. I was offered comfort. It may seem silly to you, that's standard for every blessing isn't it? This time was different though.

I felt like God was saying to me, "Liz I know you want to fix everyone, but you can't honey. I know seeing their problems and seeing their suffering is hurting you, I know because it hurts me too. People have the freedom to choose for themselves even if what they choose is bad for them. All you can do is let them know that you love them and that is enough. What I have to offer you is my love and my comfort. This is what I have for you, I hope you take it."

I feel like I have been offered this blessing over and over again but I just heard it for the first time. When things happen that just do not make sense and seem over whelming do not push aside these blessings. They may seem small and they may seem common but they are not. Listen to the small voice in the back of you mind that says, "I'm still here" and believe it. Hard times will come for everyone, that is just a fact of life that we cannot control. What we can control is if we accept that help that is offered to us from the One who loves us the most and wants the best for us. He never stops loving us even if we stop loving Him. I cannot think of anyone better to have in my corner and I promise that if you let Him into yours you will not regret it. Let go of what you think should be happening and let Him help you with what is happening.

I can think of no better way to end this blog than with the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

What I believe

Today I am going to talk about my religion. What I want to address here is the recent splitting of individuals in my church. In the wake of the excommunication of the leader of Mormon women stand, Kelly, there are now groups of people voluntarily severing themselves from the church in protest of this discipline. Seeing these people taking these actions to make my church look intolerant astounds me. It hurts to see so many people losing themselves in the ideology of the world and forgetting their God.

When I got up this morning my mind was troubled by what I saw in my social media feed, so I prayed. I prayed to understand what was going on and what I should do. I felt that I needed to do something and so I choose to bear my testimony of my beliefs. This may not be the most well written list and certainly not the most eloquent but here it is. This is what I believe:

I believe that the prophet, his counselors, the quorum of the twelve, and the rest of the general authorities are called of God and that they speak God's words. I sustain them unashamedly and will follow them wherever they go.

I believe that I do not need to be just like a man to have worth and influence on the world or the lives of those I love. trying to say that men and women are exactly the same, and treating themas such, is a disservice to both genders and will not fill the needs of either. I know that the way that women of my church are being portrayed in my church as weak, oppressed, and powerless but I do not feel this way. I feel that my leaders care about how I feel and value my service. I don't need to be a leader in the church to help build it up.

I believe that sometimes no matter how badly you want something, God will sometimes say no. When we get a 'no' we should take courage and respect God's answer.

Finally, I believe that men are fallible but that God is not so He is who I will follow. The leaders of my church are following Him so with them is where I stand.

Things are about to change and it is very possible that things are going to get harder. If they do Just remember the words of Joseph Smith,
"The Standard of Truth has been erected; no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing; persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished, and the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done."

Also D&C 122: 7-8 if it gets very bad, remember what the God told Joseph Smith.

 7 And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if thou be cast into the deep; if the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.

 8 The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?

I plan on doing my very best to show my small part of the world that LDS people are kind and compassionate and that the women of the church are powerful as they are. Now is a time to live as we have never lived before. We need to be more diligent in doing the things we should be doing because the closer we are to God the stronger the help we have.

If this blog has done nothing but convince those who read it that I am a narrow minded moron, so be it. I am proud of who I am and I stand up in the name of God and testify that He lives! I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and that will never change. I am not subservient and I will not be silent. 

The Ones that Really Mattered

It's only 10:30am  right now, but I have already gotten a little frustrated. I started my day by looking up the news and saw the different problems of the world. The poor are getting poorer every day and the rich are getting richer. I read a case about a boy who was able to escape justice because his insane wealth supposedly makes him unable to make good decisions. There is war, death, and hatred in the world and it will never stop. There's a part in the scriptures that talks about evil being called good and good being called evil that certainly applies to  these days. Anything goes as long as that anything excludes religion or a set of morals that is unfashionable.

All of these things were weighing on my mind today. I talked to Jason about it and he gave me some very good advice. He told me that we cannot change the world and that we can only do good in our small corner of it but that the good that we do is important. I knew he was right but the weight of the world was still heavy in my heart. I felt the need to find further solace and oddly enough I found it on pinterest. On my quote board is a particularly beautiful quote from Sam in the second Lord of the Rings movie it goes like this,

"It's like in the great stories Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end it is only a passing thing, this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you even if you were too small to understand why. But I think I do understand, I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances to turn back, only they didn't. They kept going because they were holding onto something."

"What are we holding onto Sam?"

"That there is some good in this world Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for!"

It can become so difficult to see the good when there is so much darkness in the world but the good is there. Though some may think of me as silly and antiquated I am so grateful to have a belief in God that keeps me going. Not only is He the light when the darkness passes but He is the light in the darkness. He is what keeps me going and I am so grateful for Him and I plan to keep fighting for the good in my small corner of the world.

Two Years with My Best friend. (Warning sappiness at dangerously high levels)

Today marks two years of marriage to my sweetie. I am so grateful that I was able to marry him there surrounded by my friends and family and start a new chapter of our lives. Being married in the temple has blessed our lives in ways that I cannot even describe. He cured me of my extreme phobia of marriage (a great feat I assure you) and showed what a blessing it is to be sealed to a good person. I thought the guy I married was awesome but it was only after I was married to him that I realized that he was so much more than that, he is the man who obliterated the shallow images of my sweetest dreams. He is kind, thoughtful, and very very sweet. Thank you Jason for serving me and letting me serve you. Thank you for choosing to spend your life with me and not rolling your eyes when I suggest watching a period piece or a Shakespearean adaptation, and in return I will try to like Hockey more. Go Avalanche!!!! I am forever grateful for the roommate who came to get me that 4th of July morning because a neighboring apartment was eating breakfast with us and that Jason didn't look at the ratty basketball shorts I was wearing and write me off.

I guess what I really am trying to say is I thank God that I met you Jason McEwen and I am still astounded and overjoyed that I get to be married to my best friend. Happy two years my dear, I love you.

Making Sense of the World and Compassion

It has been a very eventful week. I have had 4 papers due this week, all together 32 pages that my poor senioritus stricken mind has had to produce, and a lot of other homework on top of that. this is not what I am going to be talking about in this post: I want to talk about compassion. It might be specific to certain situations, but then again maybe not. So here it goes.
You know when you are talking to someone and they believe something that makes no sense? It seems like insanity to believe it, but they hold tighter and tighter to this belief no matter the logic and evidence you present. It may even contradict some of their own beliefs but they ignore (or struggle with) the cognitive dissonance. They become defensive and you become frustrated at their inability to see the light. A good metaphor for this idea is when a person has been wandering in the dark with a glow stick and you offer them a flashlight. They refuse to use the flashlight when the glow stick has kept them safe for this long. It doesn't make any sense right?
I saw this happen to a girl in my class this week. She was making a comparison between alcoholism and depression claiming that a depressed person, like the alcoholic, is addicted to depression when they first indulge their sadness. I just want to say for the record that I do not agree with her.
There was another girl in the class who took great offense to this and took advantage of the classroom setting to vent her anger. She shared with the class that she had struggled with major depression, had been very close to committing suicide, and was upset to have her problems compared with alcoholism.
The second girl publicly confronted the first girl and cruelly ripped her apart. The first girl apologized but the second girl relentlessly perused her revenge. The first girl started sobbing loudly, continuing her apologies, but the second girl continued her verbal assault until she was satisfied. By the way, the professor did nothing to stop this all from happening. I found this first girl after class and talked to her about what had just happened. This girl had a mother who had major depression while she was a child and was not available for her. She resented her mother for not being there for her and viewed depression in an . . . odd way. It was how she made sense of the world where her mother was not there for her. Sometimes there are things that have happened that never stop hurting. They often decrease in potency and frequency, but they come back out of the blue and it takes time to wrestle them back. This brings me back to the glow sticks.
Though it does not makes sense to use a glow stick in place of a flashlight, it is all that they know. They have fought hard to attain the little light that they have and the prospect of changing is devastating. When you take away the way a person makes sense of the world, the world no longer makes sense. It is easy to say that you are giving them a better way and if they were smart the world just take the stupid flashlight already, but it's not that easy. If you have ever tried to break a bad habit like overeating or swearing, you know that it is a difficult process that takes effort to change. It's second nature to drop the F-bomb when your car doesn't start and to head for the cookies when you have to spend another Saturday night alone. Changing the way you think is harder, especially when there are strong emotions tied to those beliefs. You have taken the only light source they have ever known and now they are standing in the dark holding something they have no idea how to operate or understand.
Though things may seem simple to you there are people who have never had the opportunities you have had and those people deserve patience and most certainly our compassion. Just because you have a flashlight does not make you the master of the darkness or better than the person with the glow-stick. Always remember that there are things that may not be apparent to you either and you would want someone to be kind to you if/ when they point them out to you. You may have a flashlight, but God knows where the light switch is.