Bright Tomorrows

I have been going through a rough patch for a few months.   Some of it has been all the illness that has hit our home.   Other parts have included not have my hubby as available in the evenings due to more demand at work along with a church calling that needs much care.   And then there is just the feelings I fight about myself...you know the ones probably most of use deal with at one time or another.  I'm too fat, not organized, I shouldn't drink this or eat that, my hair is just ugh.....you get the picture??   There has been a great deal of demand on me at home.  I am grateful to be here...to be Mom and to have the opportunity to care for my family. This is what I love most!   I try my best but find I fall short and sometimes I realize not everyone that is connected to me outside of my home really understands when I say, things are kind of crazy at my house.  Sometimes this realization falls upon me...sometimes I can feel their disappointment at what I didn't do that affected them.   This, at times, brings on more frustrations I feel about myself and honestly kind of hurts.  Sometimes I want to scream "Hey...I have been struggling here!" 

Today I have been feeling low....needing a little pick me up.  I wasn't able to attend church because Camden has been a very sick little guy with high fevers and bad body aches and chills.  So I picked up the Ensign hoping to find something.   I read this months article titled "The Refining Fire of Grief" by Ashley Isaacson Woolley.    It is a beautiful article and one  I could deeply relate to due to my own experiences with loss and grief.   In her article she shares her personal experiences with the grief she felt as she watched her baby boy deal with severe seizures and shares what brought peace to her and her husband as they searched for help for their little guy.   Towards the end of her article she says:

"Even as grief refined me in important ways, it also challenged my faith to the core. But prayer and the whisperings of the Spirit helped me to emerge on the other side of grief with faith that is even stronger than before.

In the darkest moments of my son’s illness, I sometimes felt forsaken by God, wondering how He could let my son suffer and leave me to endure such heartache. I came to understand that my feelings were natural because I did not share God’s perspective. I reflected on the difference between God’s perspective and my own one night after my husband and I had put our son to bed. We sat in another room, listening to him and watching him on a video monitor. As our son fussed, my husband commented, “You know, he probably feels completely abandoned. It’s dark in there, and he probably thinks we have forgotten him. He doesn’t know that we can see and hear him, because he can’t see or hear us. He doesn’t know that we are always nearby.” As our son was to us, so we are to our Heavenly Father.

God is there, and He did not leave me feeling alone forever. Once when I was feeling particularly upset about my son’s health and especially forsaken by God, I prayed. Soon afterward, a phrase came to my mind: “God makes a way where there is no way.” I looked up the phrase and discovered a quotation by Martin Luther King Jr.:

“When our days become dreary with low hovering clouds and our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that … [God] is able to make a way out of no way, and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows.”^2"

Right now I am not in my darkest moments....but I have felt down, lonely and low.   While I know others outside of my home don't know what I have been going through I know my Heavenly Father does.   I know He has helped me get through the rough spots and will continue to help me as I need it.  The quote she shares from Martin Luther King Jr is perfect...

I am going to print it out and tape it to my cabinet door that I see most often.  

^{I am so thankful I decided to open the Ensign today and
I am very thankful for Bright Tomorrows!}