Come to Jesus by Kenneth Cope

"He Did the Hard Part"

I love Sundays, just really love them and really need the spiritual uplift every week. It's a good refresher of how good life really is and that I need to buck up and quit whining. Today our Relief Society lesson was from President Monson's talk He is Risen and of course it was so good. He talked about Christ and his sacrifice for us. How he paid for our sins and overcame death. We wouldn't be able to complete or mortal life without him. And our teacher gave us a great quote. She said Christ has done the hard part. He suffered so severely for our sins and to overcome death so that we can live with our Heavenly Father if we will repent and do what we should. And that made me feel so much better today. Christ did the hard part, and I can surely survive my trials. I am blessed in so many ways and really need to count my blessing, every one of them, when I start feeling down.

Count Your Blessings

When upon life's billows you are tempest tossed,
When you are discouraged thinking all is lost,
Count your many blessings, name them one by one.
And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.

Are you ever burdened with a load of care?
Does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear?
Count your many blessings, every doubt will fly;
And you will be singing as the days go by.

When you look at others with their lands and gold,
Think that Christ has promised you his wealth untold.
Count your many blessings, money can not buy,
Your reward in Heaven nor your home on high.

So amid the conflict whether great or small,
Do not be discouraged, God is over all.
Count your many blessings, angels will attend,
Help and comfort give you to your journeys end.

Count your blessings, name them one by one,
Count your blessings see what God hath done.
Count your blessings, name them one by one.
Count your many blessings see what God hath done.

The Heart of Texas

This is the video I watched on BYU tv, if you have the time, it's definitely oen worth watching.

When Everything Seems Like It's Wrong...

...It's all the way it's meant to be. And for me I'm having a hard time coming to terms with this right now. This week has been a tough week. A week full of stress, and sickness, and sadness. A week where the circle of grief has come back to the start. A week where everyday I feel defeated the minute I crawl out of bed. A week where I'm asking God why things are this way, why he can't just please let me go back and even hold Graham for just 5 minutes. I'd give him back again, just let me have him one more time, just for a minute. But really I just want to have Graham here with us, everyday, and have all seem "right". To just have my little life plan work out. To shop for his first Halloween costume instead of finding little trinkets to decorate his grave and having my kids tell me they miss their "little Grahamers" To not envy every pregnant woman or every woman with a newborn (which has really never bugged me until now) and know that my baby is gone and I'm way far away from being ready to have another one.

But one day this week I made myself go to the gym. I still didn't feel great, not in any shape or form, but I went. And when I got to the gym, nothing worked and I was super frustrated. I kept telling myself that I shouldn't have come, I should have just stayed home and slept, but then of course Heavenly Father wanted me to be there, to give me a little help, and had I not gone to the gym that day I wouldn't have got it. I got on the bike that day and felt like I needed to turn to they BYU channel. I've watched it a couple of times at the gym and it's always good, but sometimes I end up watching something else. But that day I turned to the BYU channel and heard exactly what I needed to hear. There was a program on about a family who had lost their young daughter in an accident. I don't know exactly what happened because I missed that part, but I saw everything that I needed to see. I saw her mother and father and her brother, Graham (ironic, huh?), and they talked about how their dreams had been shattered, but they knew that their daughter's death was part of Heavenly Father's plan, and not theirs. The mother talked about having hope and faith in God and Jesus Christ. The father talked about forgiveness and God's omniscience. How God can take a little seed, and throw it out and nourish it and make it produce so much more than what it started out from. The father likened this to his daughter and her influence, and the influence her death had on others. And really I thought of Graham as that little seed. He lived on this earth for only five short hours. But I know his little life touched many, but really I can't fully comprehend how his life has helped others, brought them closer to God, and I'm sure in time will bring more people to God. Heavenly Father uses these experiences to help me and others. And although it seems so unfair to me I'm sure Graham is fine with this all. That now he can see how his little time on earth was supposed to help others. And that father said the same. He said I know my daughter, Joy, is thrilled to be where she is and to help others learn some of these basic gospel principles, like love, faith, hope forgiveness ect.

I'm trying to learn some of these principles. The mother said that it was only her hope for the future and her faith in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ that has made it possible to overcome her daughter's death. And I thought about how we have to go through trials to really learn these lessons. I know that I probably wouldn't have the same faith in the gospel and hope for the future had I not gone through this trial with Graham. It's the severe trials that really cement these lessons into our lives, if we let them. So I'm trying to keep some hope in my life. Trying to rely solely on my faith that all these things have happened for the right reasons.

"If God leads you to it, he'll see you through it."

Better Things Ahead

Lately I've had another wave of overwhelming sadness hit. I know the wound is still fresh, but it seemed like I was feeling so much better only to be stopped again in my tracks by these feelings of longing and aching and inadequacy. The tender memories flooding my brain constantly. And then I'm reminded again by a loving Heavenly Father of our earthly plan. Reminded that he knows the beginning from the end and that each of these experiences are part of the plan, and for our good, no matter how much they hurt. And I'm reminded that people and their testimonies can bring us closer to God, and today this is was Angie Smith did for me. Read here. She talks about Lot's wife and how God commanded them to leave Sodom and Gomorrah and not look back, only move forward to things that I would think would be so much better than those evil cities. But she looks back, and who knows what she is looking back at, but she looks back and falls behind and God turns her into a pillar of salt. I've had a quote running through my mind for the past few weeks and Angie's post reminded me of it again.

There are better things ahead than any we leave behind. -CS Lewis

And I keep telling myself that there are better things ahead. Focus on the future. Learn from the past, but it is so hard not to look back and wonder what if. What if Graham were here? What could I have done different. But the feeling of confirmation always comes to me letting me know that God's will was done. That this part of his plan was completed, although I still don't fully understand. But there are better things in the future. More life to live here on earth, and eternity to be with our sweet baby once again. So we move forward and try not to look back too much, and hope Heavenly Father doesn't turn me into a pillar of salt :)

Libby's First Day of Pre-School

Today is Libby's first day of pre-school. And I really have mixed emotions about sending her off today. It really is another of my love/hate relationships. It will be so nice to have a couple hours to myself, three times a week, and the goal is to make it to the gym. But really I'll be an empty nester for a couple of hours and that's sad too, because it reminds me of how my life plans changed abruptly a few months ago. But Libby is excited to go to Mrs. Hansen's this afternoon. She's all ready to be a big girl and go to school.

Libby also started a new Pre-K Choir/Music class. It's a nice little class where they sing, play games and instruments and learn more about music, so it's right up her ally. She had a blast this morning so hopefully she'll like it for the rest of the year.

And we had to post all the pictures, because in pure "Libby style" she had to pose about 10 times for the camera :)

No Way Around It

I read a few days from a blogger friend how grief is a circle. She's farther down her path of grief after losing 2 children and she says that grief is a cycle, one that I'm learning is quite vicious. Many times during this experience with Graham I've thought that I could skip over some of the grieving process, that since his death was an expected outcome, that somehow I could go around this huge thing, or at least just cut a corner or two. But I'm learning that with grief there's really no preparation, there's no cutting corners, there's no way around it, you have to go through it. Some days you feel like you've finally getting back into the swing of things, like you've really come to terms with this life, until you just have a day that knocks you back to day one. A day where your heart literally feels like it's being ripped from your chest. A day that you stop at the cemetery and the reality of the situation hits like a ton of bricks, again. A day when someone asks how many kids you have and you just have to answer with how many kids you have living with you, because it's too hard to explain why you have 3 kids but only 2 here. A day when things are just hard, and you just miss the sweet little baby you once held in your arms.

But then I'm reminded of how good my life really is, how much Heavenly Father has truly blessed me. Our Sunday School lesson this week was on Job and his trials. How he had EVERYTHING taken from him, and he grieved for his losses and his trials, yet he never doubted God. And as his trials came to an end, Heavenly Father blessed him two-fold. The days are hard when the grief hits, when a new stage comes, but I always have to remind myself of my blessings. And God is good, that's for sure.

NEVER EVER GIVE UP IN LIFE

Voice of the Spirit

While many thousands of others truly mourn for the loss of their kindred, yet they rejoice and exult in the hope, and even know, according to the promises of the Lord, that they are raised to dwell at the right hand of God, in a state of never-ending happiness.


And thus we see the great call of diligence of men to labor in the vineyards of the Lord; and thus we see the great reason of sorrow, and also of rejoicing--sorrow because of death and destruction among men, and joy because of the light of Christ unto life.


-Alma 28:12,14