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."