Apologies and Gratitude

I want to apologize to any of you who have been around me the past few weeks, well actually I could extend that to months. Anyway, I have been in a pretty bad funk. I have been hurting for a long time and in that I have been dwelling in my own sadness and mistakes, wishing things could be different. I was even seriously contemplating skipping Christmas all together. I know, I have got to be in a pretty bad place to want to forget Christmas!! But over the past few days, ( and a night or two of finally getting some good sleep thanks to my mom for practically forcing me to take some sleeping pills), I have been able to get my mind and heart into a better place. A few things have happened over the past few days that have really contributed to the beginning of this turn for me.

1. My work tries to do a service project every December to tie into our Christmas season and Christmas party. This year we are making Christmas cards to send to soldiers, their families, and veterans. It really got me thinking, that even though my "family" is now different than what I had wanted, at least I still have family around. I have Elliot, I'm still good friends with Nate, so I haven't lost him out of my life completely. I have my parents, siblings, extended family. All who care about me. There are a lot of soldiers who are away from their families right now serving Our Country so that I can have the freedom to be able to spend time with family and celebrate how I want. There are many families of soldiers who will never see their father, mother, son, daughter, spouse, etc. in this life again. The holidays have got to be real tough for them. And the veterans, a lot of them are alone too, or struggling. I truly am really blessed.

2. My visiting teaching partner & I are pretty notorious for waiting until the end of the month. This month, no exception. It was my turn to prepare the lesson. This week has been a bit of a struggle for me and I forgot until yesterday afternoon that I needed to find a lesson. The visiting teaching lessons come from the Ensign every month. As this months Ensign was the General Conference edition, there was no specific lesson for VT. So we get to chose from the Conference talks. Looking through, the first one that really popped out to me was Robert D Hales talk from the Sunday morning session of conference, "Waiting upon the Lord: Thy Will Be Done".  You can read or listen to it here .  It is was something I definitely needed to hear. After reading it and teaching the lesson last night. I felt more comfort than I have in a while. It is really a great talk. Something I definitely need to work on.

Now, this doesn't mean everything is okay. Do I still wish things were different, that I had done things differently? You bet! I still cry at night when I'm alone in my room, but this is helping. I need to put my faith in Him, and move forward the best I know how and realize that things happen for a reason. And that good will come out of it some day and some day I will look back and see how this led me to be the person I needed to be and to where He wanted me to be. I am a very anxious person. I like to at least see a bit of the path in front of me or have a glimpse of what is ahead. I like to have a plan and know or have an idea of where that plan is going to take me. Just stepping out into the darkened path is terrifying to me. I like to be in control (not controlling) and to trust someone else with what lies ahead is very hard for me. But I am slowly learning.