Rough Week

I usually like to keep my blog happy and upbeat, but life isn't always like that. This week has been a struggle for me. I have been sick, had insomnia, and been really grumpy. Last night as I laid awake I racked my brain for what was really bothering me. I've been sick before and I knew that wasn't the real problem. I have also had insomnia before and it doesn't effect me like this. As I thought about it I realized these two things were just compounding the real problem.

The last couple weeks I have been thinking a lot about adding to our family. I want to have another child to love and care for. I want more than anything for Ava to have a sibling. These thoughts are always in my mind, but usually hang out in the back. The last couple of weeks I have been more focused on them and feeling a roller coaster of emotions.

I think my birthday sparked the increased pressure to add to our family. I really don't mind getting older and don't really feel that old. I find though each year on my birthday I worry that I will soon be too old to have another child. I worry that those looking at our adoption profile will just see me as a boring old lady. I go through all the thoughts of self doubt and wonder if I am good enough.

The adoption process is not easy...for anyone. The waiting game is grueling and at times I feel defeated. I'm constantly wondering what I can do to better myself, my situation, and my image. I feel like I am on display and I'm not sure if what I have to offer is cool, hip, sick, or whatever is in now. It is hard to not have control over my situation and to know there is nothing I can do. I just have to wait and see what will happen.

Amid all of this stress, pressure, desperation, sadness (not exactly sure how to label it) I have moments of happiness. The moments are usually because of my family especially Ava. She is always doing silly things to make me laugh or sweet things to remind me I am loved. Yesterday while she was washing her hands, she turned to me and sang, "I love you. You love me. We're a happy family. With a great big hug and kiss from me to you. Won't you say you love me too." As she sang Ava gave me a big wet hug and a kiss. It just melted my heart and put a big smile on my face. Somehow she knew that is exactly what I needed.

Besides my family I have found a comfort by listening to the "Mormon Channel" on my itouch. I have been listening to it during my shower and I find it uplifting and inspiring. Today I listened to a program that is in the youth section titled, "Enduring Cheerfully Our Challenges." It was wonderful and snapped me out of my funk. I especially liked when the host shared a clip from one of Elder Holland's talk, "An High Priest of Good Things to Come." The quote, "Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don’t come until heaven; but for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come," touched my heart and lifted my spirits.

Sometimes it is not easy being patient and enduring life's challenges, but the gospel and the knowledge of the Plan of Salvation make it possible. During rough weeks like this I am grateful for my testimony and faith. I am glad to know I am not alone. Not only do I have a loving family here on earth I am blessed to know I have a loving Heavenly Father watching over me. I know the Savior knows my pain and struggles and will succor me. I know that my trials and pain, "shall be but a small moment" and I just need to endure it well and keep my focus on eternal life.


Story from Elder Holland's talk
Thirty years ago last month, a little family set out to cross the United States to attend graduate school—no money, an old car, every earthly possession they owned packed into less than half the space of the smallest U-Haul trailer available. Bidding their apprehensive parents farewell, they drove exactly 34 miles up the highway, at which point their beleaguered car erupted.

Pulling off the freeway onto a frontage road, the young father surveyed the steam, matched it with his own, then left his trusting wife and two innocent children—the youngest just three months old—to wait in the car while he walked the three miles or so to the southern Utah metropolis of Kanarraville, population then, I suppose, 65. Some water was secured at the edge of town, and a very kind citizen offered a drive back to the stranded family. The car was attended to and slowly—very slowly—driven back to St. George for inspection—U-Haul trailer and all.

After more than two hours of checking and rechecking, no immediate problem could be detected, so once again the journey was begun. In exactly the same amount of elapsed time at exactly the same location on that highway with exactly the same pyrotechnics from under the hood, the car exploded again. It could not have been 15 feet from the earlier collapse, probably not 5 feet from it! Obviously the most precise laws of automotive physics were at work.

Now feeling more foolish than angry, the chagrined young father once more left his trusting loved ones and started the long walk for help once again. This time the man providing the water said, “Either you or that fellow who looks just like you ought to get a new radiator for that car.” For the second time a kind neighbor offered a lift back to the same automobile and its anxious little occupants. He didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry at the plight of this young family.

“How far have you come?” he said. “Thirty-four miles,” I answered. “How much farther do you have to go?” “Twenty-six hundred miles,” I said. “Well, you might make that trip, and your wife and those two little kiddies might make that trip, but none of you are going to make it in that car.” He proved to be prophetic on all counts.

Just two weeks ago this weekend, I drove by that exact spot where the freeway turnoff leads to a frontage road, just three miles or so west of Kanarraville, Utah. That same beautiful and loyal wife, my dearest friend and greatest supporter for all these years, was curled up asleep in the seat beside me. The two children in the story, and the little brother who later joined them, have long since grown up and served missions, married perfectly, and are now raising children of their own. The automobile we were driving this time was modest but very pleasant and very safe. In fact, except for me and my lovely Pat situated so peacefully at my side, nothing of that moment two weeks ago was even remotely like the distressing circumstances of three decades earlier.

Yet in my mind’s eye, for just an instant, I thought perhaps I saw on that side road an old car with a devoted young wife and two little children making the best of a bad situation there. Just ahead of them I imagined that I saw a young fellow walking toward Kanarraville, with plenty of distance still ahead of him. His shoulders seemed to be slumping a little, the weight of a young father’s fear evident in his pace. In the scriptural phrase his hands did seem to “hang down.” In that imaginary instant, I couldn’t help calling out to him: “Don’t give up, boy. Don’t you quit. You keep walking. You keep trying. There is help and happiness ahead—a lot of it—30 years of it now, and still counting. You keep your chin up. It will be all right in the end. Trust God and believe in good things to come.”