Trials

I've never blogged before... so this should be interesting.

My main goal for this blog is for it to be encouraging to others. I don't want it to be all about me and how completely awesome I am. I want it to be stories from my life or new understandings of the world that can help other people with their problems or see them in a new light. I suppose that does mean it will be focused on me, but I hope that it will be a kind of focus that allows others to gain a better perspective on their own lives. Since my roommates will probably be the only ones actively reading my blog, it might just serve as a better understanding of me, and I guess that's okay, too.

I'm one of those people that likes to quote movies in everyday speech, so I'm going to quote one of my favorites. "The night is darkest just before the dawn" (The Dark Knight). This goes along with my overall theme of enduring to the end. We all have our challenges that sometimes seem like they are more than we can bear. It's important to remember that it will get better. It's going to get harder before it gets easier, but it will get easier.

Leaving to come to college scared me... a lot. I'm not very good with change, nor am I very good with completely new experiences where I am on my own. I had a breakdown a couple days before my mom left after dropping me off. At that point, I didn't know how I was going to make it through college. I remembered the blessing my dad gave me before I left and I prayed for strength. I decided to gather my courage and put my fear behind me. It was hard at first, like most things, but it quickly got better. My roommates have turned out to be really good friends. My classes aren't as ridiculously hard as my high school teachers made them out to be. It has been really nice having my sister live just five minutes away and some of my extended family about a half hour away. The Lord has blessed me tremendously and I am very grateful.

I've noticed that it is really easy to look back on trials and realize how insignificant they were, but while going through them, they're hard and can completely consume your thoughts. I'm currently stuck in the rut of being single, which is supposedly more fun. I'm pretty sure that's not true when everyone's looking to be with someone, but I wouldn't know since I never have. It's not because I haven't been looking. I just have never been able to get something to work out with someone, unfortunately. It's been trying (probably why they call it a trial) and so incredibly hard to be positive about it all the time, but I know that eventually, it's going to happen and it will be great. I just need to be patient. Sister Oaks, the "poster girl for the singles ward," shared in a fireside that she had a blessing in which she was told if she could not handle the single life, she would never be able to handle the married life. At the time, I wasn't feeling as down about being single as I am now, but remembering these words has given me comfort.

The Lord will never turn His back on us; we're the ones who turn our backs on Him. Trials are designed to make us stronger and help us learn to rely on Him. I think of trials like I think of drawing. I would be terrible at it if I had never been pushed and if I had not responded with doing my best. He just wants us to do our best. That's my goal for life... I think it's a pretty good one :)