Trust in the Lord

I don't much care for trials and tribulations.  The ones we have faced have been so hard, but many of our own making.  I have a friend and her trials have been with sacrifice of time mostly.  Seems to me to be an easier way to face hardship, but we each have our roads to travel and I am sorry we are on the road we are on.  We are trying desperately to get back on the path that will help us feel the ultimate joy even through hard times, but for now we continue to suffer.

Being out of work and financial stress takes a lot from you.  I am surprised at how hard it is to stay "anxiously engaged" when you do what you can do to keep your head above water.  Your whole person seems to hurt for something that you don't have.  While I count my blessings for the many, many beautiful blessings that are in my life, and recognize that things could be worse than they are, it still does not take away the pain that just living has become.

The other day a sister said that when she faced the same trials she would say, "I guess I didn't learn what I needed to learn."  I have heard that often, but I would hope that when you repeat a trial, you are a different person this time around.  While it seems like we have faced this trial too many times, I hope that I am a different person.  Of course, I would hope always becoming a better person, but when you feel like a lot of suffering is because of the actions of another, it hurts all the more.  Unfortunately, many times we all suffer because of choices of others, but perhaps I need to look and see what I could have done or can do to prevent us from walking on that sad rode ever again.

There are times when I can't think straight.  I feel like I say and do everything wrong.  Satan has a way of trying to beat you down.  Especially me.  He knows how much I love people and want to please them.   He knows that when I feel like I have let someone down by saying or doing something they didn't agree with, that I will tear myself apart wishing that I could have done things differently.

One good thing that I have learned in my life is that you NEVER should judge another person that is trying to do what is right.  There are so many factors that contribute to who we are and what we say and do. There are personalities and handicaps that we all face within ourselves that others may never know or understand.  We think and feel with what we know and what we have experienced.  Though we try to walk in another shoes, we can only partially know what the feel and see.  There is always places in the mind and the heart that only one person and can see and know, and that is our Savior Jesus Christ.  I am so grateful that he knows I am striving to be the best I can.  I am pushing forward despite the pain and agony that goes on with me.  He knows and understands the personal battle that I fight within myself better than I know.

It pains me to feel that I have hurt or disappointed anyone.  It hurts so much that I disappoint myself in some way everyday.  It hurts that we need to provide for ourselves and yet we can't.  It hurts that pain sometimes controls my life and I sub-comb to be driven by  forces that cause me to not take control of my own life.  I can only keep looking and moving forward the best I can hoping and praying that our Heavenly Father will indeed forgive me for my shortcomings.  In a world where I know no one really understands me because there is so much inside of me that can't be shared, but there is one that does know.  I must hang on and hope for a better tomorrow but one wonders if and when that tomorrow will ever come.

Saying all of this, I know there are so many challenges others face that I would not like to stand in their shoes.  I would not like to face the pain and heartache that others face.  While I don't like my trial and often feel like it will never end, I am grateful that I have not been called to suffered more than I have.

I don't know what the days ahead hold.  I would have never guessed that we would be where we are today.  I have made some bad choices in my life and sometimes wonder if that one decision years ago set me on this road instead of a better one.  I don't know.  I just know that no matter what, I want to become like my Savior Jesus Christ.  I want to receive the blessing of eternity.  I don't want to ever forget who I am and what I have been given.  This life is temporary, who I am and what I am trying to become has to be the focus even when I can't see a light at the end of the tunnel, I have to remember to always look at the light that is with me as I travel down this dark, dreary and painful path and learn to TRUST IN THE LORD!