Trust a Little Bit

It's easy to have faith and trust in God when your life is sailing on smooth seas. It can still be easy to trust in God when the seas get a little choppy for just a short amount of time, and they are calmed before much time passes.  When it feels as if you are lost at sea amidst a ferocious storm, and your light doesn't cast a beam through the fog, and you don't know if you are getting any closer to shore, your faith is tried to degrees you never thought possible.

 If someone had told me over four years ago that I would still be single, I would have had a difficult time believing it. After all, how difficult could it really be to meet, date, fall in love, and re-marry someone again?  For some people it seems to be a cakewalk. They get divorced, they meet somene fabulous in a matter of months or a couple of years, and they get another shot at happiness. I have probably "cake walked" around the world several times. Since I have so much practice, maybe I should start a show for divorcees called "The Amazing Cake Race." I'm sure it would look something like this

or this

or even this

Seriously though.....after a year goes by it gets discouraging. After a couple more years go by I start wondering is it me? After you fall in love again in year three and it ends in year four I asked, "why me?" and those who know me well know that I don't ask that very often. 

 There is so much I don't know, but this is what I do know. I have dated enough to know that there are men who find me attractive, funny, sexy, intelligent, kind, and stable....meaning I'm not some crazy whack job. Even though my marriage ended, I know how to love and have a relationship. For whatever reason, it just hasn't happened yet.

Married people often like to give advice to divorced people about being single. Not always a good idea. They tend to think that if you can't be happy being single that  you are desperate and don't know how to be by yourself. My question for them is, "would you like to be by yourself?'  It doesn't have anything to do with desperation, or the inability to be alone. This is a fabulous explanation said by this man right here.

"Love is something you and I must have. we must have it because our spirit feeds upon it, we must have it because, without it we become weak and faint. without love our self-esteem weakens. without it our courage fails. without love, we can no longer look out confidently at the world. with love, we are creative. with love, we march tirelessly. with love, and with love alone, we are able to sacrifice for others." Chief Dan George, Geswanouth Slahoot, Tse-lai-Watt Nation (1899-1981)

I have felt all of these thing at one point or another over the last few years, and many of them at the same time. Maybe I continue to try because I"m stubborn. Maybe I'm a hopeless romantic. Maybe it's because I usually see the glass more full than empty. Maybe it's for the reasons Chief Dan George stated. Yes, there is love for children, friends, family, and fellow man. But love for a spouse, a companion, friend, and lover fills a need and a place that the others can't.

I know I'm not alone in my trials. I have many friends who are going through similar ones, or something of an entirely different nature that is just as difficult for them. Maybe the miracle isn't that our struggles are taken away. Some people's struggles will never be resolved in this lifetime.  Maybe the miracle is that we are able to get up every day and put one foot in front of the other. And we do it again tomorrow, and the next day after that...but maybe, just maybe, I will receive my desired miracle. Maybe...

I've had to wait so long because my kids needed to grow up a little more. Maybe I needed to learn how to have my needs met, not just meet someone else's. Maybe....God has had the perfect man in mind for me all of these years and he's just been waiting for him to be ready. For me to be ready. For both of us to be ready for each other. 

I'm trying. 

...For thy Good

Sometimes, a kind and loving God gives us what we most want, but most of the time, he gives us what we most need. I know we have all had situations in our lives that we struggle to understand.  As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we know there is a reason why God allows suffering and pain amongst his children who he loves as we love our own children.  When Joseph Smith was suffering greatly from being unjustly imprisoned in Carthage Jail, he cried unto the heavens for relief and was told by his loving God and father that

“If thou art called to pass through tribulation; if thou art in perils among false brethren; perils among robbers; perils by land and sea; if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the billowing surge conspire against thee, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience and shall be for thy good.”D&C122

That’s a hard pill to swallow sometimes. It’s not even a pill that takes away pain or suffering. It’s the bitter pill of enduring to the end and remaining faithful amidst great trials in whatever form they come. For some it is the loss of child. For others it is the loss of a spouse due to death or divorce. The pill comes in the form of disappointments, loneliness, fear, poor health, sin, and a myriad of other forms. The healing power for the bitter pill is the balm of Gilead, given willingly and selflessly to us by a loving Savior who suffered so he might know how to succor us.

On my way to pick up Ethan this morning, I was praying as I drove in my car; sharing my needs, wants, desires, and fears with my Father in Heaven. As soon as I ended my prayer I turned on the radio and it was playing “Be Still Thy Soul.” My Heavenly Father knows what that song means to me. It was one I sung over and over in my head during the first couple years after my divorce when I would lay in bed at night, feeling so utterly alone, not feeling comforted or at peace. I clung to those words in the dark night, trying to have faith that one day the joy and peace promised would be mine again.

This is not the first time this has happened with this particular song. I hear it often on the radio on Sundays, but there has been another time, when this daughter sent up the same kind of heartfelt prayer and heard this song immediately afterward. I’m not sure that everyone else was hearing the same song I was this morning, but I know it was a gift to me. In his wisdom, and I try so hard to trust in this, he withholds and gives, according to my faith and his plan for me. I do not always get what I want, but today my Father gave me what I needed to feel his love for me and to remind this daughter that my prayers are heard and that they indeed do matter.

~Kristin

To Be Ambitious or Wise....Why Not Both?

There are so many wise people in the world. I don't profess to be one of them, but I am a student of them. Some people not only had the breath of life softly blown into them at birth, but wisdom and words as well. They then breathed them back out, sending them on the winds of thought so someone else could take them in, breathe them in deeply, and then decide how they will allow those words to impact and influence their life.

My words will not reach the stars, but it is my ambition to be wise enough, every now and then, to reach a few hearts during my sojourn here on this beloved earth. Few may ever read the words I write, but for me,

 "The need to write comes from the need to make sense of one's life and discover one's usefulness." ~ John Cheever

I have left my Lemonade Girl blog behind. It served a purpose when I started it. It was my healing blog...my "putting my world back together blog." I'm not sure what this blog will be. I hope it will be a place for me to grow creatively, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually. If there is anything to be gleaned from these pages in the form of friendship, sharing, and laughter, then I would love to have my dear friends, old and new, and those yet undiscovered, along for some of the ride.

~Kristin