Look forward and up, always.

Something that I’ve realized about myself since I’ve moved out to Utah is that I am absolutely, 100%, terrible at hiking. Utah has probably about a billion different hiking/walking trails to choose from, and they are all incredibly beautiful! The trees and the waterfalls and the gorgeous secret fields that you find, ah, it’s amazing. So when I think about going, I think “Man, I love to go hiking!”

Until I’m actually hiking.

Then, I wonder why I’m doing this. It’s difficult, and sometimes it’s really dirty, and it freaks me out to no end, especially when I’m by myself, because I’ve discovered that I am pretty darn terrified of mountain lions. Keep in mind, I’ve never actually seen a mountain lion (or even a paw print for that matter), but the fact that they even exist sometimes freaks me out enough that I don’t want to go at all.

However! I feel very strongly that one of the best ways to feel the Spirit, and to receive revelation, is to be out in nature, so I go anyway. The biggest thing I’ve realized while hiking, is that hiking is very much like following the gospel. But the gospel is harder.

Before I hike up a mountain, I like to stop before the trail starts, and see the end goal, so that I can keep that in mind while I’m killing myself. There’s a mountain in Provo, Utah that is called Y Mountain, and it has a huge “Y” (for BYU) on it, which is usually that part that people hike to. The Y Trail is probably the hardest workout that I have ever done, but every time I do it, and make it to the top, it’s worth it. You can see for miles and miles. When you go at night, it’s like you’re looking down on a million little stars when you’re looking at the city light. It’s beautiful, but the hike up is really awful. I imagine that celestial glory is much like this, but way better!

This life is so hard, and sometimes, maybe all the time, it’s overwhelming. It seems like there are so many things that you need to do, so many things that you’re missing out on, and throwing the gospel in there honestly sometimes makes it harder. Christ’s church is not an easy church to be a part of, but it wasn’t meant to be.

Like hiking, when you’re doing all that you can to follow the gospel exactly, it hurts. You will get sore and want to stop, and you will question at some point why you’re putting yourself through all of this. Unlike hiking a mountain, if you’re following the commandments then at one point, or multiple points in your life, you’ll also have people pushing you, shouting at you sometimes, to leave, to turn back and abandon the gospel, and that can be, and probably will be the most difficult thing. But I can promise you, and Heavenly Father promises you, that if you follow his commandments, if you do everything that you can to learn what you need to and get back to him, you will be blessed beyond anything you can imagine.

Seriously, I think it’s promised in the Book of Mormon about 500 times.

I have a friend of a friend who suffers from pretty severe depression. This friend of my friend is constantly battling this, yet she still finds a way to make it to church every Sunday, and fulfill her calling. Because of her depression, she’s unable to feel the Spirit the way that she normally would, and to me that would be the most difficult trial that I could go through. This girl was once asked, “How do you do this? You’re struggling so much, but you still are always trying, and always moving forward? How? And why?” The girl’s response is one that I’ll always remember. She said, “I can’t feel the Spirit now, but I remember when I could. And through all of this, I’ll hold on to that memory, and be motivated by what I once knew to be true, and what I’ve once felt.”

How amazing is that? I hope one day to be as strong as this girl. There have been a lot of times within the past three years (almost) that I’ve wanted to give up totally and revert back to what my old life was like. Everyone goes through that I think. But something that you have to remember is that you are absolutely never ever alone. Heavenly Father loves you more than you could ever imagine, and nothing will ever change that! No matter how much you back track, no matter how much you think you don’t deserve it, no matter how many scraped knees and broken arms you get on the way up this mountain, he will always be right next to you, helping you along the way, and encouraging you, if you will only listen.

I love this quote by one of our apostles, Jeffrey R. Holland, that says “Don’t you give up. Don’t you quit. You keep walking, you keep trying, there is help and happiness ahead…It will be alright in the end. Trust God, and believe in good things to come.”

I think one of Satan’s very best tricks is that he makes us believe that because of our mistakes in the past, that we are not enough in the present. Don’t listen to him! You are enough! You are loved! And I know that when you get to the end of this trial, and this very long journey, you’ll know that everything you’ve done and sacrificed was completely and totally worth it. We need opposition to know true happiness.

So keep climbing, even though it hurts. Keep looking forward, even if you want to turn around and go home. Wipe away the sweat, and the tears, and push harder than you ever have. It’s hard, but you will get there. I promise!

Not in the Plan

This is not how I thought my life would turn out. Not even a little bit. Like, if you take my life currently and then flip it totally the opposite way, that’s how I had planned everything out. A little over three years ago I had in my head that I would graduate from high school, I would go off to college (probably), and then for the rest of my life I’d travel the world, never married, never having children, just free like I had always wanted to be. I’d have a lot of tattoos, spend my time (when I wasn’t admiring beautiful historical monuments) in pubs and dance clubs, and probably (if I’m being honest) never give religion or any kind of spirituality a thought.

I have never been the type for rules, never been the type for lasting companionship, and never ever been the type for listening to authority. In fact, one of my earliest and fondest childhood memories is of when I was about five years old, and my mother was tucking me into bed. As she left the room and told me to go to sleep now, I realized that I had only ever been tucked into the right side of my bed. In my head, it was a rule that my mother had implemented that I would always sleep on the right side of the bed. Although that rule was totally made up in my head, I was enraged that I didn’t get to choose for myself which side of the bed I slept on, so I very sneakily crept over my mountains of stuffed animals, and fell asleep on the left side of my bed, satisfied that I had made my own decision on where I was going to sleep that night. From that night on, I lived my life in pretty much the same fashion – continuously questioning the rules and pushing the boundaries. My poor mother.

But she got used to it, and so did the rest of my family, and so did all of my friends. That’s what I became known for, that’s what I identified as – the rebellious, always right, lives by her own rules and no one else’s girl.

So you can imagine everyone’s surprise (to put it mildly) when I announced that I wanted to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints – a church known by everyone to be a church of rules and regulations (again, putting it mildly).

To be fair, I was also surprised. God had always been at least a small part of my life, but this was a church that, in order to be baptized, I had to give up quite a few things that had become part of normal life for me. Like tea, and 10% of my income. And three hours of every Sunday, without even a shopping trip as a reward. At first that seemed like a lot to ask, and to be honest it was really weird. I could not, for the life of me, understand why people would voluntarily give up that stuff.

I remember going to a coffee/tea/hot chocolate shop with a close friend of mine, who was LDS, to talk about the church, because that was somewhere that I was comfortable. He got a hot chocolate, I got some black tea. When I offered him some of my tea, he said no, that it was something that he had been taught you to avoid. At first my rebellious self (my “natural man” I would later learn to call it) thought, “Well that’s a little bit oppressive.” But as we went through our conversation, and as I went through the following days, I began to feel lighter about what he was taught, and to be more curious than anything, wondering what it was that would make someone not just voluntarily, but happily give something like that up.

I don’t remember when I first started to give tea and other things up, but I do remember that it was very rarely a struggle to do so. I saw the Mormon.org videos, and I saw the light that my friend’s family had in their eyes, and I wanted that. I craved that. I needed that, and I felt so strongly that one of the first steps to gain that light was to give up these things that had become part of every day, “normal” life. But I didn’t care. I didn’t care what I had to give up, I didn’t care what I had to do, I just wanted this whatever-it-is that everyone had. I didn’t even know what to call it other than light, but I wanted it.

There’s a scripture in the bible (Mark 10:25) that says, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” For about 20 years of my life I had no idea what this scripture really meant. I really thought it was saying that it was impossible for a rich man to be saved, because obviously, a camel cannot fit through an eye of a needle (I hope other people have thought that, otherwise this will be embarrassing). However, I learned recently that in biblical times, the “eye of a needle” was a name for a camel holding area. The door to this area was this teeny door that, for the camel to fit through, required the owner of the camel to strip the camel of all of its packs and whatnot, and the camel would have to kneel down and sort of crawl through this door. I, in a sense, became a camel – a very happy camel.

Every chance that I got I would get on Mormon.org and watch the videos, I would chat with the missionaries online, I would read my copy of the Book of Mormon, and I would pray, seemingly nonstop. As I threw these things (coffee, tea, shopping on Sunday, etc.) to the side, and ran full force to Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and their gospel, I felt the happiest, the most excited, the most joyful, that I had ever felt in my entire life. And when it came time for me to make that decision, “Will you follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized?” it was an absolute, 100%, no-brainer, yes.

 So yes, my life is the exact opposite way that I thought it would be. Instead of getting excited about which bar or whatever that I’m going to go to this weekend, I get excited about church, and scriptures, and bible videos, and going to the temple! And instead of being a single lady for the rest of my life, I’m getting married to the man of my dreams in less than three months! And instead of living each day all willy-nilly, I wake up every morning knowing that my life has purpose, and meaning, and it’s exciting. And as a plus, I am happier than I thought it was humanly possible to be.

This gospel that I’ve found does not hold me to the ground. It does not limit me. Instead it frees me, and empowers me, it allows me to fly higher than I ever have or ever would have before.