There were a few posts the other night I was looking at. One was a friend of mine who's husband is dying of a brain tumor. They have 2 little kids. The other was a friend who is getting a divorce after 30 years of marriage because of unfaithfulness. The other was a friend who just simply was having a hard time and didn't know how to handle it.
When I was reading through those posts and a few others I found my heart was so soft for them and their situations - many of those situations which I haven't been through (yet :-) ). The feelings I had reminded me of the words of the prophet Joseph Smith after his experience in Liberty Jail. About that horrific experience he said, "But it was not in vain, because our hearts had been made more tender."
It caused me to think about the things that I have been through that have caused my heart to be tender. I know what it is like to:
- Be exhausted after a long day of little kids
- Homeschool and figure out how to educate my kids on my own
- Be persecuted because of my faith and my beliefs from people who should have been some of the most influential people in my life
- Cry myself to sleep at night because of IRS levies and garnishments, not knowing how to let go of the stress of money and survival
- Be so lonely because of a spouse with a pornography problem
- Work on forgiving the person that I am supposed to trust the most
- Not have enough money for rent and go to the church for support
- Have my credit be shot and not able to be qualified for anything
- Have a family member and friends commit suicide
- Not know how to handle emotions because of a mother with major anxiety problems
- Look at my house and never feel like I am going to catch up
- Be so sick from pregnancy that I can't move
- Go through the pains and getting to the "veil of death" through natural child birth
- Go through the pains of a C-section and getting over surgery
- Have body aches/sprains/tears that takes months to heal
- Lose a business, homes, material things and start over
- Live in a foreign land and miss home terribly, learn the language and work hard
- Be single for a long time and long for a husband, children and a forever family
- Go through depression and feel stuck and lost
- Have close family members go through drug addiction
- Learn to love family members who are homosexual, but maintain different opinions about it all
- Have doubts about my faith, study, pray and work on a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and build my own testimony
- Understand the atonement because of forgiveness of a spouse who made serious sexual mistakes before marriage
- Be exhausted from a long day at "the office", working with high maintanence families and teenagers
- Feel emotionally exhausted from being the "anchor" for so many of my friends and family, and not feeling like I can do it any more
This is the just the start of a few of the things that have caused my heart to be made "more tender". But, the greatest part is that it's not just because of the hard things that my heart has sympathy. It is also because of all the victories in my life as well. Like:
- Having children and holding my newborn babies close to my heart, feeling joy beyond anything describable
- Having a very successful career and supporting myself for a long time
- Forgiving my spouse, working through it together, going back to the temple, looking into each other's eyes and working on love - the verb.
- Be involved in community service projects that feed families bodies, souls and spirits
- Giving back to my neighborhood, loving my callings in the church and fulfilling my stewardships involved because I love the people and my Lord
- Going through such work to have my own testimony, then standing up in front of a crowd, share my powerful testimony and have it touch people's hearts
- Perform music and feel the power that is in music, carrying it to people's hearts
- Loving my husband, making love to him, giving my whole heart and soul to each other
- Go to the temple and keep those covenants, knowing that I have worked hard to keep them, feeling the satisfaction of that reassurance
- Having a lot of fun in my life, smiling a lot and uplifting people as much as I can
- Being with my soul mate - with everything we have been through together so far, I truly can say that I know he is my soul mate, that we are meant to go through these situations and experiences together
- Learning how to truly love
- Having adventures - being able to do so much with my life before I got married
- Going to Russia, traveling throughout the US, traveling to various places - Oh how I love to travel! I miss it
- Being loyal to my family, knowing that my father loves me, he adores me, knowing my mother's sacrifices to make our lives growing up the best she could give to us
- Having so many talents - loving the arts, painting, writing, reading, appreciating, loving beauty and adding it to my life
- Teaching myself about natural medicines, herbs, being as self reliant as I can
- Reading the scriptures and loving them, filling my life with the spirit
Once again - that is just the beginning of all the amazing things that I have experienced in my life. And I am not even 40 yet! There is so much to experience, especially to "make our hearts more tender".
What other people are going through doesn't diminish in anyway my trials and how I have learned - there is really no need to "compare" trials and think how hard it is for so many people, because of how different our trials are. But the same with our joys - our joys are so unique and meant for us as well!
I love you,
Your Mom
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