will heaven be hard for you?

one of my favorite parts of the LDS faith is our belief in eternal families. you can be sealed to your spouse and children and parents in the temple. this means that even after death, that bond is not broken.

i am sealed to my parents, as are my siblings.

many of my siblings are sealed to their spouses, and i am sealed to nathan.

because i am sealed to my parents, i can live with them forever. nathan is not sealed to my parents, but he is sealed to me. which means, that he will be living with my parents forever as well -- so long as he and i remain faithful to our vows/covenants.

likewise, nathan is sealed to his parents. i am not directly sealed to them, but we are connected through his sealing to them.

i adore his parents and his brothers and am honored and excited to have them in my eternal family circle.

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lately i have been contemplating earthly relationships.

especially in this context of eternity, how are we treating those that we will be connected with forever?

i love nathan and am so lucky to also love his family. but if i didn't love one of them or any of them, how would that affect my eternity?

i think that heaven will be pretty hard if we cannot learn to love each other on earth.

indeed, heaven will be hard if we cannot practice kindness and respect on earth.

especially with family -- blood, in-law, adopted, church -- we must remember that this bond will not be severed.

you can't have the one person you choose and expect all the others they are connected to, to disappear.

when you picked that one, you picked the rest as well.

so, remember who is part of your family and treat them with the best of care because heaven will surely be hard if you don't.

bodies.

recently i let reality set in that i am the heaviest i have ever been.

there are physical explanations:

desk job

sugar intake

tv addiction

and each of them can be changed, fixed, remedied.

and there is the emotional explanation:

a few months after we first got married, i had a miscarriage. it wasn't even a real one -- a chemical pregnancy that my body sorted out.

but even when you know what is really happening, you wonder.

my whole life, all i've ever really wanted to be was a mom. in the way some crave being a doctor or a writer or an artist, i've longed for babies.

and seriously, it tore me up to even wonder if that was a glimpse into our future. that someday when we really did try and were ready for babies, that maybe my body wouldn't be able to handle that.

it's an illogical assumption, but such is life with hormones.

it doesn't matter that my husband looks at me exactly the same way as he did nine months ago.

i have destroyed my body by doubting my body.

i can eat less sugar and work out more and change these physical elements. i know this because i have done it before.

but learning to love a body that has failed you (even when that failure is more made-up than real,) is the hard part.

and this is the tipping point where i say that i've had enough.

for me, the emotion fed the laziness.

but excuses don't equal change. only work -- physical and emotional -- can effect the outcome.

today, the healing begins. beauty is not in a number. beauty is not a title to be awarded to you.

beauty is found in the love you show yourself.

**i vow to never try kale chips or learn to love quinoa

[via]

hope.

they don't tell you, but faith is the easy part.

science is great because these really smart people do hours and hours of research to prove things. but not every person has that kind of time.

so we have faith. we have opinions, beliefs, and thoughts; with fidelity and loyalty we hold strong to them even if there is not evidence of proof. we're good at opinions. a lot of the time, nothing can thwart our point of view. people can shove proof down our throats, but we'll still hold true to what we think.

(just look at those anti-vaccine moms.)

but hope.

hope is the true struggle.

[via]

to have the belief and opinions, and to look forward with reasonable confidence. to ignore the arguments, the negative voices in your head. to press on toward the future you expect and want.

some people don't see it, so to them, it must not be true. but you believe it at your very core without a single sight of evidence. and more importantly, you reach for the day that they are proven wrong.

to hope is to wait patiently. hope is the antitheses of argument. when someone is confident and full of hope, they do not feel the desire to convince joe down the street.

sure, you will defend and hold strong, but you will not waste time on frivolous debates. you know, you believe, and so you will wait.

hope that things will get better. hope that dark will turn to light. hope that nightmares will cease. wait, hold strong, persevere.

keep the faith and hope for the reality that is to come.

metaphor.

Picture a tree.

There's a thick, tough trunk. It supports branches that later bear blossoms and fruit. It holds leaves; constantly soaking up sunlight.

There are also roots. Roots that stretch and grow to collect water and nutrients. Roots are hidden, deep deep under the Earth. Not because they aren't valuable -- it is just the opposite. They're safe there.

There are strong trunks holding the weight of the world on their shoulders; fighting against the wind. There are roots ignoring fame and glory to nourish through summer and comfort through winter.

There are trunks and there are roots. They are different. They are separate. They are equal.

You can have roots without trunks and trunks without roots. But the happiest world has both.

Roots can strengthen trunks but they'll always be roots.

Trunks can renew energy to the roots, but they can't switch places.

There's different jobs to be done. We need both.

Do your job the best you can. Find happiness in your success. Reach, grow, improve.

You are not better or worse. You have a job. A noble, divine role. It's not the same as theirs, and it's supposed to be that way.