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.

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.

my thoughts on growing up in the mormon church.

i am the youngest of seven children, born to a mother and father that faithfully abided by the doctrines of the church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints. (and still do.)

growing up i attended three-hours of church service every sunday.
from the age of twelve, i attended an additional hour on tuesday evenings.
throughout high school, i reserved one credit-hour each semester to leave campus and take scripture courses.

my opinions on the church as a teenager were that there were far too many stories about pioneers.
there were a lot of references to obscurely-named characters from the book of mormon.
it seemed that i was to have every story memorized and able recite at any moment.
i knew to gasp upon mention of getting tattoos and showing too much skin.

i showed up happily to all these meetings. i understood what was being taught and i believed it.

more than anything, i observed the people. i watched what they did, i remembered what they said.
if, after observation, i felt that an individual seemed "good" i would listen to what they believed, then i would take their word for it.

after twenty-one years of doing everything i was told to do, one day i stopped and looked around and decided it wasn't for me.

so i quit going. i ignored phone calls. and suddenly i had all this free time.

then i experienced a down-ward spiral --that may or may not be related to the above-mentioned inactivity.
[the spiral did not consist of pre-marital sex or drinking or drugs or butterfly tramp-stamps.]

quite frankly i went from a euphoric, free feeling to unshakable self-doubt and despair.
but this is another story.

i experienced what i now refer to as a quarter-life crisis.

"We cannot teach Him anything! But we can listen to Him. We can love Him, we can honor Him, we can worship Him! We can keep His commandments, and we can feast upon His scriptures! Yes, we who are so forgetful and even rebellious are never forgotten by Him!" 
-- Neal A. Maxwell

church christmas dinner.

pouring rain.

wet shoes climbing a ladder.

heavy box overhead, while descending a ladder.

prayers that if i fall and die someone will find me soon.

safe landing.

wondering why i still haven't bought new windshield wipers.

u-turn for teeth brushing; wouldn't want dream boy to suffer.

bff jill saves the day.

psycho yells at me.

meet gaze with dream boy and ignore her.

people thinking i'm in charge.

happy about sitting under the chandelier. 

sad that dream boy is in another room.

peppermint dessert to die for.

hiding upstairs to have secret conversations.

spontaneous duet.

nearly choking on a cough drop.

frequent eye contact with dream boy.

bishop telling us to focus on perfecting ourselves.

distracted by the perfect ornaments and twinkling lights.

SANTA.

skinny santa?

lots of girls vying for dream boy's attention.

i throw a napkin at his head. [see above.]

he comes to me.

bff jill and flyza conveniently leave us alone. wink.

sporadic cleaning.

muscles and chest hair.

subtly following dream boy back inside.

watching psycho corner and interrogate him.

appreciating that he is so polite.

knowing i'll never jump in and save him because she'd probably yell at me again.

marveling at christmas decorations from tai pan.

wanting to steal the peppermint dessert.

awkward laughing at random boy's "jokes".

walking between psycho and dream boy to interrupt and say goodbye. [and get attention.]

he kicks me.

daydreaming all the way home.

It is not the end.

President Uchtdorf:

“No matter how bleak the chapter of our lives may look today, because of the life and sacrifice of Jesus Christ, we may hope and be assured that the ending of the book of our lives will exceed our grandest expectations.
“And to all who suffer—to all who feel discouraged, worried, or lonely—I say with love and deep concern for you, never give in. Never surrender. Never allow despair to overcome your spirit. Embrace and rely upon the Hope of Israel, for the love of the Son of God pierces all darkness, softens all sorrow, and gladdens every heart.”