After struggling with self-esteem during my teen years, I have grown a love for studying how positive psychology, self-esteem, and the atonement all play together. I also love writing, crafting, baking, guest speaking to young women, and occasionally you’ll find me coaching a girl for a local pageant.
When I was in eight grade, I remember laying on the couch home from school, with the worst stomach pain I have ever known. I mustered up a silent prayer in my thirteen-year-old faithful heart certain that Heavenly Father would take the pain away because of my faith. As soon as I finished my prayer, directly after the prayer, the pain multiplied by ten.
Tears started streaming down my face from the pain. I felt broken and confused, weren’t prayers supposed to help? What about the scripture “Ask and ye shall receive?” At this point I honestly felt hurt and betrayed by Heavenly Father and I became terrified to pray when I was in pain and needed relief. This experience led me to fear my prayers would cause more pain than relief and I was better off not praying.
What I didn’t realize then that I know now is the Savior was right by my side at the moment, suffering just as much as I. I didn’t quite understand at that point that Heavenly Father allows us to go through really hard things so we can learn and grow. No bad thing ever comes from God, He allows it to happen, but He doesn’t cause it. Absolutely nothing happens outside of the eyes of Heaven.
I constantly try to run from hard things instead of facing them head on, I simply don’t like pain of any kind. But in my twenty-something years of striving to become the girl I was meant to be, I’ve learned that gaining character and refinement isn’t always comfortable, sometimes it’s A LOT of pain, but it is always worth it.
When I am asked the question, “What’s the hardest thing you’ve been through?” I sometimes just want to shrivel up because I have been pretty blessed. Some people face REALLY HARD things, things I can’t fathom. And while I have faced pain, trial, loneliness, and sorrow; I really haven’t faced the burdens some are called to bear. But I’ve learned that we have all come to earth called to go through different things for different reasons. We can’t measure pain by the human eye, we can’t compare sorrow and grief. God loves each of His children the same. The hard things we are called to bear and the things that will help us personally grow the most.
Oh, I know loneliness. Being the shy girl in elementary and Jr. high is NOT easy when you want to make friends but you’re terrified of reaching out to others for fear of rejection. Always being the girl that was left out between a group of friends or finding out you weren’t invited to a party.
Oh I know heartbreak. Sacrificing so much for someone you care about. Doing everything you possibly can to help someone with an addiction, only to find that they still choose that addiction over all the support you have given. Going out of your way to do everything for this person and then having the courage to walk away when you’ve learned enough is enough.
Oh I know rejection. Competing in nine different pageants and never being crowned queen. From pouring your heart and soul into preparation to come up short and be judged by forty-five different judges.
Oh I know fear. Anxiety is practically paralyzing when it comes. I honestly would describe panic attacks as the worst pain ever. And then the guilt that comes after from living in fear instead of faith.
Oh I know mental illness. Growing up with a mom who had OCD only to be diagnosed with it myself two years out of high school. At one point of my life it paralyzed my normal routine and I found myself obsessing over every single door knob handle, handshake, restaurant, and illness the rest of mankind was looking over. Thank goodness it hasn’t been as bad since. But that year was the most exhausting one yet. And then to face depression and ADD on top of it didn’t make things any easier.
Quite honestly, the hardest time in my entire life was the end of last year. September, October, and November of 2015 were the hardest three months of my life and the odd thing about it was nothing REALLY TRAGIC had happened. I had just hit the end of my rope and I wasn’t being an agent unto myself. I was allowing Satan to control every thought only to make me feel so miserable I started to feel as if I was a grain of sand just waiting to be washed up by the shore, never to be seen again.
At this time, I was suffering from anxiety and depression in a way I had not experienced before. I would cry at least fifty times a day, I know it sounds like I’m exaggerating, but that’s how real it was. I would lay on the floor by my bed and just cry, the hard cry where your face gets all tingly and you become so exhausted from the emotional drain it causes. I had left my job (long story I will have to share sometime) and I was looking for another one, although I really thought I should be “waiting on God”, boy was I wrong. I felt purposeless, I felt miserable. I kept dwelling on what I hadn’t accomplished in my life. I kept dwelling on why I hadn’t been married and started a family yet. I kept dwelling on why God was constantly telling me “No”.
I was dealing with the heaviest burden and secret a friend had told me at this time, a friend I never saw in person but would talk to constantly. I had never known loneliness like I did these three months. It was as if all the friends that I had had dropped off the planet at this time. It was trying. It was hard. As much as I try to write these months down, as much as I try to tell you the story, I can’t explain it like I felt it. I can’t explain the worthlessness that I felt. I can’t explain the pain that I faced or the fear that seemed to paralyze me constantly.
What I can tell you is that life gets better! It always gets better. During this hard time, as much as it felt like I had been abandoned by God and I was being completely overlooked and forgotten by Him I know see so clearly how much He cared and was looking after me. I have no doubt in my mind that if I could get through those three rough months that had no visible pain but the emotional pain would be described as my own Gethsemane, then I know without a doubt I can do hard things. I was born to do hard things. Especially with my Savior at my side, going through everything I face, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.