Yesterday we had the opportunity to listen to President Nelson, prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. There was a great peace that I felt with his message with so much turmoil and challenges going on around us. He shared that the greatest remedy is GRATITUDE. The positive effects of gratitude have been validated by science. He challenged us to use our social media over the next 7 days to be a personal gratitude journal - post everyday for the next 7 days about what we are grateful for, who we are grateful for and why we are grateful. I have absolutely loved scrolling facebook yesterday and today and seeing so much positive and learning such great things about so many. As I’ve pondered this I thought I would share what I’m most grateful for over the last 12 months. It’s not that I’ve not had angels throughout my life, in fact as I’ve noticed this more this year, I’ve reflected on so many different angels in my life at different stages. Honestly, I know that there were angels that came into my life throughout the years and they helped me as far as I would let them help me. I want to share about some of the angels in my life, specifically over the last 12 months. I’ve been blessed with a dear friend as my ministering sister. Over the years she has been very in tune and will reach out, drop by, drop something off and I’ve always been amazed by her timing. I know she listens to the spirit. We’ve always been very close, but last year as Brayden started to struggle on his mission she would come over very regularly to visit with me. I could cry, laugh, smile, be grumpy, share my frustrations - everything with her. There was a point she was touching base with me every single day. Over the years I’ve shared with her some of my struggles and she has watched me struggle and has encouraged me to go to counseling. I never felt I had time to do that. I also shared with her the promptings I had about doing a blog. She’s always encouraged me to do it, but I’ve been very resistant. I’m so grateful that she and I were able to go to the temple 2 days before all of the temples closed down in March. It was truly a very spiritual experience that has gotten me through this year. Through the process of Brayden trying to decide if he should come home there was a day I felt strongly to have our bishop come over and facetime with him on one of his P-days. Brayden has always shared a very special bond with him. He came over and the two of them were able to visit and he was able to feel the same spirit that we had felt with his decision to come home. Our bishop was in regular contact with us and supported us through the process of Brayden coming home. There was a point that alot hit in our home and the struggles had become too much. He came over to our home and visited with Rick and I. As we visited he could see that I was struggling, not just a little bit, but at an overwhelming level that I truly felt I was having a nervous breakdown. It had been a hard year - not just with Brayden and his mission. He felt inspired to ask me if I would go to counseling and he knew of a counselor that he would like me to go to. This was the end of November, and though I was very resistant and didn’t feel there was any way, I accepted and started counseling the end of December. Gratitude is truly the best medicine to healing. When Brayden returned home from his mission it was a difficult time for him. He struggled to talk about his mission. He returned home on December 3rd and I wanted to give him a little something for Christmas that represented his time in Wales / England. Of course, I had no clue. The middle of December I timidly reached out to his trainer and asked for some suggestions. As I reached out his trainer gave me some ideas and also took the time to ask how Brayden was doing. I was so grateful for his kindness and willingness to share how much he loved and cared about Brayden. I was grateful for his willingness to share experiences, give more information about things that Brayden would start to share about. It was such a blessing to have his support as I worked through things with Brayden at home. He was a great support and became a very important part of our family. In April things were shifting in my life. There were some big things happening and not realizing what I really needed the Lord did know what I needed. In October 2016 my oldest was serving in the Seattle, Washington Mission. There was a newly married couple that was so good to feed the missionaries and take care of them with whatever they needed. This young couple was so good to my son as a missionary. On New Year’s Eve 2016 I was missing Michael something terrible. I was wishing I could know what he was doing, how he was doing. Around 9:00 p.m. that evening I got some videos and pictures from this couple. This was truly an answer to my prayers. In June 2017 we were in Washington and had the opportunity to meet the Perry’s. From the moment we met them they were family. It truly was like spirits reconnecting. We’ve chatted over the years, seen each other a few times, they came to Utah to surprise Michael. When they announced they were expecting my boys were going to be uncles and Rick and I were going to be a grandpa and grandma. We didn’t chat too often - an occasional touch base. Leading into General Conference Lindsey and I communicated about sharing conference thoughts with each other. Then the boys facetimed them that Sunday evening. Little did I know that this time, after 4 years, there was going to be a completely different bond this time. The Lord knew that I needed Lindsey. Her life experiences helped her understand me. As she and I would touch base daily, I started opening up more and more about my life. The real things that have happened in my life. She also had a way of saying things that I would never talk about and then she created an atmosphere for me to feel comfortable. She has seen me at my absolute worst - which I’ve never let anyone see me at my worst. When they came to Utah they stayed with us. My boys were shocked! I’ve never been too open to having people in my home - I feel very self conscious. And then the ultimate thing happened, according to my boys, I let her come in my bedroom and we hung out and we all talked while I did my hair and makeup. Tylor, Lindsey and Oliver (their adorable son) have truly become a very close part of our family. They are family. We talk about living by each other in Heaven. She has truly been an angel in my life and gotten me through some very difficult things. As I’ve shared with her my experiences in preparing for this blog she believed in me, encouraged me and pointed out the miracles that surrounded the timing of starting this blog. Of course, my boys and Rick have truly been angels in my life. Due to the difficult things I’ve been through in my life things weren’t all that everyone thought they were in our home. It has truly been an amazing blessing having all of us go to counseling and work through different things. It’s so nice to sit around and talk in the same terms and the different tools we have all gained. The Lord knew that through all of this that I would need angels outside of my home to help me balance all that has been happening this last year. He knew that I needed angels in my life that helped prove wrong the relationship beliefs I’ve had most of my life. Through the different angels in my life the Lord guided me and prepared me after 25 years to start this blog. I finally felt that I was in a place that I could share my story and follow the Lord’s guidance to bless others lives with my experiences. The Lord knew the angels I needed to get to this point. The timing was right. Yes, I’ve been blessed with many angels in my life and many friends and those that love and support me. The kind words, going out to lunch, supportive friends with all of my projects, the list goes on. I do know that the Lord has blessed me with very specific angels this year that have taken my hand and led me step by step through the most difficult journey of my life. Yes, there are angels among us and I have come to understand how much love my Heavenly Father and Savior love me and through those that are here in my life. There is so much more love in our home. Gratitude is truly the best medicine to healing. I challenge each of you to look for opportunities to be an angel and to recognize the special angels in your life.
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Have you ever resigned from something? Submitted a resignation? What does resignation mean to you? From a young age I liked to be involved. I liked to be in charge, be in leadership and put big events together. I always found a way to pull things off. There was no way things weren’t going to happen and I liked to go big. Over the years I’ve had friends and family that pitched in to help make the visions I had happen. Quitting, giving up or settling for less wasn’t even in my vocabulary. Throughout my boy’s lives I’ve been the same way and have committed to many things over the last 23 years. Once again, it’s been family and friends that stepped up and helped make things happen. I’ve always said that I’ve been blessed by having great people around me so I can’t take the credit for the things that have happened As I’ve shared in previous blogs, September 2018 was a big turning point for me. I made the decision to resign from some positions that I loved and been involved with for years. I found myself saying then and even over the last couple of years that I had never resigned from anything and the first time I had resigned from anything. This morning I had a situation that has been on my mind for quite awhile. It’s a situation I’ve struggled with for awhile and I found myself saying to myself, “I’ve got to resign myself to accept the facts and take the emotion out of it. I need to accept the inevitable.” As I thought about this I found myself recognizing that I’ve resigned a lot of things in my life. In fact 2 years ago wasn’t my first resignation. It actually was the beginning of acknowledging my feelings and truly doing what was best for me. In fact 2 years ago wasn’t my first resignation. It actually was the beginning of acknowledging my feelings and truly doing what was best for me. So, 2 years ago I applied the first definition, but throughout my life the second definition has been a part of my life. Due to the abuse at an early age and over the years there were many patterns and beliefs in my life that I accepted that were undesirable, but I felt were inevitable. These are some of the things that I had resigned myself to at an early age and believed until this year and honestly I’m still working on. As my counselor has said, I’m sincerely rewiring my brain after all of these years of a specific belief system.
I’m so grateful for the things that happened this morning that caused me to pause and really think about resignation. I’m grateful the situation this morning turned out better than I thought and I didn’t have to resign to accept something that would cause me to be very sad. So, I ask the question again? Have you ever resigned? Have you ever submitted a resignation - especially to yourself? The resignation I submitted 2 years ago was very painful and honestly still hurts, but the resignation that’s hurt the most are the ones I accepted for myself for all of these years. The undesirable that was inevitable is not the inevitable and I don’t have to accept the undesirable. I’m grateful I’m not accepting my own resignation anymore - I’m worth much more than that. This one is a little harder for me to write. It’s tough to share the reality of what I’ve been through with my health, but have felt for the last little bit that this is something I need to share. I hope this will help others. I don’t share this for any sympathy. I’m good and excited for the progress I’m making and know that things will all come together. This is a journey that has taught me a lot. During my teenage years I didn’t feel well often and my mom would take me to doctors and did everything she could to try to help me. The doctors didn’t have a lot of answers, but we tried different things. One of the great struggles was my cycle each month. I would be crippled and be nauseated and spend much time in the restroom trying to survive. At 16 I went to an OBGYN and he felt I was too young for birth control, which was what he felt would help with my cycle. I also struggled with my thyroid so I was put on synthroid. When I was 21 I went on a full time mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to Arizona. In November I got to the mission field and the first two weeks of my mission weren’t what I expected. We sat in our place most of the time. Two weeks into my mission my trainer went home and I got a new trainer. I was a brand new missionary, in a brand new state and area and didn’t really know anyone. Each evening we would report in to our District Leader and he was very supportive and kind to me. This opened my eyes to how I could be treated. Many of my past experiences had been very different. Of course, I did have good friends throughout the year, but many of my relationships were not healthy. Throughout all of this my health really crumbled. Each morning as I would take a shower the water hitting my skin would hurt extremely bad. I was grateful for my trainer that helped me serve and work hard as a missionary, but also saw that there was much more going on for me. We met with the Mission President and he scheduled me to go and see a counselor. As I met with the counselor and we went through my life and that I had not shared these experiences with others he said I got to this point due to being stubborn. Throughout my mission I did counseling on P-days and received help with my health. My cycles got so bad that I ended up having surgery 7 months into my mission. They went in and removed a lot of my endometriosis. Within a few days I was able to be back out working as a missionary. As I returned home from my mission I started back into counseling. There was a point that I had a tougher counseling appointment and was in a car accident heading home. I had a handful of injuries from that accident. Just over a year after returning home from my mission I needed to have surgery again for the endometriosis and the doctor let me know that the odds were not in my favor of having children with how fast the endometriosis was spreading. He suggested that my best odds of being able to be pregnant was within 6 months of the surgery. I was really blessed that the Lord guided things perfectly and Rick and I were best friends and I had always said I wanted to marry a best friend. I had surgery the beginning of May, by Father’s Day we were engaged, married on August 1st and we were expecting our first child by December. This was a great blessing! Due to a couple of accidents my back was weak. While I delivered my first son I cracked some of the lower vertebrae and caused a herniated disc. This caused great pain from delivery to nursing so I ended up working with a doctor on my back. Physical therapy helped, but it is something I’ve dealt with over the last 23 years. Over the years I’ve kept myself very busy. My sleep has always been awful. I’ve always just pushed through and ignored any pain that my body would manifest as I’ve gone through the years. After being blessed with 4 boys my body couldn’t handle anymore so I went through a hysterectomy June 2011. It was extremely difficult for me, because I had always felt there would be a 5th son, but there wasn’t any more options. My body had become very weak and it was time. In 2014 I started needing to take short naps and was really struggling with my memory. I would wake up and didn’t know who I was or where I was. I would be driving to my parent’s home that I had driven to a million times and I would need to pull over, because I couldn’t remember how to get there. They only live 5 minutes away. I would be conducting meetings and I couldn’t remember names or what I was talking about. I knew something was really wrong, but I didn’t have time to go to the doctors. I was busy doing good and taking care of my boys and I hadn’t taken time to take care of myself. I didn’t want to hear that I had to slow down and take care of myself. I finally went in to see my doctor the beginning of May and the blood work showed some significant problems. My triglycerides were extremely high, cholesterol really high, blood pressure really high and my A1C was over 11 (should be in the 5 range). My fasting sugar number was 498. I should be in the range of 90 - 120. There was a whole list of things that were really bad. When I got the call from my doctors office with the results she let me know that he wanted to see me asap. I told her that when I got through May I would come in. The next day I got a call again from his office saying that it was critical that I come in. I told her that there was no way I could come in, but maybe I could squeeze in the next week. The next day my doctor called me and let me know that I was a walking time bomb and that there were dangers for my life. I was still so focused on my tasks and being a perfectionist that I didn’t listen to him. Finally the next week I went in and got started on a lot of medication and insulin for my diabetes. It was an extremely emotional time for me. I couldn’t believe I had gotten so bad off. Of course, he talked to me about needing to slow down, but there was no way I could. I was an awful patient. He wanted to see me every few months and I wouldn’t come in. He would only give me refills until it was time for me to come back in and I would get mad that he was trying to control me. Then I found out that with diabetes I had to have my doctor sign off that I could keep my drivers license. I was so upset that I had lost control - that someone was able to take the control away from me. I felt I knew what was best for myself. He would beg me to take certain medications and I wouldn’t take them. It was a very slow process getting me to take all of the medication that I needed to take to start getting better. What was an even slower process was getting me to slow down, lessen my stress and really do the things that I needed to do to get better. My doctor was AMAZING and always so patient with me and caring. He took the time I needed and truly cared about me. In September 2018 I stepped back from many of my commitments and slowed my life way down from what I had been doing. We definitely saw progress with my health, but not enough. It was definitely a step in the right direction. Really, many steps in the right direction and really the beginning of the real healing that I needed. The end of December 2019 I started counseling. Due to slowing down my life I had come to realize how much emotional help I needed and I was in a very rough place. So much of my past and the belief system that I had created for 40 years was very engrained in me and it wasn’t the truth. I went in for my appointment in March and found out that my A1C was 5.3. WHAT?!?!?! There was no way. I hadn’t eaten well and I had high stress. The end of February it was time for me to go in and get my A1C retested and it tests the past 3 months. Between the holidays and me not watching what I ate at all and the stress of our home and life through November, December and January I felt that my A1C would be off the charts. I called in and asked if I could wait until the end of March to get the holidays out of the way. My doctor agreed with that so I was scheduled for blood work the end of March and a doctor’s appointment in April. With all of my counseling and the emotional baggage I had been carrying I wasn’t doing well. I knew I needed some help. My body was hurting so bad, my memory was feeling very foggy and I was very emotional. I decided I didn’t care what my A1C was and I called in and moved up the blood work and my appointment. I was fully prepared to find out that my A1C was through the roof. I went in for my appointment in March and found out that my A1C was 5.3. WHAT?!?!?! There was no way. I hadn’t eaten well and I had high stress. As my doctor and I visited the only thing that had changed was me dumping my emotional baggage through counseling each week. I was able to get an antidepressant to help with the emotional things that were going on and the reality was I didn’t need as much insulin as I had been taking. In fact, I was able to drop my insulin from 175 units a day to 70 units a day. I was so excited! One of the struggles that we weren’t beating was my sleep. In June I had an appointment to go in, because I couldn’t sleep and was feeling emotionally worn out. I was still learning to put myself first and take care of myself. I had a son that was struggling and I almost gave him my appointment and a dear friend of mine said to me, “A dead mom can’t love her son and pray for him and be there and get him the help he needs.” Reading this really hurt and also caused me to stop and realize that this was true and I needed to take care of myself so I could take care of my family and others. I went to that appointment. I was blessed to get on medication for PTSD and it made a drastic difference in my sleep. I was able to sleep through the nightmares and process things in my sleep vs waking up and having anxiety and fearing the nightmares. I also had been struggling with my shoulder and was able to get shots to help my shoulder. It felt so good to take care of myself and everything came together for my son to get the help he needed. Over the last month or so there’s been a lot of emotion that’s come up and I’ve had more internal stress again. This time when I went in for blood work my A1C had gone up a little bit over 6. Not awful, but I knew that it had probably gone up due to my emotional state. I was also able to ask my doctor about my anxiety and I was able to switch medication that helped more with my anxiety. I share all of this, because emotional weight can be as bad or worse for our health as physical weight. All that we go through, traumatic experiences, have to go somewhere if we don’t process things. I’m not saying I wouldn’t have had many of these health experiences if I was emotionally healthy, but what I do believe is I’ve carried much more emotional weight than physical weight and I’m excited about the release of the emotional weight so that I can continue to feel healthier physically. Our bodies are amazing. They are a miracle and a blessing. It’s important for each of us to acknowledge our emotions as we go through life. Allow ourselves to feel happy, sad, angry, frustrated, excited, child-like. Allow ourselves to cry and don’t put a time frame on how long you can cry. Let it go. I wasn’t a cryer. I hardly ever cried. Since counseling I would dare say that I cry most everyday and it’s been freeing. Allowing my family and those around me to process feelings has been extremely healthy and bonding. Relationships have grown so much stronger. Through our emotional and physical healing we can build healthy, happy and truly loving relationships. Most important we can build a loving relationship with ourselves. What I’ve come to understand most is my Heavenly Father and Savior, family and friends and my doctor loves me and are all pulling for me. They want the best for me. BUT, until I learned to love myself and fight for myself none of their efforts could have a true impact. We are each worth fighting for - we have value and much to offer ourselves and others. Each of us have 24 hours in a day. We each have things that we have to do, need to do and want to do in those 24 hours. We also have those surprises that we didn’t schedule that pop up - sometimes in behalf of others and sometimes by our own doing. We hear it often said I’m a morning person or a late night person. For many of us we hit tired or we need a nap or struggle to stay focused in the afternoon. From a very early age I found that I liked being busy. I would get involved with whatever I could, volunteer for things, liked to get good grades so I focused on homework, went to my church activities, would hang out with friends when I had time and started working from a young age. I followed this pattern through my teenage years and even into college. I didn’t have many down hours and I liked it that way. When I got into college I had the opportunity to serve on Institute Council, worked and did college full time. Got my Associates Degree and many other credits before leaving on my mission. Busy on the mission, return home, college, work, singles ward callings, marriage, work, college, children, managed apartments, owned a business, did many home businesses, many church callings and started volunteering in the schools as soon as my oldest was in kindergarten and have spent 17 years extremely busy involved in the schools and district - an average of 40 hours a week for those 17 years. Add my boys activities and hobbies and Rick’s coaching and this all equates to a life that meant I was busy and burning the candle at both ends of the candle - often would get 3 - 4 hours of sleep a night and no time to slow down during the day. A couple of years ago I made changes to slow down my life. It was a real struggle. I now had time to sit and face some of my reality. Face myself. I hadn’t really faced myself for over 30 years. The real me. I knew the me that was busy, a perfectionist, accomplished everything I committed to and being out in the community. I had the family that volunteered with everything that I did. They were happy, polite and willing to help. Our family sure looked like we had it all together. I knew the me that had it all together. I didn’t know what to do with myself. There was a series of events that happened from the end of September 2018 - November 2020 that led me to counseling (in the previous post). I was finding that I would do well in the mornings, afternoons a little tired and worn out, but could still push through, but around 2:00 - 3:00 p.m. each day I would really struggle. I would lose confidence, I would get scared, insecure and fear that people would leave my life. It was very consuming and very paralyzing. It was like I was a different person. Then I reflected back on the past years and there was always a joke that I shouldn’t text, email or take calls in the evening, because I would usually create a mess. I wasn’t at my best. Through counseling the evenings became much worse. I started to realize that the little girl / teenage girl that had been through the many years of abuse was coming out. It was all of the feelings that I felt all of those really hard years, but I hadn’t acknowledged them because of how busy I had been for so many years. There were many things that would happen afternoon, evening and night that were tied to the abuse that created much pain. This little girl was coming out each day. I didn’t even have to look at the clock to know what time it was as I would go into these feelings. Over the last 11 months of counseling I’ve embraced this bully. My counselor talked about answering the door, welcoming the bully in and letting the bully be a part of my day. He asked me to keep track of how I felt and what I was doing throughout each evening. It was very interesting to see as I embraced the bully instead of getting mad and trying to push these feelings away I became stronger. I started to realize this little girl wanted comfort, wanted to heal and wanted to know she was worth healing and safe. It was very interesting to see as I embraced the bully instead of getting mad and trying to push these feelings away I became stronger. I definitely don’t have it perfected and am still working at it every single day. Somedays I do much better than others. I’m so grateful for my husband, my boys, a couple of very dear friends who have been there and helped me through these very difficult times and not given up on me. They’ve loved me, shown patience and walked me through these feelings and anger. I’m finding it is so important to acknowledge the time in each of our days and think about what we do with our time each day. Is there time in your day to take care of yourself? Are you so busy that you don’t have time to acknowledge feelings that are deep within you? Are you running like I did for so many years? Take time to write. Take time to share. Take time for yourself. Take time to trust and love. It’s worth the fight. It’s worth the struggle. It’s worth the peace and happiness that you can find in your life when being true to yourself. February 2018: I was making decisions for the upcoming school year involving PTA. I had been involved in many different aspects for years, like 15 years. I had figured I would just keep going - I was enjoying all that I was doing. Deep down I had a feeling that I wasn’t making the right decision, but just figured I was just tired and I would get my energy back. May 2018: I wasn’t feeling happy. I felt that some of the stronger friendships that I had built over the years were weakening. I was becoming quieter and just trying to keep peace. Deep down I felt that I wasn’t listening to promptings. I chose to simplify a few of my positions so that I could have more time for whatever those promptings were leading me to. July 2018: Things were getting difficult. Honestly, beyond difficult. I was feeling alone and not feeling very connected with very many people that I had been serving with. People were starting to be able to tell that there was some conflict and I was uneasy with that. Went on a family vacation and had promised my boys that I would take a 3 day break from PTA, but that didn’t happen. My boys were very unhappy with me and I was feeling very torn. I wanted to help pull things off and make things happen and I wanted to spend time with my family and circumstances didn’t make that possible. *Note the progression of change in my countenance over time August 2018: I was loving the connections, getting excited about school starting and working with the schools and those in our district. I was thinking this is what I needed. Things would get better. On my birthday, August 27th, I had an experience that helped me see that I was making the wrong decisions. That it was time to take a deeper look, but I didn’t look deep enough at that time. September 2018: I like to describe this September as a ball of yarn that had been cut in many different places and it was unraveling faster than I could keep it together and there were so many knots and problems with the ball of yarn. I literally had never had many of the experiences I had in September in my life. I was crying a lot and feeling very lost. Very disconnected in all aspects of my life. I spent time visiting with my boys and asking what they felt needed to happen for our family, for me. They each individually gave me the same answer and it rang true to my spirit. September 21, 2018: Lunchtime I had a friend come over and she didn’t know all that was going on. She visited with me and many of the things she shared filled in the holes that I needed to know what I had to do. It was truly the HARDEST THING I had done in my life. After she left I knelt in prayer and I sobbed. I poured out my heart and pleaded with the Lord to help me. As I finally said the words that I didn’t ever want to say I had a peace come over me that I had not felt in a very long time. I stopped crying, stood up and knew what I needed to do. There was no question. Honestly I felt so lost - what was my purpose, what do I do with myself. Saturday, September 22nd, 2018: I submitted my letter of resignation. For the first time EVER I quit something I had committed to. My whole life, even when things went wrong or got really difficult or my health was crashing, I never quit. I was willing to sacrifice everything for the commitments I had made. I typed the resignation and hit send and the amount of peace I felt was something I hadn’t felt for years. I knew the Lord had different plans for me. It was also a very difficult time, because everything I had known for years and so many of the people I interacted with daily were gone. I didn’t have many of the connections left in my life. Honestly I felt so lost - what was my purpose, what do I do with myself. Monday, October 8th, 2018: Michael returned home from his mission after being gone for 2 years. It was a very exciting time. Between many surgeries in my family, other medical things going on and other commitments I was still doing in the PTA and SCC I was managing, but still felt very lost. I had a lot of extra time on my hands. 2019: Michael got married, Brayden left on a mission, had health struggles and ended up coming home 3 months later. There are many details to this year that were causing me to struggle. November 2019: Due to many things that had happened and a lot of time on my hands over the last couple of years I was realizing how much I had buried deep inside for YEARS. As Brayden went through his difficult experiences and prepared to come home from his mission I hit a point that I couldn’t go on. It wasn’t because of him, but through many different things the right people were brought into my life that helped me make a decision to start counseling. End of December 2019: Started counseling weekly with my counselor and currently still going to counseling every single week. 2020: Due to being a very humble, child-like place as I started my counseling my heart and life was more open to learning, having people in my life and the Lord guiding me step by step. Counseling has been EXTREMELY DIFFICULT. Things that I’ve carried with me since a young child and some things I’ve never shared with a single person until this year. The Lord has blessed me with the right people in my life at the right times. Honestly, I would have never guessed who would come into my life and the kind of love I would have for those in my life. Feelings I’ve never had in my life. There were holes in my life, feelings of loss and the Lord blessed me with people in my life that filled those holes. Through the first few months of counseling I was trying to balance many things that I was involved with and healing through my counseling and some weeks I would turn to task / to do list mode and wouldn’t connect with my feelings in a way that was helpful to my healing. I was having a hard time merging the life I’ve lived for over 40 years and healing and changing the way I thought. In March Covid 19 caused much of our lives to shut down. My life came to a complete halt. The things that I was doing were helping me find balance in the two worlds and that I was trying to merge. At the beginning of Covid 19 all of a sudden the 5 - 6 hours I had each day on my own, doing things on my own, being in the schools was gone. I had all of my family home. They were all struggling in their own ways. I was very overwhelmed. The blessing during this time was that all of my family started seeing the same counselor I was going to. As a family we were all able to work through our own things and then come together and heal as a family. The individual relationships in our home are amazing. As a family there is much more love and unity. We are all able to share our real feelings. We are able to be true to ourselves and the world doesn’t have to be perfect - none of us are. After over 40 years of living a certain way the Lord has led me down this path. I’ve been so busy for years to slow down and take a deeper look at myself. I refused to take the many locks off of the dark closet in my life to look at the skeletons that were affecting me deeply. Two years ago the Lord knew that I needed to step back, slow down, take a deeper look at myself and start removing the locks off of my closet. He knew that it was going to take time for me to come around to counseling and really opening myself up to real, sincere healing. I have no doubt that each of these steps, the people in my life, the hard things that have happened over the last couple of years were what I needed to get to this point.
As I’ve joked for years, I’m pretty stubborn and sometimes I don’t listen very well to promptings. Sometimes the Lord will give me small promptings, I don’t listen - it’s like I’m in a tree hanging out and then I’m hanging on tight and then hanging down on a branch and digging in my fingernails, holding on by my toes thinking I know what I can and want to do and really what I feel strong enough to do and sometimes the Lord will come along and cut down the branch and I hit my head hard, but over and over I see the Lord’s hand in guiding me when that happens to so many greater things and people. |
Cheri HardmanA wife and mother of 4 boys and 2 daughter-in-law, I have spent my entire adult life devoted to my family. I have been busy in their schools, supporting them in all of their school work, sporting events, activities, etc. I spent years heavily involved in the PTA, church callings, etc Life for me has always been overwhelmingly busy. While I thought this was my sanity, the truth is it masked issues - real issues - that I needed to work on to gain true sanity. I am sharing my story in this blog. I do this so that I might be able to help other women find their true sanity Archives
April 2022
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