Healing

Last year was something else. I can actually sit here and laugh about it now, but I kid you not last year I was a HOT MESS!!! Thank God for good friends and the gospel right?!

See last year I used to live at The Brandbury. Perhaps not the safest place but still I liked it. Man life was great! I was rooming with this cool Mexican girl Nadine or aka Nadincita (my bff), Katie aka "Katie Meister" and Hali. 

 Katie Scalf

Nadine Lugo

I was a pretty active member in my ward. As well I should be I was a ward missionary.(Man I love that calling) Every Sunday we would do potlucks, game nights and even dessert nights. Sundays were the funnest days of the week and jam packed of course!!! 

This is actually a picture of New Years Eve and New Years Day!! This is just but a 1/3 of the people who would be at our place pretty much every day! 

New Years Eve!! (Thanks to Cliff we had an awesome fireworks show)

New Years Day!!! (This is Katie's tradition: Stay in pj's, eat food and watch movies. That day we watched all of the Lord of Rings movies and I think we even started Star Wars!! ) 

So at the beginning of the year I started a much complicated relationship. It was actually a huge blessing in disguise. He was a good friend but unfortunately feelings were hurt and trust was broken. This was perhaps one of the hardest things I dealt with last year. There is actually no point in dreading over it but it does bring me to my next point. 

Trust and Healing.

See, the funny thing about relationships is that it not only allows us to feel emotions that are new and exciting, but it can also open up a lot of unhealed wounds and insecurities. This is what this relationship did. I had to deal with trusting men again (something I struggle with) and loving myself. This has been a constant struggle for me because of my own insecurities. Many times in the past I thought a relationship would validate who I was, but I was dead wrong. You cannot expect your significant other to complete you and make you completely happy, if you are not happy with yourself first. Lets think about it this way. Think of your favorite materialist thing? Does it make you happy once you finally have it? But what happens when it breaks down and you no longer have it? Then what? You are in sq one again right? This is how I felt after the break up. See, I had plan my future with this guy and I thought he would be the answer to many of my problems but I was dead wrong. Perhaps that's what made it hard. The idea that I was wrong. Now girls listen up! Many of us (unfortunately I have been guilty of this too) tend to settle for guys that are not a good fit for us simply so that we are not alone! Yet this is a huge error on our parts. We think "hey its better to have something than to have nothing". (Am I right?!)  Yet we cry when ever that guy doesn't fulfill our idea of the ideal man. But honestly that's not their fault its ours! How do you expect a monkey to fly when he has no wings?! Makes no sense right?! We have to learn to love ourselves first. Think of who you are! Your talents. Your own individual beauty. What I did last year which helped a lot was to think about one good thing about me. Every morning I would tell myself something new. If I even thought about something negative about myself I had to come up with three things that were great about myself. (Actually my counselor advice me 10 things and it really worked) Watch this video its called "Daughters of God" I love it and I feel its gets my point across quite well!!!

Here is were the healing process comes into play. This is key to an eternal happiness. I say eternal because I am literally saying you will be eternally happy once you heal those wounds. Now how can you heal a wound that has been buried for so long? I completely understand that question. I loved the metaphor a lady in the temple shared with me when I worked there a few years ago. She said " We cannot plant new flowers in a garden that is full of weeds and dead plants" This should be your first reason to open those wounds. If we want to start over and be better than we have to open up those wounds as painful as they may be. Yet the beauty of this journey is that someone has done the most amazing sacrifice for us so that we can have the strength to endure this tribulation and/or trial!

Our Savior Jesus Christ suffered in Gethsemane for us! What does this mean exactly? Does he actually know exactly what you or I are going through? Can he actually help us to feel peace? The answer is YES! He does and he can. He knows our pain and he will give us the strength he knows we need to over come our wounds and heal completely! That is what the atonement is about. Forgiveness and strength! I had to really come to understand that over the last year. After finding out a few things about my past and going through this relationship I had to learn that bad things happen to everyone even if we don't believe that. But we are NEVER alone. Our Heavenly Father is always there even when we think he is quiet and taking the backseat. But in order to start the healing process we must believe that God can heal us. It requires for us to have faith in Jesus Christ and ourselves! I say ourselves cause many times that can be the stopping sign in our progression route. So what is faith? Well we can always look it up and most answers will say something like "believing in what you don't see". Its quite simple actually, yet faith is like a seed you have to give it water and eventually with time it will grow. So for many of you, don't feel discouraged because you feel your prayers haven't been answered. Remember great things come to pass to those who endure to the end. That's what faith is all about. Enduring! 

So here is a very personal yet powerful experience. I share this because I want you to see how the Lord answered my prayers and slowly helped me to heal. One day I was sitting in my room. I was really sad and I couldn't believe how everything was just crashing down before my eyes. I had gone through that break up, and deciding to escape from it I went back home just to receive some bad news about my childhood. Then I come home and my boss decided to steal my money and well life just kept getting worst and worst. I remembered crying inconsolably. I felt so alone. I knew I had good things in my life but all the bad things seemed to outweigh the good things. Now many of us including myself tend to waver a bit when things get hard and we murmur and go against God. I would do that a lot actually. However, I couldn't help but desire to get on my knees and pray. I just poured out my heart. I wasn't sure if he was even gonna listen to me. I felt like he had let me down now and in the past and most importantly I was angry at him and I felt I couldn't trust him. 

However in that moment I felt something and I began to feel as though he was right there listening to me. I could actually feel his loving arms around me. I continued to pray and I began having a conversation with him. As I ended my prayer and sat there just thinking of the experience I had and I began to cry. This time it was different. I wasn't crying out of sadness but I was crying more out of relief. Like he had lighten my burdens. I began to see the things that were good in my life. I noticed that I was not alone! That was just the beginning to my healing. I can actually say without a doubt that life has not gotten easier yet my faith in my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ has allowed me to have that strength to carry on. 

I guess if you get anything out of this loong blog is that you can heal but only through the atonement and only the atonement can bring you eternal happiness. Until next time :D Much love