I am in love with December

Blessed.

So so incredibly blessed! This may just be my best year yet. So grateful for friends, my eternal family, the gospel, and most importantly my Savior and my Father in heaven! One thing I never thought I'd add to my thankful list is my trials. How very grateful I am for my trials, which are so small and minuscule compared to the rest of the world. God has answered my every prayer. He is merciful. He is kind. He loves me and I love Him!

Thank you Warren Miller ski movie.

There you go man, keep as cool as you can.
Face piles
And piles
Of trials
With smiles.
It riles them to believe
That you perceive
The web they weave
And keep on thinking free.

It came to pass.

The Book of Mormon uses this phrase 1,297 times. 

How grateful I am for the phrase, "it came to pass." For if it had said "and it came to stay," the book would've been entirely different. Every trial ever endured by Nephi, Mosiah, or Helaman would  never have ceased. Sorrow, guilt, and grief would have continued on, if simply one word was changed - from "pass" to "stay." 

I am so grateful for the promise that my trials will come to pass. That my life won't be like this forever. That I have the opportunity to learn and grow and believe in my Savior more and more everyday because of this trial. I am so grateful that feelings of being alone, forsaken, and forgotten will not linger. These feelings just overwhelmed me, but today the sun came up, it was a new morning, it was a new day; and I realized with a new, fresh attitude that my trials had indeed come to pass. They were no more. I might feel worthless again, but that will come to pass. "Men are that they might have joy." God created us to be happy, and to love Him. 

Comfort.

It is by faith that you can lay hold upon every good thing. I pray with all my heart that your faith will be increased that you are a daughter of a loving God. I testify to you that you have been one of the valiant ones to reach the point where you now are in this journey of life. Just as you are marked as a target by the enemy of righteousness, you have been protected and watched over by your Heavenly Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. They know you. They know all of the forces and individuals around you. They know what is ahead of you. And so They know which of the choices you make, which of the desires you decide to satisfy, and which of the circumstances around you will make the most difference in keeping you walking in the light. I testify that by the Spirit of Christ and by the Holy Ghost, you may walk confidently in whatever difficulties will come. Because you are so valuable, some of your trials may be severe. You need never be discouraged or afraid. The way through difficulties has always been prepared for you, and you will find it if you exercise faith.

You must have faith to pray. You must have faith to ponder the word of God. You must have faith to do those things and go to those places which invite the Spirit of Christ and the Holy Ghost.

I promise you that within the next few days you will feel the illumination of the Spirit of Christ and the Holy Ghost in your everyday life. When you walk in the light, you will feel at that moment some of the warmth and the happiness that will finally be yours when you are welcomed home again with the hundreds and perhaps thousands of others whom you will bring with you, who have walked in the light because you did.

-President Eyring

I'm trying.

How cute is this!? Maybe it's just the phrase. Brave. I do love that word.

I realized something.

Even in my lowest of lows, there is always someone who is worse off than me. When I feel like life could not get worse, it can. But on the flip side, even when my life is "bad", it's really not at all. I am tremendously blessed. There is absolutely no point in my life where I can sit down and say, "I give up. Life is too hard." There's just no way I can continue on in such an ungrateful attitude. Because my blessings are innumerable. Heavenly Father loves each and every person on this planet, but I am blessed enough to truly know that. How lucky am I to be one of the few to know where I'm going, to know who I am, and to know He is always there for me. So, yes, life may be changing, but it is no way bad. Life is so good to me. He is so good to me!