On the fence.

So first off, I have to say a huge, gigantic, enormous thank you, to all of you!!  You are just there, you have been invited for a very specific reason, and you my dears, have filled your invited shoes well.

Thank you, really.

I’ve been having a rough go of it for a few months now (since Octoberish to be exact), and it really isn’t fun.

Now I have learned many lessons along the way mind you..  fabulous lessons which I will never ever forget.

Lessons such as:

- Service really does make you happier.

- The Atonement is real.

- There is a God, and He certainly loves me.

- There is a devil, and he likes to whisper mean things to me.

- Sometimes I listen to that voice too much.

- Mom really does know best.

- There really is such thing as a prayer that lasts all day long.

- There is much comfort in the scriptures.

- Music can bring peace.

- Your best friends are always the first to be there for you.

- Mom, usually, okay..  more like always knows best.  And so on..

- There is always someone who is going through a trial/hardship too.  Most of the time it is worse than your little piddly trial, so buck up!

- Merrill isn’t as deep of a sleeper as I believed him to be.  He has been aware of the tossing and the turning.  The fitful sleep coming from his bed buddy (that would be me this time, not Peyton).

I spent the morning doing what I do best on Monday’s: cleaning the house, catching up on the laundry that was put on pause for the Saturday from Hades.  I heard the phone ringing, planning on screening that bugger, but saw that it was my mom.  We talked for a while.  I cried for most of it.  Blew my nose a whole bunch.

She warned me that she had posted a comment on that one late night post, where I was brutally honest about how I have been feeling, all that junk.  She said it might sound “preachy” and I might want to go and read it, and delete it.  I wasn’t really in a rush much.  So we talked about how I have been feeling, and why I have been feeling this way.  We discussed what I need to do to get back ME.

There were a few things my mom said that really struck me today:

1) That I have been given gifts and talents, with the intention that I share them with others.  I shouldn’t feel like I have to hide who I am.

(Now I KNOW that this is not news to any of you..  I believe I have heard it a few times.)

2) It would probably be a good idea to read my Patriarchal Blessing, remind me of who I am, what Heavenly Father would have me do.

3) That perhaps I should ask my dad for a father’s blessing, just like the good old days, to receive direction.

4) Maybe I should take up the ol’ blog again.  Ya know, not hide, be myself?

5) Don’t take up the ol’ blog in a gesture that would suggest I am saying “up yours”. (!!!!!)

(Yes, my mom said “up yours”, and I laughed and I laughed!)

She is full of wisdom that one…  did you see what she had to say about all of you?

“Listen to your friends. (These great friends that have commented here.) And listen to whatever other GOOD voices there are… I'm grateful Heavenly Father blesses me with a beautiful daughter, (spiritually and physically), and that he has blessed her with beautiful friends.”

I love her…

So later in the evening, after a day of one prolonged prayer, we had Family Home Evening.

We were discussing more of First Nephi, after they got the Liahona, were directed to the land of Bountiful, on the seashore, and Nephi was commanded, and instructed on how to build a ship.  His brothers are not very good guys.  The murmur and they tease him, they tell him he isn’t capable of doing this, they complain about him and what he is doing, etc.  Same old Laman & Lemuel if you ask me…  and I could easily draw some parallels as to how I identify with this.   Here’s where the story, the words jumped out of the pages and literally grabbed me.  There was a little pause in our lesson as I tried to digest the meaning of this, as it pertains to me personally:

“and now when they saw that I began to be sorrowful they were glad in their hearts”

There are some, I am sure, who rejoice because I am not being me.  I can’t say with a surety that they are “glad in their hearts” because I am sorrowful.  But is that good?

After our lesson was finished, I was a little excited about reading my Patriarchal Blessing.

Again, there was something that just grabbed me.  Now we all know that these blessings are very personal, the guidance can mean different things to us at different times in our lives, and there were some things that got my attention.

In addressing the talents that I have been blessed with:  “use them and search for those you are not aware of and they will be a benefit to you and to others throughout your life.”

Now, I am not by any means, saying that the only way for me to share my talents is to blog, but that is how I can.  That is how I have. 

I will not claim to have had a big audience, but I have made many friends, I have had many comments and emails from people who have appreciated something I have said or shared.  I cannot help but wonder who else is out there.

Blogging helped me to focus on the positives in life, on my blessings.  It has also been a way for me to share my testimony.  I look at all of those as good things.  Those were things that lifted me up.  I was happy.

So what do I do?

I sit on this fence, wondering if I should go back to it.  If I should re-claim the ol’ blog, if I should start fresh..  if I should do it at all.

Just wondering what you think…

Cause my mom did say that I do have some good friends. ;)

I will just sit on this fence here, maybe get that father’s blessing tomorrow..  I’ll be here, waiting to hear what you have to say.