Today

A year ago today my life changed forever. That might sound extreme, but it's true. That's not a bad thing, though at the time I thought it was devastating, and I didn't know how I would make it through. I remember the day after it happened I sent Ethan to school and took Adia to Preschool, and then I came inside, closed the door and collapsed right there, curled up on the floor crying my eyes out until it was time to pick them up again. But now, a year later, I spent the night out on the town laughing until I cried with two of my best friends, celebrating a holiday that they made up just for me. I have reflected on this past year a lot in the last few days, and in looking back I realized what a blessing the events of this week last year have been. I was stuck in a bad situation. A situation where I was very literally dying and didn't even realize it. And I would have stayed in it forever if things had remained the same because I thought that is what good Mormon girls are supposed to do. You see, I was married in the temple, and I believe that the marriages that happen there are sacred and are for eternity. When you have a marriage like that, it is important and special, and worth trying a little harder and working a little more to save. Once you make that kind of a commitment you stick with it until the end. I still believe that. But I know now, regardless of all of the people who have told me the opposite, that sometimes the best thing for your whole family is to end the marriage, even a marriage that started out as sacred and special and eternal. You can't make choices for anyone but yourself, and you can't control the trials you are given. In a trial you can choose to work through it in a healthy way, or you can work through it in a damaging way. And when you choose the damaging path, and nothing ever happens to change your direction you end up damaging people other than yourself. Also, the more damage you do the easier it is to keep doing more and more until you are suddenly out of control and have no idea how you got to where you are. That's what happened to our marriage. We both ended up damaged. It is good to work to save your marriage, I whole heartedly believe that. But sometimes too much has happened, and choices have been made, and at that point it becomes good to save yourself instead. That is an unpopular choice in my religion, and especially when you aren't sharing the deep reasons of what happened, there are many people who will tell you that it is wrong. There are people who will tell you that you are sinning by making that choice, or who will tell you that you are losing out on the blessings you have been promised, or who will tell you that you are destroying any chance your children have of growing up to lead a normal healthy life. That isn't true. It just isn't. I don't advocate divorce, but I do support people who, when trying to do what is best for themselves and their family, decide that it is the right thing to do anyway.

So while the end of my marriage is by far the hardest thing I have ever been through, it was also a wonderful blessing in disguise. Through this journey I have learned who I really am. I have learned my worth. I have been required to really consider my views and opinions on different things in life, and I can no longer base my opinions on what my church or my parents tell me. I had to find out for myself that I believed those things. I had to find my own testimony of a lot of truths I thought I already understood. I have had to look at life from a completely different perspective. I have had to decide what my principles are, and what I stand for. And here's a concept I had never considered before... Sometimes one standard you have can clash with another standard. What do you do then? When something that you believe in and support with your whole heart clashes hard with the very truths you base your life upon? What direction do you take at that point? You are then forced to find some middle ground. You have to decide what things you can let go of and what things you can't, and make a life out of that. These things are hard, but I am starting to love the person it is shaping me into. (hear that? I am starting to love myself. That's something I couldn't say a year ago.) I am loving the people that my kids are becoming too, and the relationship we are developing. I have always been really close to my kids, but we have an indescribable closeness now. We have real conversations where my kids can tell me their real thoughts on things without judgement, and that is something I really treasure. I am also amazed at the people they are becoming. While the yucky-ness of the divorce has been kept away from them, they still seem to have been making a lot of concrete decisions about who they are going to be and what they are going to believe, and I am really impressed with and proud of the people they are deciding to become.

So anyway, all of this rambling does actually have a point. And the point is, that trials aren't always bad. They can hurt more than anything you have ever felt when they are happening, and that hurt might never go away all together. You might think you will never pull out of it. You might think you will never be the same again, and on this point you are probably right. But if you let it, your trial can make you so much better than you were before. It can shape you into the person God wants you to be. And while the process might be the most painful thing you can imagine, the end result is something more wonderful than you ever thought possible.

So lets all celebrate Stacy and Jenny's inappropriately named holiday and be grateful for the life you have and the choices that have led you there!

To read more about what I have learned this year go HERE