Finding Hope: My Story

Last week I was asked to give a talk in church, this is how it turned out: Today I am going to talk about burdens, about the often heavy load that we carry through this mortal life. We have all been in moments of deep despair, in the most difficult trials, truly feeling that life is loading more burdens on to our backs than we can bear.  Those burdens may come from our own choices, from our sins and past failings, or even from making a good choice that is leading us down a difficult path. We will always have burdens in our life that come simply  because we are humans living in an imperfect world.   Elder Bednar explained in his April 2014 General Conference Talk entitled “Bear up their burdens with ease” why burdens are such an important part of our mortal life and how the Atonement helps us endure them.  He talks about a friend who convinced his wife to buy a new truck.  He went out one winter day to chop firewood for his family in his new truck, but got...

I know, I know.  It has been a long time.  Trust me, if you read my journal or saw my "planner" you would understand that I am not very good at documenting my thoughts and feelings, my life experiences or even just keeping track of what I do each day. However, I have hit a point where I just need to share my experiences with living with a chronic illness.  It has been a hard month.  A hard year.  A hard five years since I first got sick and first had to ask myself "what can I learn from this new, never-ending trial?"  Honestly, this is the hardest trial I have yet to face.  Harder than being a shy, lonely kid, harder than the woes of female teenage-dom, harder than broken hearts and lonely weekends. So, why is this so hard? Everyone else always thinks they have all the answers.  They are sure that something else is wrong with you, that it is all in your head or that you can just do XYZ and suddenly a miracle will occur and you will be well a...