I spend a lot of time in my car driving my kids around. I take them to and from school since we've always lived just close enough that they don't need a bus but just far enough away that I'm not comfortable letting them walk in this day and age. I have a daughter that goes to dance 3-4 days a week, a daughter that plays all sports and is always at a practice, another daughter that has weekly piano lessons, swim team practices, basketball and track practices and I have a church calling that gives me the opportunity to visit different sisters in the ward. My life and schedule has always been dictated by who needs to be where at what time.
After my son came home I spent a lot of time thinking about how wrong life felt while I would be driving my kids around. Sometimes I would be so lost in my own thoughts and feelings that I wouldn't even realize that my kids had been talking to me. I had merely been saying "yes" and nodding my head while hearing nothing that they were saying. I found that I could have really good cries after dropping someone off and then feel so much better by the time I got home and no one ever knew how many tears were shed while I was alone in my car. I had a lot of conversations with myself in my car. If the insides of my car could talk they would have quite the story to tell.
Sometimes I would drive up and down our street so many times in one day that I would look at each house and think about the various families that lived in those homes that were members of our ward. When my son first came home I actually pleaded with the Lord to let us just be like all the other "normal" families in our ward because up until that moment when we got "that phone call", every family in our ward was normal and without problems to me. As it says in the book "The Fault Beneath our Stars", "The weird thing about houses is that they almost always look like nothing is happening outside of them, even though they contain most of our lives. I wondered if that was sort of the point of architecture."
But in the weeks and months that followed our sons early return I began to look at each home and each family in a much different way. My eyes and my heart began to see that there is no "normal" family and I could learn something from each home. I began to see that inside of every seemingly "normal" house it contained some difficult realities for everyone. There was the little blue lunchbox house, as my kids called it, where a young mom of 5 kids suddenly lost her husband in a tragic accident leaving her a widow with no job and education at the age of 35. There was the red brick rambler home where two of the most Christlike, faithful parents I've ever met have faced 5 of their 6 kids being addicted to drugs. The white brick two-story home with green shutters where one son has Down's Syndrome, another son was left handicapped after a battle with meningitis, another son announced he was gay shortly after returning from his mission, and their only daughter was recently divorced with 3 young children. The yellow and brown house next to theirs is a widow who lost her husband over 45 years ago and a son from lukemia three months after her husband died. In the white and green siding home is a couple that has been married for over 60 years and she is now taking care of her husband who is dying of congestive heart failure. In the cul-de-sac next to the church lies 8 homes where those families have faced children going in-active, a family that lost their mom to cancer before the oldest had graduated from high school, two families with early release missionaries that eventually fell away from the church, another family whose son committed suicide as the parents stood in the doorway and couldn't get to him fast enough to stop him and in the brown brick rambler is a 45 year old mom battling breast cancer while trying to take care of her mother who is dying from lymphoma. The list could go on and on. And the more time I spent driving around our ward and neighborhood the more I understood that no family goes untouched from trials so why was I naive enough to think that I could escape?
A few days later I was getting my hair done by my awesome hairdresser who could pass for the singer PINK's twin sister. She is married to an early release missionary and is one of the greatest women I know who loves everyone unconditionally. As we were talking she told me one of her favorite quotes that says, 'If we could all throw our problems into a pile we would choose to pull our same problems back out of that pile." And as I drove home from her house that day and looked at all the houses I passed her words rang true in my heart. I thought of each family and everything they were going through or had gone through and realized I wouldn't be strong enough to handle that. Every week that I sat up front in Relief Society and looked across the room at the sisters I had grown to love so much, I realized that each of them has gone through things so much harder than I was experiencing and their testimonies and faith were a weekly example and strength to me.
My thoughts took a different direction after that as I drove about the neighborhood hauling my kids to wherever they had to be. I began to see another one of those tender mercies that Heavenly Father sends us when we are having hard times. He allowed me to be surrounded by people who knew heartache, disappointment, and the floundering of their faith and allowed me to lean on their examples until I was strong enough to stand tall myself. Everyday I drove by all these homes I felt a sense of strength and hope to realize that I was going to make it through and life really could be so much worse. I came to see that even though we can all appear to have nothing hard happening to us on the outside, the insides of our homes and souls will tell a different story. I came to understand that the Lord will never give us more than we can handle. He may push us to the brink but He will never push us over the brink and will never, ever leave us alone.
George Q. Cannon said, " No matter how serous the trial, how deep the distress, how great the affliction, God will never desert us. He never has, and He never will. He cannot do it. It is not His character to do so. He is an unchangeable being; the same yesterday, the same today, and He will be the same throughout the eternal ages to come. We have found that God. We have made Him our friend, by obeying His Gospel; and He will stand by us. We may pass through the fiery furnace; we may pass through deep waters; but we shall not be consumed nor overwhelmed. We shall emerge from all these trials and difficulties the better and purer for them; if we only trust in Our God and keep His commandments."
I am so grateful for the different architecture that I see every day as I'm endlessly driving around. I'm thankful for the homes that appear to be just another home and yet what goes on inside those homes stands as a reminder to me that we all have hard trials to bear. And I'm eternally grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who will never desert us...ever.
After my son came home I spent a lot of time thinking about how wrong life felt while I would be driving my kids around. Sometimes I would be so lost in my own thoughts and feelings that I wouldn't even realize that my kids had been talking to me. I had merely been saying "yes" and nodding my head while hearing nothing that they were saying. I found that I could have really good cries after dropping someone off and then feel so much better by the time I got home and no one ever knew how many tears were shed while I was alone in my car. I had a lot of conversations with myself in my car. If the insides of my car could talk they would have quite the story to tell.
Sometimes I would drive up and down our street so many times in one day that I would look at each house and think about the various families that lived in those homes that were members of our ward. When my son first came home I actually pleaded with the Lord to let us just be like all the other "normal" families in our ward because up until that moment when we got "that phone call", every family in our ward was normal and without problems to me. As it says in the book "The Fault Beneath our Stars", "The weird thing about houses is that they almost always look like nothing is happening outside of them, even though they contain most of our lives. I wondered if that was sort of the point of architecture."
But in the weeks and months that followed our sons early return I began to look at each home and each family in a much different way. My eyes and my heart began to see that there is no "normal" family and I could learn something from each home. I began to see that inside of every seemingly "normal" house it contained some difficult realities for everyone. There was the little blue lunchbox house, as my kids called it, where a young mom of 5 kids suddenly lost her husband in a tragic accident leaving her a widow with no job and education at the age of 35. There was the red brick rambler home where two of the most Christlike, faithful parents I've ever met have faced 5 of their 6 kids being addicted to drugs. The white brick two-story home with green shutters where one son has Down's Syndrome, another son was left handicapped after a battle with meningitis, another son announced he was gay shortly after returning from his mission, and their only daughter was recently divorced with 3 young children. The yellow and brown house next to theirs is a widow who lost her husband over 45 years ago and a son from lukemia three months after her husband died. In the white and green siding home is a couple that has been married for over 60 years and she is now taking care of her husband who is dying of congestive heart failure. In the cul-de-sac next to the church lies 8 homes where those families have faced children going in-active, a family that lost their mom to cancer before the oldest had graduated from high school, two families with early release missionaries that eventually fell away from the church, another family whose son committed suicide as the parents stood in the doorway and couldn't get to him fast enough to stop him and in the brown brick rambler is a 45 year old mom battling breast cancer while trying to take care of her mother who is dying from lymphoma. The list could go on and on. And the more time I spent driving around our ward and neighborhood the more I understood that no family goes untouched from trials so why was I naive enough to think that I could escape?
A few days later I was getting my hair done by my awesome hairdresser who could pass for the singer PINK's twin sister. She is married to an early release missionary and is one of the greatest women I know who loves everyone unconditionally. As we were talking she told me one of her favorite quotes that says, 'If we could all throw our problems into a pile we would choose to pull our same problems back out of that pile." And as I drove home from her house that day and looked at all the houses I passed her words rang true in my heart. I thought of each family and everything they were going through or had gone through and realized I wouldn't be strong enough to handle that. Every week that I sat up front in Relief Society and looked across the room at the sisters I had grown to love so much, I realized that each of them has gone through things so much harder than I was experiencing and their testimonies and faith were a weekly example and strength to me.
My thoughts took a different direction after that as I drove about the neighborhood hauling my kids to wherever they had to be. I began to see another one of those tender mercies that Heavenly Father sends us when we are having hard times. He allowed me to be surrounded by people who knew heartache, disappointment, and the floundering of their faith and allowed me to lean on their examples until I was strong enough to stand tall myself. Everyday I drove by all these homes I felt a sense of strength and hope to realize that I was going to make it through and life really could be so much worse. I came to see that even though we can all appear to have nothing hard happening to us on the outside, the insides of our homes and souls will tell a different story. I came to understand that the Lord will never give us more than we can handle. He may push us to the brink but He will never push us over the brink and will never, ever leave us alone.
George Q. Cannon said, " No matter how serous the trial, how deep the distress, how great the affliction, God will never desert us. He never has, and He never will. He cannot do it. It is not His character to do so. He is an unchangeable being; the same yesterday, the same today, and He will be the same throughout the eternal ages to come. We have found that God. We have made Him our friend, by obeying His Gospel; and He will stand by us. We may pass through the fiery furnace; we may pass through deep waters; but we shall not be consumed nor overwhelmed. We shall emerge from all these trials and difficulties the better and purer for them; if we only trust in Our God and keep His commandments."
I am so grateful for the different architecture that I see every day as I'm endlessly driving around. I'm thankful for the homes that appear to be just another home and yet what goes on inside those homes stands as a reminder to me that we all have hard trials to bear. And I'm eternally grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who will never desert us...ever.
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