I'm a Mormon

Life is hard sometimes. Decisions can be overwhelming and doubts can take over our minds. If I'm being honest with myself, I am exhausted. Mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausted. And frustrated. When do questions stop and answers start?

I sent an email to a Jerusalem Friend asking for a quote she read when we were there, and this was her reply in its entirety: 

"Here is the amazing quote from the person I didn't know anything about except her name started with O and she was Chinese ;). I know Heavenly Father allowed me to find it though. Thank you for all you do I love you guys. I know too that Jesus Christ has the perfect empathy, he is there, here, all around. He is my best friend who will always be by my side. I love you and I know Jesus loves you too ;). Thanks for the best semester. -love mama laurel

'We know that on some level Jesus experienced the totality of mortal existence in Gethsemane. It’s our faith that he experienced everything – absolutely everything. Sometimes we don’t think through the implications of that belief. We talk in great generalities about the sins of all humankind, about the suffering of the entire human family. But we don’t experience pain in generalities. We experience it individually. That means that Jesus knows what it felt like when your mother died of cancer – how it was hard for your mother, how it still is for you. He knows what it felt like to lose the student-body election. He knows that moment when the brakes locked, and the car started to skid. He experienced the slave ship sailing from Ghana toward Virginia. He experienced the gas chambers at Dachau. He experienced napalm in Vietnam. He knows about drug addiction and alcoholism.

'There is nothing you have experienced as a woman that he does not also know and recognize. On a profound level, he understands about pregnancy and giving birth. He knows about PMS and cramps and menopause. He understands about rape and infertility and abortion.

'His last recorded words to his disciples were, ‘And, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.’ (Matthew 28:20.) What does that mean? It means he understands your mother-pain when your five-year-old leaves for kindergarten, when a bully picks on your fifth-grader, when your daughter calls to say that the new baby has Down’s syndrome. He knows your mother-rage when a trusted babysitter sexually abuses your two-year-old, when someone gives your thirteen-year-old drugs, when someone seduces your seventeen-year-old. He knows the pain you live with when you come home to a quiet apartment where the only children who ever come are visitors, when you hear that your former husband and his new wife were sealed in the temple last week, when your fiftieth wedding anniversary rolls around and your husband has been dead for two years. He knows all that. He’s been there. He’s been lower than that.' (Okazaki, Chicko N. Lighten Up [Deseret Book: 1993]: 174-75)"

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What would I do without amazing friends or my religion? Some days are hard, but I know that things will get better.

:)