Blessings....

I have been learning so much lately. Especially these last few weeks and months. Like everyone things have been trying and very stressful especially at work. I see people all around me struggling and hurting for basic needs and wants and I feel helpless and awful for complaining about my current situation. I have been blessed more than I can even imagine. Blessed in such simple ways that I did not to see them right away. I was blinded by own feelings of self pity unable to see all the wonderful things around me. Today I noticed my Heavenly Father's hand so significantly yet in such a simple way in my life. My job has been feeling like a huge additional burden in my life, very unrewarding and bringing on more stress than it is worth. I have seen myself working hard and getting nothing back, normal feelings and normal job activity, I know but I needed and wanted something more. I need this job to help me get my dear sweet husband and myself through school and the simplest change came about. I have been debating on finding another job, switching to something at night and now everything is coming together. It won't be easy and I know that I will struggle but I will have extra strength to get through and receive the blessings that await me and my husband throughout our journey. At times it may feel like blessings are being withheld from us, I feel that, I struggle with it almost daily as I look at others around me with children, homes and degrees, all things I would love to have but don't at this point in my life. I was given a story from the February 2009 Ensign that has helped me with this and I thought I would share a favorite quote from it. the story is The Blessing of the Blackberry Bush. In the story Elder George Q. Cannon says "The Saints should always remember that God sees not as man sees; that he does not willingly afflict his children, and that if he requires them to endure present privation and trial, it is that they may escape greater tribulations which would otherwise inevitably overtake them. If He deprives them of an present blessing, it is that he may bestow upon them greater and more glorious ones by-and by." I know that our Heavenly Father loves us all so much and wants us to experience great joy, but great joy cannot be experienced without sorry and pain. I am comforted by these thoughts and feelings. I know that great things do and will come my way and will come to all, I just have to remember it is not in my time but in the Lord's time. I am learning to love the situation I am in now. Loving the time I have to share with my dear husband, just the two of us. Loving that I can go to school and so can Zack. I am slowly learning to love that my job has provided me this opportunity and that my years of service to them are now paying off with earned flexibility and other blessings that were once looked at by me as burdens. Even when our lives may seem like the storm is raging all around us and we cannot see an end in sight I know that the sun will shine through. I know that there is beauty in a storm, without the storms the beauty around us would shrink and die. Without the storms and trials in our lives we would cease to learn and move forward, growing into beautiful children of our Heavenly Father who loves us more than we can comprehend. Life is good, full of amazing opportunities to learn, grow and help one another along the way. I am striving to remember this and live each day to see the blessing in it, to help others, to bring them closer to my Heavenly Father, to enjoy this life I was given and look back one day and say, I did what I wanted with no regrets, I have served my Father in Heaven and my Savior Jesus Christ, I have done all that I can to better myself and those around me and bring me and my family to my Savior. I know Eternal Life is a mission possible and it can be done!