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How is it that the Heavens Weep?

My husband and I like to read books together. Recently we read The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, the prequel to the Hunger Games trilogy. Since the protagonist was the tyrant and evil dictator from the trilogy as a young man, we did not expect a happy ending. But watching him descend from a decent person to a villain was more difficult than we bargained for.

We finished it late one Thursday night. After the epilogue, I immediately went to the bathroom to get ready for bed. As I stood brushing my teeth, I was reeling about the masterful story-telling and the intensity of the climax, but when I went into the bedroom, my husband was subdued.

As an English major, I have read many a depressing book, and it no longer fazes me. I can appreciate great writing while simultanesouly shaking off a tragic story. My sweetheart is not so calloused. He told me the book had made him sad. Then he said,

“I guess that’s how God feels watching us. He sees our potential. We have the option of choosing Him and being happy, but we don’t.”

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A Childless Mother

All it takes is a little red to send her to her knees. She’ll cry there on the bathroom floor until she can’t anymore. A childish shuddering breath signals the end of this round. Another month, another try, another failure.

It might sound dramatic, but I know it’s true because she is me.

I want to talk for a minute about the childless mother. The woman who, according to President Russel M. Nelson hasn’t given birth or adopted but “is a mother by virtue of her eternal divine destiny.”

I’ve hesistated to write this piece for several reasons. One, I don’t want to depress people. I don’t want to magnify my problems or make people feel sorry for me. Two, I don’t know that I can accurately represent the range of issues people who struggle with infertility face. I’ve only been trying for nearly four years. I know there are women who have so much more experience with this. Three, I am committed to this blog not becoming a place for a political agenda.

But I feel some things really need to be said.

Let’s start with me.

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To Love Long

Today is not special. It’s not my birthday or Tyler’s birthday. It’s not Valentine’s day. It’s not the anniversary of when we started dating, got engaged, got married, or first ate tacos. But for some reason, this has been on my mind.

Recently, a sweet friend of mine got married. It has had me thinking on our wedding and those early days of marriage. They were just beautiful. Everything was so new and exciting. Our days were full of firsts. Even the most mundane task seemed a land mark (yes, we took pictures of our first grocery shopping trip together). We were so in love, and I felt I had never been as happy.

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The Birth of Fear

I recently (as in a few days ago) moved to a new state. In the days leading up to the move, I was nothing short of terrified. We were excited and confident in our decision, but I still felt my brain reeling with everything that could possibly go wrong. I was reminded of the following piece I wrote in a creative non-fiction class in college.

When I was about to graduate, a professor reached out saying I had been nominated as a possible candidate to read something of mine at graduation. A bunch of students were nominated. We had to submit something, and they would pick two. I was a novel writer and didn’t feel I had anything short enough and good enough, but I decided to submit this piece since they asked.  Read more

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Letters to God

Spencer W. Kimball said “God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs.”  I believe that. I believe that we can be God’s hands in the lives of others. If we’ll listen, he’ll direct us how. Sometimes I feel like the world’s problems are too big for me. I wonder if I can really do anything. I think something we can all do is make sure that every person who encounters us walks away feeling lifted. We can make sure every person we meet feels a little of God’s love. 

This is a little story I wrote in college about someone being God’s hands.

Letters to God

 

Regina bolted across the sunbaked living room and pressed her face against the warm glass. She thought Mrs. Aaron would never leave this morning. Her eyes wild with excitement, she ran down the dim hallway nearly tripping over her pajamas until she reached the library. She nervously searched for the book and, when she found it, tucked it under her shirt and sprinted up to her bedroom. All the running had taken its toll. She took at least three and a half minutes to catch her breath until she opened the big book and searched for the page she’d marked and read, “And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.” She breathed excitedly. This was the day.

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Of PE, Purple, and Pajamas

It was an eighth grade girls locker room – that melting pot of various levels of development and insecurity. We were in the middle of changing back into our clothes after a probably humiliating PE class (that may have been the day I got knocked to the ground by a basketball to the head). A girl on the further end of the development spectrum was fixing her hair in the mirror.

“Oh my gosh, guys. Why didn’t anyone tell me I looked ugly?”  Read more

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Can Vidalet

I served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I served for 18 months in the Spain Barcelona mission. I learned and saw so much on my mission. I loved it and was forever changed by it. This story doesn’t begin to cover my experience in Spain but I felt it needed to be written. Spain is a first-world country and a popular country for tourists to visit. So, before I went there I was blissfully unaware of the suffering that exists. It’s not in the way you might think. This story is part fiction, part truth. The family is fictitious but everything else was written from things I actually observed or the experiences of people I knew. Can Vidalet is the metro stop in a place I lived in Spain for 6 months. In this story, I try to capture the struggles of two groups of people I came to love on my mission. Read more

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Wake up with the Dawn

Welcome to my first post! A little bit about this blog:

A couple of years ago I had a flash of inspiration.

I have always loved to write. When I was little, I would invent stories while going to sleep or vacuuming or jumping on the trampoline. I could have been called dramatic…maybe. Read more