Never Give Up

    Well life has been different, I am attending school full time right now....in the summer it is kind of crazy. Work has been crazy, and I have found myself being able to stand up and be a leader when I was starting to think I was just going to be on the low end of the totem pole forever. I have made lots of new friends, which is hard for me. With my sidekick Amelia in tow there is always an adventure and honestly my life has been way better because she is always there for me, to force me to be social and adventurous. Really our lives would be super boring without each other.

   Lately I have had a lot of time to really figure out what kind of person I am. I go through phases where really I feel like hate the world, and if you are lucky I will let you into my life. Other times I just want everyone to be happy, have a friend, and know that I am there no matter what. Well for the last while I have really just wanted to be there for everyone who is comfortable enough to let me in. I try really hard to just love everyone no matter what, and of course I say otherwise to people's faces...but that is just because I don't want to let everyone into my head. I am learning that one of my weaknesses is caring so much that it hurts me when I have absolutely no way of changing a situation. I have always been a lot more tender hearted than I let on, and once you get past my shell you see that. Once I am your friend, I am honestly going no where. You can't just be done, no matter what I am here for you even if we hardly talk. So caring really is a weakness and a strength. It is a weakness because you hurt for others, and it makes being happy hard. I really have to fight to find the happy moments when I feel like I am inadequate for those around me.

    One thing I tend to pride myself in is the ability to listen, I think it is even more than listening. I think it is my ability to try and connect with what someone is saying. I may not be in the same situation, had the same thing happen to me, or whatever the case may be. I do know that I will try and find an experience that had similar emotions involved. Nobody experiences emotions the same, and saying you know exactly how one feels is not really helpful. I think it is most helpful when someone can bring up an experience as similar to mine as possible and let me see how they dealt with it. We are all individuals, and no matter what our Heavenly Father loves us. He puts people in our lives for a purpose, and if I could I would have everyone in my life always. I know for a fact that no matter what happens in my life Heavenly Father has a plan, and even if everything seems negative eventually my stubborn self will see the positive and learn from everything. Henry B. Eyring in the latest conference gave a fantastic talk, and last night I came across a part I found very powerful.

"The Lord has given us all the source of hope as we struggle to help those we love accept their eternal inheritance. He has made promises to us as we keep trying to gather people to Him,even when they resist. Their resistance saddens Him, but he does not quit, nor should we." 

Reading this made me realize that I cannot give up on anyone, if we are to truly be Christlike we are going to love everyone. We will help them, and if it means sitting on the sidelines waiting for them to stop ignoring their Heavenly Father's love for them then so be it. Giving up on someone is never the answer, and even when someone tells me to just give up on them I have to tell them no. I have been saying no to those types of statements for a long time, but now I know that Heavenly Father was really behind the need to not give up. 

   The easiest person to give up on is yourself, and when you give up on yourself you are hurting everyone around you as well. There have been plenty of times in my life where I just gave up, I lost the will to fight. Eventually I found my friends trying harder than me to get me to see that there is happiness is the rough world. That even when things are going downhill, that it isn't a cliff, that it is merely a valley that eventually leads up to a happy place again. My favorite talk ever is by President Uchtdorf is You Matter To Him. That talks always helps me remember than even if it seems the people physically in front of me don't seem to care that Heavenly Father never stops caring. If we are trying hard, and talking to him he is going to be there. Even when we aren't listening and allowing him he is there we just aren't seeing it. Never give up, and keep fighting is key to this life. 

Amelia made this for me, I wish I had a physical copy hanging in
 my room. It is the best reminder to keep trying no matter what.

This song is just so applicable to so many things, and I just love it.