Serious post here but I promise a funny and uplifiting one tomorrow...

I haven't written in this blog for some time now. Its been hard to write anything lately without being honest with how I felt the majority of the past month. I haven't been in a fun mood as much as I usually am. Thanksgiving and Christmas has passed by and I will be honest and say its been a little difficult without my grandfather around. I know the warm and sunny "tomorrows" are ahead for me but even with that knowledge the "todays" of the recent weeks have been very cloudy with a cold and wet wind blowing in my face. I know that when it rains it pours and we are given those drenching rains to have the old washed off so the new can exist but sometimes I feel like someone is also scrubbing me down with lye soap and a hard brush in today's hard rain.

I don't feel sorry for myself but I think everyone has those points in life where the adversity on your shoulders is more than it has been in the past or at least more than it has been in awhile. Sometimes its so heavy you disappear into yourself hoping that you will become a shadow in a corner where you will be unseen and un-important to those that are important to, just for a little relief from the cold rain. I do take some comfort knowing that most of this adversity is not because of mistakes I have made and is just par for my course in life. The hardest part is knowing that some of it is because of mistakes I have made. Those seem to be the heaviest and most difficult to live with. Those are the things that I wish would disappear but because everything I do effects all in my life, I can't erase my life without erasing those people that mean so much to me. Plus, I want to learn from mistakes not set down in the mud and cry about it.

I was reading an article by President Monson today about the most important decisions in life and he said something that was very profound, "We must not let our passions destroy our dreams." I had heard that before and quotes like "don't give up what you want most in life for what you want at the moment" and "decisions are not goals, decisions are daily steps that take you to your goal that was made long ago, so make the best possible decisions that take you toward your goal no matter how hard a step it is". I honestly can say that some of the drenching rain that is falling on me is because I gave in to anger and said something untrue and meant to make some important people to me angry. I felt why not give them what they are giving me! I was wrong and made a bad decision. Proverbs says, "A soft answerth turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger". I wish I would have listened to that counsel because it also says that "the mouth of fools poureth out foolishness." Something was done to me either by accident or with intent to hurt me (I'm still not sure which) and my reaction was with angry words that destroyed a trust that I had in someone and knew they had in me. It added a burden that I must carry for some unknown time.... and those decisions made us both look like a fool in then end. A wet and cold fool by himself in the shadows of the corner, getting a hard cleaning with lye soap. Ouch doesn't begin to describe the tear in my soul from being stupid and now having to live with the consequences.

For just a few minutes I gave into passion (anger) and in reality gave up what I wanted most in life for something at the moment, I made a decision that took me away from my goal.... and the burden of those words I said make me wish tomorrow would hurry up and get here. The pains of Gethsemane are the most real thing I can experience in this life except for one thing that is more real... the love of my Savior and Heavenly Father. It is said that the Liberty Jail experience was the most suffering that Joseph Smith went through on this earth, but it is not best described as hell on earth though he said he couldn't imagine hell being any different than that jail. It have come to be best described as the Liberty temple. It was through that experience that Joseph came closer to our Heavenly Father and Savior than any other time (as described by Elder Holland) because the suffering brought Joseph to his own Gethsemane and Christ was waiting for him there. Christ was waiting for him in that place but Joseph didn't know that until he was still and listened, and only after Joseph was still was he given peace... Christ had lead him out of that garden into a place where there was no more suffering because it the suffering served its purpose, it got Joseph closer to the overall goal, the place he dreamed. Christ lead Joseph through the cold and wet today's to the bright and sunny tomorrows.

Sometimes I forget that the path of happiness leads to my own Liberty temple and I must go through my own Gethsemane. I must be still and when I travel through this part of the path, whether it be because I am guilty of transgression or when I am innocent, I must remember its the Lord with the lye soap and hard brush scrubbing away. In the end is a happiness that could not have been enjoyed without the rain. I just hope that when the rain and scrubbing is over that those whom I was a fool to and that was angry with me, well I hope they let me part of their tomorrow. If not then it will still be sunny and joyful tomorrow.... but I don't want to imagine a tomorrow without certain friends and family.

For now I am just learning to be patient and learn from the "today's". I don't like standing in the dark corner, I love my family and friends to much to ever do that for to long.