The Most Painful Things in Life

Two of the most painful things in life:

1) Losing something you love. Any time your heart is bound with something else, it hurts to lose it. It doesn't matter if it's a person, a pet, a relationship, or something else you hold dear. The degree of pain may differ, but when the heart hurts it often doesn't differentiate between degrees.

2) Longing for something you can't have. This isn't much different than losing what you love, except that you've never been given the full chance to see that love blossom and grow. You feel in your heart what it could be but know that it won't ever be. The most painful is usually longing for love; whether it's being alone and never finding that special somone, or the ache that comes from wanting and not being able to have children, or even from being in a relationship where love is not readily expressed, the pain can be like a thousand tears forever waiting to fall.
"For all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these 'It might have been'." (John Greenleaf Whittier)

How do you live with unhealed pain? How do you live with regrets? And how can you really regret those things that you would change now with hindsight, but know that to change them would be to deny the good that has also come?

Some losses will never be fully recovered from, some longings will never fade. Somehow we have to pick ourselves up and focus on the vibrancy of the life we've been given. We have the hope of healing through the atonement of Christ. It may not be in this life that the pain is erased, but eventually we will be whole again, and the pain we've felt will be put in perspective. Our joy will outweigh our pain and we will celebrate what our mortal journey was.

Really Great Quote

I found this quote and wanted to record it somewhere. I thought my blog would be a good place since that will give everyone else the chance to read it too!

"If education is a matter of self-realization and man is the image of God, then how important the gospel is in moulding that self. To the timid, the self is a refuge, a retreat from the world; to the bold, the self is a strategy to engage it.

We have to venture outward into experience; then the outward experience brings us back into a new self-knowledge. That is the essence of education, best undertaken with a companion called faith." (David P. Gardener, "Religious Growth: A Fourth ‘R’ in Higher Education," New Era, Sep 1976, 41)

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things...

-family

-friends

-the smell of fresh cut grass, especially in the morning
-sunrises and sunsets
-the caress of a gentle breeze across my face
-cheerful flowers
-laying in the grass in the dark watching the stars
-cold fronts during summer
-thunderstorms
-good conversation
-getting to know someone
-walking barefoot through grass
-the sound of crickets chirping
-hummingbirds and butterflies
-colors
-playing in water
-the gentle whisper of snowflakes falling
-being outside
-accomplishing something challenging
-getting mail
-learning
-solitary country roads
-music that makes me feel
-laughter
-time alone to read a good book
-warm blankets on cold days
-cute socks
-dreams that make you wish you could sleep forever
-days when the reality you wake up to is worth leaving those dreams behind

-and last but not least... LOVE, in all it's forms!

What I Found in My Much-Neglected Yard

This one would have been deadheaded but it was still being used:

I love zinnias! This guy was easily 3 inches or more:

It keeps working out that when the weather is really nice (perfect for yardwork) I'm too busy with other stuff to get anything done outside.
For the past two days I've been slowly working on making my yard somewhat presentable again. The flowers have been deadheaded, weeds have been pulled, dead plants plucked and disposed of. Sadly, most of this work has been in my backyard where most people won't even get to see it! But the grasshoppers and butterflies seem to be enjoying it, and I love looking out and not seeing a jungle.