Alone but not really at all

It was a dark and snowy crisp evening. I climbed under the branches of several pine trees that I hand chosen specifically for their hiding abilities and lay there and wait. Would they notice? Would they see that I had left the group and was no longer there trudging behind them trying to keep up? I laid there and waited for what seemed like hours and slowly the tears began to fall as I peaked out from underneath the pine branch at the other girls racing down the hill on sleds and pulling them back up gleefully laughing and talking. I knew it, they didn't even notice I had been absent for the last couple of runs. Shows how much they liked me! I couldn't help but feel soo lonely and sad and worthless. Why couldn't I have been there best friends? I started to stifle the sob for several minutes and realized that crying wasn't making me feel better. I remember my mom had always told me that I could pray when I felt sad and then I would feel better. So underneath those pines trees on a cold winter's evening I prayed to my Heavenly Father and told Him how I felt. I felt a little better but the girls still didn't notice I was gone. Grrr. That was the problem. But, I was getting cold and I thought just maybe I would be able to sneak back to the house before they would see me. Just then, "Has anyone seen Amanda? She's been gone a long time." Huh? They had noticed? Wow. I waited for them to go past and snuck out in step with them once again. Oh there you are! Where have you been? Are you ok? I replied back, "oh yea I am fine. Just had to go do something...

Years later, I was about two or three weeks into the mission in Peru where I was the tallest blonde around, didn't understand hardly anything and didn't have a personality at all. (Surprising what happens to you when you are unable to express yourself as you always have. You become personalityless...) I had just left my boyfriend back home, ( wh9 I was pretty sure I was going to marry at some point) and did I mention I couldn't talk to anyone? Even when I attempted to say something in spanish to the locals I would only get a confused, lost look and then their eyes would go to my companion for an explanation as to what I had just said. She would then have to try and guess for the most part what I had tried to say and hurry on with something else. Needless to say I really had never felt so alone in my life. It got so bad I was ready to call up the president of the mission and tell him my bags were packed to go home. I had never quit anything but I could justify this one right? I was running home to my future husband... After all that is really what I was supposed to have been doing, getting married, having babies and living happily ever after... I remember crying myself to sleep as I prayed each night to my Father in Heaven, to help me be understood and to help me have the courage to continue. I prayed harder than I ever had before to not feel lonely and to feel at ease. Each night I would have dreams of James back home urging me to stay there and continue in the Lord's service. Each night I would feel just a bit better and each morning during my study I would spend most of it on my knees begging and pleading for strength and courage to continue. Before I knew it a month and then two months passed. I realized that I wasn't alone. I realized that me knees had calluses on them and holes were beginning to wear on my skirts at knee length. I realized that I had developed into a different person, one with a testimony of who I really am and that I am never ever alone. The first month of being in the field was the most humbling I had been through. But, as I look back on them now, what a transformation I went through. I know now that I had to go through that to become the type of person/missionary that my Father in Heaven needed me to be to be able to relate and help with those that were waiting for me.

Skip forward a few more years... I am now married, but just barely under a year. Life is great, we are loving life. We've just started a new business, James started school, we are happy. And then something so shattering and soul gashing happens. (Maybe one day I will right a book about this one... but for now no details.) And I feel completly lost, gone, with no one to turn to. I couldn't run to my mom, my husband, a friend, no one.... at all. I remembering sitting in my car, crying in uncontrollable sobs wishing that a stranger would just come so I could let it all out and then have them disappear forever. (I've got your curiosity peaked now huh? hehe. Sorry no details.) But in this time of really great sorrow I remembered how it was to spend time on your knees, pleading for peace, understanding and comfort. Comfort came almost immediatley, peace a little later and then after more time understanding. But, the point here is that I was never at any point of this ordeal alone, Ever. Even though I felt tossed to the sewer rats and trampled by swine and I felt so alone and hurt. I was never alone. I am so greatful that I am never alone. That I have a brother that went through every one of the hard times I went through and that I have a Father in Heaven that allows me to be humbled and then built back up and polished.