The Growth and Hope that the Perspective of Another Year Brings

The Growth and Hope that the 

Perspective of Another Year Brings

I am shocked at the marked difference between this year and last year. 

This lets me see growth and it gives me so much hope for the future 

The funny thing is that my circumstances have not really changed.

What has changed is me. 

My perspective,

my attitude, and

How I react are so different.

I'm still in Springfield trying to sell my house. I still have to take care of 8 acres of irrigated lawn with flowerbeds to weed, trees to mulch, and bushes to prune. I still have a large home to care for and financially maintain in 'show quality' condition all by myself. Furthermore, last year I had three teenage boys and a daughter to help me most of the summer, while this year not only is my oldest son gone, but my second son will leave at the beginning of July. Not only that, but we have also only shown my home once since January. 

I should be majorly freaking out at this point.

Last year I was a frazzled mess, worried and upset about every problem that arose and distraught about when my house wouldn't sell. I had my own plan, and not really realizing it at the time, I fought against God to make it happen.

I utterly failed. 

Not only did I fail, but I was an emotional wreck.

This year is so much different even though the situation is not.

I have given up fighting God.

• I've decided that His plan is better than mine anyway. 
• I've decided that it's okay that I don't know what that plan is. 
• I've decided to just trust him. 
• I've decided to focus all of that energy that I spent being distraught and worried in doing good to other people. 

As I have done that, I found that the Savior's grace has blessed me with peace. 

It has giving me added perspective... 

to see that worldly things do not matter, that relationships and the difference we make in peoples lives is all that we leave behind. 

It is help me to be settled... 

knowing that God will take care of me and that His plan is more perfect than my own. 

It has blessed me with tranquility... 

The ability to be still and to listen to promptings from the spirit and to get that added direction. 

He helps me to keep my focus in the midst of chaos.  

His peace helps me to focus on the worthwhile goal of becoming a better person, a better mother, a better friend, a better wife... 

The person I want to be when I see my husband again.

If ever I feel the hints of an emotional meltdown, 

• I pray for added strength. 
• I pray for the ability to understand
• I pray for the capacity to do what I'm asked to do,
• I pray for the perspective to know what to do first. 

As I go about trying to do God's work, 

I find that peace in return.

It's taken me a year to figure this out..., 

to figure out what I could not learn in a lifetime before. 

Trials do that for us. 

Trials accelerate our learning.

I have hints about what my future will bring...

promptings that I simply have to trust and have faith in. 

          That should be driving me insane, but for the most part I'm okay with it. 

If I trust God and accept that peace, 

then that can be enough, and  

I can move forward.