July 9, 2018

Food For Thought

This morning when I woke up there was a message on my phone from a friend I hadn't spoken to in quite some time. Her message was incredibly sweet and it made my day.  She thanked me for a blog post I had written and shared and she thanked me for being a good example. Almost instantly I started thinking about those people who have been good examples to  me over the years and the words of wisdom they have imparted to me.

I'd like to share with you one of the best pieces of advice I have ever received. But first a little background...

I had recently gone through what I thought was a terrible breakup, I dropped out of school, moved home and started working for a former employer. As I was driving 12+ hours back to Washington listening to a Spice Girls album on repeat, I had the distinct impression that I would not be returning to the college campus I had just left.

A few months after returning home my parents sold our home and decided that they were going to be moving to the same small college town I had just left.

My life at this moment in time felt like it had been turned upside down. I didn't know where I was supposed to be or what I was supposed to be doing. Should I find a place to live temporarily? What would I do for a car? The car I was driving at this point in time belonged to my parents. Should I move to small town Utah where the oil industry was booming and I could make a lot of money doing just about anything for work? Should I go to Provo and wait for school to start back up in January? If so, how would I get there and what would I do to ensure I had enough money to survive? My mind swirled. So many paths to choose from, which path was the right one for me?

It was during this time that I had a heart to heart with one of my favorite Sunday School teachers and she shared the following piece of wisdom with me:

"The Lord gives us puzzles and it is our job to put the pieces together."

For me this meant that I needed to make a decision about what I wanted to do, attempt to do everything I could to make that decision come to fruition, and trust that ultimately, things would work out the way the Lord intended them to.

It was an incredibly stressful time in my life, but things worked out the way the Lord intended them to. A family in my home ward let me move in with them, my parents let me use the car for a few months, someone else shipped my stuff to school for me and I managed to save enough money to pay for school.

This quote has been put to the test in my life over and over again. I have come to learn to trust in the Lord, you can't go wrong when He is own your side and when you are on His.