Loose Change

A year ago today my best friend hopped on a plane & set off to New York. This is where she spent the last 9 days of her pre-missionary life. She has now been a missionary for almost a year & though she is such a wonderful missionary as anyone can tell by her emails (& I'm sure anyone in Kentucky would tell you), I'd love to have her back home now. Like right this second actually. 



Though I'd love to say this year has been so very easy & that the Lord has made the road nice & straight & flat for me considering my best friend is on a mission, that would be a lie. 

This year has been a struggle. It has had its ups and it's downs with probably 80% of them being downs. But the changes it has brought to me have been good.

I will be the first person to tell you that change sucks. Even ask my parents and they will tell you that I despise change. When we moved from Las Vegas down to sunny California I argued every point. I was a terror. Of course I've now embraced California & the people here & there is no place I'd rather be (most of the time), but that came with accepting change. 

I've learned that God gives us change for a reason. Change is a part of trials & change is a blessing. Without my best friend leaving me a year ago I would not have experienced the growth I have today. 

Thinking back to a year ago in the singles ward, I knew my group of people & I was known among them but I really didn't get out of that group. I had one best friend & many acquaintances. I went to activities & then I went home. I didn't really mingle much because I didn't feel the need. I let others talk around me & I was the wallflower of the group. 



If you would have come up to me a year ago & told me that in a years time I would stand up in front of the ward announcing activities every Sunday in church that I helped plan with a committee I would look at you like you were crazy. If you told me a year ago that in a years time I would basically know my whole singles ward by name I would ask you what drug you were on. And then if you told me that in a years time I would be doing this & enjoying it, I would say you're insane. 

But change happens. To all of us. And it's good. 

Trials and change happen to us all. It is our job to choose how we are going to react to them & how we are going to let them mold us. 

A smooth sea NEVER made for a skilled sailor :) 


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