Trials and Comfort

I usually try not to express my feelings and emotions to much on our blog, and like to use it as just a tool to show what we have been up too.  But I got the very strong impression to write about an experience that I had today.

This is really difficult for me to actually write, and I've tried to write down my feelings a few times but each time I do I just want the hurt to go away so I try not to think about it.  My family and my aunt Pat's family have always been really close.  My Aunt Pat and Uncle Paul are two of the nicest people you will ever meet.  For spring break/Easter we would go down to Virginia and visit their daughter Kelly and her family.  She has two of the sweetest kids ever, and it blows my mind because how old they've gotten because I remember holding Brynn in my arms when she was just a little baby! Kelly was really great about staying in touch with me over facebook when I moved out here to Idaho for college.  Even though we always lived so far away from each other I always knew that if I needed her she would be there.  She was really important to me.  Kelly unfortunately was in a bad situation at home and in winter she died, very unexpectedly (details are not appropriate to share so please don't ask).  I was in school that semester and we basically had no money, I tried to convince myself to just put the $850 airplane ticket on a credit card and go to her funeral.  I really wanted to be there for my family, but I had a gut feeling telling me not to go.  I followed my gut, and either the day of her funeral or the day before I talked to my Aunt Pat and I will never forget the feelings that I felt when we finished the conversation.  She told me that she knew that I wanted to be there, and if there was any way possible I would be.  When I got off the phone with her and had myself a good long cry something in my heart was telling me that it was important for me to remember Kelly by the memories that I had of her and that for me I didn't need seeing her at her funeral to be the last memory.  I know that I will see her again, and that gave me so much comfort.

The reason that I was thinking a lot about Kelly today was in my sociology class we were discussing domestic violence, and it just really hit home with members of my family.  If you know that someone is being hurt- you have to be there for them, don't judge or criticize them for not leaving, but let them know that they are being brave for telling someone and provide them with references to resources that can help them.  The most important thing you can do is listen and believe them.

That being said, sometimes there is no escaping death.  It's apart of life, and it should be.  It's the only way that we can live with God again and have the greatest happiness and joy.  It's painful, sad, heartbreaking, sometimes we don't think it's fair, and usually it just plain sucks.  But it happens.  When it happens please don't turn to bad habits to cope, but rather look for the ways positive ways that this person has affected your life.  What did you learn from them?  How will their death make you do things or see things differently?  Believe me, I know it's a heck of a lot easier said than done, but it can be done- in time.  I have been able to forsake the anger that I felt for the person that took my cousins life away and honestly forgive him. That only came after I had found peace in the plan of salvation

We've all lost loved ones and some of us really struggle with that every day.  This short video that I watched really strengthened my faith in the Lord that death is not the end of us, and that we will be together again.  Families are eternal and everlasting, death does not triumph over life.