After I got baptized, my life fell.apart. And I’m not exaggerating.
Now, if you’ve heard me speak or read my book, than you know this.
But I also realized today that the 191K of you following me on Instagram have not heard me speak or read my book & this isn’t common knowledge to most of you guys.
I’ve never known loneliness until I got baptized.
I’ve never known such painful sacrifice & loss until I joined the Church.
I’ve never known real pain until then. Indescribable anguish.
I’ve never struggled so long & so hard where my body would literally ache before, until I got baptized.
So when you see posts of me traveling to speak – it’s ALL of those things I open up about in great detail- the hardest of hards- that I’ve had to go through because of my decision to find and follow God.
I talk openly about the times where I felt my desperate pleadings weren’t heard, or I was asked to do something so painfully hard. I talk openly about me screaming at God, until literally losing my voice, wondering where He was- if He even cared still about ME – or if He was even there at all.
It would be TOO EASY to blame all of this on God. It would be too easy to step back & realize this would never have happened if I didn’t put forth the effort. None of those things happened until I tried to turn to this ‘supposed God’ & turn back where things made sense and where things were comfortable; back to where 21 years of habit, tradition, contentment, and culture lay deep within my roots.
In-depth experiences & details are in my book-I hope you do read it so you can see what it is that had kept me going when it was too easy to not.
But, my point isn’t to “sell” you on reading my book.
My point is, you’re not alone.
My point is, I know.
Like you, I also know what it’s like to feel like you have nothing to show for your efforts.
Like you, I also know what it is to wonder, to doubt, to struggle, to sink, to feel empty, judged, abandoned, unwanted, unworthy, tried, tired, & alone.
Like you, I know how hard it is to keep going sometimes. Where we feel as if we are hanging on by our fingertips when we are being pulled by our ankles in the opposite direction.
Losing our voice, losing hope, losing strength. Forcing yourself to use faith you don’t even know if you have or not.
But what you (I hope) see online on my page, it’s real.
It’s real strength, & real hope, & real happiness, & real smiles, because I didn’t go the easy way, even though I wondered every second why I wasn’t.
Yeah, I know things can be really hard. Yeah, I know it could be easier to turn back.
But I also know HOW POSSIBLE it is & how worth it it is- to keep going.
The happiness you may see are NOT because my life is easy. Not because I don’t still lose my voice yelling at Him sometimes. It is literally the complete opposite–
but because I know Him.
Because of it all, I KNOW God. And I love Him with a real love. And I couldn’t trade that knowledge & relationship for anything.
Because time & time again, through unwanted-unexpected-& uncharted paths, God has brought me to the better things.
Because through all of those exact times I was yelling & struggling & wondering where He was that has brought me to EVERYTHING I have now. And wow, is it amazing! I wouldn’t change a single thing.
HARD TIMES WILL ALWAYS BE THERE – BUT SO WILL GOD.
And with Him do we overcome & conquering everything.
Every feeling of loneliness, or doubt, or bad habit, or etc.
With Him- WE CAN OVERCOME & CONQUER THE FREAKING WORLD.
He’s brought me to – and through – everything. And it only took ONE time for me to allow myself to give Him a real chance to show me how great He really is– & for that to be what I needed to hold on to, to make it a *little bit easier the next challenge. And the next one.
And then times will come, where we will find ourselves feeling at ease even among trials because from consistently trying to trust, we will have experienced time & time again that we are being led to the greater things.
Then times will come, where the smiles are real. And the happiness is real. Regardless of our situation.
Times will come where the scary & the hard & the unexpected- turn into exciting, thrilling new adventures that come with peace- knowing that we are in motion to the best fit blessings.
And we will find ourselves living our best self in our best life because we chose to trust the most powerful Being to ever exist and we’ll be profoundly grateful things didn’t go our own way- living and experiencing things we didn’t even know was available to us, with new knowledge & talents we wouldn’t have wanted to go any further in life without.
And we’ll wonder why we hadn’t done better all along when we look around and see where we are and what we’ve gained along the way. 🙂
xoxAL
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