Liz and Gary

The other day I was talking to a really good friend of mine, and while we were talking she said some things that really hit me. She was telling me about some "what if" thoughts she had been having and how she realized that they weren't from Heavenly Father and she didn't have to listen to them. I'm so grateful she told me all the things she did because things really just started to click for me.

This past year has been really difficult to say the least. I've been plagued by feelings of doubt and sometimes just plain hopelessness. I have so many "what if" thoughts in my mind that I can't seem to shake. But talking to her made me really realize that I don't have to listen to those thoughts. They come from a source who wants me to be unhappy and doubt myself. Heavenly Father doesn't communicate through thoughts like that. He wants me to be happy. As hard as that is sometimes, I'm going to try. I need to have more faith in His plan for me. He knows what's best for me even though I don't understand it right now. And he has something more wonderful in store for me that I can even imagine.

So I'm setting a goal for myself. Whenever I have those destructive/scary "what if" thoughts I'm going to say that I know they are a lie and I'm not going to listen to them. It's probably easier said than done, but I hope I can do it and that it will help me.

I'm also trying to work on having more faith. I know that the Lord only gives us challenges that we can handle and everything in our life is tailored perfectly to mold us into who we need to become. But it's hard. I do know that in a few years I will look back on all my experiences, both good and bad, and be able to see how good they were for me. Even if they're not what I want right now, I know I'll be able to see how they were things that I needed.

It's been really hard for me to look around and see things come so easily for everyone else, but I found a quote online that I need to remember...

This is an old picture from last year, but I love it and I thought it fit the prompt perfectly. The day I took this was the perfect summer day!

This past week Gary and I took a trip out to Missouri. Gary is starting grad school out there to get his MBA this fall. So we are moving there in a little under a month. We wanted to go out and check out some places to live and also take some stuff out. It was like our pre-move before our actual move. So we loaded up a little U-Haul trailer with all of Gary's tools and man stuff. You see, Gary's manly things are in the shed because that's where he does all his woodworking and such, and the shed is a place where spiders like to live. I do not like spiders. So we decided that it probably wouldn't be a good idea to load up a big moving truck with all of our furniture and nice things and mix them with the things that could have spiders living in them.

We usually make this drive in a couple days, but this time it took three. We got a late start so we stayed overnight in Wyoming the first night. And can I just tell you that when you're in the middle of nowhere, hotels really take advantage of you. They can charge whatever they want because they know you have no choice. It's really quite annoying. We stayed in the cheapest place we could find and usually this hotel chain is pretty good... but this one... well it wasn't. They didn't even have fitted sheets on the beds! They just had two flat sheets and wrapped one around the mattress. That may sound very spoiled of me, but I just thought it was yucky. But the next day we got up early and went and saw some friends of ours that live in Nebraska. It was so great to see them! They introduced us to Xbox Kinect. It was awesome.

Then when we finally made it to Missouri we got to work. We went to the school and had a meeting with his adviser and we also looked for housing. At first I wasn't too thrilled about our housing options. We were looking for somewhere that would do a short-term lease because we want to buy a house sometime soon. So I looked online and made a list of places to go look at. We had a good list and most of the prospects didn't excite me too much. However, we had one on our list that we put down on a whim thinking we probably wouldn't be able to live there. We checked that one out first and I fell in LOVE! It was perfect! They were new and they told us they did month-to-month leases, 6-month leases, and 12-month leases. And the rent is way less that what we are paying here! Plus, everything is included except electricity. So our bills will be cut in half because we won't have to pay for trash, water, internet, blah blah blah. After we left I was giddy. We decided to go look at a couple more places just to make sure, but nothing was as good. Some of them smelled real funny. So we went back and turned in our applications and paid our down payment and everything. Now all we have to worry about is finding jobs, but I think everything will fall into place. It always does.

Now that we are back I'm working on packing up some things. So wish me luck!