Picture Perfect

It has been such a long time since I have written on our family blog. To be honest it is because I didn’t feel that I had anything super positive to say about what we have been going through. I am slowly realizing that if I only wait for the good times, that I’ll be passing up a whole bunch of life. Life isn’t just butterflies and rainbows. Actually it is very much the opposite. This life is meant to be difficult. It is the test to see if we are worthy of all that He Hath for us. My visiting teacher shared with me a picture and it has stuck with me. It was this picture:

 Who am I to think that I am worth no more trial than our Savior. Matthew 26:39 And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.  

I have asked this question in my own small way to my Heavenly Father with the same reassuring love that I imagine the Savior received. This past year has been filled with a lot of lows, and it is hard to see all the good in what has felt like the hardest year and a half in our 7 years of being married.  What made it so hard? I think Justin and I would agree that losing a job can be a shocker to a family just fresh out of college ready to be on our own, still struggling to figure out how to juggle normal life which consists of still no money, new town, new church ward, and two sweet girls in our care. This was a shocker that led to immediate pondering and prayer. Our answers have been so surprising and that in of itself has been a struggle. We had prayed so hard to know if Justin should go to funeral school, and the answer was a very comforting yes. So we did what we had to make it happen, and things happened so quickly and flawlessly at first that we thought, there is no doubt this is the path God wants us to take. When we were in Pittsburgh we knew it was where we were meant to be. Still confirmations of yes this is right were at every corner, with the thought that it would get easier and that us both working full time long hours with Lylia in day care would soon be over. Next we got what we thought was the best job! We would be living rent free for a while, and be able to pay down debt. We were so excited and jumped in with both feet. Yet again feeling the reassuring comforting answer of yes this is where you are meant to be. A little at a time things got more stressful. Justin was Elders Quorum president, even though he was only able to go to church maybe once a month. Money was so tight, even living rent free we were still having to get government assistance and medical coverage was far from stellar in Reading. I began to have issues with depression, which began to make leaving for work more difficult on Justin and our family. He would be gone for days, with only seeing him for a few hours of sleep. I was called as Seminary Teacher which was my saving grace. It helped fight off the depression I soo didn’t want. Getting up every morning studying the life of our Savior and loving my seminary kids in a way I had never experienced was the most rewarding experience of this time! Justin lost his job, and we were thrown into the questions of what do we do now. All the sudden the reassuring yes was no longer there. Instead there was uneasiness and a sense of warning in regards to funeral service.

Why would we go through mortuary school, with the money and time to all the sudden turn from it? For Justin his answer is because it is not conducive to a family. For me it is because God told us not to anymore. Why different answers, because for me it is easy to fall back into what we have been trained for, and not as easy for me to say, yes lead us and guide us in the dark. We moved in with my mom in hopes of staying for only 3 months, and what has now been over a year. Getting a job was a long hard process for Justin and I both, and yet again a lot of questions of why came up in prayers. Justin about a month ago finally found a job at Grace and he loves it. I am working for a copy company and our schedules allow the girls to be home with Justin in the morning and day, and me in the evening. Is our schedule ideal, is this just the most amazing wonderful answer to such a painful question of why? No! I see Justin when he gets in bed at 1 am, and I see him when I kiss him good bye in the morning as I leave for work. Is money good? No! We are not in this for the money. Living in Maryland is very expensive, and we have to both work in order to try paying off some student debt as quickly as possible.


I have so many questions that I ask Heavenly Father that will probably never be answered. I don’t have a bosom friend here, and I did in Reading. I am not home as a stay at home mother here, but I was in Reading. We are living with my mom and dad which does not feel good. I sit in church and I don’t feel like this is where we are supposed to be. But yet this is where we have been lead. When we tell my mom that we are looking to move out of this ward, she thinks there is a problem with us and not the ward. It is not so much the ward, as much as I know that there is a place that I am meant to feel as at home as I did in Reading, and in Pittsburgh, and in Salt Lake City, and In Tooele, and in Provo and in all the places we have lived as a married couple. I feel like maybe the answer to why we are here and doing what we are doing will come in the next place we live. Because it wasn’t until Justin lost his job with Bean that we knew why we were meant to be in Reading. It is not important to have the answer of why, but it sure is nice when we get it! Lol.

In the next few months we are excited to be moving. We don’t know where, we don’t know if we will buy or rent. But it is nice to have something to look forward to. The important things are not the ward members you do or don’t get a long with, nor the money you have to buy things, but it really is the time you have with those you love more than anything. I continue to have faith and hope that life won’t always feel as low as it has lately, and that the sacrifices I am making by working will somehow seem to have value. But here we are in this place called life, and it was this place that I shouted for joy in the pre-existence. Life doesn’t have to be “Picture Perfect” to be good, and I am slowly seeing that. The weekends are my refuge, the place I long for. To be with my family and in the embrace of my sweet Justin. I thank God for my family, and for his constant comfort. I’ll share a picture of a painting that moves me beyond words. Maybe just maybe someone out there will understand why this painting means so much to me! I thank God for inspired artists, that somehow are able to express my every emotion and every thought without words.

It is entitled She Will Find What is Lost by Brian Kershesnik who is my favorite artist. I have another of his pieces and it moves me in a Spiritual way just as this one does.