[Background: I married Michael when I was 18 years old. I married him because when I was with him I felt like the truest version of myself. Happy, finding joy and humor in everything, empowered with the confidence to take on the world. He made me feel beautiful, desirable, and valued more than I ever had before in my life. I felt like he set my inner- self free. He never tried to control me using shame or unrelenting persuasion. He never attempted to control me at all. He just allowed me to be who I was, like what I liked, and do what I wanted to do without judgement.
We weren't planning to get married right away. In fact, it was my plan to wait a few years, get into nursing school in Portland, maybe wait until after I graduated. Michael's brother, Ben, visited him and gave him some unsolicited advice that led to our speedy engagement and wedding. "The Mormon standard dating plan is, if you're not engaged after 6 months, you need to move on." If you think you might want to spend eternity with someone, why wait to get eternity started?
I was distraught when Michael told me about this "Mormon standard dating plan." This was not part of my tidy little life plan and I wasn't sure it was wise. I knew we needed more information and I felt prompted to meditate together on a hill overlooking the city. As we climbed to out favorite spot at Chip Ross Park, I was filled with doubt, confusion, and uncertainty. We sat on a bench and watched the wind gently guiding the first leaves down from the maple trees above us. We talked for a while, then we prayed together and separately. As I changed the question from "should I marry Michael?" to "I want to marry Michael, but is that what God wants me to do?" As soon as I had that thought, something snapped into place and I could feel a warm voice within me whisper "yes." A moment later Michael knelt and asked me to marry him and I said yes. I'm not sure how long we sat up there bathing in pure joy as we watched the city below through a beautiful curtain of sunlit, gliding leaves. It was probably hours. We happily bounded down the hill, desiring to proclaim our wonderful news to the whole world. We celebrated with a sample platter at Elmer's restaurant. It was the best fried zucchini I may ever taste. We told his family first, on Canadian Thanksgiving at his parent's house. Then we went with my dad on a boy scout camping trip at my parent's recreational property in the middle of the Central Oregon desert. It was pretty gutsy for Michael to ask my dad's permission in that setting. My dad is a "prepper" and he had guns, ammo, and supplies stockpiled in storage sheds on the property. He also has a third degree black belt and knows how to fight with a staff.
But he graciously gave his consent.
But he graciously gave his consent.
My mom cried when we announced our engagement. She tried to dissuade me from the wedding, citing the fact that Michael was already balding, this was just a fleeting infatuation, he would never be able to provide for a family with his art degree, ect. At one point I shouted at her through tears "you don't have to come to the wedding!"
Michael and I were sealed in the Portland temple on December 11, 2010; meaning we believe our marriage will continue in the next life where we will live together in exaltation if we live worthily. I now realize that getting sealed to someone is a pretty bold move, and it was especially bold for me since I was so young and I had only know him for 5 months.
We lived in a 700 square foot one bedroom apartment on the side of the highway. We could hear every word our upstairs neighbors spoke. Especially when they were screaming at each other or making love at 2 AM. Our apartment was prone to mold and it was not well lit. But we were so in love and so happy to be together. We were always barely scraping by with money, so we mostly played board games, took long walks, and grocery shopped together for our dates. It was both a struggle and sublime. I biked to school at OSU and had a part time work-study job at a convenience store/coffee shop at the international building on campus. I was dutifully checking off pre-reqs for nursing school as Michael struggled through several dead-end jobs. We had a black cat named Cuddles, who we were very sad to give up when we got in to a better apartment complex on the other side of town. We basically had to choose if we wanted to live in an awful moldy apartment and have a sweet cat or move to a better place with no cat and someday have a baby. We chose future baby.
I was confused about what to study at school. I changed my major frequently, usually settling back to nursing. At one point I felt prompted to study music. Now I really wish I had.
I was overwhelmed by the application process for nursing school. I felt so inadequate. They would never choose me. I look back and think "you were great! You had a 3.7 college GPA and tons of volunteer experience. You would have gotten in!" I settled for a crummy for-profit trade school nursing program because it was easy to get in. It was going to be expensive, but I wanted to be a nurse and a better nursing school probably wouldn't accept me anyway. I felt enormous pressure to hurry and get through nursing school as quickly as possible so we could start our family soon. From the very beginning I had a feeling that the particular nursing school I had found was not the right one. Even when they called to tell me I got in to the nursing program I had an uncomfortable feeling when I accepted. I commuted to and from the school, which was near the Portland airport (about 100 miles away from our apartment in Corvallis. CRAZY). I stayed at Michael's aunt Helen's house. I don't know what I was thinking. Nursing school was hard enough without having to get up at 4:30 am and drive in Portland morning traffic. I kept having the nagging prompting that this was wrong and I should stop going to that school. I pushed it down for several months. Partway through my second term, the car was having even MORE problems, I was stressed out, sleep deprived, and I knew I was on the wrong path. I dropped out of school and started working full time at my shipping/data entry/quality control job. I still dream of going back to nursing school. I love the hospitality aspect of nursing. You get to be there for people when they're at their lowest, when they really need a caring hand to soothe their pain. Nurses always know just what to do and how to make it better. I wish nursing school could have been part of my path. I know it is not.
Two or three months after I stopped nursing school we found out we were pregnant with Quin. We were so excited! Michael was working at UA with me and he soon found a promising job at a print shop where he was able to use his art degree. He would be supporting us at a job he liked, I would get to stay home and raise the baby, and we would live happily ever after.
During my pregnancy I continued to work full time, although I took it pretty easy when I was having a nauseous morning or a headache.
I was so anxious about my upcoming delivery. I was really worried that the baby wouldn't like me, that I wouldn't know how to take care of him or that he wouldn't be comforted by me. 2 months before the due date Michael lost the print shop job. I remember that day. It was a cold October 12th, Michael's cousin was getting married and I had stayed in his parent's camper. He was so upset and so afraid of my reaction. I think I handled it pretty well. I remember looking down at the purple shirt that was stretched over my full belly, the scent of crisp autumn leaves floating through the air. The dew on the forested hills of his aunt and uncle's house. Wondering what was going to happen next. How could we care for this little person? Our first born son?
I continued working until I was one day overdue. I feel like I mostly stopped because my co-workers were so distressed by me continuing to work. Michael had been able to find jobs here and there through a temp agency. I was very hopeful that the warehouse job at a technology firm would turn into something permanent. But on Christmas day as we sat on the swing under his parent's house he told me that he only had a few more days of work left. I was a week past my due date. Disappointed that I didn't get to have my baby for Christmas and crushed that once again our family was left without financial resources.
Quin was born three days later. When we brought him home I was completely overwhelmed. Maybe it was all of the stress converging, but I felt totally inadequate and I didn't know how we would care for and raise this baby. I didn't believe I could do it. My mom stayed with us for a week. When she had to return home for work I begged her to take Quin with her. "I can't do it!"
Quin ended up staying in Oregon. A deluge of grief flooded my empty, aching soul. Postpartum depression completely knocked me off my feet and loomed above me, beating me with a 2 by 4 every time I tried to get up. I had horrible unwanted homicidal and suicidal thoughts. I wanted to take his life because I couldn't protect him from the evil world and I didn't want him to experience the pain of all of it. I wanted to take my life because I couldn't handle it. I couldn't be the person my family needed me to be. Or deserved.
I had an excellent doctor who took my concern seriously and helped me get the medication and counselling I needed to survive. But the most important thing she gave me that day was not a prescription or a referral. It was a tender hug. It was refreshing to in the care of a doctor who really cared about me.
It was challenging to make it on zero income with a newborn, but we had been given more than enough cloth diapers for Quin and we had all the clothes we could need for him. We had barely enough food. I remember Michael skipping lunch a few times to make sure I had enough to eat. I mostly didn't have time to eat. I held Quin constantly. I didn't know how to take care of him and part of it was the depression, I just sat on the couch and held him and stared at the side of his face for hours.
Michael found a job in February working as a receptionist for his brother's computer business. That job only worked out until the next Christmas. Then we were on the job hunt again. We both really wanted me to be home with Quin, but that was proving impossible. Michael found a part time job at a different print shop and started an online computer science degree, and I started working part time again. He would leave for work in the morning and at mid-day I would ride the bus with Quin and hand him off to Michael at the bus station or the bus stop and go to work for the afternoon. It was a crazy juggling act, but we managed.
After two long, hard years Michael finished his CS degree. We were tens of thousands of dollars in student debt, but had high hopes for a future computer science job. Michael was really hoping to end up designing and creating video games.
Soon Ammon was on the way and the print shop was closing. Once again, Michael was losing his job at Christmas time. But there was a chance he could get a job with the same company in Eugene. It was a tense two weeks while we waited to find out if he got the job. Then when the news came we had the tough decision of stay here or move to the Eugene area. We decided to move closer to the job, even though it meant having a baby in a new town.
We moved to Springfield and made some great friends. We had just the one little hatchback and Michael took it to work almost every day. I had hoped that he would start biking to work or taking the bus, but that didn't work out. It was incredibly hard to have two little kids in an unfriendly town with no transportation. I would walk a mile and a half round trip pushing the stroller to get groceries. I remember struggling to get everything to fit in re-useable bags, the milk cartons weighing down the basket under the stroller and causing it to scrape on the uneven sidewalk. The straps of my grocery bags would dig into my shoulders and I would have to pause to alternate carrying the heaviest bag on my elbow, in my hand, and on each shoulder.
The kids and I could only go as far as we could walk. I walked with the kids in the stroller to most of their doctors appointments. Actually, I ran to most of them because we were almost always late.
It was hard to get to doctor appointments for myself. I wasn't able to do counselling because of the transportation barrier. I really could have used counselling at that time. I was suicidal and homicidal towards both kids and it was a dark, difficult time.
We really didn't like our neighborhood. Our duplex was okay, but we lived close to the gateway mall and a rowdy apartment complex. People would swear and scream at each other right outside our window late at night. I once had to clean broken glass off the driveway and there was always garbage and animal poop on our lawn. Our one year lease was nearly up and we desperately wanted to find somewhere else to live. We couldn't afford anything better and our rent was to be increased. My parents's rental house came available around the same time and we ended up moving to Lebanon. I had ordered a Taga bike, a very expensive cargo bike with special seats for kids. It came down to deciding between the Taga and a down payment for a second vehicle. I thought I could manage the very bike friendly streets and paths of Eugene/Springfield. Unfortunately the kick-starter didn't arrive until months later than expected. In fact, it arrived after our move to Lebanon.
Not long after moving I had a psychic breakdown that resulted in my mother in law taking me and the boys to the mental health walk in clinic. I got some help and got set up with a psychiatrist and my parents and in laws helped us buy a second car so I wouldn't be house-bound with two littles anymore.
Michael was called into the bishopric and I was called as ward organist. It was cool that we moved in to the ward exactly when they needed us. The Corbett's babysat Ammon and Quin during sacrament meeting while we were both up on the stand at church. Brother Corbett ended up being the new bishop after Bishop Fillips moved.
Michael's job was okay, it was mostly covering our needs but he started looking around for a job closer to Lebanon. His boss found out and gave him a pretty big raise and told him "I don't want to hear about you looking for any more jobs."
My parents bought a house and moved to Lebanon just after Ammon turned 1. It has been wonderful to have them so close.
We stayed for another year (or maybe two?) at the job in Eugene. Our third baby was on the way and I really wanted Michael to look for somewhere closer to work. I didn't think I could handle three little kids by myself for 11 hours a day, 5 days a week. He wasn't very motivated to look for a new job and I settled into the idea of him continuing the commute. Then, right before Ruby was born, out of the blue Michael decided it was time to look for a different job. I was frustrated because I didn't want to have the stress of that on top of having a new baby. He told me he wanted to be the one to find the next job, not me. I had always done 90% of the job searching and I see now that I was being too controlling. I'm beginning to see that a huge amount of pain in life comes from/as a result of our relationships with others. A big part of life is realizing and accepting that I can't control another person's mind or will.
He found a job in Monmouth working for an old family friend. He loves it so much! He is learning a lot every day and is using his computer science degree. He spends about the same amount of time in the car but it's closer in distance. We took a cut in pay initially, with the hope that it would turn into a long term job that could provide for our family. When the 3 month trial period was up, I was disappointed to hear that the wage wasn't going to change much.
I feel trapped at this point. Once again, having employment problems near the holidays. We both want me to stay home to raise the kids. It's illogical for me to get a full time job because with no degree, I couldn't earn enough to cover my childcare costs. But I can't afford to stay home either. I feel backed into a corner. I truly feel that I have been doing the best I can to align my will with God's plan for my life. I strongly feel that we are meant to be here in Lebanon, that this was the right job for Michael to take, and that the timing was right for the birth of each of our children. I feel prompted to stay here in Lebanon, although I'm not sure how we'll be able to afford it much longer. We've burned through our savings. Michael cashed out his meager retirement account and the utility and grocery bills are racking up on our credit card. We can probably make it another month, but after than the defect in income to expense will catch up to us. I think I need to get a part time job, something during the evenings/weekends so Michael can watch the kids. Even working graveyard shift or something. I don't think I can handle adding an extra thing to my plate. My mental energy is over-expended by trying to keep up with piano teaching and planning music for the combined ward Christmas program.
I love piano teaching and really don't want to stop. It fills me with joy and satisfaction and a piano lesson always turns the worst of moods into happiness and laughter. I wish I could have twice as many students.
Michael wants me to try to find more piano students to solve the problem. I don't know that that's feasible. Students don't show up when I need them. They come when they want piano lessons, which is a want, not a need. I think I have to find a job right now, whether or not I can handle it. Michael offered to find a second job, but I don't know if I can handle any extra time alone with the kids. My mom has been helping us out a lot, and I don't want to keep adding burdens to her already full plate. She's the relief society president and is having issues with other family members. She tried to stop me from marrying Michael in the first place and warned against having a baby each time we decided it was time for the next one. Maybe she was right. I don't want to be her problem, but I'm a huge problem.
I feel like I'm in my own personal wilderness by the Red Sea. I feel like God has called us to pass through this desert, promising a land of promise at some future point. We are in the thick of it, bearing children in the wilderness, barely able to meet our family's needs. I don't know what's ahead in our travel through the desert. I certainly hope we reach a place like Bountiful. A place where Michael is able to provide for our family. Where I can focus on raising the kids and helping them have happy childhoods without worrying how we're going to provide a home for them.
They can't understand the stress we're under. I don't want them to.] Now you're up to date on the background.
We lived in a 700 square foot one bedroom apartment on the side of the highway. We could hear every word our upstairs neighbors spoke. Especially when they were screaming at each other or making love at 2 AM. Our apartment was prone to mold and it was not well lit. But we were so in love and so happy to be together. We were always barely scraping by with money, so we mostly played board games, took long walks, and grocery shopped together for our dates. It was both a struggle and sublime. I biked to school at OSU and had a part time work-study job at a convenience store/coffee shop at the international building on campus. I was dutifully checking off pre-reqs for nursing school as Michael struggled through several dead-end jobs. We had a black cat named Cuddles, who we were very sad to give up when we got in to a better apartment complex on the other side of town. We basically had to choose if we wanted to live in an awful moldy apartment and have a sweet cat or move to a better place with no cat and someday have a baby. We chose future baby.
I was confused about what to study at school. I changed my major frequently, usually settling back to nursing. At one point I felt prompted to study music. Now I really wish I had.
I was overwhelmed by the application process for nursing school. I felt so inadequate. They would never choose me. I look back and think "you were great! You had a 3.7 college GPA and tons of volunteer experience. You would have gotten in!" I settled for a crummy for-profit trade school nursing program because it was easy to get in. It was going to be expensive, but I wanted to be a nurse and a better nursing school probably wouldn't accept me anyway. I felt enormous pressure to hurry and get through nursing school as quickly as possible so we could start our family soon. From the very beginning I had a feeling that the particular nursing school I had found was not the right one. Even when they called to tell me I got in to the nursing program I had an uncomfortable feeling when I accepted. I commuted to and from the school, which was near the Portland airport (about 100 miles away from our apartment in Corvallis. CRAZY). I stayed at Michael's aunt Helen's house. I don't know what I was thinking. Nursing school was hard enough without having to get up at 4:30 am and drive in Portland morning traffic. I kept having the nagging prompting that this was wrong and I should stop going to that school. I pushed it down for several months. Partway through my second term, the car was having even MORE problems, I was stressed out, sleep deprived, and I knew I was on the wrong path. I dropped out of school and started working full time at my shipping/data entry/quality control job. I still dream of going back to nursing school. I love the hospitality aspect of nursing. You get to be there for people when they're at their lowest, when they really need a caring hand to soothe their pain. Nurses always know just what to do and how to make it better. I wish nursing school could have been part of my path. I know it is not.
Two or three months after I stopped nursing school we found out we were pregnant with Quin. We were so excited! Michael was working at UA with me and he soon found a promising job at a print shop where he was able to use his art degree. He would be supporting us at a job he liked, I would get to stay home and raise the baby, and we would live happily ever after.
During my pregnancy I continued to work full time, although I took it pretty easy when I was having a nauseous morning or a headache.
I was so anxious about my upcoming delivery. I was really worried that the baby wouldn't like me, that I wouldn't know how to take care of him or that he wouldn't be comforted by me. 2 months before the due date Michael lost the print shop job. I remember that day. It was a cold October 12th, Michael's cousin was getting married and I had stayed in his parent's camper. He was so upset and so afraid of my reaction. I think I handled it pretty well. I remember looking down at the purple shirt that was stretched over my full belly, the scent of crisp autumn leaves floating through the air. The dew on the forested hills of his aunt and uncle's house. Wondering what was going to happen next. How could we care for this little person? Our first born son?
I continued working until I was one day overdue. I feel like I mostly stopped because my co-workers were so distressed by me continuing to work. Michael had been able to find jobs here and there through a temp agency. I was very hopeful that the warehouse job at a technology firm would turn into something permanent. But on Christmas day as we sat on the swing under his parent's house he told me that he only had a few more days of work left. I was a week past my due date. Disappointed that I didn't get to have my baby for Christmas and crushed that once again our family was left without financial resources.
Quin was born three days later. When we brought him home I was completely overwhelmed. Maybe it was all of the stress converging, but I felt totally inadequate and I didn't know how we would care for and raise this baby. I didn't believe I could do it. My mom stayed with us for a week. When she had to return home for work I begged her to take Quin with her. "I can't do it!"
Quin ended up staying in Oregon. A deluge of grief flooded my empty, aching soul. Postpartum depression completely knocked me off my feet and loomed above me, beating me with a 2 by 4 every time I tried to get up. I had horrible unwanted homicidal and suicidal thoughts. I wanted to take his life because I couldn't protect him from the evil world and I didn't want him to experience the pain of all of it. I wanted to take my life because I couldn't handle it. I couldn't be the person my family needed me to be. Or deserved.
I had an excellent doctor who took my concern seriously and helped me get the medication and counselling I needed to survive. But the most important thing she gave me that day was not a prescription or a referral. It was a tender hug. It was refreshing to in the care of a doctor who really cared about me.
It was challenging to make it on zero income with a newborn, but we had been given more than enough cloth diapers for Quin and we had all the clothes we could need for him. We had barely enough food. I remember Michael skipping lunch a few times to make sure I had enough to eat. I mostly didn't have time to eat. I held Quin constantly. I didn't know how to take care of him and part of it was the depression, I just sat on the couch and held him and stared at the side of his face for hours.
Michael found a job in February working as a receptionist for his brother's computer business. That job only worked out until the next Christmas. Then we were on the job hunt again. We both really wanted me to be home with Quin, but that was proving impossible. Michael found a part time job at a different print shop and started an online computer science degree, and I started working part time again. He would leave for work in the morning and at mid-day I would ride the bus with Quin and hand him off to Michael at the bus station or the bus stop and go to work for the afternoon. It was a crazy juggling act, but we managed.
After two long, hard years Michael finished his CS degree. We were tens of thousands of dollars in student debt, but had high hopes for a future computer science job. Michael was really hoping to end up designing and creating video games.
Soon Ammon was on the way and the print shop was closing. Once again, Michael was losing his job at Christmas time. But there was a chance he could get a job with the same company in Eugene. It was a tense two weeks while we waited to find out if he got the job. Then when the news came we had the tough decision of stay here or move to the Eugene area. We decided to move closer to the job, even though it meant having a baby in a new town.
We moved to Springfield and made some great friends. We had just the one little hatchback and Michael took it to work almost every day. I had hoped that he would start biking to work or taking the bus, but that didn't work out. It was incredibly hard to have two little kids in an unfriendly town with no transportation. I would walk a mile and a half round trip pushing the stroller to get groceries. I remember struggling to get everything to fit in re-useable bags, the milk cartons weighing down the basket under the stroller and causing it to scrape on the uneven sidewalk. The straps of my grocery bags would dig into my shoulders and I would have to pause to alternate carrying the heaviest bag on my elbow, in my hand, and on each shoulder.
The kids and I could only go as far as we could walk. I walked with the kids in the stroller to most of their doctors appointments. Actually, I ran to most of them because we were almost always late.
It was hard to get to doctor appointments for myself. I wasn't able to do counselling because of the transportation barrier. I really could have used counselling at that time. I was suicidal and homicidal towards both kids and it was a dark, difficult time.
We really didn't like our neighborhood. Our duplex was okay, but we lived close to the gateway mall and a rowdy apartment complex. People would swear and scream at each other right outside our window late at night. I once had to clean broken glass off the driveway and there was always garbage and animal poop on our lawn. Our one year lease was nearly up and we desperately wanted to find somewhere else to live. We couldn't afford anything better and our rent was to be increased. My parents's rental house came available around the same time and we ended up moving to Lebanon. I had ordered a Taga bike, a very expensive cargo bike with special seats for kids. It came down to deciding between the Taga and a down payment for a second vehicle. I thought I could manage the very bike friendly streets and paths of Eugene/Springfield. Unfortunately the kick-starter didn't arrive until months later than expected. In fact, it arrived after our move to Lebanon.
Not long after moving I had a psychic breakdown that resulted in my mother in law taking me and the boys to the mental health walk in clinic. I got some help and got set up with a psychiatrist and my parents and in laws helped us buy a second car so I wouldn't be house-bound with two littles anymore.
Michael was called into the bishopric and I was called as ward organist. It was cool that we moved in to the ward exactly when they needed us. The Corbett's babysat Ammon and Quin during sacrament meeting while we were both up on the stand at church. Brother Corbett ended up being the new bishop after Bishop Fillips moved.
Michael's job was okay, it was mostly covering our needs but he started looking around for a job closer to Lebanon. His boss found out and gave him a pretty big raise and told him "I don't want to hear about you looking for any more jobs."
My parents bought a house and moved to Lebanon just after Ammon turned 1. It has been wonderful to have them so close.
We stayed for another year (or maybe two?) at the job in Eugene. Our third baby was on the way and I really wanted Michael to look for somewhere closer to work. I didn't think I could handle three little kids by myself for 11 hours a day, 5 days a week. He wasn't very motivated to look for a new job and I settled into the idea of him continuing the commute. Then, right before Ruby was born, out of the blue Michael decided it was time to look for a different job. I was frustrated because I didn't want to have the stress of that on top of having a new baby. He told me he wanted to be the one to find the next job, not me. I had always done 90% of the job searching and I see now that I was being too controlling. I'm beginning to see that a huge amount of pain in life comes from/as a result of our relationships with others. A big part of life is realizing and accepting that I can't control another person's mind or will.
He found a job in Monmouth working for an old family friend. He loves it so much! He is learning a lot every day and is using his computer science degree. He spends about the same amount of time in the car but it's closer in distance. We took a cut in pay initially, with the hope that it would turn into a long term job that could provide for our family. When the 3 month trial period was up, I was disappointed to hear that the wage wasn't going to change much.
I feel trapped at this point. Once again, having employment problems near the holidays. We both want me to stay home to raise the kids. It's illogical for me to get a full time job because with no degree, I couldn't earn enough to cover my childcare costs. But I can't afford to stay home either. I feel backed into a corner. I truly feel that I have been doing the best I can to align my will with God's plan for my life. I strongly feel that we are meant to be here in Lebanon, that this was the right job for Michael to take, and that the timing was right for the birth of each of our children. I feel prompted to stay here in Lebanon, although I'm not sure how we'll be able to afford it much longer. We've burned through our savings. Michael cashed out his meager retirement account and the utility and grocery bills are racking up on our credit card. We can probably make it another month, but after than the defect in income to expense will catch up to us. I think I need to get a part time job, something during the evenings/weekends so Michael can watch the kids. Even working graveyard shift or something. I don't think I can handle adding an extra thing to my plate. My mental energy is over-expended by trying to keep up with piano teaching and planning music for the combined ward Christmas program.
I love piano teaching and really don't want to stop. It fills me with joy and satisfaction and a piano lesson always turns the worst of moods into happiness and laughter. I wish I could have twice as many students.
Michael wants me to try to find more piano students to solve the problem. I don't know that that's feasible. Students don't show up when I need them. They come when they want piano lessons, which is a want, not a need. I think I have to find a job right now, whether or not I can handle it. Michael offered to find a second job, but I don't know if I can handle any extra time alone with the kids. My mom has been helping us out a lot, and I don't want to keep adding burdens to her already full plate. She's the relief society president and is having issues with other family members. She tried to stop me from marrying Michael in the first place and warned against having a baby each time we decided it was time for the next one. Maybe she was right. I don't want to be her problem, but I'm a huge problem.
I feel like I'm in my own personal wilderness by the Red Sea. I feel like God has called us to pass through this desert, promising a land of promise at some future point. We are in the thick of it, bearing children in the wilderness, barely able to meet our family's needs. I don't know what's ahead in our travel through the desert. I certainly hope we reach a place like Bountiful. A place where Michael is able to provide for our family. Where I can focus on raising the kids and helping them have happy childhoods without worrying how we're going to provide a home for them.
They can't understand the stress we're under. I don't want them to.] Now you're up to date on the background.
Lehi and his family left everything but their provisions and tents behind in Jerusalem. They left their house, the land of their inheritance, gold, silver, precious things... Logically it didn't make sense for Lehi to do that. But leaving was a tender mercy because it saved his life, taught them much while in the wilderness, gave him a land of promise, and an inspiring story to help a struggling mother of three little kids thousands of years later.
As I read those verses about leaving all but their camping gear behind, I had the thought "I'm in my own personal wilderness." Though, I have not had to leave all behind, I do feel like I ventured into motherhood leaving behind the security, enjoyment, and prospects that having a degree/career would have given me.
In verse 7 Lehi builds and altar and gives thanks to God. How can I give thanks to God in my personal wilderness? He has kept us safe, every member of our family has been blessed with excellent physical health, He has always provided for us in our hour of need. His tender mercies have come in the form of a box of hand-me-down clothes for the baby, a much needed friend who moves into the ward, my parents' rental property opening up when we can find no where else to live. I believe that He has sent us here to Lebanon at this time for a reason. There are things for us to learn here, a wilderness to traverse, callings for us to fulfill, people for us to help, and friends to strengthen us.
This has led me to ponder the question: "why read scriptures?"
Because it keeps popping up as a standard answer to Sunday school questions? Because we're "supposed to?" Because we want God to help us solve a problem?"
I want to change my intention to "because I need to align my will with His."
This is a suspenseful place to end, but it's where we're at.
This has led me to ponder the question: "why read scriptures?"
Because it keeps popping up as a standard answer to Sunday school questions? Because we're "supposed to?" Because we want God to help us solve a problem?"
I want to change my intention to "because I need to align my will with His."
This is a suspenseful place to end, but it's where we're at.
