Keep your chin up, trust in God
and believe in good things to come.
~Jeffrey R Holland
First of all I wanted to thank you all so very much for your supportive comments, e-mails, etc. I truly have some of the best online friends and readers in the world. I can feel your love and I can honestly say it is helping me as I traverse this difficult period of time. I keep telling myself, this is not forever. This too shall pass. I am very much keeping my eye on the end point. I have not seen my sister or my father in 18 years and I have not seen my children in 8. There will surely be a joyous reunion when the time comes. I will have to go into quarantine for two weeks. There are cabins and hotels near home that I will be able to do that in, but hopefully I will have wifi. Oh . . . if only I could be put into suspended animation so that I could sleep through that part of the ordeal. The child in me wishes I could just wiggle my nose and like Samantha Stevens just have it all over.
I have never been a Fund Me/Crowd Fund, whatever it is called kind of a person. I have always very much wanted to make my own way in the world, to work for whatever I have or need. I have never wanted to take something for nothing. I do have paypal, it is simply my e-mail address, but seriously I will find my own way to do all this. One way of helping would be to go to my food blog and read one of the posts. Just read down one, and do it once a day. I have mediavine on there now and starting in December I will start to make somewhat of an income from it. December's income will be what I earned on it in September and in January I will get what I earn from it this month, etc. and so on. There is a three month wait for payments from any month. I know a lot of you read the food blog anyways, and I thank you for that. Its really important to me that I keep posting on the food blog as much as I can until I can't. There will be at least two weeks, if not more, that I won't be able to.
I am trying to be very brave at the moment, and I tell myself every day I can do hard things. There is a huge part of me that is terrified of all of this. Trust me, if I had any other choice I would not be doing this. I am at heart somewhat of a coward I guess. Aren't we all?? This is, however, the only choice I can make, as hard as it is. This is not an episode of the Gilmore girls where all of my problems will be solved in an hour and then I can go off and eat some pop tarts and tatertots, whilst still remaining amazingly thin, beautiful and living in a beautiful house.
I am so grateful for my friend Tina and her husband. I was finally able to open up to Tina about everything just prior to her having her car accident last year. It was that visit we took together to the Temple and stayed overnight. It took all my courage for me to open up to her. She has been the most amazing example to me and is the most amazing example to me of Christ-like love. There is no judgement there, not on either of their parts, and towards no-one. Just support. Always. I have had long, tearful, heart wrenching talks with her, and with my Bishop. I am so grateful for those.
I am hopeful that I will be able to get a container to send some of my belongings back to Canada. I have worked so very hard to achieve the things I have. When Todd and I got married, he had one saucepan, two plates, two knives, etc. no refrigerator, no washing machine. I got a job in a carehome and went back to school nights. I got my qualifications. I could have been either a Medical Secretary or a Chef. I am proud of both of those certificates. It turned out that I got the job as a chef first and to be honest, cooking is always where my real skills lay. But at the end of the day, stuff is only stuff. I have had to start all over before with just a suitcase and I can do it again! I can do hard things.
I have no intention of stopping either of my blogs. You are stuck with me, through thick and through thin as long as you will have me.
I very much believe that all things happen to us for a reason and for a season. Our lives fluctuate always between good and bad, all things being opportunities for growth. The great Creator who always knows the end from the beginning is completely aware of all of our trials and tribulations. Even before we are. It is not so much the trials that define you as the way you handle them. I know in my heart that when we are sad and when we are broken, He is right there with us in the darkness, helping us to traverse a way through whatever life throws at us. What doesn't kill us does make us stronger. These lessons we learn through our trials are meant to make us better. Who knows but one day my having had to go through what I am going through now won't be a means for me to be able to help someone else who is faced with a similar trial to get through theirs.This can and will be a gift.
I am not going to lie to you. I am terrified. I am terrified of getting the virus. I know it will kill me if I do, but it is a chance I have to take. There is no other way. I must do what I must do.
But you know what? I had a very brave mother. There was nothing my mother faced in life that she did not stand up to. She never lay down and quit, not for anything. She did really hard things and faced really hard challenges. She very much was a person who did not give up. She taught me by example. There is really only one way to get through anything and that is to just steel your shoulders, brace yourself, and keep putting one foot in front of the other. Standing still was never an option. It is okay to cry and to feel sad about things, but we must never let them hold us back from doing whatever it is we need to do.
She was also a great prayer warrior and I can feel her prayers surrounding me now, along with the prayers of countless others and I am most grateful for those. I thank you all so very much.
Thank you. Really.
I love you and yes . . .