Friday

On Monday I cried at the car dealership. My car wouldn't pass inspection unless they cut a little piece of my window tint out around my break light. Guys I cried, not just a little bit, I really cried. That is the worst thing in my life right now. I mean my life is really hard… Call the pioneers I want to tell them how hard my life is! To be fair though, I might not have cried if I hadn't also been worried that the Lumberjack was dead. Turns out he is alive, he called me on his way back from the wild to reassure me he was in fact alive.

On this Good Friday I like to remember the reason that my window tint is the hardest thing in my life. Because we all know there have been much worse days. I have had more than one time in my life when my conversation with the Lord went something like this “umm… Heavenly Father, Maybe you forgot about me, Remember when you gave me this burden to hold for a minute? Well umm it’s getting kind of heavy and maybe you could take over?” Don’t we wish it went like that? To be honest it went more like “AHHHHHHHHH!”

“When Life is hard, Remember- We are not the first to ask, ‘is there no other way?” Oh Elder Holland you get me. But more importantly The Lord gets me. He gets me, He loves me, He’s got this.

Sometimes that is the only thing that gets me through. I just keep reminding myself “He’s got this, He’s got this, let go and let God.”

Sometimes it helps to know others have felt similarly. It helps to have someone say, “it’s totally fine to not be fine. It’s super ok to not be ok.” I take a lot of strength from the Sermon from Elder Wirthlin titled Sunday Will Come. I quote from it here:

“I think of how dark that Friday was when Christ was lifted up on the cross. I think that of all the days since the beginning of this world’s history, that Friday was the darkest. But the doom of that day did not endure. The despair did not linger because on Sunday, the resurrected Lord burst the bonds of death. He ascended from the grave and appeared gloriously triumphant as the Savior of all mankind.
And in an instant the eyes that had been filled with ever-flowing tears dried. The lips that had whispered prayers of distress and grief now filled the air with wondrous praise, for Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God, stood before them as the firstfruits of the Resurrection, the proof that death is merely the beginning of a new and wondrous existence.
Each of us will have our own Fridays—those days when the universe itself seems shattered and the shards of our world lie littered about us in pieces. We all will experience those broken times when it seems we can never be put together again. We will all have our Fridays.
But I testify to you in the name of the One who conquered death—Sunday will come. In the darkness of our sorrow, Sunday will come.”

I count myself as one who has had their tears dried, who wants to shout wondrous praise for the Son of God. It’s true, he died so I can live forever. He suffered so I can LIVE, so my heart can be free.

One of my favorite parts about this talk though isn’t just his testimony of our Savior and the power of the Atonement, but his testimony that heart wrenching times come to all of us. Even the Lord’s apostles have broken hearts, even they have days when they cry out for relief from the pain. Even our savior asked “Is there no other way?”

How I wish from time to time that this life was just a little bit easier, or that I was more prepared to meet it’s challenges. But it wasn't meant to be easy it was meant to challenge us. I am sure I signed up for this life with nothing but pure excitement. Psshh! Easy, I probably thought. I am sure I passed the Dead Moms class with flying colors in the preexistense, I’ve totally got this. I probably sat in the back of the Over 30 and Single class and goofed off because seriously it can’t be that hard. And maybe I took the When Loved Ones No Longer Believe class as a second thought, because that wasn't really going to be a challenge. How hard can it be?

Then we get here and it is hard, so hard. And you have to lock yourself in the bathroom at work and cry it out. Wherever your Friday happens; the bathroom floor at work, the hammock in the backyard, kneeling at the foot of a grave (I'm guilty of all three)… We have been promised that as the Savior did in Gethsemane, angels are waiting to bear you up and comfort your through your darkest times.

And it’s totally ok if it happened in the bathroom. My mom is an angel and she’d have no problem snuggling you in the bathroom. Seriously. This is the woman who put a cow in the bathtub. Ask for help. The glory of the Atonement is that we don't have to suffer, it's already been done for us.