I am grateful for my younger brothers reminding me to be an example, and always letting me know that they love me.
I am grateful for my older brother, who is one of my best friends even when he is on the other side of the world (He is serving an LDS mission in Tokyo Japan currently, he has been gone for almost 17 months).
I am grateful for my Dad, for his example and for how hard he works.
I am grateful for my very loving boyfriend, who goes out of his way to bring light into my life every opportunity he can.
I am grateful for friends.
I am grateful for the gospel.
I am grateful for the mountains that I am surrounded by.
I am grateful.
I have had a very blessed life so far, and I don't want to take that for granted.
But like everyone else, through this life, I have had to walk through storms. I have had to stand in the dark, not sure where to run, and I have had to cling on to a hope that there will be better days.
One example of this, which I do tell a lot because it changed me in ways that I can't even explain, was the death of a dear friend when I was 15 years old.
We sat next to each other in our French 1 class, ate lunch together, hung out at parties, so on and so forth. Things that friends do.
One day I was sitting in French, waiting for him to sit down next to me so I could tell him... some little thing I can't remember anymore. The bell rang. He wasn't there. I thought he was sick, so I started writing a note to one of my other friends, when the teacher got up with a paper. There were tears in his eyes. I knew something was wrong. The words he said next I will never forget, because they shattered my happy little 15 year old universe.
"I am sorry to say that our dear friend _________ has passed away. If you need to talk to someone, you can go to the library now."
All eyes were on me.
I wasn't moving.
I wasn't breathing.
Tears were hitting my desk. But from where? Were they coming from me?
In that moment, I had forgotten how to function. When a different friend in the class got up, coaxed me out of my chair and into the hall, trying to get me to the library. I don't remember how I got from the upstairs classroom to the library down the stairs. I only remember collapsing against the lockers, while sobs rocked my entire body.
The rest of that day was a complete blur. I sat in the library with the people in my friend group, Zach (my older brother) came and held me for a good five minutes while I just cried, I went home, I didn't come out of my room. I didn't talk to anyone for a week. I didn't eat anything for a month. I just... shut down completely.
Until one day, it didn't hurt anymore. I was reading my scriptures, or a conference talk, and all of a sudden a weight was lifted off of my shoulders.
I am grateful.
I am grateful for my time that I got to spend with my dear friend.
I am grateful for the gospel and my family pulling me out of that hole.
I am grateful for that trial.
What?
I am grateful for something completely awful?
Am I Satan?
No. I am grateful for the things I learned out of that trial. I developed closer relationships to those friends that I went through that with. I developed a closer relationship to my older brother. I learned how to cope with things like depression, grief, anorexia, heartbreak. Things that 15 year olds shouldn't have to endure. But I will have those lessons with me for the rest of my life.
That isn't the only trial I have ever had to go through, but it is one of the big ones. All I am saying is that I am grateful for the storms that the Lord has helped me walk through, because I have grown as a person, as a sister, as a daughter, as a future wife and mother.
I have grown
So I am grateful.
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