Sometimes when I give talks in church, I feel like right after I give it my life is filled with opportunities to live up to what I just preached. Last month I gave a talk on love and loneliness. I preached about the power loneliness has to bring us to the love of Christ. I think it touched a lot of people because...well, because we're all lonely.
Today I thought a lot about an experience I shared in my talk. Almost ten years ago, I was sitting next to a girl in sacrament who I did not know but I knew of her. I knew that she was twenty years old and had been married a year previous to that time. Three weeks after the wedding, her and her husband got in a car accident. Her husband died and she suffered brain damage that took her over a year to learn how to speak and read and write again. We sat next to each other during the meeting and listened to a man give a talk about love and miracles. His wife had been deathly ill and miraculously healed and he knew God had blessed him with a miracle because He loved him. The girl next to me started crying. I couldn't help but think that if I was in her shoes, I would be sitting there thinking, to any varying degree, "where was my miracle? doesn't God love me?" I clumsily put my arm around her and she said, "It's okay, really, I'm okay. Sometimes it's just hard to believe in all the pretty things, you know? But then I remind myself to start by believing in Christ, and then everything else is a little easier to believe."
Today was one of those days where it felt really hard to believe in all the pretty things. Pretty things like love and miracles and hope and healing. It's okay though - I don't want anyone reading this and making comments to try and cheer me up because honestly, it was just a day and I know tomorrow will be better (or at least that's what my sister promised me).
I'm not writing this for sympathy or because I need someone to tell me it will be all right, I'm writing this because...well, because it has been a month since I gave that talk and people are still coming up to me and wanting to talk to me about my talk. People I don't know are sending me emails and notes to talk about my talk. It seems there are a lot of people who have a hard time believing in all the pretty things. It seems there are a lot of lonely people. So I'm just writing this to let anyone out there know that it's okay and today is just a day and tomorrow will be better and it's okay to be lonely and it's okay to believe in pretty things.
Today I thought a lot about an experience I shared in my talk. Almost ten years ago, I was sitting next to a girl in sacrament who I did not know but I knew of her. I knew that she was twenty years old and had been married a year previous to that time. Three weeks after the wedding, her and her husband got in a car accident. Her husband died and she suffered brain damage that took her over a year to learn how to speak and read and write again. We sat next to each other during the meeting and listened to a man give a talk about love and miracles. His wife had been deathly ill and miraculously healed and he knew God had blessed him with a miracle because He loved him. The girl next to me started crying. I couldn't help but think that if I was in her shoes, I would be sitting there thinking, to any varying degree, "where was my miracle? doesn't God love me?" I clumsily put my arm around her and she said, "It's okay, really, I'm okay. Sometimes it's just hard to believe in all the pretty things, you know? But then I remind myself to start by believing in Christ, and then everything else is a little easier to believe."
Today was one of those days where it felt really hard to believe in all the pretty things. Pretty things like love and miracles and hope and healing. It's okay though - I don't want anyone reading this and making comments to try and cheer me up because honestly, it was just a day and I know tomorrow will be better (or at least that's what my sister promised me).
I'm not writing this for sympathy or because I need someone to tell me it will be all right, I'm writing this because...well, because it has been a month since I gave that talk and people are still coming up to me and wanting to talk to me about my talk. People I don't know are sending me emails and notes to talk about my talk. It seems there are a lot of people who have a hard time believing in all the pretty things. It seems there are a lot of lonely people. So I'm just writing this to let anyone out there know that it's okay and today is just a day and tomorrow will be better and it's okay to be lonely and it's okay to believe in pretty things.
3 comments:
Thank you Ashley. That was beautiful.
I love this and I love you. And just so you know I think about this talk from time to time. You have a gift.
Hey might you have a copy of the talk for those of us not lucky enough to live in your ward and hear you speak?
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