The Connection is Made

I made an interesting.....self-discovery, we'll call it.......tonight as I was talking to my brother on the phone. He's graduating soon with a degree in electrical engineering and he's one smart cookie (good thing he never reads this, or his head would explode over the fact that I just admitted that). We got into a discussion over finances which really opened my eyes to just how important the lessons are that we ought to be learning from this topic. He and I see finances a little differently. Let me explain:

My parents have always offered to put any of their kids through college if they would just GO TO COLLEGE! Before my mission, I worked a part time job while going to school, but the vast majority of my money came from my parents. They wanted us to be able to focus on school and do well instead of having to work full time to support ourselves. Noble, right? Yes. However, it didn't work very well for me because rather than focusing, I felt like I could relax because I was being taken care of.

They offered to do the same thing with Philip. He's going to school full time and is being supported by them, and now he's about to graduate, which is great because that's what they wanted for their children.

After my mission, and especially after I got married, I decided it was time to support myself. As thankful as I was (and still am) for my parents generosity, I knew the kind of person that I was. I'm the type of person who, unless I'm working myself to death for something, I unknowingly begin to take it for granted. This journey (which is still a work in progress) to self-reliance has been extremely difficult, to be sure, in different ways than I ever imagined. There were a couple of times that we were so strapped financially that we had to accept help from my parents who were lovingly there to give. We continue to struggle every single day, and while my parents are still there offering to help, we know we have to do this on our own.

Tonight, this topic came up while talking to Philip. He chastised me for not accepting their offer. After all, if we would just let them help us, I wouldn't have had to cut down to part time school for the summer and could have graduated a little faster, getting to the point earlier where I'm earning real money. He just couldn't understand why I'm being so firm about this.

As I began trying to explain my feelings on the matter, I found myself saying something that I had never actually realized before. Skylar and I are responsible for each other in many different ways. If we were to consistently accept financial help from others, it would remove a huge portion of that responsibility we have toward one another. A relationship is made strong through accepting and living up to responsibilities. Without that responsibility, our marriage is weakened. We HAVE to struggle through this on our own for our marriage's sake! As strange as it sounds, this challenge and frustration right now is crucial to our having a strong marriage.

So I made the connection. You always hear that struggles make you grow stronger, and I just linked it all together! I felt quite impressed with myself. Actually, I can't take any credit for it. I've been contemplating this subject and the frustrations that go along with it for a long time, and tonight I think I received an answer to prayer. I now realize how necessary these things we're dealing with really are.

My first companion on my mission used to include in each of her prayers how grateful we were for our challenges and trials. I always thought in my head, "No, that's just YOU that's grateful for them! Leave me out of it!" As time goes on, however, my gratitude for the opportunity to struggle grows. We are so blessed to be facing these difficult times right now.

What's Next?

The purpose of the following post is not to vent or rant or complain or anything like that. The purpose of the post is simply to document what's going on in life right now because I'm beginning to find it funny that so many difficult things are happening at once.

Several days ago, my washing machine died. I was very sad to see this happen because in the 6 years that I've been on my own, I never had a washing machine until a month and a half ago when I bought this one used. It's older, but I bought it from a couple who seemed very nice and who said they never had any problems with it. I believed them because it worked great for the last month and a half. Being new to this area, I didn't know of anyone who could come over and take a look at it without charging me an arm and a leg, so I got in touch with some people from church and found a guy who knew stuff about washers. He came over last night, opened it up and discovered duct tape holding things together inside of the washer! He said whatever happened in the past, they just rigged it to keep it functioning, but this was the last straw. So now my washer is sitting outside of my door and I have to figure out how to get it to the dump.

Next up, 2 days ago I was driving the Sentra to work when it started slipping out of gear. It was really strange and I barely made it in to the parking lot. When I got it home that night, I was mad about it, but not too concerned because I at least had the Altima (even though it doesn't get good gas mileage) I could drive until I got the Sentra fixed. That's what I thought anyway, until I tried starting the Altima, but it was dead. I also thought that was strange because I've never had any problems with the battery. True, I haven't been driving the Altima much lately, but it hadn't been sitting long enough for the battery to drain.

Yesterday, I discovered that my kitchen sink has been leaking and is flooding the cabinet underneath. Excellent.

This morning I got a call from my dad telling me that he's almost positive that somebody stole my battery out of the Altima and switched it with a dead one because he was the last one that replaced the battery (it was while I was on my mission) and he recorded in his journal that he went to wal mart to replace it. I called Skylar who said a little over a month ago when he was here for a few days and fixing something in that car, he distinctly remembered seeing a wal mart tag on the battery. However, this battery that's in there now is a brand that has never been carried by wal mart. And there's no wal mart tag on it either.

At first I was very distraught that this stuff was happening, but as more and more unexpected problems crop up, I can't help but laugh and wonder what's going to happen next! It would be a heck of a lot easier to take care of this stuff if Skylar was here, but I seriously feel like God is preparing me for something. I'd better just buck up and figure out how to take care of these things now, if this is a lesson I'm supposed to be learning from.

Whoopi is an Idiot

SOAPBOX ALERT!

While at the gym this morning, I was really enjoying my workout. I had been on the elliptical for a while and was really in the groove while I watched one of the TVs on mute and read the subtitles. Suddenly, this woman came up and turned on the TV next to me, then proceeded to turn the volume ALL the way up. RUDE! (There were several instances today of people being inconsiderate of others) I tried to ignore it and keep paying attention to what I was watching/reading, but the idiot Whoopi Goldberg refused to be ignored on The View next to me. This episode of The View was all about weddings. Every single thing said on the show was completely ridiculous - especially Whoopi's comments. I will give her credit for ONE thing she said, however, as she pointed out that one reason she didn't like going to weddings was because society makes girls believe that their wedding isn't special unless they've spent a gazillion dollars on it. Touche Whoopi. I'll give you that. And as much as I hate to say this, I agree with her. (She probably would have liked my wedding - simple backyard barbeque with swimming and karaoke. Awesome.)

Anyway, she went on to flap her jaw about all kinds of stupid things, including a statement about how weddings were just a way for 2 people to show everyone that they've decided to attempt to spend their lives together. The other girls on the show laughed at that as they agreed. The audience laughed because that's just what marriage is - it's just trying something out and if it doesn't work, that's just fine.

WRONG. So wrong. This is one thing of MANY that's wrong with society.

On the flip side, tonight I heard Faith Hill's song "Breathe." Sure it's an oldie, but we all know it. Watch this to refresh your memory. (Sorry, couldn't get the video to download on here right now) Yes, Faith Hill looks like the epitome of perfection, but the lyrics of the song are just as misleading as Whoopi's ideas about love - only....in the opposite direction.

Here's the problem: for some reason, too many people are mislead to believe that if it's truly love, you'll feel like this song. If you don't feel this way, it's not love. And if this feeling wears off, then it's time to jump ship, but hey, at least you "attempted" it, right? WRONG. So wrong.

Sure I may be relatively young and don't have too much experience (time-wise) in love and marriage, but I know the truth and I'm grateful for that. The truth is, that song doesn't describe love. It describes being "twitterpated" as my dad calls it. These ideas we have about love are false for the most part. Yes, every once in a while you may feel like Faith Hill in the song, but most of the time, you just feel normal and you just keep working your way through life. And when those feelings of twitterpation wear off and you feel the grind of everyday life, sure you can appease your conscience by saying you gave it your best shot, but it just wasn't meant to be. (But you'd usually be full of poo if you did that.) OR, when it comes to marriage, you can make the choice to stick it out and work through life with your spouse.

In our short 10 months of marriage, husband and I have already had to deal with MANY obstacles that most couples don't have to face for years (with the exception of surprise babies - we make DARN sure we don't get surprise babies). And holy cow, some of those challenges have been very.....challenging. And there are MANY times that we don't see eye to eye on situations and things get really sticky between us. And quite frankly, when this happens, neither of us feel very lovey dovey toward the other for a while. But we make the choice to work through it together, overcome it, and move on with life until the next barrier presents itself.

Sure, we could easily call the game and say "Hey, we attempted to spend the rest of our lives together, but because those gooey lovey feelings have worn off, I guess it just wasn't meant to be." But when we choose NOT to say that and choose to push past it, something interesting happens...we grow to love each other more. I don't mean we get all twitterpated for each other again, but rather real, solid love grows stronger. We develop more respect for each other. We learn even more about the other person and develop more unconditional love. We reinforce the fact that we can do hard things. Our desire to stay together is strengthened. We become more grateful for the other.

It's sad that so many people miss out on those opportunities for growth because they decide to "take the easy way out." (Disclaimer: certainly there are special circumstances where divorce really is the best option, but those circumstances are rare.) Though husband and I aren't seeing eye to eye on something right now, I know we'll definitely work through it and be better than we were for it. And we'll love each other even more, too. When people said marriage would be hard, I believed them, but I had all the wrong ideas about HOW it would be hard. I look forward to the difficulties we'll face in the future because I look forward to growing with the husband.

Here's to not just "attempting" to spend our lives together, but to actually DOING it.