When the Going Gets Tough...

We all go through hard times. For some people it's a bad day. For others it's a bad week. Some people are happy to have a few good days a month.

I've always considered myself to be a happy person. Although I've suffered with anxiety my entire life, I've never been "depressed." It always drove me nuts when doctors said I suffered from "depression with anxious tendencies." No, I have anxiety. I'm scared, not sad.

For some reason this changed a year ago. I don't know why, I don't know if it's age, changes in my chemical make-up, or what, but for the first time ever I was just depressed. Not anxious, depressed. It lasted a week until I went to my doctor and he adjusted my meds. Problem solved. Or so I thought.

It's a year later and never before have I had to struggle so badly just to get through the day. Again, I don't know why. Everything just seems too hard. It's too hard to clean my house. It's too hard to be social. It's too hard to lose this weight. It's too hard to be a mom. It's too hard to be happy. I'm sure it is largely due to the fact that I've been sick for six months, but, whatever the cause, I'm struggling.

I have had to work on not comparing my life to other people's lives who just seem so perfect and easy and happy and fun. Why, I wondered, do some people have to work so hard at life while other's seem to float through it with a perma-grin? It just doesn't seem fair.

Sunday I was laying on my couch, nursing yet another headache and hating life, listening to conference with my eyes closed. Someone, I don't remember who, was speaking on "enduring to the end." I've heard that phrase a million times in my life, but for some reason it struck me this time like a slap in the face. I realized that that's what it's all about. This life is a test. We weren't sent here to sit back and ride a silver cloud, eating candy and enjoying the view until we die. We were sent here to prove ourselves, that we would remain faithful and strong even as we face trial after trial after trial.

I would like to say things got easier after this. But I'd be lying. I'm still sick. I still feel like I'm hanging by a very thin thread, just trying to get to the end of each day. But it feels more worth it. Instead of hating life and how unfair it all seems I know that I have to endure and that there is a reason for that. And I have to have faith that one day, maybe soon, maybe not, it will get better and easier. I've always been bothered by the "quote" by Christ that says, "I never said it would be easy, I only said it would be worth it," because there's nowhere in the scriptures that says he actually said that. But right now, it seems to be the phrase constantly running through my mind.

I better have the biggest mansion in heaven.