Not Alone

I want to tell you a story. It begins with a confession – Saturday, I kind of had a bit of a pity party for myself. Well, let me back up. As you can see in the picture, I have a large planter area in my front yard (and this is only half of it!) The whole area behind the aspen trees wrapping to the side of the house had become overgrown with tall thistle (like up to my knees!) I meant to get to it, but every time I did I got attacked by the biting ant hill hidden under the weeds. And then I walked…or ran….away again. But it was getting ridiculous and it had to be taken care of.

So, Saturday morning I gathered the kids and we went out to work. They pulled the small we weeds and I set out to attack the thistle with a shovel and a pair of gloves. But it turned out to be a lot harder than I though it would be! I knew that my former husband could have easily dug out all of the plants in about 10 minutes. It was going to take me an hour or two and be really laborious and difficult. I started crying and my kids noticed unfortunately. I told them I was okay and they started trying to pull the thistle with me. Our progress was pretty slim and we were all discouraged. The kids gave up pretty quick and I’m not going to lie, I kind of wished I could too.

Instead, I stood there, feeling annoyed that I had been left to take care of so much by myself and tried to fight back tears. After a bit I gathered myself to keep going. I decided to ditch the shovel and guess what?! The thistle just easily pulled out. So I tried another and another and they all just came right out, roots and all. One of my sons came over when he saw that things were going better and helped me pull for a little. I weeded that whole area in less time than I thought it would take (and no one got bitten by ants!)

As I was cleaning up, I contemplated what had just happened. I realized that what I had experienced was a blessing from my loving Heavenly Father. Those weeds were not coming up before and then all of the sudden I could just pull them out without much effort. I felt loved and knew that even though I feel like I am alone in my responsibilities and without a partner right now, Heavenly Father is with me and supporting me. He will be my partner in getting my family through this hard time.

Later, after my kids and I had cleaned up, we were sitting in the family room eating popsicles (reference my post on being too lenient in parenting right now…) I told them I wanted to talk to them about something and explained what happened outside with the weeds. I let them know that if we turn to Heavenly Father, He will help us in our trials. He can’t always take the trial or hard times away but He can lighten our load and increase our ability to handle what we are going through. My son that helped me pull the thistle got a big smile on his face and said, “Yeah, when I first started I couldn’t pull the weeds. But then I could!”

It is easy when we are going through something really hard to feel alone. Oftentimes we feel like no one else would understand or that our struggles are unique to us. Sometimes no one even knows what they are. But our Heavenly Father does and He is always there willing to help if we have faith in Him. I have felt that time and time again over the last few months.

Have you had experiences when you felt helped through something hard?