While I was redesigning my blog I did a lot of soul searching and I really considered taking out the subject of infertility all together. Over the past year I have thought of this on occasion. In all reality, infertility should no longer be one of my issues. It may come up again in the future if I were to ever consider remarriage, but for now with my husband being gone so should the issue of infertility right? Wrong.
I have connected with and followed many women over the years who are dealing with infertility. Eventually, many of them do finally succeed in having a child or two. Sometimes it is through fertility treatments and other times through adoption (or both). I have heard a few of these women say that even after they have their children, infertility still doesn't go away. While it may get pushed aside for a while it is still there and they are often reminded of it. It is part of what made them who they are.
My situation may be very different from the women I mentioned but the result is still the same. Infertility is still there and I still suffer from it. It no longer comes up on a daily basis, but it is there in the back of my mind and it always will be. I spent almost 8 years of my life trying to have a child and it never happened. An experience like that leaves a mark that never goes away.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Sunday, January 23, 2011
My Before Shots
Since I am starting my butterfly project I thought that it was time to give my blog a face lift. I also thought that I should post a new "before: shot. The ones that I posted about a year and a half ago were focused completely on weight loss and that isn't necessarily my only goal this time around. This time the transformation I am going for goes much deeper than that. So, here is my before shot:
Okay, so I would never really go out in public looking like this. But seriously, I really do feel like this on the inside sometimes. Here is my real before shot:
I'm not going to do the full body pictures this time. In all honesty they just feel degrading and that would go against everything that I am trying to accomplish with this project. I am hoping that over the next few months and even years that I will be able to take new head shots and really see a difference. Not just a physical difference but I spiritual one as well. Maybe a real smile, and not just a fake one for the camera.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Answers
The night that Wayne passed away I called the bishop over to our house to give him a blessing. In the blessing the bishop clearly stated that the doctors hands would be blessed and that Wayne would heal over the next few weeks. Shortly after that, we called 911 and the ambulance came and picked him up. He stopped breathing and his heart stopped as they were unloading him from the ambulance at the hospital and he never regained consciousness.
In time I was able to feel some peace with why he had to go. I was given little messages that let me know he was needed on the other side and that it had been his time to go. But, I have really struggled on and off wondering why our Heavenly Father had lied to us both in that blessing. I have been told that there are many interpretations of blessings and we often hear what we want to hear rather than what the true meaning is, but this blessing was so clear and precise that no matter how hard I tried I hadn't been able to come up with a single interpretation other than the obvious one....he had lied.
For the most part, I have been able to put this out of my mind. I know that my Heavenly Father loves me and Wayne and that if he lied he had a very good reason to do it. But, every once in a while the thoughts creep out of my mind and I have to examine them once again before I can put them away for the next time. One of these times happened this morning while I was getting ready for work....only this time instead of having to hide it away again I was blessed with an answer to my question.
When Wayne was given that blessing, he already knew that he wasn't going to make it. He already knew that he was being called home. I think in some ways he asked for that blessing more for my sake than his own. He was so sick that he couldn't speak and he couldn't tell me what I needed to know. He didn't want to leave me or his family. He wanted to stay and it broke his heart that he was being asked to leave even though he knew that there were great blessing waiting for him on the other side.
The doctors hands were blessed. They worked so hard to help him and just because they weren't able to bring him back doesn't mean that they failed in doing what they were meant to do. And he did heal over the next few weeks, only in a different way than I had interpreted the blessing to mean. It took time for him to come to terms with the fact that he had to leave us all behind and move on without us. He didn't want to see his family hurting and it hurt him to have to stand by and watch as we struggled through our loss and not be able to hold us and tell us that it would all be okay. He was grieving just as much as we were, if not more. We only lost one member of our family...he lost us all. But he has come to terms with his loss and he is working really hard on the other side of the veil, waiting for the day when we can all be together again.
That blessing was 100% truth...Heavenly Father doesn't lie.
In time I was able to feel some peace with why he had to go. I was given little messages that let me know he was needed on the other side and that it had been his time to go. But, I have really struggled on and off wondering why our Heavenly Father had lied to us both in that blessing. I have been told that there are many interpretations of blessings and we often hear what we want to hear rather than what the true meaning is, but this blessing was so clear and precise that no matter how hard I tried I hadn't been able to come up with a single interpretation other than the obvious one....he had lied.
For the most part, I have been able to put this out of my mind. I know that my Heavenly Father loves me and Wayne and that if he lied he had a very good reason to do it. But, every once in a while the thoughts creep out of my mind and I have to examine them once again before I can put them away for the next time. One of these times happened this morning while I was getting ready for work....only this time instead of having to hide it away again I was blessed with an answer to my question.
When Wayne was given that blessing, he already knew that he wasn't going to make it. He already knew that he was being called home. I think in some ways he asked for that blessing more for my sake than his own. He was so sick that he couldn't speak and he couldn't tell me what I needed to know. He didn't want to leave me or his family. He wanted to stay and it broke his heart that he was being asked to leave even though he knew that there were great blessing waiting for him on the other side.
The doctors hands were blessed. They worked so hard to help him and just because they weren't able to bring him back doesn't mean that they failed in doing what they were meant to do. And he did heal over the next few weeks, only in a different way than I had interpreted the blessing to mean. It took time for him to come to terms with the fact that he had to leave us all behind and move on without us. He didn't want to see his family hurting and it hurt him to have to stand by and watch as we struggled through our loss and not be able to hold us and tell us that it would all be okay. He was grieving just as much as we were, if not more. We only lost one member of our family...he lost us all. But he has come to terms with his loss and he is working really hard on the other side of the veil, waiting for the day when we can all be together again.
That blessing was 100% truth...Heavenly Father doesn't lie.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
An Eternal Butterfly
Shortly after my husband passed away I started to feel like I was losing control of everything in my life. During one of my very hard days, I was given this image of a butterfly. The image brought with it the idea that through my trials I was being turned into an Eternal Butterfly. I embraced this image, as you can see from the title of my blog, and have used it as a sort of life line.
Over the past year, the idea that came with the image of the Eternal Butterfly, has evolved. I have come to realize that my Heavenly Father is not himself turning me into the butterfly, he is only providing me with the tools I need in order to change myself into the butterfly. It was a foreign concept to me and I am only just beginning to realize how I am supposed to start going about it.
Throughout my life, I have always been told that it isn't what is on the outside that matters, it is what is on the inside that counts. While I am still a firm believer that this is true, I am beginning to understand that both the inside and the outside have a direct impact on each other. The people who are most successful in life are the ones who are able to merge the two and become one. The process is very much like the creation of a butterfly. You first have the caterpillar (the inside) and the cocoon (the outside). When the circumstances are just right, these two things together create the butterfly.
I have begun to realize that I have focused the majority of my life's efforts on the caterpillar and not much on the cocoon. The caterpillar is getting extremely anxious and is ready to go, but the cocoon is much too weak to turn the caterpillar into a butterfly. So, for the next little while I will be focusing much more attention on the cocoon. Some of the things I do for the cocoon may seem fairly silly to people on the outside (like starting to wear makeup which I have never been really that much into), but if those things make the caterpillar happy, then who am I to deny it one of those simple little pleasures?
Over the past year, the idea that came with the image of the Eternal Butterfly, has evolved. I have come to realize that my Heavenly Father is not himself turning me into the butterfly, he is only providing me with the tools I need in order to change myself into the butterfly. It was a foreign concept to me and I am only just beginning to realize how I am supposed to start going about it.
Throughout my life, I have always been told that it isn't what is on the outside that matters, it is what is on the inside that counts. While I am still a firm believer that this is true, I am beginning to understand that both the inside and the outside have a direct impact on each other. The people who are most successful in life are the ones who are able to merge the two and become one. The process is very much like the creation of a butterfly. You first have the caterpillar (the inside) and the cocoon (the outside). When the circumstances are just right, these two things together create the butterfly.
I have begun to realize that I have focused the majority of my life's efforts on the caterpillar and not much on the cocoon. The caterpillar is getting extremely anxious and is ready to go, but the cocoon is much too weak to turn the caterpillar into a butterfly. So, for the next little while I will be focusing much more attention on the cocoon. Some of the things I do for the cocoon may seem fairly silly to people on the outside (like starting to wear makeup which I have never been really that much into), but if those things make the caterpillar happy, then who am I to deny it one of those simple little pleasures?
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