Dear Life

I found a journal entry from a few years ago that I wanted to share.

"Oh life, what complexities you bring. Hard and trying, rough and tiring. In part they are what make you so wonderful, realizing how blessed we are to have you. But when those hard times are in our face, forcing us to realize how hard you can be, we just want to cry, just break down and give up. It's too hard, it's never ending, I just want it to go away. I know I shouldn't think of you in that manner, but you make it hard to not. No, we make it hard. We are the ones who make the choices that shape you, the choices that make our road. sometimes we wish you could just be easy and that we could just always make the right choices. But what kind of life would you be if that were the case? We hate to admit defeat with you, but sometimes it's admitting defeat that helps us make you more wonderful. Actually, always admitting defeat make you more wonderful, as long as we are working on correcting the mistakes which causes our defeat. Learn from mistakes, learning from them is the only way to make you more enjoyable. Focus on what is wrong with you, tackle it, attack it, get rid of it, and never let it come back. It'll be hard, and it won't be fun, but we'll thank each other later with the results. thank you life for listening, I think I know what I need to do now to make you the best ever!

-Tonia Russon

P.S. I love you!"

Life is a journey, and it's a rough one sometimes, but in the end it's worth it. The Prophet Nephi helps us understand what our life is for, "Men are, that they might have joy." 2 Nephi 2:25. God wants us to find joy in our life, " For behold this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." Moses 1:39. The path to finding joy is riddled with patches of sorrow. Why? Why does life have to be so hard? "For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things." 2 Nephi 2:11. If we never knew sorrow, we would not know joy. If we never felt pain and anguish, we would never know relief. But bumps in the road help to make us stronger too. You can't build muscle without exercise. Sometimes life makes us want to cry, to throw in the towel and call it quits, but that's not why life is hard, to cause us to quit, life is hard to help us grow and be more. God wants us to be happy, He is not cruel. If something is hard, try asking in prayer, why? What do I need to learn from this? How is this going to make me happy? Be open for the answer, it will come, I promise. Then do. Nothing comes without action. "The day of this life is the day for men to perform their labors." Alma 34:32. And don't forget to love your life, God made it special just for you!