Enduring

I have had a really busy, crazy week, and while I could've stayed home tonight to relax for a change, I chose instead to attend a get-together of women, to hear Mary Ellen Edmunds speak . She has been one of my favorites at Education Week in past years and I knew it would be an entertaining, uplifting night, and I wasn't disappointed.

She addressed the subject of enduring life. We're taught how to endure to the end, not the middle, but we've got to keep going to the end. In typical fashion, she sucked us in from the very beginning with her humor. She has a way of making me feel so comfortable that I forget I'm in a formal setting. Instead, I feel like I'm just sitting around chatting and laughing with the girls. She is very gifted at weaving in humor, stories and personal examples throughout her presentation, and while in one moment I'm laughing, the next I have a catch in my throat, as I realize the point she is trying to make, the lesson she is teaching us.

Tonight, the thing that stuck with me is: "HE knows exactly how you feel." Everyone, EVERYONE has trials (or will have) and none of us can say to another "I know exactly how you feel" because we don't. We may have some idea, and we can empathize, but we really don't know exactly how that person is feeling; but HE does.

I've heard this type of message before, have taught the concept myself in lessons I've given, but sometimes the way a certain person presents something, can hit you in a deeper way, as she did for me tonight. She told us to let HIM into our lives. Let HIM love us. We're not alone. HE knows exactly how we feel. Very powerful message.

Her brother-in-law broke his neck years ago (before he married her baby sister) and was paralyzed, although he had limited muscle activity in his upper left arm, and over time, learned how to work with water colors. He wanted to paint something for each family member and asked her what she would like a painting of. She wanted one of the Savior. She showed us a smaller print of his original artwork, his painting of Christ, and it was absolutely breathtaking. It captured all that she had talked about, imprinting in my mind and heart, that HE truly does know exactly how I feel.

We are never alone.