His love for me is greater than I can imagine.

God has an incredibly special plan for me.

I was just browsing Facebook, chilling, and looking at all of the things that my friends are doing in their lives...and I had that thought. "God has an incredibly special plan for me." For me. His plan for me is tailor-made for me. I don't entirely know what He has planned for me 🤣 but I am so excited to find out in time. Sometimes I wish I could find out faster...but that's not how it works.

This week has been incredibly long...and I had a lot that happened...but I am grateful that I have my Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ, to lean on.

One thing that has been incredibly difficult for me lately is that I have been struggling to find a balance. My schedule is incredibly busy and full right now, and I am struggling to find a balance between sleep, homework, school, work, and my rest and relaxation time. I am very excited that I have only ONE MONTH left of school!!! But I am incredibly disappointed that it is going by so slow. Please pray that I will have the patience to get through it! 🤣

I am very grateful for the love of my Heavenly Father, and for His kindness, and for His mercy. He loves me more than I can comprehend. I am grateful for the people that He sends into my life, and for the experiences that help me learn and grow. Even if I don't understand at the moment, and even if I don't ever understand in this life, I know that everything will come together in the end. It's sometimes hard to look at my life and realize that it's not where I thought I would be right now...but I am very grateful for where I am right now. I know that I've got a lot of growth to do, and I'm grateful that I have my Heavenly Father to help me.

I know that God has great blessings and plans for me. I know it. I know it's hard to see sometimes, and sometimes it's difficult to even believe that God's plan for me is better than the plans that I have for myself, but I know that He and I discussed my life here on Earth, and I agreed to it. I didn't know what I was getting myself into, but I thought that I would be able to handle it with His help. And He knows that I can handle it with His help. And, as I look back on my life...I know that I can handle it.

I hope ya'll have had a great weekend and that you have a wonderful week!! God loves you very much and I am so grateful for you!! I am grateful for your insights, your influence, your love, and your strength and determination to do what's right. I love you!

Xoxo
Mattie

With Him, I can do it all.

Today was a great day at church. There were several messages that were received today but one of the main ones that I noticed was about trusting God. And my thoughts during the sacrament, I think, helped shape how I viewed the rest of the meetings.

My relationship with my Savior is wholly dependent upon me and my efforts. He will always be there for me, but I must do the work to create or keep our relationship up. Some days/weeks are better than others, but there is always room for improvement. It's been a crazy couple of weeks/months for me and one of my roommates said something the other day. She said maybe what I'm supposed to be learning from these experiences is to trust my Heavenly Father. Like, blindly trust. I trust Him, and I love Him, but these past few weeks have been really hard, and stressful, and maybe I just need to let go, and let Him. It's hard because I hate feeling helpless, and I hate not being able to do something, but that is the real question: do I trust Him enough to let go? I am trying to let go because I hope so. But there really isn't anything I can do about it right now, other than wait, so I'm hoping, and trying, and trusting in Him. 

Trusting someone is a lot harder than you'd think. Telling them things about yourself, thoughts you've had, that no one else knows...is hard.
Turning to God, and letting go of things you're struggling with–decisions you're still trying to understand, things you're trying to let go of–is hard.
Trusting is HARD. But it's worth it. It's worth not going through it alone. It's worth having an outside point of view. For so long, you've been doing it alone, and you've had only your view on it. Letting someone else in, and trusting someone else with a part of you, is worth it. It's hard, and can be stressful, and terrifying, but it's worth it.

Maybe another one of the things I'm supposed to be learning is that I need to get out of my head. I mean, I think I already knew that, but lately, since I've started seeing a therapist, and have been working on my anxiety and depression, I've noticed that I'm better only when I'm out of my head. Having the opportunity to be inside my head makes things worse. I think that these actually go hand-in-hand. I need to trust that the things I think people are thinking about me aren't actually happening. I need to trust that when people say they love me or like me as a person, they mean it. I need to trust that these people–who I'm 1000% sure were placed in my life because of my Heavenly Father–really do love me. They really do care about me. And they don't think about me in the way that I am worried that they do.

I know that Heavenly Father is guiding me. I know He is taking me to a place where I need to be, when I need to be there...but trying to get me to let go of these problems that I am going through is really hard. I am trying, and I'm making progress, but it's really hard. I'm grateful that He is merciful, and patient, and always willing to work with me, because I don't know what I'd do without Him. I can do hard things. I can work through these problems and experiences. I can trust Him. I can let go. It will take time, and it is taking time, but I can do it. I can do it with Him.

Xoxo
Mattie