never gives up.

No Man is an Island

No man is an island, entire of itself
Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main
If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were
Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls
It tolls for thee. -John Donne

These beautiful words were brought to my mind by the realization, not for the first time, that we never stand alone in humanity no matter what we believe our place is. A very great effort would have to be made for a man to never impact a single soul in his life, in fact, I believe it is impossible. I realize that every effort I make in this life is either to make connections or break them. Our efforts can add up to the greatest realization of happiness we will ever feel, but only if we reach out to others. I truly believe that hell is being left without "root [or] branch" (Mal. 4:1). I realize over and over again that my place is to form relationships that will help me return to Heavenly Father along with my brothers and sisters. I can't work for myself, that is impossible if I am trying to do what is right as well as realize the joy that is available here on earth. There are many factors that complicate the "simple" task of caring for each other here on earth while maintaining an eternal perspective, and I know that is a significant understatement too. We cannot comprehend the pain and struggles of all mankind and sometimes we believe that others cannot understand how we feel. In my self-pity I often like to believe that no one could possibly understand my situation, that I am too special to have the same problems as another, but in reality the difficulties that we face in mortality are incredibly common. I have discovered this by listening to other people. What a concept. I don't claim to have more insight about our human condition than another person might, but I just want to express in this small way that I know we all need each other. I am glad that we do. I know that life's problems are both large and small and life's joys as well. We aren't expected to carry them on our own. We need to share them with each other both to cope and to rejoice. So often I believe this is the way that the Lord can put his arms around us while he isn't here, he has someone else do it for him. I know my place is to never give up on myself or my brothers and sisters. I have a duty and a desire to care for them, this is becoming more and more apparent to me. This is where my New Year's resolution kicks in (a couple days early)...

I have one goal this year: to serve others without judging them first. This isn't the kind of thing I can figure out in one year, but I want to make a more complete effort to reach out and stop trying to imagine anything about a person except that they are worthy of being understood and cared about.

is glad she's 25.

I am glad that I didn't post what I was intending to post two days before my birthday. I started to write another rant about how I felt my life wasn't working out the way I wanted it to, and thank goodness that it didn't work out the way I thought it would. I realize over and over that we can't expect life to turn out any certain way, but we should expect happiness because we're promised that life will be good if we do what is right. That's what builds our faith and leads to many happy surprises on the road of life. Last weekend included two of the biggest surprises of my entire life.

1. A surprise birthday party. It was incredible! My best friends put it together for me and I had absolutely no idea. First we went to go see Christmas Around the World, which was great, and afterwards we watched a movie. Then my friend Aleks disappeared. For some reason I was gullible enough to believe that she simply decided to go back to her apartment to help her roommate with some key problem and when we got there, the moment I stepped in the door, everyone shouted surprise! Wow. I honestly felt an incredible amount of love from my friends. I was so humbled by the fact that they would do that for me.


This is a picture that was taken at the party. Check out the sweet Victoria's Secret gift card they all got me. What else could a girl ask for?

The next surprise was even more incredible. 2. My other best friend, Erik (the one next to me on the couch) asked me to be his girlfriend. The details of the story are almost too perfect to blog about, but I'll indulge myself and post them here for you. It has been almost a year that we've known each other and about ten months since I decided that I liked him, a lot. I didn't find the courage to talk to him about the situation until October and at that point he told me he wasn't interested. This detail isn't meant to be embarrassing to me or him, but to show the importance of timing. I'll admit that I was crushed, but we continued to be friends, even better friends than before. I went about trying to move on in various ways (and never actually did it) , while he started thinking. I don't know the complete process that he went through to decide that he wanted to date me, but I know that it was incited in some way by our questioning friend Aleks who asked him something like "if you don't want to date her, what are you looking for?" He planned to talk to me on the weekend of my birthday, no better timing in my opinion, and I was floored. On the way to his former roommate's wedding reception he brought up the subject as we were driving. It was deja vu (in a good way) for me because he began in a very similar way to how I had initially talked to him; with no introduction he said, "So I need to talk to you about something..." and I haven't stopped giggling since.

This is Erik and I at Jonathan's wedding reception. Remind you of Prom? Yeah, we love it.

Life is surprising and wonderful. That's all I really wanted to say.