"Beautiful Heartbreak"

I have been so dang blessed with some mind boggling friends in my life that are amazing.  Amazing people tend to have amazing trials.  There is great value in mourning with those that mourn because you get to get a little taste of their trial and the lessons they are learning and what they are becoming without all the soul stretching pain. It's like auditing the course without having any of the homework or exams.  I love the words to this song. I was reading the talk, "Endure it Well" by Elder Maxwell and will jot down the ESPN highlights:

"Endurance is more than pacing up and down within the cell of our circumstance; it is not only acceptance of the things allotted to us, it is to “act for ourselves” by magnifying what is allotted to us. 

If, for instance, we are always taking our temperature to see if we are happy, we will not be. If we are constantly comparing to see if things are fair, we are not only being unrealistic, we are being unfair to ourselves.Therefore, true enduring represents not merely the passage of time, but the passage of the soul—and not merely from A to B, but sometimes all the way from A to Z.

Rather than shoulder-shrugging, true enduring is soul-trembling. Jesus bled not at a few, but “at every pore.”  Sometimes spiritual obedience requires us to “hold on” lovingly, such as to a rebellious child, while others cry, “Let go!” Enduring may likewise mean, however, “letting go,” when everything within us wants to “hold on,” such as to a loved one “appointed unto death.”

When, for the moment, we ourselves are not being stretched on a particular cross, we ought to be at the foot of someone else’s—full of empathy and proffering spiritual refreshment. On the straight, narrow path, which leads to our little Calvarys, one does not hear a serious traveler exclaiming, “Look, no hands!” 

The whole talk is so dang good. (http://lds.org/ensign/1990/05/endure-it-well?lang=eng)  Wanting to come down to Earth life and getting mad because it is hard or not fun defeats the purpose because it is the hard and the not fun that we signed up for. That's the whole point. We didn't come down here to get a body so we could eat corn dogs and play wii and pinterest all day.  It's like getting a gym pass and then not working out or playing yatzee but hating dice. We are here to be stretched.  Life is so hard and so good at the same time.  Maybe that is why it is good because it is hard. I am so grateful for the people in my life who teach me how to "endure it well," even during beautiful heartbreak.