Humility and Gratitude

So these last few months have been pretty hard, not gonna lie. Not only did we take on the responsibility of raising a little baby girl, but we've taken on the medical bills that come with it. Add to that the fact that we're already trying to pay for school and living in Hawaii, etc, etc....

Life is hard. And expensive.

For a while I was in denial that we needed help. I kept telling myself, "It's okay, we can do this. We should make enough money in the next few months to pay off our bills." Neglecting to think about the other bills that would come in those months.

Ethan and I finally decided we needed help. We're in a position where we just can't afford pretty much anything anymore. Moving home is going to help with that, and we've found clinics that will see Jasmine and I for $40 or less a visit, which is fantastic. But we somehow still needed to eat for the next month before we leave and we didn't really have a way to pay for that, so we went to the Bishop asking for help.

When the Relief Society president came by with the order form to help fill it out so we could get what we needed, I was still a little hesitant. I didn't want to take too much, and I still felt like there were probably other people who needed it more than us. But I swallowed my pride and told her how many cans of peaches and beans and spaghetti sauce we would probably need. She texted me later that week to say that Bishop would like if we could go ourselves to pick it all up to see what the Storehouse was like and where our food was coming from.

Saturday morning we drove down, and I was thinking it would be a little like grocery shopping, just with an order form instead of paying.

When we walked inside and they started helping us get everything we needed, I was overcome with a sense of both humility and gratitude. I realized how excited I was over cans of peaches and boxes of cereal, how excited I got over getting Jello and pudding, and I realized at the same time how much we really needed this help. I was so humbled by how much the church was able to give us, and so, so grateful. I thought about all of the times I had paid fast offerings and tithing, and the scripture in Malachi that says, "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it."

A few weeks before in a night of overwhelming stress, I had said to Ethan, "We're paying our tithing and doing all the right things and I don't feel like I'm seeing the blessings. Why are we still struggling?" I finally saw where those blessing were, right in front of me the whole time.

I had been denying the Lord the opportunity to bless me because I was still too prideful to accept help. I wanted to do it all on my own to prove how strong we were and how I was an adult who knew how to run my life. And I still am an adult, and I still feel strong. We've been going through some crazy hard stuff, and I know I wouldn't have been able to make it without the strength the Lord has blessed me with. And I'm learning to make responsible decisions that every adult should know how to make. Heavenly Father didn't want to take that away from me, He just wanted to lighten my burden so that I could focus on the things that matter most.

The Gospel.
My husband.
My daughter.
And even myself.

I can't express how blessed I feel to be a part of a church where we are so taken care of and loved. I was afraid going in that we would be looked at, and she would see the nice car seat and expensive diaper bag, both of which we received as gifts, and think that we were just trying to mooch. But as she led us around the storehouse showing us where everything was kept, she did it with love and compassion, and even mentioned that she wished we had come sooner.

I wish we had gone sooner, but I'm glad we finally went. I'm so grateful for a husband who sat me down and said, "Look, we need help. We keep saying we can do this on our own, but we can't." I'm grateful for his humility when I was still so prideful. I'm thankful for a loving relief society president who went out of her way to help me and makes me feel loved and cared for at a time when I'm so far from all my family. I'm so thankful for all the people who volunteer their time and sacrifice their money to help families like us who are just trying to get by.

We may be struggling, but we are so, so blessed. I hope that I can always remember what I've learned this weekend.