My Mormon Journey

I was asked recently if someone could interview me about me and my illness(Fibromyalgia) and if I had an angle for the interview. I'm still thinking about it, but one thing that kept going around my mind was how being only able to work 50% makes me feel less. It makes me feel 50% worthless. 50% less of a wife, a mother, a friend, a... anything or anyone. Because when I have worked 50%, I don't function normally the rest of the time, as long as I don't work - the rest of the time I need to recooperate, to rest, to be able to go back to work again. I sometimes feel I only have 10% of my life left. And it hurts. I feel like the following sentence that I read on the internet: "I am a person who wants to do a lot of things trapped in a body of a person who wants to sleep alot". It is like loosing someone, just that the someone is you. The one you used to be, the things you used to do, the things you thought you would do in the future. Like someone so eloquently...

The kind of days you wake up with migraine and fever-like symptoms and your body only wants to lie in bed and your tears just flow. But you can´t.  Because, in a few hours, we are throwing a birthday party for our youngest. ´lotta baking and cleaning to do! Usually I'm very fond of both, but not today. Today I do not want to. Today, the body does not want to. And  definitely  not the head. Painkillers for breakfast again. But that´s what it is like being a mother having fibromyalgia. You are hurt and sick, but still you have to keep going. It's simply impossible to put that job away. I would not have liked to leave it to others either. But that does not make it easier.  Put the mask on. Form the mouth into a smile. The energy that does not exist must be extracted from the depths within me. I think I would have become an awesome athlete. The way they continue on, long after their body and energy are empty, their mental strength keeps them going. They force the ...

It is almost 01am. I am awake. My worries keep me awake and I am pretty sure few people in the world are having this particular worry tonight: What if the Campi Flergei volcano wakes up?! The what, you say? Campi Flergei is a supervolcano situated in Italy, Vesuvius is but a baby in comparison. I am going to Italy this summer and will basically be driving a top of this super volcano. I asked my husband what if it blows while we're there?! He smiled and answered: haven't you always dreamt of being up close with a volcano? Well, yes, a sleepy one with a little lava sprinkled with a dash of  ashes. Not one that, according to the latest article, could obliterate the whole of Europe!!!  My mind works by taking all scenarios in to analysis and then come up with solutions. (positive trait while playing games - I almost always win...) But not so positive with anxiety. So...one possible outcome is of course that this particular supervolcano goes boooom while we are there. The worst bo...

We believe that we, our spirits that is, lived with our Heavenly Father before we came to earth. In the great council in Heaven,  Jesus Christ vounteered to lay down his life for us, to suffer, to be ridiculed, to feel pain beyond comprehension. He came forth and said: "Here am I, send me". He did it because he knew the importance of what needed to be done, and he did it because of his great love for his Father and for all of us.  So many people in the world get angry with God when  life seems unfair, and even cruel. Many ask the question: "Why do bad things happen to good people?"  Consequences, both good and bad, are a natural part of our lives. Everything and everyone are pieces in this great puzzle of life. And every piece matters.  I belive that we too, before we came to earth, had the opportunity to take upon us a life of misery, or pain, or heartache. Maybe you raised your hand bravely and said:  "Here am I, send me!".  Des...

I know people who are struggling with way more challenges than me, that seem to have everything coming down at them at the same time and fight it off with not only a smile, but with love and patience for everyone else around them. i feel very humbled by their example and almost feel I should not complain about my challenges. At the same time we all have challenges, big or small, and we need to draw from eachothers strength or even each others trials and challenges. There is always so much we can learn from eachother.    I am not dying. But still I feel I am losing my life. A few years back I was told that I have Fibromyalgia. I was also told that this would not neccesarily interfere with my life as it was. But as the years have passed, I got more and more sick, but refused to give in. I told myself that I would continue to go to work everyday until the day came that my body was not physically able to get there. That happened last August. Alsmost out of nowhere. It was as ...

After reading a rather negative article about the church written by an earlier member, several thoughts came to me and I would like to share them with you tonight. Before I became a member and while I was taught by the missionaries I remember thinking: If all the things they have told me, were lies, if Joseph Smith was just a man, not called by God,  if the Book of Mormon was fiction, if the LDS church was only man made, it was still built on principles that would guide me to live a good life.  There is a general falling away from christianity, our church not excluded.  I understand that people have had negative experiences because of other members, leaders even, or not even, but most particularly, leaders. They are human. And indeed do human mistankes. Terrible ones sometimes. But the gospel of Jesus Christ is still a manual of how to become the best you. If I died and found out that all I knew were lies, I would still meet God confident knowing I did the best...

I try to be honest about the challenges I face, because I am not alone in being a weary traveller of this life. And I believe we tend to think everyone else is perfect or doing just fine when the truth is we all have struggles, small or la rge . They are just not visible for all of us to see.  When others share their struggles with me, it helps me see that I am no alone and that challenges is just something we have to deal with in our lives. And by sharing mine I hope that others out there can feel that they too are not alone.  I had the blessing recently, to go the U.S. for the very first time in my life. Needless to say, an awesome experience, but I will not go into detail of that now. Before we left, I was really exited about it all, but I was also worried. I have been struggling with exhaustion for the last 6 years, but I have been stubborn through streaks of illness, hoping that I would overcome it eventually. This summer however, it overcame me instead.  I ...