I Thank Thee For My Trials

Over the years I have become more cynical according to my mom where I just thought I was becoming funnier. Interesting, the different points of view huh? Well, in my cynical, sarcastic humor I decided that I needed to change the way I react to things and that the reaction to situations is what makes or breaks life.

Sometimes in the quiet minutes throughout the day or the silence I force upon myself by closing off my mind, I have realized a lot of things about myself. I'm not sure if the way I deal with things now stems more from being overly sensitive or just honestly not caring about a lot. What I tell myself is that I am able to see the larger picture, making the more menial things that go on in my life forgettable, but I'm not fully convinced it's more one way than the other.

This brings me to trials. Throughout my life I have done my best to keep in mind that people go through a lot worse things than I do and it's true. Up to this point I would have to say that my life has been fairly simple and easy. There may have been a few bumps along the road and I might be driving on the Shrimp farm stretch where the road is crappy but my car has been good to me. Because I've tried to keep the troubles that other people experience at the forefront of my mind when I drive through a pot hole, I've been able to sigh and say 'whatever' and effectively brush the experience off as just a part of life.

There have been some things in life though that I have experienced and taking on this new optimistic approach to my trials has made me laugh whenever I've used it. Example:

There was a point in my school career that I didn't have enough money to buy food for over a month. This is when I brag about my awesome friends and the incredible inner friend finder I've been gifted with. With my closest friends, we had a system where we would take turns feeding each other when we had the money or the food and it worked for us tremendously. During this time I had been waiting for financial aid to come through and didn't have enough money. Luckily these friends had the spirit of aloha and an incredible love and took care of me when I could not take care of myself. Once the money for school came through, I was able to support my friends as they slowly had less and less. It was an invaluable system and I cannot be grateful enough for all they had done for me.

In the mean time, I was concerned with what was going on and did my best to work so I'd have enough money to pay for rent and such things, knowing all the while that God wouldn't let me starve as long as I did my best to support myself. In the church, in the friendships I had, I knew I would be taken care of and my faith never faltered in my god or my friends.

Throughout my college career there were many things that I would have worried about, had I been a mother or a wife, but being single, it was easier to take those trials in stride. The thing, the tool I had mentioned earlier that made me laugh was when I grumbled to myself "man, whichever friend I'm having this trial for, they better be happy that I went through it so I could help them."

This was one of the many things I had pondered in life. I know that we go through trials to make us stronger people and to strengthen our faith, which I can appreciate but over the years I have discovered through many conversations that the things I have gone through when I was younger had helped other people when I shared my stories and the overcoming of them. Which brings me to the crux of this post.

There was a trial in my past that only now I am realizing the deeper seeded effects its had on me, leading to much confusion about a lot of things that I had just brushed off as natural. I have made small but amazing discoveries along this road that I travel and one of them had to do with the feelings I have toward an important person in my life. The fact that this person was not around to protect me from something they had no knowledge or control over had caused me to harbor subconscious feelings of distrust and even a small bit of hatred for.

Once I had realized the subconscious connection I'd made between both events, I broke down and cried for the disgust I had towards those feelings, towards the unbelief that the little pot hole in my life had caused such a great misalignment in my car and towards the time I've lost from my life as I've discovered I've been driving on an unpaved service road that runs parallel to the highway I want to be on.

Since that discovery, the headway I've made has lessened quite a bit but the freedom of guilt has been an enormous relief. I shared this with a friend of mine as we discussed skeletons and she made the same connection. It hit her hard, probably because I had dumped it on her when she hadn't been expecting a cold shower. I feel bad that now she has to go through the same emotional hell it put me through but I know in my heart of hearts that the relief it will bring her will be worth the pain. And she won't be alone in it because I am right here, with my arms out as my god had done for me when I was going through it for the first time.The cleansing and sealing of a wound is always a reason to rejoice and the battle scar can be finally worn with pride instead of shame.

For this very reason, I am proud that I am strong enough to handle trials. I am glad that God knows I am strong enough to take what the world throws at me because in my deeper desires to help those I love, I will be able to help emotionally where I'm not able to physically. It is a gift. It is a strength. I don't wish it upon myself but I can look at bad times with a cynical optimism and know that someone I love will have a better life because of it.

And you know what? That's good enough for me.

Travels

So I thought I had nothing interesting to blog about now that I've retired from the social scene of school. But I just remembered that I went to Big Island with my awesome friend Lora. Here's a little summary of events of that weekend.


Lora had arranged to go horseback riding in the morning so I went exploring in the neighboring town and found myself in a Japanese graveyard. Hawaii being the superstitious place that it is and with all the weird Hawaiian ghosts around, I didn't want to evoke the wrath of Japanese ghosts too. I was by myself...in a graveyard...need I say more?

I drove around a little bit more just to see how long the roads were in this town and drove down to what I thought was an abandoned energy plant and found goats grazing in the parking lot. Security came by and I just told him I was taking pictures of the goats and he waved at me and left me.

A lot of fun things happened. It rained while we did our tour of Akaka Falls and a lot of other places that I'm not remembering without taking pictures.


The first incident of "I can't believe this happened" was when Lora picked me up from the airport and took me back to the hotel. I started unpacking my duffle bag and only pulled out two shirts for our four day excursion. Can I just say that it was a good thing there was a Walmart five minutes away? I swear we ended up going there every day whether it was for snacks or shirts.
I had only been to Big Island (Hawaii) once and was pretty impressed by myself to have found the temple again so easily. This trip also made me aware of the bodacity of my Jamba Juice radar. There's the Kona Temple. The Laie temple on Oahu is being rennovated so this is where everyone has to fly to until next year.

The last full day of our trip was Sunday and we decided to chance the volcano again to see if the weather conditions would be any better. They sure were. We had clear skies all 4,000 feet! There's a lookout to one of the craters that I'm embarrassed I don't know the name of. But the lookout is the Jagger Lookout. And how's me thinking Mick Jagger is the one that funded it. Tch...stupid tourist.
There was a trail of volcanoes that we decided to chance. Because of toxic fume levels, the lower part of the road was closed but let me tell you, I was feeling it. The further down the road we got, the more my chest hurt. This is one of the last pictures I took from the last little lookout spot we stopped. Then I told Lora we had to go because I was having a hard time breathing. And it was getting dark on the top of the mountain and neither of us wanted to be stuck in the dark...Yea for asthma!

We went back home, had a good sleep and had no troubles on our flight back to Oahu...which is a far cry from the hour I sat on the plane as I waited to fly to Big Island.

The end!

Strange fears

Sometimes I'm afraid to be around people.

My hands get clammy, my heartbeat speeds up, I get nervous and when they talk to me I want to run away and hide and never come back out again.

Luckily it only lasts for a couple of months when it does hit.