Tag: God

Faith Over Fear

stephaniemoorewrites

I’ve seen the statement, “Faith over Fear” mentioned quite a few times on social media.

When I see it, I take a deep breath in. Then exhale exhaustion.

Do they know what that entails?

I walk on the edge of faith a lot of days. I put one foot in front of the other, working hard to stay atop the faithful mountain.

But the truth is: if I side step, I’m falling into the abyss of fear, doubt, and despair.

Having faith means keeping an eternal perspective.

Having faith means searching for hope.

Having faith means understanding that come what may, we’re able to say, “Thy will be done.”

The importance is where our faith is grounded.

Do people have faith that their family will be protected?

Do people have faith that their leaders know what to do?

Or do people have faith centered on Christ and that no matter what happens, they’ll be able to close their mortal eyes and open with eternal ones.

In my experience, the first two have failed. And the third is essential but isn’t easy. It’s continual work.

But on most days I’m able to steady myself on the edge and cling onto faith.

Today, I’m choosing faith.

When There’s So Much Loss

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The grandsons carrying Dorothy.

Loss.

So much loss.

After we received the call about the death of my mother-in-law, Dorothy, I curled up in bed, crying.

I thought, “How will we move forward? How do we keep going? It’s too hard. Life’s too painful.”

As my thought was concluding I got an immediate impression.

“You’re not alone. You’ve done this. You weren’t alone then and I won’t leave you now.”

These last two years have felt heavy, hard, and impossible.

But as a family we’ve done the impossible with help from family, friends, and Him.

Faith. That’s been the key for me.

We’ll keep putting one foot in front of the other because we believe we’re going to see these loved ones again.

I’ll take a deep breath and hugs my boys through their sorrow because I believe we’re building a family that’ll last into forever.

I’ll cling to my husband as we weather yet another storm because I love him and I have faith that there’s something more for us than this life.

Faith isn’t easy. In fact it can be downright hard.

But we’ve experienced loss before so we know the work it’s going to require.

And we know we’re not alone.

So we’ll keep trusting. Keep believing.

We’ll keep hoping.

Finding Hope

stephaniemoorewrites

My hope. My heart. My lovie dovie.

November, December, and January are hard months to get through since Rory’s passing.

But last December was extra painful with the unexpected death of my brother-in-law, Saul.

I haven’t posted on my blog.

I have drafts but nothing published.

Here’s my problem: I want everything I write to end with hope.

Life is hard, but there’s still hope.

Emotions are high, but they won’t always be.

January feels never ending, but it will, in fact, end within ten days.

But I haven’t felt very hopeful.

I’ve felt empty.

Incapable.

And tired.

On the flip side:

I haven’t felt alone.

I’ve had enough energy to accomplish everything I needed to and wanted to accomplish. Even when sleep evaded me.

And I’ve been inspired. I sent off a rewrite to my agent this month. I felt inspired daily on how to help my boys and on what I need to do.

These feelings contradict the ones I listed first. They seem incapable of coexisting.

But they have.

And that’s Grace.

That’s the hope I’ve been struggling to find.

As I do everything I can, Christ lifts, inspires, and carries me through the rest.

As I find my way through the myriad of emotions that resurfaced last month, He’s guiding me and giving me room to recover.

As I feel broken, He’s making me whole.

And I’m not done yet. Two more weeks until her birthday.

I can do this.

Because of Him.

A Move Right After Loss

stephaniemoorewrites

I’ve had a lot of thoughts swirling about Rory’s death two years ago.

We’re approaching two years.

It’s like a different lifetime she was with us.

But also like I held her in my arms yesterday.

Time is weird.

We sold our house and bought a house three days before she died.

The house we were buying wasn’t in the area we were initially looking. And we kept saying but… And looking around again. And again.

In the end, we just kept being led to this community, this house.

Before we even moved, our Bishop contacted the Bishop of the church we were moving to across town.

With that call, we had people mourning with us, loving us, praying for us.

People that didn’t know us.

When we moved in, we were surrounded by love. Visits, hugs, baskets, dinners.

People we were meeting for the first time.

People that never had the opportunity to know our Rory.

They cried with us. They prayed with us. They held our hands through the hardest times in our lives.

Is this not the epitome of Christ-like love?

I’m so grateful my Heavenly Father knew what we were going to need.

He was aware of us.

He knew the love and patience we would need to be surrounded by.

He knew that we would need to love and serve ourselves.

He knew.

He knows.

He hasn’t forgotten us.

Not me.

Not you.

May you all feel surrounded by His love whether your life is shattered or it’s the happiest day of your life.

He loves each of us. Always.

Readying for the Fall Storm

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I went to Costco the other day and they have this big Halloween costume display.

Front and center was the Wonder Woman costume.

I gripped the cart, fought back tears.

Here we go again.

What gives Fall the right?

Why does Fall have the audacity to keep coming every year?

It gave up that right the day my daughter died.

It’s not okay.

Previously, it was cooler temperatures, changing leaves, school starting, pumpkin treats, and fun holidays.

Now, it’s dread, panic, sadness, loss, and missing. So much missing.

I can it feel inside me already.

I’m planting my feet.

Readying my legs.

I’ve got my head down.

The wind stirs around me.

Please, Heavenly Father, give us strength to weather this storm.