I have always been an optimist, it’s the way I choose to view life. I like to feel good and I like to help others feel and see good in themselves as well. Smiling, teasing, and laughing with my family and friends is something I enjoy most about this life. This attribute was definitely a gift from God, for this optimism has helped me conquer many hard things in this life. Heavenly Father obviously knew what I would be going through and He gave me this blessing in disguise that I have been able to use to help me through hard times.
I think back to the time I was 5 and I hadn’t quite understood that my Mom remarried. Our father at that time had left our family for our nanny. I just remember being excited that I had a new father and that we got to move to a new home. When I was 15 I was involved in a roll-over car accident. I was life-flighted to Primary Children’s Hospital where they diagnosed me with Pancreatitis and I found out my dear friend had passed away in that accident. The blame on myself, the physical pain I felt (that still continues today) and the heartache that wrenched within me was very difficult to handle, but I remember holding fast to the Gospel. Being blessed with a high spirit, I grew from that experience and was able to see the light in such a dark time. I accepted what happened and earnestly tried looking for the good, even when as a young teenager, it was the hardest thing that had ever happened to me thus far. Towards the end of my Junior Year in High School I remember getting ready for a date in my parents bathroom when, my Dad I grew up with, walked in and started throwing all of his belongings in a suit case. He said he couldn’t do it anymore and he was leaving. I remember following him around the house as he started gathering up all of his stuff crying, begging him to stop and stay. I ran to my brother, Jarom sleeping on the couch, grabbing him to tell him about our Dad. My brother didn’t want me to see my Dad leave anymore so he put me in my room, closed the door and had me talk to my other older brother on the phone while he tried to stop my Dad. I remember hyperventilating so badly that my brother on the phone made me say a prayer with him so he knew I wouldn’t pass out and that everything would be okay. When my Dad was gone Jarom came into my room, picked me up and held me tightly in his arms and together we cried. He kept whispering in my ear “Don’t let this tear our family apart, that’s what Satan wants”. My heart was racing so fast from my hard crying that my brother held me until our heart beats match up. I will never forget the love my brother had for me that night, but also the love Christ had for both of us. In such a difficult time, my family had never been stronger. My testimony of having a loving Heavenly Father who loved me grew over the next year as I made it through my Sr. year and prepared for college.
My first semester of college I attended BYU-Hawaii. I was extremely excited to attend a school that I felt like not only had culture, but was beautiful as well. I left for college a couple weeks earlier then the normal freshman would have to be able to find a job before the rush of students came. I packed my bags, said good bye to my family and began this whole new chapter of my life. Immediately stepping off the plane I felt this rush of excitement and peace like I knew this is where I was supposed to be and I couldn’t wait to begin the future I had planned out for myself! I was going to get a job dancing in the night show at the PCC, I grew up Polynesian dancing and it was always a dream of mine to dance there for school. I knew I was going to study Psychology. I got TBI from my car accident & I struggled with recovering over the last couple of years. I wanted to go into Psychology to become a therapist who helped struggling kids just like the one who helped me. I planned on going on a mission after my first year and then after my mission I had wanted to finish school back at BYU-H, get my masters at the U and then eventually get married. That was the plan. That’s what I felt determined to accomplish.
Within the first two weeks I was there I met lots of amazing people both on and off campus. I didn’t really know anybody when I first got to Hawaii and so I did lots of things on my own. I am a very independent person and I love time to myself, also meeting new people excites me, so it wasn’t that big of a deal to go off and venture alone. One day while at a local beach by myself I met a guy and we began talking. Instantly we hit it off and became friends. He invited me to do things with him and we grew close. One particular night he picked me up to go to a party. He isn’t LDS and on the drive there we discussed the fact I was, we talked about my standards and we began arguing a little about a certain conflict. He became really upset and we didn’t talk the rest of the drive. Later that night at the party he pulled me aside and we began discussing the same argument we hadn’t finished earlier. I told him no multiple times on a certain issue and he left me alone mad. The party was getting pretty rowdy with lots of drunk people and so I left and walked to the lower part of the beach to be by myself.
I sat down in the sand, put my head down by my knees and began crying. Someone I came to have strong feelings for was angry with me because I wouldn’t give him something I wasn’t comfortable with. I felt stupid for not dating someone within my church standards, it might have been easier to deal with if we both understood why we didn’t do certain things. All I wanted to do was leave the BBQ and go back to my dorm.
A couple minutes later I heard someone yelling from behind me. It was one of his drunk buddies that I had met once or twice at a couple of things, but I didn’t know him well. He was very drunk and I couldn’t quite make out his face at first because it was darker in the night. He hopped down the rocks and came at me quickly. I was very confused because even if he was drunk, surely he would still have seen me. Well I wasn’t wrong, he for sure saw me. He knew I was down there by myself, because he knew me and his friend just had another argument about the same thing and it was as if he was trying to defend his buddy for him. He seemed to be breathing heavier as he approached me and I stood up really confused as he was mocking me about something, but I couldn’t quite make out what he was trying to say. Out of nowhere he grabbed my hair and yanked it. I was confused and caught off guard as I fell to the ground and he pushed my body deeper into the sand. It took me a minute to process what was happening, what was going on? I had just been crying to myself and the next minute I was being thrown into the sand with this freak drunk on top of me and then it clicked what was happening.
I froze, it was like my whole body just broke, someone caught off my oxygen and I couldn’t breathe. My shorts were being pulled off and he was forcing himself on me. I couldn’t move. I didn’t fight. I did nothing. I couldn’t, my body wouldn’t respond. I literally couldn’t move a muscle. I automatically went numb. I was so scared and unsure if this was actually happening and I didn’t know what to do. I remember it was like a waterfall of tears were streaming down my face, but I didn’t scream, I just sobbed, it was just like tears coming out of my eyes and I remember hurting really bad, but it was like I wasn’t connecting with my body to move. I have never experienced fear like this in my whole entire life. I just remember this dark figure over me and pain shooting to my brain, but I was like a dead body that didn’t move. I’m not sure if I was even breathing, or even alive when it happened, I was so shocked with fear. I’m not even sure how long I laid there in the sand afterwards. I was terrified to move, to get up, to walk. Was he in the trees waiting again? I didn’t know what to do. I was so scared. It all just seemed so unrealistic, just a blur of clouded fear. Eventually my tears stopped and I felt like from that moment on so did my whole world.
I don’t remember when I finally made my way back to Laie and my dorm, but I remember laying in my bed and staring at the light bulb above my head in the ceiling. I stared at it for a couple of hours and I didn’t sleep. I didn’t do anything but lay there and stare. I couldn’t believe what had happened, I was so shocked. That night I decided to pretend it never happened. To not tell anyone and to never speak of it. Just pretend it didn’t happen. I put it in the back of my head and decided to pretend that everything was okay.
I was embarrassed and ashamed. I felt humiliated and disgusting. I felt so unworthy, gross and worthless. I felt like I couldn’t even be a part of the church anymore, I can’t even begin to explain to you the kind of person I felt I was. Around this time too I got released from my calling, because our President was moving out of our ward, so I didn’t really have a reason to attend church anymore. Or that’s what I was telling myself. Slowly I began to stop reading my scriptures or saying my prayers. I felt so unworthy to read them. I just remember telling myself that I couldn’t let anyone know or find out.
Eventually I started acting out in weird ways that I didn’t even realize. Because no one knew what had happened and I didn’t want anyone finding out I tried my hardest to prove to my close friends and my family back at home that everything was normal with me. I started shopping lots! I felt like if I had better clothes and bought things I loved it would make me feel better about myself. I blew so much money out in Hawaii, it was ridiculous. I was trying so hard to seem normal to my friends, that I had no idea that my emotions from my rape were coming out in different ways. I argued more with my family over the phone and fought constantly with my best friend back at home. I became very immodest. Buying and wearing things I normally would have never even thought to purchase and justified it all in my head. I started sleeping through my classes and if I wasn’t sleeping through them I was constantly late. My eating became really weird, sometimes not eating at all. My pancreas was really acting up and I threw up 1-2 times a day from all my stress. I began mocking other girls and making fun of all the couples I saw on campus. I thought that if I could get as far away from the girl I used to be then the rape never happened. That’s what I kept feeding to my conscious at least. Before I knew it I was the furthest thing away from the person I used to be and because of that, I made some awful decisions and drew further away from Christ.
Christmas break came and I went home. My family found the new “Kauri” strange. I was constantly looking at myself in the mirror and making sure I looked my very best. I became very vain. I fought a lot with my Mom and became very distant from my family, they knew something was wrong. One day my sister and Mom began talking to me and I finally broke, they found out the truth. I had been sexually abused. Together we all cried.
Immediately I met with my Bishop, saw a Dr. and got into counseling. It was all very hard for me to take in, talk about and admit. I am always looking for a quick fix and trying to prove to others that I am okay, that I can do things on my own. I struggled deeply with accepting the help my family tried to offer, I felt like they didn’t understand and that I was okay, that what happened wasn’t that big of a deal. I hardly ever cried or showed genuine sadness. I was just angry all the time. Fighting and trying to find the quick way to happiness. But I came to realize, I was wrong. I couldn’t heal on my own. Because I had held what happened to me in for so long, it was difficult to talk about it and accept that it wasn’t made up, it was real and it happened and I had to face and deal with it. A position I would have never imagined myself ever being in.
I knew the decision to not go back to BYU-Hawaii would be a tough one, but I never knew it would be as hard as it was. Obviously I was not mentally, physically or emotionally stable, but I longed for the experience that I had always dreamed of. Of going to school one year, a mission, going back and graduating and then getting married, none of that happened and that’ s not what I had planned. I once again dealt with all of this through anger and without God. I was mad my life wasn’t going the way I wanted it to. None of this was part of MY plan.
When I didn’t return to school, I got many questions on why I didn’t go back, or what I was doing now in my life. I became very depressed. I wanted to yell at everyone when they asked me why I chose cold Utah over beautiful and warm Hawaii. No I’m not stupid, I would much rather be there!!! But I wasn’t. And I couldn’t tell anyone why. The road to recovery was harder than I ever thought. Not only physically, mentally and emotionally, but spiritually as well. I really struggled with knowing if my Savior really did love me. If he did, why would he let that happen to me after everything I had been through in life? I guess I thought that after my hard teenage years I automatically got a free pass of trials in life, but obviously that’s not how life works. I became very depressed and at times I didn’t even want to live anymore, to exist. The pain of depression is so real and deep, another experience I had never known until now. I began to accept that the road to recovery would take time and be very hard. There are no quick fixes.
PRESENT DAY
It’s only been about eight months since I was sexually assaulted and so much has happened since then. I have had many ups and downs. Made some bad choices and suffered hard consequences for those actions. I have lost relationships with some people in my life and have gained stronger ones with others. I still suffer from depression, but am becoming stronger every day. My Mom has helped me see that along the road to recovery the only way I can do it is through and with Christ. I can’t do it alone and it won’t be the way that I want it to be. I not only need to accept that, but I also had to forgive myself before I could ever move forward. Something I struggle very much with, but am so grateful to have a loving Mom to keep picking me up when I want to stop and sit down.
So this is what I have learned and this is what I’m trying to work on every day.
Just like anything in life, if you want to build something good, it will take time. I am someone who likes to fix things quick, I want things to be better fast and I always want things to go back to the way they were, but this is life. You won’t heal over one day, things won’t be like they always were and I never will be the same person I used to be. It’s a fact and first, to ever get better or to begin to get better I have to accept that. No I won’t be the same person I once was before, because so much has happened to me since then, but because so much has happened I can choose to become better than I was. To become stronger, braver and fight hard to prove to Satan he has no power over me. Yes things will take time, because in order to gain a testimony of Christ you have to take the time to build it every day. I have to read my scriptures again, say my prayers and try my hardest to be obedient to the Gospel. Will I be perfect all the time? Will I do this every day? No. But the most important thing to Christ is that I never give up, that I continue to build even when it’s hard. Most importantly I have learned that in order to have faith in Christ and His atonement I have to believe in His will. I can’t set out for my own plan and be angry when it doesn’t turn out like I wanted it to be. I am learning to accept Gods plan for me every day. Every day I am working on things to become more like Him and have His spirit in my life. It takes sacrifice of things I used to do and be and it takes time and faith.
I love my family with all my heart and I have seen that the things I went through before Hawaii were given to me to grow and learn from so that they could help me for where I currently am in my life today. To remember how Christ pulled me out many times before and just because this trial was very new and different to me, didn’t mean He was going to leave me stranded. He was never waiting for me, He had been there with me the whole time. I have been the one waiting around, deciding whether or not to let Him help me.
The abandonment of both of my father’s used to make me feel insecure about myself and when I was sexually assaulted I also felt like that’s just how men were. They leave and take every part of you, feeling hopeless and not keeping their promises. But then I remember back to when my brother held me in his arms when I was crying and he showed me unconditional and true love. He showed me what a worthy Priesthood holder was like and that there were good guys out in the world. When my dear friend passed away, it taught me loss and how recovery takes time, but also how blaming myself for his death didn’t fix anything. I’m trying really hard every day to remind myself the rape was not my fault. But things like this are easier said, then done. Again, I’m working on it. I’m learning that although someone took my virginity away from me, through Christ I can be healed and become whole. It will take time, but one day I will be whole again and I will be able to share that special gift with someone who loves me. It’s funny how I had no idea why I went through certain trials before, but because I did go through so much I have been blessed and reminded of my Savior’s love for me now.
I know God lives. I know He really does look out for all of His children. I have realized that you don’t just convert to the church when you are 8 and are baptized, but that like anything in life, you have to work on your testimony every day. Consistently converting yourself to the Gospel and taking time for God. He does care, but you have to build that relationship with Him, you can’t expect one night of reading the scriptures to carry you throughout the rest of your life. We keep building His kingdom every day.
When you are in your deepest despairs, or depressed beyond measure. Pray to Him. Go to him. Just open a page of your scriptures and look upon his words he has written for YOU. Never give up on the hope of our Savior Jesus Christ. The one who understands the true intentions of our hearts and understands that the pain will be excruciating, but that we can do it and if we trust in His plan then He will comfort and heal us. Don’t worry, it’s something I’m still working on every day, something I’m still not 100% good at. But the Savior isn’t giving up on you, so you don’t give up on yourself either. It’s not about being saved by God’s Grace, but being changed by God’s Grace. Faith without works is dead, you have to put in work in order to be saved. I am changing and growing every day and with Christ I am changing and growing closer to Him. Day by day. Step by step. Don’t worry about how many times you’ve fallen, but how many times you are determined to get back up.
I think back to the time I was 5 and I hadn’t quite understood that my Mom remarried. Our father at that time had left our family for our nanny. I just remember being excited that I had a new father and that we got to move to a new home. When I was 15 I was involved in a roll-over car accident. I was life-flighted to Primary Children’s Hospital where they diagnosed me with Pancreatitis and I found out my dear friend had passed away in that accident. The blame on myself, the physical pain I felt (that still continues today) and the heartache that wrenched within me was very difficult to handle, but I remember holding fast to the Gospel. Being blessed with a high spirit, I grew from that experience and was able to see the light in such a dark time. I accepted what happened and earnestly tried looking for the good, even when as a young teenager, it was the hardest thing that had ever happened to me thus far. Towards the end of my Junior Year in High School I remember getting ready for a date in my parents bathroom when, my Dad I grew up with, walked in and started throwing all of his belongings in a suit case. He said he couldn’t do it anymore and he was leaving. I remember following him around the house as he started gathering up all of his stuff crying, begging him to stop and stay. I ran to my brother, Jarom sleeping on the couch, grabbing him to tell him about our Dad. My brother didn’t want me to see my Dad leave anymore so he put me in my room, closed the door and had me talk to my other older brother on the phone while he tried to stop my Dad. I remember hyperventilating so badly that my brother on the phone made me say a prayer with him so he knew I wouldn’t pass out and that everything would be okay. When my Dad was gone Jarom came into my room, picked me up and held me tightly in his arms and together we cried. He kept whispering in my ear “Don’t let this tear our family apart, that’s what Satan wants”. My heart was racing so fast from my hard crying that my brother held me until our heart beats match up. I will never forget the love my brother had for me that night, but also the love Christ had for both of us. In such a difficult time, my family had never been stronger. My testimony of having a loving Heavenly Father who loved me grew over the next year as I made it through my Sr. year and prepared for college.
My first semester of college I attended BYU-Hawaii. I was extremely excited to attend a school that I felt like not only had culture, but was beautiful as well. I left for college a couple weeks earlier then the normal freshman would have to be able to find a job before the rush of students came. I packed my bags, said good bye to my family and began this whole new chapter of my life. Immediately stepping off the plane I felt this rush of excitement and peace like I knew this is where I was supposed to be and I couldn’t wait to begin the future I had planned out for myself! I was going to get a job dancing in the night show at the PCC, I grew up Polynesian dancing and it was always a dream of mine to dance there for school. I knew I was going to study Psychology. I got TBI from my car accident & I struggled with recovering over the last couple of years. I wanted to go into Psychology to become a therapist who helped struggling kids just like the one who helped me. I planned on going on a mission after my first year and then after my mission I had wanted to finish school back at BYU-H, get my masters at the U and then eventually get married. That was the plan. That’s what I felt determined to accomplish.
Within the first two weeks I was there I met lots of amazing people both on and off campus. I didn’t really know anybody when I first got to Hawaii and so I did lots of things on my own. I am a very independent person and I love time to myself, also meeting new people excites me, so it wasn’t that big of a deal to go off and venture alone. One day while at a local beach by myself I met a guy and we began talking. Instantly we hit it off and became friends. He invited me to do things with him and we grew close. One particular night he picked me up to go to a party. He isn’t LDS and on the drive there we discussed the fact I was, we talked about my standards and we began arguing a little about a certain conflict. He became really upset and we didn’t talk the rest of the drive. Later that night at the party he pulled me aside and we began discussing the same argument we hadn’t finished earlier. I told him no multiple times on a certain issue and he left me alone mad. The party was getting pretty rowdy with lots of drunk people and so I left and walked to the lower part of the beach to be by myself.
I sat down in the sand, put my head down by my knees and began crying. Someone I came to have strong feelings for was angry with me because I wouldn’t give him something I wasn’t comfortable with. I felt stupid for not dating someone within my church standards, it might have been easier to deal with if we both understood why we didn’t do certain things. All I wanted to do was leave the BBQ and go back to my dorm.
A couple minutes later I heard someone yelling from behind me. It was one of his drunk buddies that I had met once or twice at a couple of things, but I didn’t know him well. He was very drunk and I couldn’t quite make out his face at first because it was darker in the night. He hopped down the rocks and came at me quickly. I was very confused because even if he was drunk, surely he would still have seen me. Well I wasn’t wrong, he for sure saw me. He knew I was down there by myself, because he knew me and his friend just had another argument about the same thing and it was as if he was trying to defend his buddy for him. He seemed to be breathing heavier as he approached me and I stood up really confused as he was mocking me about something, but I couldn’t quite make out what he was trying to say. Out of nowhere he grabbed my hair and yanked it. I was confused and caught off guard as I fell to the ground and he pushed my body deeper into the sand. It took me a minute to process what was happening, what was going on? I had just been crying to myself and the next minute I was being thrown into the sand with this freak drunk on top of me and then it clicked what was happening.
I froze, it was like my whole body just broke, someone caught off my oxygen and I couldn’t breathe. My shorts were being pulled off and he was forcing himself on me. I couldn’t move. I didn’t fight. I did nothing. I couldn’t, my body wouldn’t respond. I literally couldn’t move a muscle. I automatically went numb. I was so scared and unsure if this was actually happening and I didn’t know what to do. I remember it was like a waterfall of tears were streaming down my face, but I didn’t scream, I just sobbed, it was just like tears coming out of my eyes and I remember hurting really bad, but it was like I wasn’t connecting with my body to move. I have never experienced fear like this in my whole entire life. I just remember this dark figure over me and pain shooting to my brain, but I was like a dead body that didn’t move. I’m not sure if I was even breathing, or even alive when it happened, I was so shocked with fear. I’m not even sure how long I laid there in the sand afterwards. I was terrified to move, to get up, to walk. Was he in the trees waiting again? I didn’t know what to do. I was so scared. It all just seemed so unrealistic, just a blur of clouded fear. Eventually my tears stopped and I felt like from that moment on so did my whole world.
I don’t remember when I finally made my way back to Laie and my dorm, but I remember laying in my bed and staring at the light bulb above my head in the ceiling. I stared at it for a couple of hours and I didn’t sleep. I didn’t do anything but lay there and stare. I couldn’t believe what had happened, I was so shocked. That night I decided to pretend it never happened. To not tell anyone and to never speak of it. Just pretend it didn’t happen. I put it in the back of my head and decided to pretend that everything was okay.
I was embarrassed and ashamed. I felt humiliated and disgusting. I felt so unworthy, gross and worthless. I felt like I couldn’t even be a part of the church anymore, I can’t even begin to explain to you the kind of person I felt I was. Around this time too I got released from my calling, because our President was moving out of our ward, so I didn’t really have a reason to attend church anymore. Or that’s what I was telling myself. Slowly I began to stop reading my scriptures or saying my prayers. I felt so unworthy to read them. I just remember telling myself that I couldn’t let anyone know or find out.
Eventually I started acting out in weird ways that I didn’t even realize. Because no one knew what had happened and I didn’t want anyone finding out I tried my hardest to prove to my close friends and my family back at home that everything was normal with me. I started shopping lots! I felt like if I had better clothes and bought things I loved it would make me feel better about myself. I blew so much money out in Hawaii, it was ridiculous. I was trying so hard to seem normal to my friends, that I had no idea that my emotions from my rape were coming out in different ways. I argued more with my family over the phone and fought constantly with my best friend back at home. I became very immodest. Buying and wearing things I normally would have never even thought to purchase and justified it all in my head. I started sleeping through my classes and if I wasn’t sleeping through them I was constantly late. My eating became really weird, sometimes not eating at all. My pancreas was really acting up and I threw up 1-2 times a day from all my stress. I began mocking other girls and making fun of all the couples I saw on campus. I thought that if I could get as far away from the girl I used to be then the rape never happened. That’s what I kept feeding to my conscious at least. Before I knew it I was the furthest thing away from the person I used to be and because of that, I made some awful decisions and drew further away from Christ.
Christmas break came and I went home. My family found the new “Kauri” strange. I was constantly looking at myself in the mirror and making sure I looked my very best. I became very vain. I fought a lot with my Mom and became very distant from my family, they knew something was wrong. One day my sister and Mom began talking to me and I finally broke, they found out the truth. I had been sexually abused. Together we all cried.
Immediately I met with my Bishop, saw a Dr. and got into counseling. It was all very hard for me to take in, talk about and admit. I am always looking for a quick fix and trying to prove to others that I am okay, that I can do things on my own. I struggled deeply with accepting the help my family tried to offer, I felt like they didn’t understand and that I was okay, that what happened wasn’t that big of a deal. I hardly ever cried or showed genuine sadness. I was just angry all the time. Fighting and trying to find the quick way to happiness. But I came to realize, I was wrong. I couldn’t heal on my own. Because I had held what happened to me in for so long, it was difficult to talk about it and accept that it wasn’t made up, it was real and it happened and I had to face and deal with it. A position I would have never imagined myself ever being in.
I knew the decision to not go back to BYU-Hawaii would be a tough one, but I never knew it would be as hard as it was. Obviously I was not mentally, physically or emotionally stable, but I longed for the experience that I had always dreamed of. Of going to school one year, a mission, going back and graduating and then getting married, none of that happened and that’ s not what I had planned. I once again dealt with all of this through anger and without God. I was mad my life wasn’t going the way I wanted it to. None of this was part of MY plan.
When I didn’t return to school, I got many questions on why I didn’t go back, or what I was doing now in my life. I became very depressed. I wanted to yell at everyone when they asked me why I chose cold Utah over beautiful and warm Hawaii. No I’m not stupid, I would much rather be there!!! But I wasn’t. And I couldn’t tell anyone why. The road to recovery was harder than I ever thought. Not only physically, mentally and emotionally, but spiritually as well. I really struggled with knowing if my Savior really did love me. If he did, why would he let that happen to me after everything I had been through in life? I guess I thought that after my hard teenage years I automatically got a free pass of trials in life, but obviously that’s not how life works. I became very depressed and at times I didn’t even want to live anymore, to exist. The pain of depression is so real and deep, another experience I had never known until now. I began to accept that the road to recovery would take time and be very hard. There are no quick fixes.
PRESENT DAY
It’s only been about eight months since I was sexually assaulted and so much has happened since then. I have had many ups and downs. Made some bad choices and suffered hard consequences for those actions. I have lost relationships with some people in my life and have gained stronger ones with others. I still suffer from depression, but am becoming stronger every day. My Mom has helped me see that along the road to recovery the only way I can do it is through and with Christ. I can’t do it alone and it won’t be the way that I want it to be. I not only need to accept that, but I also had to forgive myself before I could ever move forward. Something I struggle very much with, but am so grateful to have a loving Mom to keep picking me up when I want to stop and sit down.
So this is what I have learned and this is what I’m trying to work on every day.
Just like anything in life, if you want to build something good, it will take time. I am someone who likes to fix things quick, I want things to be better fast and I always want things to go back to the way they were, but this is life. You won’t heal over one day, things won’t be like they always were and I never will be the same person I used to be. It’s a fact and first, to ever get better or to begin to get better I have to accept that. No I won’t be the same person I once was before, because so much has happened to me since then, but because so much has happened I can choose to become better than I was. To become stronger, braver and fight hard to prove to Satan he has no power over me. Yes things will take time, because in order to gain a testimony of Christ you have to take the time to build it every day. I have to read my scriptures again, say my prayers and try my hardest to be obedient to the Gospel. Will I be perfect all the time? Will I do this every day? No. But the most important thing to Christ is that I never give up, that I continue to build even when it’s hard. Most importantly I have learned that in order to have faith in Christ and His atonement I have to believe in His will. I can’t set out for my own plan and be angry when it doesn’t turn out like I wanted it to be. I am learning to accept Gods plan for me every day. Every day I am working on things to become more like Him and have His spirit in my life. It takes sacrifice of things I used to do and be and it takes time and faith.
I love my family with all my heart and I have seen that the things I went through before Hawaii were given to me to grow and learn from so that they could help me for where I currently am in my life today. To remember how Christ pulled me out many times before and just because this trial was very new and different to me, didn’t mean He was going to leave me stranded. He was never waiting for me, He had been there with me the whole time. I have been the one waiting around, deciding whether or not to let Him help me.
The abandonment of both of my father’s used to make me feel insecure about myself and when I was sexually assaulted I also felt like that’s just how men were. They leave and take every part of you, feeling hopeless and not keeping their promises. But then I remember back to when my brother held me in his arms when I was crying and he showed me unconditional and true love. He showed me what a worthy Priesthood holder was like and that there were good guys out in the world. When my dear friend passed away, it taught me loss and how recovery takes time, but also how blaming myself for his death didn’t fix anything. I’m trying really hard every day to remind myself the rape was not my fault. But things like this are easier said, then done. Again, I’m working on it. I’m learning that although someone took my virginity away from me, through Christ I can be healed and become whole. It will take time, but one day I will be whole again and I will be able to share that special gift with someone who loves me. It’s funny how I had no idea why I went through certain trials before, but because I did go through so much I have been blessed and reminded of my Savior’s love for me now.
I know God lives. I know He really does look out for all of His children. I have realized that you don’t just convert to the church when you are 8 and are baptized, but that like anything in life, you have to work on your testimony every day. Consistently converting yourself to the Gospel and taking time for God. He does care, but you have to build that relationship with Him, you can’t expect one night of reading the scriptures to carry you throughout the rest of your life. We keep building His kingdom every day.
When you are in your deepest despairs, or depressed beyond measure. Pray to Him. Go to him. Just open a page of your scriptures and look upon his words he has written for YOU. Never give up on the hope of our Savior Jesus Christ. The one who understands the true intentions of our hearts and understands that the pain will be excruciating, but that we can do it and if we trust in His plan then He will comfort and heal us. Don’t worry, it’s something I’m still working on every day, something I’m still not 100% good at. But the Savior isn’t giving up on you, so you don’t give up on yourself either. It’s not about being saved by God’s Grace, but being changed by God’s Grace. Faith without works is dead, you have to put in work in order to be saved. I am changing and growing every day and with Christ I am changing and growing closer to Him. Day by day. Step by step. Don’t worry about how many times you’ve fallen, but how many times you are determined to get back up.
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