Beautiful Heartbreak...31 Days of Creating with Meaning

Have you ever heard the saying

"If we all threw our problems in a pile 

and saw everyone else's, 

we'd grab ours back." 

That's what I thought of when I saw this video of the new song by Hillary Weeks:

One of the women in this video is Mariama Kallon, whose history was filled with terror, heartbreak, and tragedy. When I heard her speak At the Nauvoo Women's Retreat two and a half years ago, she was such a sweet, smiling, and sincere woman. But her story was horrific. To say there was not a dry eye in the room is an understatement. The tears of empathy that were shed for her and her family flowed freely and unchecked; there weren't enough handkerchiefs or kleenex available to catch them all. Through her trials and tribulations, hope shone through like the carrot dangling just out of reach. She followed that carrot of hope to a new life, one she hadn't dared dream of, and ended up serving a mission at The Salt Lake Temple square and speaking and writing about her life.  Miriama is truly resilient.  She would pray each day to see the night, and then pray every night to see the next day.  Can you imagine living your life like that?  Never knowing if or when you or your loved ones will be killed or tortured?

The other woman in the video is Stephanie Nielsen who was burned in a plane accident. She had such a will to live for her kids and her husband, and has made huge strides in recovering from the accident.

Now back to the quote at the top. My mom and I have talked about this many times, whenever one of us has been struggling with something.  I think that there is a lot of truth in that statement, even if I change it to:

"If we all threw our problems, 

trials, tribulations, tragedies,

addictions, afflictions, illnesses, injuries, issues,

disappointments, disabilities, disillusionments, 

and struggles 

in a pile 

and saw everyone else's, 

we'd grab ours back." 

One reason is because we know we can handle it.  We ARE handling it, or dealing with it, or attempting to deal with it.  It's not exchanging that problem with someones lack of problems, it would be taking on a whole NEW issue.  A new battle.  I hope I can take my battles and turn them into Beautiful Heartbreaks.

Nauvoo Women's Retreat

This past weekend my mom treated Emily and I to the Nauvoo Women's Retreat. It was really wonderful and uplifting. We did not sign up for the first day's sessions since we travelled in that morning, hitting a couple of thrift stores on different towns on the way up. When we finally arrived, we met up with my sister Monie and my aunt Ramona. They were both involved in the Re-enactment of the first meeting of the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo. I took the pictures she put on her blog post, so I'll steal them and add them here with a little more information.


This first picture is of Monie and the actors who portrayed Joseph and Emma Smith. They are married in real life, and were very nice. His name is Stewart Peterson. Does he look at all familiar? He didn't to me, either. But I have see him in movies before and didn't realize it. He was in Where the Red Fern Grows and Seven Alone , along with some others films, when he was young.

This is upstairs in the Red Brick Store, where the original meeting was held 167 years ago. Monie portrayed one of our ancestors, Nancy Naomi Alexander Tracy, and had a small speaking part. They all look funny because they were in the middle of singing a song! Monie is in the middle, and Ramona is on the far right without the bonnet. She took hers off to give to a baby behind her to play with.

I'm going to have to blog about the retreat with several posts, since the presenters were so amazing! For a tiny little conference (about 150 women were there) I was so amazed at the wonderful speakers and talent who participated.

Go visit some others at Talk About Tuesday!