Wow.

So here I am, sitting at my roommate's desk because mine isn't clean. Surprise, surprise. Mine is covered with three novels, 457 notecards, glasses and a contact case, halfway used tissues, photos of the ones I truly love-my family, a box of suckers shipped to me from Colorado Springs--thank you Toni, a pink shoebox of craft supplies, and two flashlights that don't work. The ironic thing about all this: I am supposed to be cleaning my room right now... Ha! So I'm a slob--what else is new?

But this is isn't the point. The point is this: Wow. It's crazy how much time changes you. And yet it's amazing how much I am the same now as I was when I started this blog at eleven. I've dealt with a lot of life challenges since then.... Yeah. We'll just leave it at that. In fact, sometimes I think that girl at eleven and twelve and thirteen might know a little more about life than I do now. She was certainly happier, at least that's what I recall, but maybe my brain is skewed. Or skewered. That's a pretty picture.... Anyways.

Sometimes we look back and think, "Ah life was so easy back then." Doubt it. Time just heals wounds and makes us forget. Even if our problems were easier, we didn't find them easier to us at the time because we hadn't been through them and grown from them yet. So I look at my past with gratitude, and find hope in the future because of it.

Dear Heidi,

Remember the really crappy times you went through as a teenager? Remember the months of heartache you went through after you broke-up with your first boyfriend? Remember how you would lie awake at night dreaming about him, and all of the amazing times you had together? You got through that. You can get through this. Time heals. You can move on.

Remember how brave you were, and how valiant you were in your testimony of Jesus Christ, even though it was hard? Even though schoolmates mocked you for your beliefs? Even though it required so much out of you? It required change. Stone cold change. That turned into beautiful peace. You were valiant then, and you are valiant now, even when you don't realize it.

I am grateful to be me. I am grateful to have the amazing friends I do. I can't even remember all of the times someone has come to me telling me they had a feeling they needed to call me, or hug me, or ask what was wrong. Oftentimes without even seeing me beforehand. Wow. Wow. How can they even know without having the spirit of Christ is with them, telling them a friend is need?

I am grateful to my Savior, Jesus Christ, who, even if I doubt or look to other sources for peace, He still loves me and allows for my growth and my change. He loves all of His children--His father's children, and often He shows us His love through the love others show to us. Even my friends who don't believe in Christ, are a testimony of His love to me.

So dear friends, new and old--thank you. Even if you don't agree with me, or I with you. Even if I choose a different path than you would. Thank you for your love, even though for several of us, especially the old friends, we're completely different now. You were there for me then, and I am just as grateful now.... Wow.