I kind of had a down day.

I am surrounded by loved ones, the most important of those being my family members. They always love me, and I take real comfort in that. :)

God has also seen it fit to surround me with beautiful people who I love and who love me when I live away from home. It's such a blessing. :)

But sometimes, I trick myself into thinking that they don't actually care about me.

When I was really little, I was fearless. ...except around dogs. Dogs were my irrational fear for the first seventeen years of my life. But anyway, when I hit 7th grade, all confidence I had ran away faster than I had run away from any dog, and believe me, Ussein Bolt had NOTHING on my wheels when there a canine in hot pursuit.

Seriously though, I lost everything. I was afraid of everything. God still blessed me with wonderful people to call friends, but I was insecure, afraid of judgment, afraid of failure, and this all resulted in shyness and awkwardness. Eventually, little by little, I overcame some of that as I got into high school. God still blessed me with friends, but even then, I don't think they really valued me. Or, if they did, their actions sometimes suggested otherwise.

Don't get me wrong, I loved my friends, and I really was grateful for them, but there were things that they did that either A: drove me insane or B: really made me feel kind of worthless. The thing I hated most was that they had a way of walking all over me, particularly in speech. Growing up in a family of ten kids, you'd think I'd have learned how to make myself heard in a conversation, but when I was with my friends, being interrupted was something I was used to.

Now you're thinking, "Oh my gosh, Stephanie. Don't be such a baby! Everyone gets interrupted!" It's true. Everyone does. But when you only have three friends, you're trying to keep these friends, and you have an opinion you want to share or a story that you thought was super funny or sentiments that show that you totally relate to your friends but these friends never let you get a word out, this wears on you after a while. Honestly, it made me feel like they didn't value me. What I had to say wasn't worth listening to.

Anyway, as time went on, I grew and learned. I went on to my college years where I started to get some confidence back, I started developing a sense of self, and I started making friends. LOTS of friends. It was awesome! And the best part? They actually listened to me. Like people actually stop talking when I start talking. I try not to interrupt people (in fact, if I interrupt someone, I make it a point to always let them finish either before I start speaking or after I get a quick thought out while it's still relevant), but it was totally different. Kind of great!

Well today was kind of a down day. I have this group of friends, right? And we see each other often. One of them I wanted to be really good friends with, and I think it was fine at the beginning, but then she found someone newer and more exciting and it doesn't seem like she wants much to do with me anymore. She kind of ignores me.

The more exciting one is also in this group, and she tramples all over me. She interrupts me ALL. THE TIME. And I don't like it! It makes me feel like I'm beneath everyone! It was today, but it wasn't just today, it's every time she's around. I mean, maybe I just have bad timing in speech or maybe she's just bad at giving cues as to when she's done talking, but I can never get a word out around her! Or maybe she just doesn't care about what I say. Today, she did listen to one of my stories, so it's not terrible, I guess, but still. Being interrupted is one of my worst pet peeves because it makes me feel like I am nothing. Replaceable. Like if I'm still being interrupted, I'm obviously still shy-and-awkward Stephanie, who people like because I'm "sweet" (I got that a lot in high school when people wrote in my year book or had to write nice notes to everyone in the class), but they just don't like me as much as their cooler friends, who they'd much rather talk to and spend time with. Totally immature and totally not true, but in some form or another, that basic principle of thought goes through my mind.

And then today I found this quote from Elder Richard G. Scott:

"Choose to converse with your Father in Heaven often. Make time every day to share your thoughts and feelings with Him. Tell Him everything that concerns you. He is interested in the most important as well as the most mundane facets of your life."

That just went straight to my heart. My God listens. There's so much to be said of this statement, but the most important thing that I get from this is the God listens to me. I hope you get some idea of how comforting that is to me. God listens to me, even when no one else does. A small and simple truth that I don't think needs more explaining. God listens to me. :)

Truly, I am grateful for trials.
...but they're still hard.
...but I am grateful because I know that if I endure this well, I will be stronger.
I know that God loves me enough to try me, to show me my weaknesses, that we might work on making them strengths. Not erasing them, no. Actually turning them into strengths!

Step 1: Learn to love interrupting girl.
Step 2: Learn to forgive friend who has kinda pushed me away a bit.
Step 3: Stay close to my God, and converse with Him. Give my pains to my Savior, and continue to press forward. He'll take care of me. :)

Even when life gets a little bit harrder,

life is still good. :)