CJ’s Story

I would say personally that the majority of my quote-unquote adult life has been based off of the question of where is my faith? I think God has really had a hand in my life when it comes to searching for my faith.

I moved away to attend school and to live amongst people who had similar beliefs that I do. I thought I was going in the right direction and this is what I want to do, this is where I want to be, this is where I feel safe. I know I picked a great place for me to grow, but like everyone’s life God has different plans for us and those plans can affect other people that are in your life that matter dearly to you.

In January of 2017, my mother had a stroke and fell into multiple seizures afterward. It was a 48-hour guessing game, trying to see if she was going to be okay. It felt that my world was ending and that I would never see my mother again.

Before this I thought everything was happy-go-lucky. It was just small things like, oh a boy broke up with me or other things like that. But with this, I really felt like my world was coming to an end. My physical rock upon this Earth was being taken away from me, I did not know what to do. I have siblings but it felt like none of us were prepared for the day that one of our parents could be taken from the earth.

I remember that day, when I found out she was being rushed to the hospital, and we didn’t know what was going to happen. I blamed God because everything in my world was crumbling and the person in this world that was everything to me might be taken away, felt like everything in my life was ending.

I remember falling to my knees when I got home after I got the call. I call my informal prayers quote and unquote chit-chats with God, I remember telling Him I was so frustrated with so many things in this life I don’t fully understand and I can’t have faith in something He’s going to really hurt me in the end. I was angry for a very very long time.

My mom eventually woke up, she was paralyzed on her left side Her speech was slurred and she was still upon this earth, but it felt like a part of me still died when she woke up because she wasn’t the same mom and I was still angry with and I was still angry with Jesus because I know he knows how I feel, but it still feels like I’m faithless.

I had to take care of my little sister, and teach her all the things that parents are supposed to teach children when I personally, as a 20 year old, was still trying to figure out my own life. I was still trying to get used to paying my own rent, paying for utilities, going grocery shopping instead of going out to eat, doing the little things that my mom always reminded me to do on a daily basis. Just being a young adult is hard.

I felt that my world came tumbling down that day and all my faith was gone but there are moments where I recognize that I have faith in myself and in other other people and I see God and Jesus’ love for me and all of us and that’s where my faith gets restored.

Like too many stories of people in the Bible that lose faith or lose their way in a storm cloud of doubt or misery especially in this world where we live in today He is there at the end of it; He is there to be able to gather all of your frustrations, gather everything that you’re dealing with on a daily basis. He already knows and He already went through your pain Jesus has and knows because He is the one who created the plan for us and that’s how I help remind myself of where my faith lies.

There are so many things in this world that we don’t understand but there is an end-all-be-all. There is an answer to every question even though sometimes people don’t think that, and even if you question your faith sometimes He is there to remind you of who you are. My mom has a saying I always tell people because it always ties together, and I giggle every time anyone says this because it is so true.  “Remember who you are.”

She would say that to us all the time as we were growing up and I think if my mom was able to fully share her faith she would say in the simplest of words, “just remember who you are” that is what I believe Our Savior Jesus Christ wants us to feel. He wants us to remember that He created us with all these perfections and imperfections and to be the person you are today.

To be who I am and to have undoubting/ loving faith in what we don’t know and what we do know, it’s even more powerful to teach other people. I think that was the biggest lesson I’ve learned in the past two years, growing up and taking on different responsibilities that my mom right now can’t do.

Heavenly Father and Jesus really had to bring me all the way down to surface level to humble myself. I can still get frustrated but I’m still making my way out. I do see those little glimmers of where my faith used to be and how my faith has grown since then. I think it’s pretty tremendous when I look at it in a different way. God really is mindful of our growth with faith.