4-20-2010

Today is a day of reflection.

A time where I remember where I have been, what I have been through, and what I now have.
 
God is truly a loving God to allow us to suffer so that we may learn, develop, and reach our full potential. Our sufferings are, indeed, an opportunity for God to manifest himself and his powers unto us.

 On no other day is this more clear to me than the 20th of April every year.

 I look back and I see my own pain. I see a teenager struggling with all of the confusing emotions and struggles that normal teenagers are fraught with. And added upon all that is the unbearable weight of being a victim of a school shooting.

 I lost friends and I lost the feeling of safety and security. ( I also lost my track spikes that were somehow never recovered from the school but were less important.)

I was left with jumbled emotions and a lack of normalcy. It's hard for me to describe how I felt, it's hard to imagine the pain. Sometimes it was normal and sometimes I just didn't know what I wanted or what mattered. I was a little lost and it came in waves.

I laugh a little when I look back at the silliness of some things that happened. I was suspended twice my senior year. We all know what a bully I am.

 In the midst of all that loss, I felt like I kept on losing more and more. Other students took their lives and the pain continued. My parents struggled in their marriage and eventually divorced. I truly felt the world on my shoulders.

 Fair or unfair, I believed it was not, and kept wandering. Eventually my wandering led me to where I needed to be. I needed to be closer to God. I needed to invite him into my life on a daily basis. Praying every day for him to heal me and help me deal.

My search for happiness turned me not to myself but rather to serving others. My two year mission for the LDS church allowed to continue my healing process. I learned what it means to trust God. I learned to do things because God knew they would be good for me, not because I wanted to do them.

I started to follow the path that he laid out for me. Gradually I became me again.

 I used to think that a day never would go by where I didn't think about that day at Columbine.

 On my drive to work this morning I realized that on most days it doesn't even cross my mind any more.

 I thought of how blessed I am.

I have the most wonderful wife in the world. She supports me in everything.

My two little kids teach me what it is to love and to serve. They have magnified my ability to be happy, to feel truly full of life.

God has led me into a great career and into so many other opportunities.

 I am blessed with a testimony of Jesus as my Redeemer.

I live in the United States of America. I have freedom and with that freedom the ability and desire to choose God.

 I don't have it all but I have so much.

On this day I feel so much gratitude for where I now am. I couldn't be here without God.

Every year this day will come, each year with less fanfare than the year prior. But each year in my heart my gratitude will swell grander and grander because I realize more and more of how blessed I am and how much God loves us.

I still do hurt a little though, and my heart hurts more when I think of the suffering of others at Columbine. I pray for you to be healed. I pray for you to find Jesus, to invite him into your life and let him guide you on the path to peace in this life and eternal rest in his courts above.

WB