Growth

For a long time now, my favorite flower has been tulips. I love them. I have always wanted to go down to the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point, and I got to go for my first time when Brandon and I were dating. He took me last year and we plan to go this year. I love walking the grounds and seeing all the Tulips. The air is crisp and it just fills my heart with joy.

This year, with the move to our house, we have a yard and some flower beds. In October, Laura, Liz and I worked hard cleaning out the beds and planting tulips. I have never planted tulips before and was so excited. The tulips have started coming up and with spring here, I planted a few pansies for some color yesterday. My love for flowers and gardening started at a young age. I would work every summer for my Papa, taking care of his yard and the yards of my aunts and uncles. All the cousins did it. His yard was always beautiful and he took great pride in it. I can remember being ever so careful as we weeded to not step on the flowers. He was like the foreman and oversaw his grand kids as we worked. Some may see this as cheap labor...we did get paid. However, it was countless summers of teaching and lifetime experience. He taught us how to work. And how to work hard. After working hard in the yard all morning, he always went off for a round of golf with the "nooners" at the Davis Golf Course. He taught me to work hard and then play hard. He taught me the importance of friendships. He had many friends. He taught me the importance of growth and of learning from mistakes. I learned the power of the words "I'm sorry" and "I love you". He taught me the importance of being who you are and not hiding yourself. He loved the Lord and had a testimony greater than anyone I knew. He had his faults too. He smoked. So what? He still went to church he did not hide the fact that he smoked, he worked hard, he loved his family and took care of them. He was a good neighbor and friend. Men like him are rare. He wasn't perfect, he was an honest and upstanding man.

To this day, the best smell on this earth is the smell of dirt and concrete mixed with cigarette smoke. He worked in construction and started a cement company. His truck always smelled of dirt, cement and smoke. When I get the chance to ride around in one of those company trucks it makes my heart so happy. I smell my Papa.

Yesterday, as I planted Pansies, I thought of Papa. I still feel him with me. I have felt him in the worst times in my life. Loving me. Today, I went out to show Brandon my little garden and as I was thinking of my Papa, I started to think of something else close to my heart. The atonement. The girls we serve in our mission at the Women's Recovery Center and the men and women in the Addiction Recovery Program. Brandon's and my own recovery. I thought of growth.

My tulips are all growing at different rates. Some are in clumps, they were planted years before and have a stronger root. Others are taller and some are thicker. Some are barely coming peeking out of the ground. Some are exploding out of the ground reaching for the sun. My pansies add color, a smile, to the garden that is striving to grow and change from a bulb into a flower.

We are each at a different point in our growth, much like my tulips. Some of them have roots firmly planted in the ground from years of care and growth, much like some of us from years of learning and striving. Some are newly planted and striving to grow for the first time, one day at a time. Some of the tulips are in groups and others stand on their own. But they are all in the garden, together. Growing and striving to be the best tulip they can be. Some of my tulips may die. A deer might eat them, the wind blow them over, some kid may rip it out of the ground. Some might just give up. Maybe they just won't have the strength to grow as much as they would like. But they are out there, growing anyways. Trying. Despite what may happen. And next year, they will try again. As long as they have the nourishment they need, they will continue to try and grow every spring into my favorite flower.

My tulips are a lot like us. Some of us have our roots firmly planted from several years of hard work, service and recovery. Of coming unto our Savior despite our short comings and failures. No matter how broken we may have felt we were. Some of us may feel as though we have disappointed the Lord so much that we let him go rather than cling to him more than ever before. Some of us are newly planted in our faith. Still trying to overcome challenges and our own personal deamonds. We look up to the ones who went before us and are firmly planted in their faith and beliefs. Some of feel as though we are standing alone. Not knowing where to turn or who to trust. But if we step back, we can see that we are not alone. That there are groups of us striving and some of us alone as well. We are all in the same garden. Striving to grow and change and be better.

Much like the Tulip has the chance to grow each year with the proper nourishment. So do we. With the basics of prayer, scripture study and faith...no matter how small that faith may be, we can grow. Because of the atonement, we can continue to try and to grow. To fight our way through this life. And we don't have to do it alone. We are surrounded by others fighting just as hard to change and grow. We all will stumble and make mistakes but we all have the chance to change and grow again.

Today, I am grateful for growth. I am grateful for the atonement of my savior, Jesus Christ. I happened into the amazing experience of being a Service Missionary in the Addiction Recovery Program...the 12 Steps are the steps to the atonement. As I have been on this path, I have healed. I have watched others heal. I have witnessed marriages and families saved. I have seen the devastation of families falling apart but even those families are ok, because they have leaned on atonement with all they have, even with a divorce they heal from the pain of loved ones choices and are able to let it all go. I have watched women heal from their spouses addiction to pornography or drugs and to love themselves. I have watched men recover from pornography addiction. I have seen men and women fight their way out of addiction to drugs and alcohol. Weekly, I witness women fighting for their very lives and families. To come to their higher power and change. I thought that Brandon and I had so much to teach and help with, but we have been taught and helped. I have watched my husband heal from addiction and literally transform into a new and different man. Someone different from the night I met him, it's like night and day. Still with faults but with a different countenance and a desire to keep trying and a new approach to life. I have healed from things I never thought were possible. I was able to forgive myself and then see myself. As the Lord sees me. To love myself as the Lord loves me. It has been several years of work and growth, much like the tulips that have been in my garden for a while. I am no where near where I want to be, but that is the beauty of it all. I never will be. I get to grow, over and over through this life as I learn from my savior. I'm going to continue to make mistakes ad fall over and be weak but I always have a way to try again.

I'm grateful for this important life lesson and the new joy I have in gardening. Now as I think of my Papa, I think of the men and women I have served with and who have taught me. I think about my Savior and his sacrifice that I might continue to grow and make it through this life through him.