“YOU HAVE DONE ENOUGH."

I haven't been able to blog in a while because 1) my computer is sorta out of
commission. 2) I've been traveling a lot. And 3) I'm still really unmotivated to do big things. And blogging my thoughts and feelings to whoever reads this, is kinda a big deal to me. But I can't put off what I want to say any longer. #blamethetick

So now that I’ve made up excuses, that in my head seem pretty legit for not blogging, I want to blog about some things that have helped me heal. And some new insights that I have learned as I have started healing. And while I am a long ways away from healing physically I feel I have made a huge dent in the emotional illness that has been plaguing me since getting sick and then worsening as I came home. I have improved so much, and I’m going to explain how.

....I WENT BACK!

I got to go back to South Carolina. It was perfect timing to go back to my first area too! It was at the end of March, I was seeing so much improvement on my anxiety. I wasn’t missing too much church over anxiety either. I even was doing stuff a little on the weekends with friends from work and such. I was doing so much better. And if I had gone back any earlier I know I wouldn’t have been able to do it.

I only went back to my first area... I guess you could say where it all started because I  was bit there. But nothing really kicked in until I moved to my second area. But I was only going for 2 days. Me and my mom flew in to Atalanta, drove 2 hours to Anderson, then we drove down to Columbia to go to the temple, and then the next day we drove to Atlanta and flew home. Even though it was short I want to expound on the thought of “Broken Crayons Still Color” and what I learned in the short time I went back.

When I came home I felt like I was shafted... and maybe that is the wrong word. I felt like I was cut off from 6 months of lessons I could have learned, and 6 more months of chances I could have had to bless someone else’s life. I don’t know if that feeling will ever truly go away. Because we never truly know who we will touch every day. And I lost 6 months of precious time to do that. But I never got a chance to take a look at all the good I did... Until I went back.

I talked to one awesome man that I had loved to talk and teach. I saw him change and get better, I had all the confidence in the world that he would turn his life around. And I got transferred. I knew I would keep in touch, but when I went back this man cried, and got me crying as he explained to my mom how I had helped him get his life straightened out. And now he is preparing to make some even bigger steps in his life. And I couldn’t be more proud of him. But to see that what I had done may have not been a baptism, or an immediate reactivation and pushed towards the temple, but just me caring about this man. Who was thanking my mom for raising me and for letting me serve a mission. I was truly humbled. I don’t think this man knows how much better he helped me feel, just by letting me hear those things.

And then to go to the temple with a man I had taught and was baptized after I was transferred. To see him, his wife and his 3 daughters sealed for time and all eternity in temple is something I will never forget. As I watched them all being sealed I felt like Heavenly Father was saying “See Sadie, you have done enough.” and I left South Carolina feeling content.

The healing that took place in those 4 words “You have done enough” is indescribable. Not that I was basing my service off of numbers of converts... you are an idiot if you do that! But I was basing it off of time that I had to try and help as many people as I could. But I was able to see in just one area the few I had helped were changed forever. And I take no credit other than the spirit which The Lord blessed me to help those people that needed it. And then I guess in a way they will never know they were able to return the favor, by helping me see that when I went back. 

It was there in South Carolina that I first noticed that I wasn’t sad anymore, I realized that I wasn’t grieving that I was home. I think I had stopped grieving for a while, but I didn’t notice it until I was back. I realized the shame and the guilt and anger were gone. And it truly felt freeing to realize that I was enough, I did enough, and if its its enough for Him, than it might as well be enough for me too.

Broken Crayons CAN still color. I can think of so many people who just do their simple thing like visiting teaching and just how much that means to me. I see little kids at work, when it’s 2:30pm and I am dragging so bad, and they just give me a hug, and say “teacher I love you.” What more do you need? A 4 year old saying that to you is enough to make anyone smile and feel like they can make it just another hour.

And so I hope that we can all figure out a way, in our own way to see how we can help those other broken crayons. I’m broken. But I find that helping someone else helps me. And people tend to return the favor without even knowing it. I doubt the people in Anderson that I talked with will ever know just how much they have helped. But I know. And “they did enough.” So what can I do to make someone else feel like they are “enough”? or what can you do? These are just some ways we can all add to the coloring book of life.


-The Lyme Warrior