Say what you need to say

It's the second day of my internship, the first day of my freelance book designing project, and the fourteenth day since I returned from the Holy Land. Surprisingly, amidst all the busy body-ness, I find myself in a very contemplative mood. I have a desire to fill my journal with all my thoughts and feelings.

But I'm struggling to do so.

The words want to come. But they can't. It's like they're stuck or not even available. Days like these make me wish I were better at writing exactly what it is I want/need to say. Unfortunately, I'm not always very clear when I try to express my thoughts--especially in writing. Sit me down in a chair and ask me a couple questions and I'll talk your ears off until I've analyzed every aspect of my life down to the most miniscule details. But ask me to write how I feel and you'll most likely end up with a paragraph filled with disjointed sentences that only expose an incomplete stream of consciousness, not really anything profound or insightful or coherent.

Thankfully, I wasn't abandoned in my search for the best words this afternoon. As I was going about my usual social media break, I found something helpful...so I took a screen shot:

A recent post on my Facebook newsfeed

Some people just say it better. And by it, I'm referring to the feelings bottled inside (yes, I see the grammatical incongruence in my sentence). The ones that want to rise to the surface and be released but can't be because the key of articulation that can unlock them has yet to be found.

Elder Maxwell once said the following about articulation:

"A sixth trap into which we can fall quite easily, brothers and sisters, is the trap in which we sense that something special is happening in our lives but are not able to sort it out with sufficient precision and clarity that we can articulate it to someone else. That is so often true of the gospel. Its truths are too powerful for us to manage on occasion.

"We know more than we can tell! Sometimes the things we know take the form of knowledge about what is happening to us in life in which we sense purpose, in which we sense divine design, but which we cannot speak about with full articulateness. There are simply moments of mute comprehension and of mute certitude. We need to pay attention when these moments come to us, because God often give us the assur- ances we need but not necessarily the capacity to transmit these assurances to anyone else." (Elder Maxwell, But for a Small Moment, BYU Speeches, 1 September 1974).

As I not-so-patiently wait for the gift of articulation, I feel all the more grateful for people who simply say what they feel prompted to say.  Not only do their expressions bring peace to my unsure spirit, but they also reveal to me--once again--I'm not the only one. I'm not the only one who wishes the hard choices were easier, the painful moments were duller, or the sensitive memories were less of a crevice in my heart. Nope. I'm never really alone. And neither are you.

Even Elder Holland agrees:

"Brothers and sisters [...] because Jesus walked such a long, lonely path utterly alone, we do not have to do so. His solitary journey brought great company for our little version of that path—the merciful care of our Father in Heaven, the unfailing companionship of this Beloved Son, the consummate gift of the Holy Ghost, angels in heaven, family members on both sides of the veil, prophets and apostles, teachers, leaders, friends.

"My other plea [...]is that [the] scenes of Christ’s lonely sacrifice, laced with moments of denial and abandonment and, at least once, outright betrayal, must never be reenacted by us. He has walked alone once. Now, may I ask that never again will He have to confront sin without our aid and assistance, that never again will He find only unresponsive onlookers when He sees you and me along His Via Dolorosa in our present day." (Elder Holland, None Were with Him, April 2010 LDS General Conference). 

One of the greatest lessons I have learned in the past several years is that God answers our prayers through the people around us. This pattern is repeated constantly in my life whether it's through the hug of a family member, the phone call/text message of a concerned friend, or a simple status update on Facebook (yes, I went there!)

I guess I'm just grateful that today I was reminded of that sweet lesson. While I am at a loss for words to express exactly what it is I'm feeling on this contemplative day, my desires have still not been abandoned: I have not been left alone to feel uneasy in my beautiful, quiet solitude.

*No, today wasn't a down day. In fact it was very productive and many good things happened.