We get to CHOOSE!

This is going to be quite the open post. And many of these ideas are coming from a class discussion I have had this week.

Have you ever really thought about what your agency or freedom to choose means to you? Without the bitter, we would never really know the sweet. We would be forever in a state of middle ground. Nothing would be bad. But we would also not know any joy.

When was the last time you cried? Or maybe got your heart broke or experienced a deep loss? Chances are that during this time you really experienced what it feels like to be human. Being human is such a beautiful thing that opens us up to all kinds of opposition. Good and bad. The greater the sorrow, the greater the joy. Without these tear filled moments in life, we really would not know what it feels like to experience true joy, or even the simplest pleasures in life. This all sounds really good on paper. But I really mean this. I live this everyday.

So much of the world looks upon Adam and particularly Eve with a negative taste in their mouth. Many think that Eve selfishly partook of the fruit, thus opening all of us up to the inevitability to experience pain, sorrow, and loss. I've had my fair share of that and I know you have too. BUT, that is not how we should perceive Eve. She, in her wisdom partook of the fruit knowing that it would welcome us to the ability to experience life fully and to learn for ourselves through our freedom to choose. 

We get to choose! This is so great. I believe that this even goes so far to say that we have chosen some of our trials. Perhaps not all of them. And perhaps we did not know really 'what we were signing up for'. But I believe we did choose to some degree. I like to think that before I was born I fully knew and accepted that I was going to be 'given' Crohn's disease in this life time and that it very likely may never go away in this lifetime. I like to believe that it was explained to me as best as I could understand (probably many times) that it would be really hard and that I wouldn't feel well often. That must have been hard for me to understand before I got a body. So... I was born and am growing into the body that I have been blessed with. We are all here in this life to learn from our opposition, and the beauty is that we get to choose how we are going to respond.

I'll explain further. This upcoming Friday I have a colonoscopy shceduled. :(((( If I could give this 1,000 frownful faces I would. Heck! I'd even give it more. I hate having colonoscopies. I repeat, I hate it. This will be my third and I am only at the wee age of 21. But here is the beauty, I get to choose how I respond and how I react. I am centering my mind on Christ's Atonement to help me through with this, I am thinking positive thoughts like "I CAN do This", "The Lord WILL help me", and my personal favorite "I CAN do hard things". Without this colonoscopy, I wouldn't know how good it feels to not need one. And at the end of the day, I am thankful for modern medicine.

I am writing this post to remind you that when bad things happen to us, it really isn't so bad in the end. My first heart break has turned out to be a blessing to me. Me not getting into the nursing program and been an answer to my prayers. And all the daily little things both good and bad help me to learn from opposition in all things.

If I can ask this of you, please keep my health and this upcoming Friday in your prayers. I am scared. But I am going to choose not to be. And as an update, all in all,

I have actually been feeling quite well these past 4-5 months. This is mostly just a routine thing for me.

And as always, life is good! I truly know this. I experience it every day.

xoxo
-Camille