It's Not Supposed to Look Like This.

Today as I sat in tears in an interview with a Church leader, I had a flashback to this:

Does this look familiar to anyone? It's from lesson 16 of the Young Women's manual of the Church. This simple stair illustration is preached to the minds and hearts of LDS young women from the time they're 12. 

Granted this lesson discusses the temple endowment most specifically, but I am fairly certain my 14-year-old self looked right past that step to the eternal marriage one, mostly because I thought they'd come pretty close together. After all, I had just made a really great marriage time capsule with maroon, forest green, and navy as my wedding colors. I had it all planned out. It was going to be perfect.

So why was I in tears today? Because in a few months I'll be 30. I've thought a lot about turning 30 (thirty, flirty, and thriving, right?) and I've felt pretty okay with it. However, I was with family recently and realized while discussing an upcoming holiday that said holiday will also be the last day of my 20s. 

What??

How can that be??

More importantly, what in the world do I have to show for it??

I am a little uncertain about my career path, my living situation, my financial situation, and especially my relationship situation. I've now changed jobs five times (some were promotions, others not so much); I've moved 32 times in 11 years; I have a 401k, but I wish I was closer to buying a house; and I was talking with my sister and we couldn't even remember the name of one of the guys I dated because there have been several, let alone the two broken engagements that have left my heart pretty wounded and scared. 

Ugh, what a mess! All I could think today was, "no way. It's not supposed to look like this." 

Right?

And then I thought about my friends whose hearts are broken by infertility, who likely look at their righteous desire to grow their family and think, "but I'm righteous, and I've been righteous, and I want it so dearly!" Surely they have moments where they think it's not supposed to look like this.

Or someone who lost their sweetheart in an accident with three kids at home and think, "but we planned to grow old together! What about those promises I received?" I imagine it crosses their mind at times that it's not supposed to look like this.

Or my friend whose husband was injured in a terrible car accident and she has now spent hours and hours of her life devoted to helping him recover and waiting to see how much "normalcy" will return. I wonder if she has thought, hey, it's not supposed to look like this.

Or someone who has been broken by divorce, whether their own or someone close to them. Or depression, anxiety, infidelity, addiction, unemployment, family strife, abuse, illness, falling away from the Church, bankruptcy, foreclosure, or any other number of deep and personal trials. Maybe they at times have thought, "Wait, it isn't supposed to look like this."

Maybe we all have thought that before.

As I thought about that staircase a bit further, I began to wonder if that idyllic path actually looks more like this: 

My 14-year-old self had a plan and it was simple. Follow the cute little staircase. Finish high school, rock the college scene, serve a mission, earn my degree, work for a couple years in a stellar profession, find the dream man (who of course would have the dream job), make babies, grow old with them all and live happily ever after. Why didn't anyone warn me that maybe I'd be 30 and feel I have little to show for it? Okay, I am pretty glad no one did. That would have been depressing.

So now what? 

As I've grown older and passed through trials and bumps and deep sorrows of the heart, I've come realize that this is life. It is supposed to look like this. Can you imagine a world in which we all walked that same simple staircase person after person after person? It sounds a lot like the adversary's plan to me. 

These tests are mortality. This is why we're here. We're here to face them with resilience, faith, and hope in better and brighter things to come, even if it feels like we have so little to work with. We're here to become something.

Life is hard, and sometimes so, so heavy. But it can also be made lighter and easier as we embrace the Gospel of Jesus Christ and his Atonement. I have to remind myself of that over and over again. In my toughest times, the following two messages fill me with optimism and hope. 

I love this Mormon message from Elder Holland about hope in good things to come. If you haven't seen it, watch it. If you have, watch it again.

I love Elder Holland's encouragement at the end of the clip:

"Don't you quit. You keep walking. You keep trying. There is help and happiness ahead. Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don't come 'til Heaven. But for those who embrace the Gospel of Jesus Christ, they come. It will be alright in the end. Trust God, and believe in good things to come."

In his talk, The Infinite Power of Hope, President Uchtdorf gives a secret message (written in red) that is found in the spoken talk but not the written one. It has always been one of my favorite additions, and sometimes I feel like it's my personal message because it is so secretive. If you'd like, this can be your secret message as well:

Hope sustains us through despair. If only we could glimpse for a moment what the Lord has in store for us, not only in the next life, but in this one as well, our hope would be unshakeable and despair could never overcome us. Hope teaches that there is reason to rejoice even when all seems dark around us.

Through Christ, our joy will be made perfect and whole. Our hurt will be temporary and it will heal and our patience will be rewarded. We will become "even as he is."

One final thought was in the blessing I received from this Church leader today. Our Father does not measure our life and success with age or time. Time means nothing in the eternities. I'm so thankful for that reminder.

Maybe life is not supposed to look like this. Then again, maybe it mortality is.