You don't know me, I don't know you but I want to
I don't want to steal your freedom, I don't wanna change your mind
I don't have to make you love me, I just wanna take your time
I don't want to steal your freedom, I don't wanna change your mind
I don't have to make you love me, I just wanna take your time
-Sam Hunt
I had no way of knowing that the evening of July 22, 2015 would change my life forever. My summer had just died down, I was finished with my summer schooling job at the elementary school that I work at. It had become my goal to fill up as many as my evenings possible, in the fall I was starting school back up as a student at the University of Utah, and I would be working so I knew I wasn't going to have very much time for friends and socializing.
There are several details that lead me to the baseball diamond that night, most of them seeming to being inconsequential. Really the watered down version is that I was not planning on being there that night, I was no longer living in the ward and I don't like watching baseball. But I was there, and that is what has mattered the most in this story.
I ended up going to the YSA Baseball derby to visit a ward I had moved out of the previous month, with one of my old roommates. I mostly had plans to completely ignore the baseball and just talk all night to friends that I knew there. I ran into one of my previous bishops and his wife. That night she gave me a challenge that would change the course of the rest of my life.
I'm sitting here almost 5 years after I started typing this blog post. My 2 year old daughter is asleep up stairs, hopefully she will sleep through the night. Originally I had no intention of finishing this blog post that was half written but someday I want my daughter to be able to read the story. I didn't want her to think that I am less grateful for what followed just because it didn't go the way I dreamed.
That night the bishops wife challenged me to give my number to a guy that I didn't know that I would like to know. I gave my phone number to Cade Lambson, the star player in the baseball derby, a man that later became my husband. I still remember the song that was playing in the background when we met, Take Your Time by Sam Hunt. Its amazing how there seem to be little clues in life that foretell of what will follow, this song was one of those little clues. The years that followed this event weren't easy, exactly two years after I met him our divorce was finalized. We didn't date long, it was a whirlwind romance, we fell for each other right off the bat, it was something from a movie.
I remember the hit of adrenaline that hit me when he first texted me the next day, we were basically inseparable from that day forward, I loved the way his eyes lit up when he saw me and life was good.
In retrospect we really weren't a great match for each other and we probably got married for the wrong reasons but I really did love him, sometimes so much that my heart physically hurt.
On November 1st of 2017 my life changed once again as I held my daughter in my arms, she had his nose and his eyes and I thought she was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen in my life. She continues to be the most beautiful person I've ever seen full of so much life and joy that I feel like she fills up all my emptiness.
There has been so much that has happened in my life since that night at the baseball diamond where I met him, a lot of ups and downs and I imagine there are many more to come. Something I always want my daughter Emma to know is that I would do it all over again if given the choice. I love her so immensely and cannot imagine living this life without her, I would do it over and over again as long as I knew that I would have the blessing of being her mother.
One of the things I've learned in this part of my life is that if we saw into the future and saw some of the hardships we had laying ahead of us I am sure we would beg for any other way. Much like our Savior before his monumental moments in the garden of Gethsemane, I can see us begging with tears in our eyes "Please let the cup pass from me." If God granted our wished we would miss some of the greatest moments of our lives, we would miss the people we would learn from and the deliverance we will surely feel in those dark moments praying to a God that assuredly listens to the pleas of our hearts.
If I had seen the years that would follow after I met Cade I would have never left my house that night. The catch to that would be that I also would never been given the gift of my beautiful daughter in my life either. Although it often seems unfair my marriage became the ultimate example of needing opposition in all things. I had to go through the darkest moments of my life to find the moments of joy and light that have followed. I had to go through the pain of love to find the joy of love. I had to have life I was building demolished to catch a glimpse of what God wants to build in me.
I think I am starting to understand a quote that once confused me, "Niether love nor hate thy life; but what thou livest, live well- however long or short may the heavens permit." -The Ultimate Gift. I'm starting to see that it was never our lives that we were meant to love, it is each other. See our lives change sometimes they are easy and things go just the way we anticipated. More times than not we struggle, we fight for every inch of ground we gain.
There are many things we will come across in life that don't last forever, little things that just take our time and when that portion of our lives is through I hope that we have gained lessons and love greater than the amount of time that we gave to them. I believe in eternal families and I know that our relationships in this life are the greatest gift of all. The point of me typing this blog is not point out the fleeting nature of our human existence, it is to remind myself that when we lose something we thought was going to last forever God has plans more grand than we can comprehend. Our story isn't over and there's so much more, we just have to have the faith to see it through.
"Now we all have our sad tales, but don't you want to finish the story?" -Saving Mr Banks
I'm sitting here almost 5 years after I started typing this blog post. My 2 year old daughter is asleep up stairs, hopefully she will sleep through the night. Originally I had no intention of finishing this blog post that was half written but someday I want my daughter to be able to read the story. I didn't want her to think that I am less grateful for what followed just because it didn't go the way I dreamed.
That night the bishops wife challenged me to give my number to a guy that I didn't know that I would like to know. I gave my phone number to Cade Lambson, the star player in the baseball derby, a man that later became my husband. I still remember the song that was playing in the background when we met, Take Your Time by Sam Hunt. Its amazing how there seem to be little clues in life that foretell of what will follow, this song was one of those little clues. The years that followed this event weren't easy, exactly two years after I met him our divorce was finalized. We didn't date long, it was a whirlwind romance, we fell for each other right off the bat, it was something from a movie.
I remember the hit of adrenaline that hit me when he first texted me the next day, we were basically inseparable from that day forward, I loved the way his eyes lit up when he saw me and life was good.
In retrospect we really weren't a great match for each other and we probably got married for the wrong reasons but I really did love him, sometimes so much that my heart physically hurt.
On November 1st of 2017 my life changed once again as I held my daughter in my arms, she had his nose and his eyes and I thought she was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen in my life. She continues to be the most beautiful person I've ever seen full of so much life and joy that I feel like she fills up all my emptiness.
There has been so much that has happened in my life since that night at the baseball diamond where I met him, a lot of ups and downs and I imagine there are many more to come. Something I always want my daughter Emma to know is that I would do it all over again if given the choice. I love her so immensely and cannot imagine living this life without her, I would do it over and over again as long as I knew that I would have the blessing of being her mother.
One of the things I've learned in this part of my life is that if we saw into the future and saw some of the hardships we had laying ahead of us I am sure we would beg for any other way. Much like our Savior before his monumental moments in the garden of Gethsemane, I can see us begging with tears in our eyes "Please let the cup pass from me." If God granted our wished we would miss some of the greatest moments of our lives, we would miss the people we would learn from and the deliverance we will surely feel in those dark moments praying to a God that assuredly listens to the pleas of our hearts.
If I had seen the years that would follow after I met Cade I would have never left my house that night. The catch to that would be that I also would never been given the gift of my beautiful daughter in my life either. Although it often seems unfair my marriage became the ultimate example of needing opposition in all things. I had to go through the darkest moments of my life to find the moments of joy and light that have followed. I had to go through the pain of love to find the joy of love. I had to have life I was building demolished to catch a glimpse of what God wants to build in me.
I think I am starting to understand a quote that once confused me, "Niether love nor hate thy life; but what thou livest, live well- however long or short may the heavens permit." -The Ultimate Gift. I'm starting to see that it was never our lives that we were meant to love, it is each other. See our lives change sometimes they are easy and things go just the way we anticipated. More times than not we struggle, we fight for every inch of ground we gain.
There are many things we will come across in life that don't last forever, little things that just take our time and when that portion of our lives is through I hope that we have gained lessons and love greater than the amount of time that we gave to them. I believe in eternal families and I know that our relationships in this life are the greatest gift of all. The point of me typing this blog is not point out the fleeting nature of our human existence, it is to remind myself that when we lose something we thought was going to last forever God has plans more grand than we can comprehend. Our story isn't over and there's so much more, we just have to have the faith to see it through.
"Now we all have our sad tales, but don't you want to finish the story?" -Saving Mr Banks
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