Fist Bump

The life I'm leading is sometimes incredibly hard.  Yesterday?  Yesterday was hard.  It really was.

Today though, my mind seems to be firing in fifty million directions.

I went for a run today.  Six miles.  Six miles never felt that good at home.  I am so grateful that I have been able to run while I'm here.  I really am a runner.  I am a runner.  I am the one who gets up early and who puts her shoes on, even when she doesn't want to.  I am the one who comes home sweaty and smelly and a little achy because I am a runner.  My feet hurt and I have blisters, but I'm pretty happy when I come home.

I've been reading in 1st Nephi lately, for my religion class.  I was a little bummed I had to start the Book of Mormon all over again since I was halfway through it.  Even though I've finished it a lot, I still feel like I've read the first half more than the second half.

But, today I am grateful that I get to start all over again.  The story of Nephi's family is resonating with me even more this time around.  You always have the primary lesson when they ask you if you would pack up everything and leave, just like Lehi and his family did.  I'm at a point in my life when I did pack up.  I did leave.

I read today how Ishmael died, and his family wanted to go back to Jerusalem.  I've never realized the significance of that.  Sometimes I seem to identify more with Laban, Lemuel, and the whining sons and daughters of Ishmael than I do with Nephi.  I get it.  It wouldn't be fun camping for years on end, following your younger brother.  It wouldn't be easy to bury your father in the desert, all the while dreaming of your comfortable bed, beautiful surroundings, and friends you left behind.

As I create my new life here, I get it.  The daughters of Ishmael wanted to go back to Jerusalem.  Hindsight tells us that Jerusalem was destroyed.  They would have died.  It would have been a regression, not a progression.

But today (and some other days)?  I get what it feels like to want to go back home.  Even if that home would have stunted my growth.  Even if it would have been regression, not progression.

I had hope today as I related to those girls who were really just homesick and probably wanted a shower.

Fist bumps for not going back to Jerusalem and being destroyed.

xo. Elise