Give the Human a Break

These last few weeks I have spend a considerable amount of time inside, well, actually take that back, since November of last year I have spent a considerable amount of time inside due to huge life changes and the cold weather. We welcomed our little Emma into our family last November and love her to death!! She is so much fun and has been a huge roller coaster of emotion and learning! But what do you expect! Naturally since I have spend so much time inside it has felt like I have lost my ability to talk to adult people. I caught myself almost telling my dad how good his burp was at dinner, um, thats a little embarrassing. This new baby has also made me think so much about the environment I want to raise Emma in. This has resulted in a some huge self reflecting on how I am doing as a human being, specifically how I treat people, especially those that I may not totally agree with. And lets be honest, the direction the world is going now days, it is SO easy to find someone that you don't agree with. I have found myself lately evaluating my own values and figuring out what I really believe. Growing up in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints I was raised with some pretty strict guidelines. For the majority of my life I believed because I am naturally a people pleaser. During my teenage years I had several experiences that helped to confirm what I felt I believed. I served a mission and taught people about Jesus Christ and his Gospel. I had a companion on my mission who told me that because I was raised in Utah, with a family that were all active in the church, and it had seemed to her that I had never had any major trials that I was "sheltered." At the time I didn't let it bother me because I didn't want to cause any connection in our companionship, but lately her words have been ringing in my ears. What this companion didn't know was the trials that I had gone through. While I would prefer not to talk about some of the deep experiences of my life I would like to add a plea to those that look at those that seem to have a "perfect" life. You don't know what they have been through or what has caused them to do what they are doing now. There are scars and experiences that seem to dark to share with everyone that change the course of someones life, we aren't the judge of that. We shouldn't need to know that deepest secrets of someones life to give them a break or assume they aren't worth getting to know. There is too much heartache and hurt in the world to let petty excuses get in the way of kindness.

Although I do still believe that we can have our own beliefs and values. Some might hate me for saying it but I don't believe in gay marriage and the idea of abortion makes me sick but I do believe that if someone else has that belief we can still get along. We don't have to even be friends but we can be civil with each other. My belief doesn't make me better than you and yours doesn't make you better than me.  In this world that is becoming increasingly mean and vicious, its time to give the human a break, and realize that we all have our own mistakes, our own stories that can be pretty messy, we each deserve to be treated kindly on both sides of the spectrum. We have lost the ability to talk about what we believe without getting angry or offended. Maybe we can find what is truly right and find that ground again as humanity. If we took the time to truly listen to what others say, we might find that we have a lot that we can learn. I am so far from being good at this, which is probably why I felt I needed to write it down so I can be reminded,  but I hope that if you decide to take the time to read this that you realize your worth and your value. You have a story worth telling and I hope that as you realize that you will allow others to tell their own.