Doing it Alone...But Not Really

      Karter has recently decided that it is the most fun thing ever to play with my debit card. Which basically translates into: I have lost my debit card 4 times in the last month. This would be fine except that I don't carry cash and it's starting to get very embarrassing to go to my bank, and admit that I have lost yet another one. Most of the time it's fine though. One time it wasn't.
      I was driving from my brother's house in Burley to Rexburg. I pulled over somewhere to get gas and realized that my card (it wasn't even a permanent card, this was a temporary card) was not where I usually put it. So after tearing my car apart hoping it was in there SOMEWHERE, I decided that it was only a 2.5 hour drive and I'd be fine with my half a tank of gas. Well I wasn't. Looking back I realize that I should have just called Jared right there and had him drive out and fill my tank; However, I've discovered that a side effect of being a widow is that I have a really hard time asking for help.
     So I was stubborn and didn't call for help. I honestly figured I'd make it.
     I hadn't even hit Idaho Falls when my gas light came on. For some reason, despite the fact that this was actually my fault, I got really bitter and angry. I shouldn't have to be doing this alone, I should have a husband beside me with an extra card so that when something like this happens I am not dealing with it all on my own. I had done everything right in my life and look where I was; driving home at midnight with a screaming toddler in the back seat and absolutely no way to pay for gas.
    On top of all of these emotions that obviously had nothing to do with the lost card, I had realized a few minutes before the gas light came on that if I ran out of gas I had absolutely no one I could call. I have plenty of friends, plenty of people that love me, but no Its-Midnight-I-Have-No-Gas-Come-Save-Me-Friends. So I was also dealing with the realization that aside from being alone in this situation, I was alone period.
     So I was crying, and I had no gas, and I just kept thinking, "I have no one to call, I have no one to call." But strangely enough I kept getting this feeling that I was going to make it and it was all going to be alright. That made no logical sense, so I kept pushing it aside, because I had another hour of driving ahead of me.
     Well I think you all saw the ending coming, even when I didn't. I made it all the way home. I had been praying pretty hard that it would happen that way, but I didn't actually expect it to. And even though I h
ad made it home, I still had to figure out how I was going to get Karter to day care the next morning and then to school. I still didn't have a way to pay for gas, so a visit to the bank was also on the agenda. All with no car.
     The next morning, my new card was in the mail box, my car started and Karter and I made it all the way to the gas station without a problem. As I dropped Karter off at day care I prayed to thank Heavenly Father for the good luck I had; instead I got this overwhelming feeling that said to me, "You have someone to call, when you are in trouble, you have me to call."
      It was an amazing humbling experience for me. I spend a lot of time feeling angry that I do things alone. My life is different than those around me, and so even my closest friends have a hard time relating to me sometimes. You would think, that after a year and a half of hard times, but also wonderful miracles, I would remember the one person that is responsible for every good thing that has ever happened to me.

    I deal with a two year old that STILL does not sleep through the night. I deal with getting back into the dating world and being HORRIBLE at it. I also deal with the realization that my life is complicated and that it isn't necessarily the kind of life that someone can just fit into. And I struggle every day with my fear that no matter what I do, I will never be good enough for anyone, including the man I already married. And I deal with it alone...but not really.

   I recognize that not everyone can relate exactly to this. Everybody's tragedies and trials are different, but I believe that loneliness is a universal feeling, and no one knows that feeling better than I do (although, that is not true either, someone has always got it worse). I just want to bear my testimony that you ARE NOT alone, and the only one in the whole world who can know exactly what you are feeling is just waiting for you to ask for help.