Road Rage

     Coming to California and driving on its roads, it almost made me feel like I was home-- just exorbitantly hotter and drier.  Why I say that is because the drivers on the road rival or even surpass, sometimes, the curmudgeons I see in Virginia.  I honestly feel like the California heat does something to change the countenances of men.

They're quite annoying, those cars.

     Every morning of a terrifically bright weekday morning and every evening of a terrifically bright weekday dusk, I'm usually sitting inside of a humble silver 2011 Toyota Corolla on the I-5.  On all sides of me are cars, waiting to reach their destinations wherever it may be.  A small stretch of a half mile on the road I drive on may take around 10 minutes to cross-- the collective frustration and anger is seen rather visibly by the drivers on this highway-- the volume and accidents build up a rage, destroying any sign of humanity (temporarily) in these diligent breadwinners.

     The traffic disables one to arrive home at the time she would like to arrive, but as the ubiquitous French proverb goes, "c'est la vie."  With a gargantuan density of drivers on the road at such a given time, it's a great big waiting game to get home.

     Now, as I go home to Orange from Garden Grove, I use the 22 Freeway and exit off of The City Drive.  On the stretch of road about half a mile before hitting the exit, there's a lane where people coming into the freeway from CA-57.  The painted line dividing the two lanes, the one I'm on and the lane on my right, where drivers come through from the other highway, is a solid white color.  In the time aptly dubbed by many, rush hour, the lanes to my right are enormously congested and it's hard for me to even come across to the lane next to the exit due to the congestion!  Aforementioned, it's a waiting game.

     As I cope with the stop-and-go traffic, even before arriving where the solid white lines divide the traffic, I see, all of a sudden, many a cars behind me attempting to bypass the traffic by going into the right-hand lane, even though the lane hasn't even fully merged!  Of course, many cars followed and I thought to myself, "All of these cars are doing it.  I need to get on that lane to get to the exit.  These cars are really razzing my berries doing things they aren't supposed to do.  Why don't I do it?"  Couple of things come to mind.  First is this video.

     Second, it made me think of the world.  Many people emulate behavior that may not necessarily be right, but is popular among their social group they belong in.  Because of it, drugs gain popularity.  The powerful, God-given emotions to make life is abused.  Language is profaned and people are fallen.  People may be social creatures, but I strongly believe that people are also moral creatures too.  As these people fall into the traps devised by Satan and friends, we as missionaries must rise above.  We are not lemmings, jumping off a cliff when someone else does.  Bad will always be bad, no matter how sugar-coated it may be.  Just as this little incident of breaking the traffic law, many are doing it, and you see the general appeal of doing it, but by so doing it, integrity is slowly chipped off your being.

     As I learned that patience brings not immediate gratification, but future blessings, and the fact that it may be an indicator for future success, I'm happy to say that I didn't cross that lane that day.  I won't be crossing that lane in the near future as well.  Those people can risk the opportunity to have some flashing red and blue lights chasing them down, rebuking them, and asking them to donate some hundred or so dollars to the state government, further holding up traffic and enraging even more drivers, but I know now the choice I have made. 

     Patience, or enduring to the end, is a rather poignant piece of doctrine that we teach as missionaries to those who listen.  It's a hard thing to abide by, but we do promise-- God promises-- that if we are so, patient and longsuffering in our faith in God, that we will be granted the greatest gift of all.  Sure, temporal blessings may come through diligent faith-- there are extremely wealthy people out there who have endured in the faith.  However, even more than that, God promises us that if we "fight the good fight of faith," we are holding strong to this gift of eternal life which we will inherit (1 Timothy 6:12).

     God is no promise-breaker.  It is through His word found both in the Bible and also in the Book of Mormon that He tells of His work and His glory.

"Behold, I am the law, and the light.  Look unto me, and endure to the end, and ye shall live; for unto him that endureth to the end will I give eternal life" (3 Nephi 15:9).

     Wait for it-- because you deserve it.

The Legend of the Phoenix

Defeated and dying, the embery glow that remains of the majestic bird dims out. In its final moments, it cremates itself in its kindle, giving a last glow of remembrance, charring up in itself. Though out of the ashes comes a glow-- radiating from the ruin, comes that fiery avian-- renewed, revived.

From its past, rises its future-- as elegant as it ever was.


Birthdays shared

Like the dying bird, there came a tragedy back home-- it was unfortunately through social media that I had found out.  It struck me incredibly hard, having a bond that close just cut-- him passing beyond the veil like that.  For a fairly lengthy bit of time, we have gone through our struggles, our sacrifices, and our fair share of challenges.  To have a partner in crime, slip away into the shadows, not to be seen from henceforth and forever just seems like this frail existence of the world that we live in is filled with cruelty and injustice.

Birthdays shared (almost).

Languages intertwined.

French projects accomplished

Seriously, life without him was amazingly dull-- my government class and my French classes were bearable only with the presence and the spunk of this soul.

More and more I think about it, the best of life came from the people you meet-- the people who make you.  He was no exception.  Because of him, I have found humor in the mundaneness of life.

Religionists believe that people who talk too friendly with the knife, succumbing to its temptation, are prone to hit the world underneath.  They believe that the taking of his or her own life constitutes an endless torment of justness.  The impenitent don't have a future.  The knife-wielders don't have a chance.

God is a god of second chances.

Let this phrase emanate to you-- your facilities, also.

I will not be the first person, nor the last, to tell you that in the perspective of Christianity, that my friend is saved.  He will see a glory unlike anything else of this world.  He will be in a place above the kingdoms of the world.
God's plan has been set-- from the birth of time.

We were made by an instrument of the Creator.
We were gifted and blessed with physical bodies.
We came down here to learn and grow-- with those bestowed bodies.
We leave the Earth at the time God calls us-- whenever early it may be.
We hear the blessed message of hope and goodness beyond the veil.
We will have bodies made perfect, living in a realm much greater than here.

The fight will rage, even past mortality, but He gives us hope in knowledge and closure.

For me, the words of a well-known singer reverberates in the voidness of my mind:

Look back in silence
The cradle of your whole life
There in the distance
Losing its greatest pride
Nothing is easy, nothing is sacred, why?
Where did the bow break?
These are questions I've asked myself over and over again.  At this point in time, I'm still coping with the denial phase of the grief cycle, as this hasn't quite hit me as hard as it has yet.  I know the emotions will come-- it does for all.

Intertwined with a self-indoctrinated sense of responsibility of another's swoop off this world, the scars of my heart still burn-- its sutures just barely holding it all together.  To have been a part of 11 total passings have been remarkably difficult for me-- I wouldn't want anyone to witness something of that caliber-- it just kills you inside how much sorrow is built up.  I am grateful for my mission here or else the thread might even have been mine that could have been cut.

To the many who read this, keep strong and see the future ahead.  That's as much as I can tell you in words.  Your life is valuable to more than just your parents.  To your friends.  To the people who had merely a glimpse to have met you.

You may be struggling.  You may be wanting to quit.

Don't.

The future is just a tomorrow away.  If not, it's just an hour away.

Keep your shoulder to the wheel and I can promise you that the world we live in doesn't have to be frail.  In the words of Job, "I shall come forth as gold" (Job 14:14).

This is you.

I don't plan on acknowledgement and I don't plan on fame.  I don't wish to make myself well-known in the expense of a close death.  I simply don't want to be superior in complex, obsessing over the trivial things that may make me come ahead of life-- especially advertising myself and my accolades, exploiting a tragedy for popularity.

I want to help.  I want to support.  I want to embrace.  I want to love.

No amount of happiness will bring to me out of popularity.  To those who do exploit, unknowingly or otherwise, stop.

It's been a sad several days, yet the blood I feel on my hands may be washed away--

"Redemption, keep my covers clean tonight."

And the sun will shine again.

Yes, "only the young can break away."

The Elect

     The hands of death swoops away six of her children before her.

     The arms of the disenchanted are wet with the blood of her husband.

     The mouths of betrayers tear her trust and kindness.

     The minds of the robbers focus to demolish her living.

     The feet of a grieving wife--later widow-- trod along a forlorn road, uncertain of the coming future.

"Death be longing, but it cometh not (Job 3:21)."

Crossing Mississippi

     The face of discouragement and abandonment comes to mind when hearing such tragedy occur in one's life.  An absence of sanity would have resulted in a normal person.  It's a life that no man would wish upon anyone else.  However, this is the price of discipleship that Emma Smith had paid-- exorbitantly high for many.

     While reading through a church magazine*, I came across an article entailing the life of Emma Smith.  In it, a relative describes her grandmother like this:

1841

     “Her eyes were brown and sad. She would smile with her lips but to me, as small as I was, I never saw the brown eyes smile. I asked my mother one day, why don’t Grandma laugh with her eyes like you do and my mother said because she has a deep sorrow in her heart” (Jones).

     She faced a gargantuan load of difficulties even after the reorganization of the church.  Her later son would be institutionalized in a state asylum and her daughter would later succumb to cancer.  During this time of melancholy for someone who had gone through so much, "no one dared approach to offer comfort, because they did not know how to touch the depth of sorrow evidenced by the tears that coursed down her cheeks" (Jones).


     The article about Emma Smith concludes asking several rhetorical questions on why it was that she would regularly wrench in grief.  To me, it seems quite obvious.  To her, I'm sure it was as well.

Nauvoo

      Emma Smith, even with the fires of adversity set to consume her, had kept her character-- a woman whose parents envisioned her to distance her from the man that she would later marry, she had overcome what many would have deemed impossibly depressing.  Many would criticize her lack of faith that came with staying put in Nauvoo, but one cannot deny that her contributions in the Church had led to the exodus, where many lives would then be blessed.

     She's one of the most admirable people I have read about.  In fact, the women in the Church have all played gigantic roles in its advancement-- without them, the Church wouldn't be so.  More than anyone else in Church history, the desolate solace that emanates from the being that is Emma Smith has been an example to me-- of one who had seen everything around her collapse yet still trod on.

     With a steadfast endurance, we too must push on through our problems.  Seeing such a person like her had given me hope in the most despondent of times.  I can tell you that this person holds a special place in my heart not because she has the same birthday as me, but through the grace that she held on to through the grief that she suffered.

*If you're interested in reading that same article, this is the link.