Pray for change or pray for strength?

So lately a realization hit me. Tyler and I have been through a lot since before we got married and are still going through some really hard times. I've always prayed that my problems would go away or change or something would make the problems better or something like that. I was always thinking, "God never answers my prayers!!!" I got mad and blamed God and even started to doubt him and even his existence.

Well, in the last few weeks, or months I guess, actually, I changed my prayers for the most part to include something like this instead: "Please bless me with the strength, faith and encouragement to withstand these hard times"... etc. I don't repeat all my prayers. They're not memorized. I pray with my heart and mean every word I say.

So instead of praying for something to go away or change, I prayed for strength to deal with what I had to go through. Well, I shouldn't have to say this but I will anyway, it worked!
I have been at more peace and a lot happier since I've started praying like this.

I recently lost one of my best friends. I feel completely used by her and taken advantage of. I cried myself to sleep a few nights and couldn't sleep the rest of the time, even woke up super early and couldn't get back to sleep cuz I was just so upset over the entire ordeal.

I was super upset about all of this. So finally I prayed and asked Heavenly Father if he would help me shoulder this heartache. I knew I couldn't change any of it. I did the absolute best thing I could do to rectify and clear things up, but relationships never work if both people aren't willing to give their all to it. So I knew I had to go through this. And also to learn a lesson or two, or twenty, so instead I prayed for strength to go through it. Well, the next morning I woke up happy, refreshed, and not feeling all depressed or feeling any despair! I felt good!

I've found that instead of trying to get God to feel sorry for me and change my circumstances and praying for strength and faith to withstand or remain strong then my prayers are answered!!!
It makes me happy to know God IS THERE!!!!!! He DOES listen!!!!!

He CANNOT take choices away from people. So people will always be bad and mean, people will always be selfish and hurtful, people will always lie and steal, kill and abuse. People will always have their own choices to do whatever the heck they want!! So that will always directly or indirectly affect us.

Our own choices determine to an enormous extent the situations in which we find ourselves on a daily basis and they change the course of our lifetime all the time! So... God CANNOT take these choices away from us or anyone else. But what he CAN do is give us the strength to get through them!

He can "carry our crosses", so to speak, through all the hard times we have.
I mean, that's one of the blessings WE ALL HAVE thanks to the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
I love my Heavenly Father.... but I'm sure not even close as much as he loves me!!!!

Another Day Among Days Of Some Progress

Well right now Tyler is in Dallas, Texas, for a seminar given by Dani Johnson. I've listened to her off and on now for several weeks and bought some material of hers.I am really putting my faith in this woman. We've spent a lot already. I was supposed to go with Tyler to Dallas but two things happened: we couldn't get the money in our account fast enough to buy the plane tickets for the price we could afford and 2nd we could not find anybody to help watch our kids on three of the fours days we'd be gone. Thanks to my sister, Andrea, she would've been able to stay the nights and my brother, Glenn & his wife Andrea, would've had them all day Sunday. But Tyler's mom wouldn't take them on Saturday and our sister-in-law on Friday or Saturday and my mom on Monday. They had a couple things going on, but mostly I think it's that they didn't want to bother with it so much. A 3 and 1 year old are hard ages to watch sometimes. My 1 yr old especially is hard to watch! She gest into EVERYTHING. She's a busy little thing! She reminds me of her father in that way. Silently getting into mischeof (I know I can't spell!).Anyway, so here I sit, all alone at home. Right now the girls are with some friends of ours watching a movie and goofing around. It's 11:20pm!! But Sophie took a 5 hour nap today!! Yikes!! I hope this helps them sleep through the night because neither of them have been sleeping well for awhile now.Today I went to see a psychiatrist. YIKES I wasn't excited about that. I'm sitting there gabbing away and he wears his thoughts all over his face!! Oh my gosh. Yeah. It wasn't a miserable time but boy was I being read and judged. Oh my gosh.He diagnosed me with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (the Spirit told me I had this about a week ago already) and Depression. LOVELY. He even suspected a type of bi-polar.Oh my gosh I'm just a big mess. It sucks. He gave me a prescription for a cheap and good medication that should help calm my overly stressed out nerves and such. I hope I like it. I hope it's okay with my thyroid medication, which it probably is, but you know.And that brings me to my next thing: My Thyroid. Damned thing just doesn't want to work anymore!So it's a HYPO problem and I started medication not even two months ago. So far I can tell it's helping some. I'm losing a lot of hair though. I have been losing water weight and that's good. People say I'm looking better.I attribute to that to the GoYin I'm taking, though. Well, mostly anyway.It's done some amazing and neat and miraculous things for some people already. I've tried to take it consistently for 2 months now, but it's not been completely consistent. I can sure tell when I haven't taken it!! Tyler does great on it too, and so do my girls. It's such good stuff. And now that I'm talking about that I might as well mention here that in our OFFICIAL first week of being in GoYin (not on the TV show thank goodness) we made almost $1,000.00!! Yeah, great huh? But none since, dagnabbit. Of course that's only been like two weeks ago, but still.Tyler has been ON FIRE about it. I just wish others would BELIEVE us and catch the vision of it! Tyler wants this to be his way out of HAVING to work every day and living a better life. He is talking to so many people! I have been lazy in it, though. I actually have been lazy at EVERYTHING though! It's my depression. I seriously cannot help it. I'm too tired and losing interest in all sorts of things. IT SUCKS.And one of my friends let herself be convinced from her mother not to do GoYin. I'm so sad for her!! I was so excited for her to get somewhere and make a good life for her and her daughters! She reminded me of Dani Johnson herself in a lot of way. But what a sick and sad surprise. It broke my heart. She, of course, couldn't understand why it bothered me so much. I just hate seeing people giving up something that will change their lives for the better and forever.Just like when someone rejects the Gospel as I believe it and know it to be. It's a very sad day when someone says NO to something that will bring them better happiness, success, knowledge and peace in their lives.Oh I'm so tired! ack. I wish I was with Tyler! I NEEEDED this seminar!! I really hope Tyler's fire catches on to me. I really do!Okay, now to get off of this thing and see if I can clean up this messy office/toy room.And sit in front of the TV again and watch HGTV like usual.And pray that things start to turn for the better around here!