Remember Him

I don't think anyone in the history of the world has been as excited to move to Sugar City, Idaho (population 1,300) as I was.
You see, Sugar City is where my mama went to high school. And I love my mama. Sugar City is also 3 miles away from where her and my dad met and fell in love. I've always loved hearing their stories and Madison County Idaho was a magical place in my mind.

2 weeks ago my dream came true. That's right, I moved to Sugar City, Idaho. The next few days were some of the craziest ever. I was finishing up my BYU finals, starting my BYU-Idaho classes, and also starting at a new job. Less than a week after the move I came down with the sickness of all sicknesses. Holy cow. It was pretty terrible and seemed like the 24 hour flu but nope-- it lasted 4 whole entire days.
Want to know what I learned? I learned about blessings in disguise. Never ever did I think I would look at being sick as a blessing, but man am I grateful for those 4 awful, wonderful days. What those days really were were Heavenly Father getting my attention. Sometimes we get so caught up in the craziness of life we forget to listen to the person who gave us this life. And guess what? He knows how to make this crazy life a crazy AMAZING life so we really should listen to him. Especially when we don't think we have time.
Over the course of my sickness, Heavenly Father reminded me about priorities. School is great. So is work. Those are definitely good things, but there are, in fact, better things. I know without a doubt that when my number one priority is my relationship with my Heavenly Father, everything else just kind of works out. I don't know how to explain it but I don't have to. I just know that it works. With the help of God I stopped stressing about school, work, finals, moving, wedding plans, and everything else under the sun and found so much peace.
I remembered that starting my day in the scriptures makes me happier. I remembered that Ben and I only live 10 minutes away now (instead of 45) and that we're about to be sealed for time and all eternity! I remembered that I was SO STOKED to live in this beautiful, quaint little place and that my stress was making me miss out on it. Most importantly, I remembered that God is my Father and that He knows me better than I know myself. He knows all of my emotions perfectly and how to help me handle them. If that's not amazing I don't know what is.

Remember Him.

It's as simple as that. If you do it on your own free will, he won't have to make you sick. :) And life is just a whole heap of a lot better when you do, anyway.
Take time to slow down and remember what He has given you and why you are doing the things you're doing.
I sure am grateful for a Father who is willing to let me go through a little pain now to save me a lot of pain in the long run. I'm grateful he's letting me live in this seriously beautiful place. I'm grateful he's blessed me with the love of my life who, by the way, took such good care of me when I was sick. I'm grateful I go to an incredible university and have an awesome job there. I'm grateful I get to see the temple everywhere I go in this little town.
I'm grateful that God helped me to slow down and now I'm working on enjoying the journey.
I had no idea just how magical of a place Sugar City would be.