publishing peace

It took me until this year to feel similarly to how I feel at Christmas at Eastertime. I would never try to pit these two beautiful days against each other. One celebrates the beginning of Christ's unmatched mortal life -- the other celebrates His triumph over death, both physical and spiritual. I also understand the differences between these two days in the emotions that surround them. With Christmas, it is warm, and shimmering, and exciting. With Easter, it is more somber, as we contemplate the life that was given so we may have life eternal. But this year, perhaps more than any year before, I have come to appreciate Easter like I learned to appreciate Christmas as a younger Em. It was always easy for me, as a naturally happy person, to understand the joy that Christmas brings; but it hasn't been until this past year that I've come to understand, if not fully, then surely deeper than I ever have, the beauty of Easter, and the different kind of joy in its celebratio...

Okay, as a disclaimer here, I feel like this post is something that my in-person friends have heard me say a lot, and I may have also touched on it briefly here, so if you feel like you're having deja vu, it's because I'm basic and predictable. Now that we've got THAT outta the way, I want to talk about love again, but this time, in a different way. And also, I'm going to talk about faith again, but differently. So really, I'm a broken record. I currently lead the church choir for my congregation. Right now we're singing a song called "I Believe". Composed by Mark A. Miller, the lyrics are modified from an anonymous poem written by a Jewish fugitive on the wall of a cellar in Cologne, Germany, around the time of the Holocaust. Those lyrics are: "I believe in the sun even when it's not shining.  I believe in love even when I don't feel it. I believe in God even when God is silent." These lyrics teach a principl...

It's been a minute since I wrote. School has picked up, the social life too. It seems like I've got a lot of demands on my time lately, which is good -- it's always better to be busy than bored. But I also haven't written for other reasons. Imma get real with y'all -- I am sitting here looking at this screen, and I don't want to write. I don't want to write because I'm exhausted and ill. I don't want to write because I'm afraid of what people will think if I write about what's really on my mind. I don't want to write because I don't want my friends who are currently struggling to feel like I don't have time or space for them.  I don't want to write because I don't want you to know that I am not perfect yet, even though that's not a shocker to any of you. Or at least, it shouldn't be. It seems like over and over I've been learning that I really, really don't know anything. I don't want to write when I...

On a cold day in March, a girl sat on a train, feeling like her stomach was tied into knots. She didn't know at the time, but she was days away from what would become the most difficult breakup up to that point in her life; what she did know was that something was wrong, and she didn't know how to fix it. She knew it wasn't a coincidence when she saw the missionaries. They came in droves from the bus to the train, wheeling their many suitcases into the train car. Their eyes were bright, maybe a little nervous. They were heading by train from the Missionary Training Center to the Salt Lake City International Airport, where they'd fly to their respective missions. The two that sat down across from our heroine were going to Cambodia. One was tall, with glasses; the other was silent, shorter, blond. "Hey," the one with the glasses said. "Hi," she said back, trying not to meet their eyes. As the train pulled out of the station, the elder asked he...

I wish I was better at knowing how to begin this post. As is standard for this project of mine, I'm fixing to talk about something that is maybe not super easy to put into words. As a deeply mortal, extremely human, astonishingly flawed person, I find this a pretty daunting task. I've started and restarted this so many times I don't even know what's going to become of it; I'm just gonna write and see what happens. I guess firstly I just want to be clear on the reason I choose to share what I do. As with most social media elements, what you see on my blog is not the full, unabridged version of my life. There's a lot more that happens than can be read about here. I'm a part-time student, a part-time employee, and a full-time friend, family member, and person, and a lot of what colors my life is the people that I am blessed to experience it with. I don't write about them very often, at least not specifically and/or categorically. That's not because I d...

I feel like this is what people usually think I do when I tell them I write on a blog, when really, I usually just write what I'm thinking about. And there's gonna be that in this post as well, but it's been like, two months since I posted on this blog. And I'm sure you've all been so concerned! Wondering if I'm okay! Wondering if I sustained brain damage and that's why I stopped writing! Well, let me clarify: I am good. No life-threatening injuries have been sustained (yet or ideally ever, pray for me). I didn't drop off the face of the earth because I wasn't doing well. Honestly, I wasn't sure what to write about after Europe. Maybe a little piece of me was even worried that none of you would like to hear my thoughts anymore, because they're not fancy Europe-inspired thoughts. But there have been some things going on in my life, and some thoughts I've been having, and I'd just like to share with you, in a random assortment th...

Dear Emily, Right now, you aren't sure of anything. You're not as bright-eyed as you were. You're a little jaded, a bit hurt by life and the world. And you're not sure if you can ever be the person you were. I'm here to tell you that you can't. You can't be the person you were anymore, and that is beautiful. You don't know what's coming and I can't prepare you for it, but looking back to where you are, I can only tell you the things you'll want to remember. We'll start with the kids. You'll want to remember how they pronounce the English words. You'll want to take a lot of videos. And pictures. And you'll want to remember the times they laughed at your goofiness.  You'll want to remember the considerate translation of your host mom and how your host dad brags about you to all their friends. "She understands Italian so well!" "She sings so well!" And you'll want to remember their fr...