About a year ago, my sister Sarah and I were talking about the blogs that we liked to keep up on. One of her favorites was NieNie Dialogues. Stephanie Nielson originally started her blog as a way to stay in touch with her Utah family when she was living back East. In August of 2008 she and her husband were in a private plane that crashed and they were both burned. Stephanie was burned over 80% of her body and was in a medicaly induced coma for many weeks and then in the hospital until the end of December of that year.
I went back to her blog posts in August 2008 and read forward - for days. you would find me in my office at 6pm after everyone had gone home reading her blog and crying as she shared her struggles and feelings and her recovery. I ached reading about her constant pain and the difficulty she had in getting back to being a mother to her four little ones. She talked about getting used to her new face and having to deal with feelings of being ugly and how to find beauty within. She shared her dad's admonition to her that "everything is under control" if we will turn our lives to the Lord. Mostly, she shared her faith, her testimony, her hope.
I feel like I know her. In fact, one evening I passed her in the lobby at Hale Centre Theatre and told my mom and other sister "that NieNie!!!". Once in the theater we saw them sitting across from us, Stephanie, Mr. Nielson and their daughers Claire and Jane. I told my companions each of their names and about their two younger boys that much surely be at home. I told them about the accident and how the recovery had been going. I told them that I wanted to badly to go over and say hello but I didn't want to interrupt their family time. At one point, I saw Stephanie take a photo of the girls and I said to my mom "that's going to be a blog pose!" Sure enough, a few days later I read about the play on NieNie Dialogues.
Sephanie recently wrote and had published a book about her experience and after Sarah finished it, she lent it to me. I had planned on buying it (and still probably will) but hadn't yet. I sat on the couch with it Wednesday night at 11pm. "I'll just read a little bit" I told myself. Time got away from me and I noticed it was 1am. But we were in the hardest part of her recovery. "I'll just finish this section. When she goes home from the hospital then I'll quit." Of course, that didn't happen.
Finally at 3am I closed the cover of the book, I gathered up the half a box of tissues that lay crumpled around me on the couch and headed to bed. My eyes were puffy from crying and I was exhausted but I spent a good 30 minutes praying and thanking Heavenly Father for the blessings in my life. For my sweet husband and my beautiful little Maddy. For my wonderful parents, my four sisters and their husbands. For my husbands Parents and his siblings. For my membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. For my faith in the Savior. I thanked him for Stephanie's story and for the countless lives she has touched around the world by her ability to share her testimony in such a real, honest and unashamed way. Her story of hope and faith and love of motherhood and family touched me a great deal and I am grateful.
We all have trials. For some people they are emotional burdens, for some it is overcoming tempations. For some it is problems with our physical bodies - we are all different. I know that we are given the trials that are best suited to refining us, to preparing us to our returning to our Father in Heaven, and to humbling us and bringing us to Christ. I am grateful for the trials that I have - partially because I would not want the trials that others have. I'm grateful that our Father loves us enough to test us and polish us and to help us to "come to ourselves" as Elder Robert D. Hales reminded in General Conference earlier this month.
