This is Your Reminder to Just Call Them

There are so many thoughts swirling in my mind.

It’s 11 pm on a Wednesday night and I just ended a call with one of my best friends. A close friend of hers was murdered either yesterday or this morning. The entire family was murdered, actually. It was incredibly shocking to hear that something like this could happen in a small town in Utah, but it did.

As she told me about the mother of the family (the family member she was closest to) I began to cry, too. She sounded amazing; selfless, young, strong… She sounded like the type of woman that you wanted to look up to. I imagine you’d admire her laugh and take note of her fashion sense. You would probably go up to her first at social events and absorb her words like you were hearing the most important words you’d ever hear. I imagine she was a beautiful daughter of God.

Her children died along with her, as well as her mother and her husband. My friend told me how she had just seen this family around Christmas and promised to text her. “It really makes you appreciate those around you before they’re gone”, she said.

10 days. In 10 days, you could never see someone you love again. It’s a frightening thought.

It made me think of other frightening thoughts, like resolving familial conflicts and coming clean about my mistakes. It scared me into living life more fully, because, we really don’t know when we’ll be gone or when our loved ones will be gone. It inspired me to write in this blog, which I’ve been procrastinating because, “I always have tomorrow.”

This conversation was both heartbreaking and sobering. I woke up a little bit inside. I woke up to reality but also to hope. I have hope for her family, whom I believe are in heaven resting from all woes and all care. They’re in a better place, and for this, I’m grateful. But I also woke up to reality. And reality is what I’ve been hiding from for a long time.

Mourning with Those that Mourn.

I tend to avoid connection because it feels heavy. A friend’s breakup feels heavy, trauma feels heavy… even a comforting hand feels heavy. I’ve avoided connection for multiple reasons- some justified, some not- but no reason was worthy of the isolation I put myself and others through.

Do you know what I realized while listening to my friend on the phone? I was getting a migraine because this hurt me, too. Not as much, but it hurt. And I cried, and I get migraines when I cry. A part of me wanted the pain to be over, to feel the relief a good night’s rest will prescribe. But then I realized:

If I am to mourn with those that mourn, I must also share their pain.

If that means sharing a migraine with my friend who’s mourning, I will share that migraine. If that means having one more sleepless night because my friend is having a sleepless night, I will share it. It’s been proven to me time and time again that life simply cannot be survived without connection, compassion, or a shared burden.

This phone call was sobering because I realized what I really should have been doing this whole time. I should have been calling my friends who live in all different parts of the world even if the time zone difference is a pain in the neck. I should have been hosting more movie nights even if no one comes. I should have been inviting old friends to karaoke or Just Dance parties or to dinner in fancy restaurants around the state. I should have been saying what I really wanted to say even if it wasn’t received well. I should have been appreciating those around me and myself before we’re all gone. I should have been mourning with those that mourn, whether it be publically or internally.

So, I decided to document some questions to ask myself that I’ll share with you:

• How will you live stepping forward?
• What will you change to see those around you- really see them?
• And how will you fulfill your God-given purpose on earth and become something that is out-of-this-world fantastic?

Let me know your answers in the comments. And please, send prayers, good vibes, and love to my friend, the family aforementioned, and their community ❤️

Until next time,

-Diyana, 사랑-

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Stability.

I would have never guessed that at 23 I would be begging for stability. But I do want it and it’s something I want long term but not short term.

I want to travel and live amongst different people and cultures. I want to grow and sit in different seats every day if I can. I want to eat in various places on various pieces of land. But right now I really crave stability.

I crave to be still, just for a moment and to have a placid state of mind rather than brace daily, tumultous winds and rains that I”ve been feeling for quite some time now.

I just want a solid ground and a warm bed to sleep in. Feeling safe and ready to see the new day. I want stability. I pray I find it.

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I’m no stranger to heartbreak.

At a young age I found myself face to face with my worst nightmares- things I could never have control over nor successfully avoid. Everyone I loved was suffering greatly. And although I had some major setbacks and handicaps of a sort as a result of this, it hurt my heart to see them in such disarray even more so. These location of hurt loved ones is probably the softest spot in my heart. The most vulnerable- my pain point.

Recently I wrote a poem recently that illustrated a portion but a very raw expression of my pain points and how I feel. You can read it, here.
Honestly, I don’t have a resolution or a solution to these problems. I hope for a solution someday, somewhere down the road, but I don’t know when or where that will lead me. It’s uncertainty and the unknown that mess me up a little bit with these things. When is it ever going to end? Is everything really going to be okay?

Well…I don’t know for sure. I can’t see the future. And okay to me may not be what okay means to God. I want rainbows and sunshine, but He may lead my life to be cloudy days with a bit of sunshine here and there peaking through the grey clouds.

And, you know what? I’m not always okay with that. Sometimes I really want what I want. I want things to just go away sometimes. Poof gone, nowhere to be found, no traces, nada. Nothing to linger, nothing to remain. I just want a brand new start. Almost like a video game.

And although that sounds oh so good, I know it isn’t what’s best for me.

Cue the *collective murmurs of confusion*.
Yeah, I literally said that. I literally said that my trials, my heartbreak, the one thing that brought the most painful complexity to my young life, is what’s best for me.

I’m telling you guys this now while I am still having a clear head. I really do believe that this is good for me. Why?
There are several reasons and I’ll list them out for you:

1. I am becoming more and more resilient
   • I pick myself back up despite setbacks because I just know that it will be okay in the end
   • I’m learning to have hope despite my sometimes grim present
   • I am learning to keep. moving. forward.
2. My relationship with God is strengthening, not weakening
   • I pray a lot more and strive to worry less
   • I’m realizing just how liberating it feels to trust in God and let go of what I can’t control or what I tried my best on
   • I am using this trial to be closer to Him. Just imagine what good choices I can make with future decisions?
3. I’m learning to have faith and trust in people, again, too
   • Giving people the benefit of the doubt is an expression of love and I try to do that daily
   • Nothing makes me feel happier than seeing someone light up when you tell you, “I trust you, I appreciate you, I love you.”
   • I have been leaning on new and old friends and it is extremely comforting

So, yeah. I have a few reasons off the top of my head that testify to me that God is in the details, but this is not all. I’m learning and relearning everyday.
Sometimes they’re lessons that I would rather avoid and not think about ever again. Sometimes they’re lessons that I really, really needed to learn; the ones that even bring me to tears at the thought of the tender mercy and love of the Lord to teach me that.

If there is one piece of advice I have for you heartbroken, broken, and struggling friends, it’s to have an open mind and an open heart. Your God and and your loved ones can’t touch your heart if it’s closed off and can’t inspire your mind if the blinds are shut. Open up. It’s vulnerability but vulnerability is good. It’s healing. It’s confidence.

I know that someday everything will be okay.

“No fim, tudo dá certo. Se não deu, ainda não chegou ao fim.”
———-

“In the end, everything works out. If it didn’t, it’s not over yet.”

— Paulo Coelho

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Your Center of Gravity

If you want to listen to this post (along with other podcast episodes) click the link below!

• A Fuller Cup
  by Diyana Wilson
• Poetry Logs: Un-sure
  by Diyana Wilson
• Crawling Into One's (My) Skin
  by Diyana Wilson
• Boundaries
  by Diyana Wilson
• Your Center of Gravity
  by Diyana Wilson

Imagine that your soul was like a flower, deeply rooted in a fleshy pot you call ‘body’. Each seed is round, small, and beautiful. They each settle into their beings, knowing that someday they will become something great.

The flower that lives in you may be a daffodil or lavender. I believe mine is a carnation with bright pink highlights.

The flower that lives in you reflects who you are.

As the seed split in your younger years, the fibers reached out and sprouted, creating a cotton-like bulb which grew and grew the more you knew and knew. Like tendrils they grasped to each other forming a solid form- a stem. Then leaves. Then a bulb. And finally a blooming bed of petals.

Now, Imagine that your soul was like this flower, deeply rooted in the fleshy pot you call ‘body’. Deep inside this flower’s makeup is created from who you are as a being. An artist, the funny guy, an activist.

What happens when you don’t nourish the flower within you? When you neglect your spirit?

Well, you droop of course.

Feed Your Soul

^{If I were put in charge of instructions for flowers at a given flower shoppe, the first instruction glued to the pot would be: “Daily encouragement and sunlight needed.“}

Everyone loves to see flowers. They’re beautiful, light, and carry an ethereal air with them wherever they are- in a home, an office, a dinner table, or the fields. Flowers make you want to smile and breathe in, to enjoy life for a moment. I believe that’s why God placed them here on Earth all those billions of years ago. To remind us to live.

With a gentle breeze or an abrasive gust, flowers stand up and brave the elements. They seem to always lean back into their designated direction- facing the sky.

Can you truly imagine as if the center of your soul is home to a beautiful flower?
Do you feel like your soul is alive and confident in its beauty or do you feel as if your soul is drooping and discouraged?

I have imagined my spirit like this for quite some time, and I occasionally ask myself, ‘Am I standing up inside or am I drooping?’ When I’m sad, the drooping feeling is quite poignant and I visualize an incorporeal version of me slumped in a box. While on the other hand, when I am feeling much better, I am standing up inside- my form is one with me, it’s walking as I walk and mimics me. Essentially, the bed of petals within me reach for the sun.

Elder Sabin once stated in his talk, “Stand up Inside and Be All In” :

…a father and his young son…went into a toy store where there was an inflatable punching bag in the shape of a man. The boy punched the inflatable man, who tipped over and immediately bounced back after every punch. The father asked his young son why the man kept bouncing back up. The boy thought for a minute and then said, “I don’t know. I guess it’s because he’s standing up on the inside.”

— Elder Gary B. Sabin

Conclusion

I pray this post was an answer to someone’s prayers to keep going and keep fighting. Continue to nourish the flower within you, be strong, and show your courageous beauty to everyone.

❤ Diyana

Happy Women’s Month! Love you all.

I know what I know

I know what I know