In August 16, 2007, in his article “Greatness”, D. Todd Christofferson, said

“Your greatness in the things God has ordained as primary and fundamental will not come in a day or with one grand act. It will be built over time with the sort of patient, persistent effort that has brought you to the achievement that we are celebrating today.”

How would you describe yourself?  Would u describe yourself as someone’s parent, spouse, or sibling?  And/or would u include your talents, interests, hobbies?  Or maybe your personality traits? 

As my 17^th year post-stroke approaches (my “stroke-aversary” is March 16), I have been reflecting a lot in who I am now.  One of the hardest things after my stroke was re-defining myself.   I actually went through a grieving process as I felt I lost part of my identity. Now, 17 years later, I see why this was SO painful: if I had been asked to describe myself, many of the ways I identified myself was by my talents & abilities that I had either been changed (mother, wife, sister, daughter), or had been lost (singer, dancer, teacher, scrapbooker, pianist, journaler).  In time, some of these things were adapted (I play piano w/1 hand now, I use a translator & speaking software to teach now, I scrapbook digitally , I’m a very different mom now—I laughed when my youngest pointed out how her friends do not potty their mom!, etc.), but it was recently pointed out how much of me did NOT change—all my personality traits are still there, & I will always be a child of God. While I knew back then that I was a child/daughter of God, I see now how I minimized what that meant.  There were so many things I had abruptly lost—it was difficult to see the solid foundation I stood on.

When President Nelson, prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, visited Texas in 2018, he said,  “if we truly understand who we are and why we are here, we can face God’s eternal plan – there TRULY will be another life after death”

Interestingly, as my testimony grew, this belief helped me keep going everyday, & will keep me going for years to come!