I Always Feel a Need

I am in Draper this week, totally enjoying a quilting retreat.  I am a little selfish when it comes to my quilting, it is my favorite hobby.  I have the best friends through this quilting journey, I never would have met otherwise.  As we are getting all our fabric ready and anticipation grows, we check into the quilt shop hosting our retreat.  Nothing is more exciting, to me, than browsing through rows and rows of bright, beautiful fabric.  Most of the fabric you can pass up, but then there is the one line of fabric that taunts you, "buy me, buy me".  Bright vintage colors with girls riding bicycles, how cute!  Then, as you wait to get the fabric cut, you must always talk the ears off the gal cutting your fabric.  We talk of about everything imaginable.  As we flutter through topics, the subject come up of where your from.  I promptly announce I was originally from Provo.  The girl hesitates and takes a long examining look at my face.  After a long pause she asks what high school I attended.  My Bulldog heritage proudly emits forth and I say, "Provo High".  "Oh",  she says, "I went to Timpview".  I went on to explain that Timpview didn't open until the year after I graduated, so all the kids in Provo went to Provo High.  She then asks if I knew her sister.  I shrink back at the possibility that she might remember me.  I carry such a burden of shame for my high school years.  I really wasn't a bad person, I just made a few bad choices.  I remembered her sister, and we went on with our conversation.

I think the hardest part of life is learning to forgive ourselves and let go.  I pondered about who I was, believing that everyone in my class had a knowledge of my mistakes.  Sometimes when we are burdened with guilt, we believe that the world is focused on us.  I had a dear quilting friend teach me a great lesson.   We sat at lunch discussing the absence of one of our quilties, I was feeling a little rejected by her the last time I saw her. I explained how standoffish she had been the last time I saw her, and all the possible reasons she had acted so funny.  After rambling off the many reasons, my friend looked me straight in the eye and said, "Connee, everything is not about you".  Shocked at her statement, I sat there and pondered what she said.  Then she followed up with, "You don't know what she is going through".  Not knowing whether to be offended or not I mulled those thoughts around in my big fat head.  "You're right!",  I exclaimed.  I chose not to be offended but to embrace that thought.  I am here to tell you, I reflect on this conversation a lot, and it certainly helps me to put things into perspective.

I am pretty sure, that if the girl I knew from high school even remembered me, that what my life was then she doesn't remember.  I need to now move forward and stop apologizing for who I am.  I have put my trust in my Savior, through his atoning sacrifice.  Part of that atonement is that our Father will remember no more.  That is the great lesson I learned here is Draper Utah, at a quilting retreat, with my best of friends.  I hope that each of my sweet friends in Bloomington 2nd Ward know this too.  Please know that our Savior is there for each of us.  He forgives, even those things we cannot forgive ourselves of.  We need to let go and let God, as they teach in alcoholic anonymous.