Spring Healing

Considering my car was deemed a total loss five hours after the start of spring break, my break became quite a unique experience. I spent a good portion of the week talking to insurance people and dealing with the issue of releasing my murdered impala to them and finding a new car. After two days of being awoken by insurance company calls, I reached my point of absolute frustration on Wednesday morning. I received 13 phone calls in one hour from insurance people and car dealers and my parents. I may have started crying at call 11 when I finally gave up on my scripture study for the time and deemed my reflections would simply have to take a different course for the day…

That seems like forever ago. I am now in the backseat of my dear friend’s Suburban three hours into my eight hour journey back to NE from the tiny, peaceful, off-the-map, SD reservation town of Porcupine where we spent the weekend visiting dear friends from college who followed the quiet beckoning of God’s call and moved to this remote and special place to volunteer at a tiny Catholic Lakota school.

We’re dodging sketchy snow patches in the road. The sky is overcast and the wind is cruel. And I’m sitting back here reflecting on all that has transpired this week.  All I can think is that I am so grateful for the blessing it was to end my Spring break in that humble and remote place.  It wasn’t a break spent in a warm place or surfing the ocean waves or skiing or embarking on adventures others would claim as brag-worthy feats. But my heart is so warm and comforted at its close.

Sure, coming inches from death and dealing with the expenses of an accident was in no way an ideal beginning to a break. It was frustrating, and for a time I was so overwhelmed with the stress and realization of how lucky I had been that maybe I was mentally and spiritually exhausted and broken. So my spring break started with a REAL break – not just in my car, but in my spirit.

But I am so grateful. Sometimes we simply need to be broken to realize that we need to be fixed. Heavenly Father blessed me with an opportunity to start my vacation from school in his house – in his temple – and that peace prepared me to face the brokenness and to find a way to make something of it.

I spent all of last Sunday outside of church skyping and talking to friends I haven’t been able to make time for. I cleaned my house and read scriptures and watched testimonies from the apostles. I had no car and no way to go or need to be anywhere other than with those people.

I spent the beginning days of the week with the broken car issue, and the nights blessed with a new, wonderful friend. An answered prayer from Heavenly Father. A girl home from her mission. We did nothing special at all. We just talked. And reflecting on it now, I realize how special that was. How amazingly wonderful that I didn’t have a car and a way to escape to places I didn’t need to be. My broken car brought me to face a sort of spiritual break. And to be healed in the beauty of realized blessings and in the humility of realizing how many ways Heavenly Father is aware of each of us. And in the phenomenal way he brings people we need into our lives to help us and direct us and to help us to know him more closely.

I got a new car mid-week. It’s nothing fancy, but it allowed me to come to SD where I’ve only grown in that appreciation of God’s plan for my break. Something about being in the middle of nowhere with people you’ve grown up with and grown to love and being able to pray together, no matter the differences in doctrinal beliefs or paths in life, brings sealing power to the healing of the soul.

I realized that cars don’t matter. Fun vacations don’t matter. A perfectly planned and carried out vacation doesn’t matter. But people do. People and a realization of Heavenly Father’s love for each of us and a desire to learn and return that love. I am blessed to have been broken by this spring break, and I can honestly say my spring healing has begun. J