I Accept.

Ben and I have been talking lately about all the craziness that can happen in life, and how it's kind of like those "check this box if you accept" EULAs when you download stuff or register for a web-site or service or something. How many of us actually read through those things?

Sometimes life can throw something at you, and you think "did I really agree to this?"

The other day, I'd had a particularly trying day. I had been dealing with this foot injury/rehabilitation, I had bruised my tail bone pretty badly (still hurting, btw), my blood sugar was low and my insulin pump was screaming at me because it was all out of insulin and it was time to change my infusion set. So, here I was, half-crazy from a low blood sugar, balancing precariously on my seat trying not to put weight on my tail bone, attempting to change my pump infusion site, and when I pulled the old site out to swap it with a new one, it gushed blood all over me. I wasn't anywhere near a kleenex, so I just slapped my had over the gushing to try to stop the bleeding, tried to stand up with half-inserted pump sites flailing tubing all over the place, while trying not to hurt my tail bone even more, and stumbled into the bathroom to get a kleenex. And, the blood was gushing between my fingers, but I did manage to keep it off of my clothes.

I got all cleaned up and put back together and got my insulin pump stuff all figured out, and then I just LOST it! Like, Ugly Cry lost it. I usually don't lose it about diabetes stuff, because I really do think it's a waste of time to feel sorry for myself, but at that moment I just lost it. Literally in a matter of 2 seconds I went from, "OK, I can handle this" to "I don't want to do this any more, I'm scared about the future, why me, why all of this?" And I had one of those moments where I thought "Man, I wish I would've read the EULA before clicking 'Accept' on this life." I was bitter, I was scared, I was hurt, and I was angry and I felt cheated. I thought that there was no way I would have chosen this for myself if I had known this is how life was going to be.

At times like that, all you can do is get on your knees, so that's what I did, and I said a little prayer, and this is the answer I got from God. I did choose this. I was fully informed about how hard this life would be, and I still chose it. I knew how great the end result of God's plan for me was, that I was willing to go through all the hard stuff to get there. And somehow, just knowing that I chose this in the pre-mortal life empowers me to continue on in mortality. Knowing that enduring tough stuff was a choice I made disarms the trials' power over me and gives me back power over my trials.

The Ugly Crying stopped. I felt instantly SO much better, and I was even able to chuckle about it a little bit. (I mean, c'mon, it really was kind of a ridiculous sight-- blood spurting, insulin pump trailing, hobbling all over the house). Perspective is a blessing.

One of my favorite mantras to repeat to myself I learned when I worked at the Center for Change. It is this: "We can do hard things." Simple, and powerful. We can do hard things. I can do hard things.