Remembering My Individual Worth

Each year as the days grow shorter I struggle with my mental health. While eating right, exercising, and trying to think positive help there is truly something that goes on inside of me & I lack the capability to feel as healthy as I do in the spring & summer months. I've come to understand that this is just one of the challenges I have to face. This year being pregnant seems to have hyper jumped me into my winter depression early.

While I am working with my midwife to find something to help me through this winter I am struggling and scared of the mental attacks that will come. Last night brought many things that made me break down and feel a lack of power and low self worth. I went to bed feeling fatigued and beaten. At 4 am I awoke and these feelings came flooding back so strongly that I could not lay my head down to sleep. I came in and wasted time online hoping to tire myself out. After about an hour I went in and tried to sleep and when I found that my mind was too busy racing with thoughts of self doubt to sleep I began to sob due to exhaustion. Kent awoke and comforted me for a while and made me feel more calm and at ease.

As I laid there in my loving husbands arms my mind began to be filled with something I haven't thought about in a while. The words to the Young Women's theme began to run through my head...

I am a daughter of my Heavenly Father, who loves me, and I love Him. I will "stand as a witness of God at all times and in all things, and in all places" (Mosiah 18:9) as I strive to live the Young Women values, which are: Faith, Divine Nature, Individual Worth, Knowledge, Choice and Accountability, Good Works, and Integrity. I believe as I come to accept and act upon these values, I will be prepared to make and keep sacred covenants, receive the ordinances of the temple, and enjoy the blessings of exaltation.

As I thought of these words I realized how each of these values applied to this challenge in my life. I must have faith and rely on the Lord knowing that he is aware of my trials and he will strengthen me as I turn to him for help. I truly AM a Daughter of my Heavenly Father which makes my nature divine. The Lord has many daughters, but he loves me, Marlies Robison, and cares for me individually and I am of worth to him. I have been blessed with great knowledge in this life. I have been given much of the knowledge I need to be successful in life and I have been abundantly blessed to have a knowledge of God's plan of happiness. I have been given the great power to make choices and be accountable for them. Some of those choices have brought me pain, but so many of those choices have brought me joy and happiness and for that I am grateful. I have been given the opportunity to perform good works in my life that have blessed me & others more than I can ever know. With all that I have been blessed with I must have the integrity to to acknowledge all that I have been blessed with even when the walls of my mind seem grim and confining.

I am grateful to know of the changes that have been made to the theme since I was a young woman. I know that in a world of changing values that it was important to add the value of virtue. Much of our would would find more joy and happiness if we were all a little more virtuous. I am also glad that they added "We believe as we come to accept and act upon these values, we will be prepared to strengthen home and family..." I think that far too often I look outside my family to find my worth. My greatest calling and my greatest source of joy is in the service that I give as a wife and mother. I need to remember that these are the most important roles that I have. I am thankful I have been prepared to strengthen my home and my family so that I can raise people who are prepared to be strong in the face of adversity.