The Coveted Virtue of Hope

 

Hope has always felt like something just beyond my grasp—like a distant star I can see but never quite reach. I want it. I crave it. I covet it. But more often than not, it slips through my fingers, leaving me in the dark, clutching at shadows.

And the hard truth? I rarely feel worthy of hope. It’s not that I don’t know what it looks like—I've seen it in others, glowing quietly in their eyes, pulling them forward. But for me, it flickers only when I feel like I matter. When someone sees me, values me, chooses to stay.

That doesn’t happen often. Or maybe it does and I just struggle to believe it.

I know this might make me sound dependent or needy—words I’ve spent years trying to
run from. But I’m not writing this to convince you of my strength. I’m writing this because I need something that I can’t create alone. I need someone. Maybe not forever. But someone—anyone—who is willing to show up, even briefly, and remind me that I matter.

Because even fleeting moments of worth can echo louder and longer than the silence of being alone.

This isn’t a cry for attention—it’s a quiet, honest plea for connection. Not from any one specific person, but from the people in my life who might read this and feel something stir. If that’s you, then maybe this is for you.

I wish I could say I’m strong on my own. But I’m not. Not always. I’m extroverted, yes—but it’s more than that. I don’t just enjoy people. I need people. I find my worth through their eyes, through their presence, through knowing that someone wants me around. And I hate that, sometimes. I wish I could fix it. But right now, I just need to be honest about it.

So I’m saying this to whoever is meant to hear it: Please don’t let me go. Don’t assume I’ll be fine if you back away. Sometimes, the smallest gesture can keep me afloat. Even if it’s not forever.

This is me, reaching out—because I still believe in the possibility of being held through the storm, even when I don’t believe in much else.

So I’ll say it again, not for drama, but for truth: I covet the virtue of hope. And I’m asking—can you help me find it?

Covenantal Love

        I have written many times regarding the insurmountable nature of trauma that our body holds onto. Yet, for those who have not experienced such trauma, it continues to appear incomprehensible. While I could attempt to explain myself or I could attempt to prove that my feelings are justified, I have learned that is a losing battle. Talking about hardships and struggles doesn’t get you anywhere (despite what the victim narrative of the current world would have you believe). Therefore, I will not be rehearsing all the painstakingly agonizing heartbreaks I have endured over the past week, few months, or even years. Instead, today I wish to express the relationship I have had with the Atonement of my Lord, Jesus Christ over the last 15 years.

            Some years ago, as I was desperately crying, in my mother’s loving nature she expressed that she wished that she could take my pain from me. My immediate thought was, “absolutely no, you would not, not if you had a clue what this feels like.” However, because of my deep, thoughtful nature as I contemplated more on this interaction, I began to consider that Jesus did know how painful it would be. Yet not only did He take on that one instance, He took on every instance, for everyone. Indeed, 1 Nephi 21:16 says “I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands.” And He did it willingly!

           He did it for the same reason my mom expressed her desire, out of pure love. Love that transcends pain; love that supersedes inadequacy; love that replaces fear with faith; love that turns anxiety into comfort; love that is whole, perfect, and infinite because of Jesus Christ. Since I had that realization, I have seen the sacrament differently. Rather than simply a renewal of covenants or reviewing the week and observing where I need to do better, I take it as an honor to be able to take His name upon me, because He engraved my name upon Him! I choose how much I hold His name to mine every day, but He already chose me.

            Over the years, after the heartaches, the mood swings, the tears, the minor rejoicings, the tug of wars, the dissociations, the post-traumatic-stress attacks, etc. I have concluded that I am engraved on far more than the palm of His hand. He engraved my entire soul, not just my afflictions, but everything into part of HIS. In the garden of Gethsemane, in a way that no human being will ever be able to comprehend, Jesus Christ went through and suffered for each and everyone of God’s children, individually. In that garden, He took my soul and allowed it to become a part of His soul. This further allows Him to be my advocate with full, 100% empathy and understanding. Therefore, there is nothing that I go through that He does not understand. He understands not only from an objective perspective, but also from my personal perspective. He is there to hear every uttered plea, every silent prayer, and even moments when words won’t come. He sees us in our heartache. He feels our frustration. He cries with us. Even in the moments I have felt the most alone – the moments I can’t even feel my Heavenly Family - I still cry out in desperation. I know He hears, even though nothing changes. Nothing changes because of a higher, more perfect plan. Yet I still know He hears because He loves us with the love that transcends pain; love that supersedes inadequacy; love that replaces fear with faith; love that turns anxiety into comfort; love that is whole, perfect, and infinite, because of Jesus Christ. And I have felt that love – not often, but enough to fight with vigor to return to feel that love every single second of eternity.

            That is not all. The first great commandment is to love God with all our hearts, souls, strength and mind. This is by no accident. Without full purpose of all we have to love God, everything else can fall by the wayside. Most importantly, we lose sight of the Love that the Godhead has for us. We become distracted by things of this world and take our eyes off Him as did Peter when he walked on water to meet Christ. We are not faithful in the covenant we made at baptism to always remember Him and take His name upon us. He will always stay faithful to the covenant, after all, He engraved my name, and your name, into His very soul. But these are nice words that we don’t often know how to apply. So let me tell you how I have applied them.

            Repentance is a word we hear often, but for a long time, it was a dirty word to me. I have learned however, that repentance is not just about making up for mistakes I have made, it’s about turning to Jesus and saying take me into your embrace, just hold me, and help me become more like Thee. Help me love my neighbor; help me be gentler with myself; help me see what you see; help me process my emotions; help me get through this terrible thing; or simply help me, please, just help. By doing this over and over again, Jesus begins to engrave His soul into our countenance. As this occurs, despite all our flaws, mistakes, or imperfections, the covenant that we made with Christ will fill in all of those gaps at the final day of judgement. Not only will this magnificent Jesus Christ be our perfect advocate, He will also be the finisher to our perfection. When God Almighty looks to judge us at the last day, if we have stayed faithful to our covenant, Heavenly Father will not see our flaws. He will not see our mistakes, because Jesus has already covered them. Jesus is in relentless pursuit of each and everyone of us because He has already done the work. If we do what we can, by turning to Him, and choosing Him every day, we will not have to worry.

 

Cognitive Disability

 As a society, we recognize 2 types of disabilities; visible physical disabilities and intellectual disabilities. While some people who suffer a chronic TBI do end up with one of these kinds of disabilities, I do not. Yet, I do still have a disability, one that is very hard to explain. Or at least that's what I said to my speech therapist a couple weeks ago (speech therapists do more than just help with dictation). But he said, "no, it's not!" He proceeded to explain that intellect is about knowledge and cognition is about processing of that knowledge. Or in other words, I don't have a problem with information, I have a problem with processing. To prove it, I'll insert a quippy line I thought of while writing this post: I'm still sharp as a tack, but no longer quick as a whip. :) 

My understanding of processing has evolved - it has had to. Originally, I thought processing, at least in regards to this, was about understanding information. And while that is definitely a part of it, and yes, learning does take much longer and is such a strenuous effort now, that is far from all of what it means to process information. Processing also involves how you go about organizing and completing a task or project. This is key. I'll talk more about this later on. But even with these 2 explanations, I didn't feel quite satisfied that it explained everything that I experience. So, I went looking for more definitions across the internet. I came across many different definitions, such as:  the act of mentally or emotionally absorbing and making sense of what one has experienced or perceived; the act of ... making decisions and following up with appropriate action. Things started becoming clearer (especially with my dad's explanation that I'll write later on). Then, while writing this post, I realized that I knew what processing disorders are when they are associated with a single sense, such as an auditory processing disorder, a visual processing disorder, or even a sensory processing disorder! But I had yet to integrate all of these different senses (including smells, touch, taste, and just plain thinking) into my understanding of what a "cognitive processing disorder" is. 

The organizing and completing a task is the part that I think is most extreme with an injured brain. Let me illustrate by using an obvious example, but think of it applied to every aspect of life. You're making cookies. There are multiple steps. A "normal" person doesn't have to even think about these steps. But someone with a head injury not only has to think about them but will get the sequence out of order and will end up frustrated, confused, feeling stupid, and belittled. Furthermore, (my speech therapist says) we can't hold more than 1-3 tasks in our brains at a time. Someone with a head injury could, in theory, throw all the flour on the cookie sheet, preheat the oven, crack an egg on top of the flour, then get out a bowl, put sugar in the bowl, and a tablespoon instead of a teaspoon of salt, mix that up, throw that on top of the egg on top of the flour, then put some baking soda on top and then top it all off with chocolate chips before putting it in the oven to cook. Do you think cookies will come from that? This is broken processing in action.

While this example is extreme, it illustrates the disjointed way that the processing can occur in everyday activities, which is where the disability really applies. The simple, monotonous tasks like getting ready, picking things up, hanging up clothes, putting dishes away from the dishwasher, etc. It's not like I don't know how to do these things. It is because the ability to use that knowledge has been disrupted due to the broken brain. These extra difficulties cause the brain to become frustrated. When the brain is frustrated, the person understandably gets irritable and angry. Which, among other things, is why a person can seem so irate, irrational, and mean after a head injury. It takes time and a lot of work to accept that this is the way life just is (aka radical acceptance) and stop letting your brain's frustration show. It takes so many resources to do these every day simple tasks, especially while managing the fire in your brain, that in order to preserve these resources, it is far easier to avoid doing these tasks completely than waste them on stupid things that we should be able to do no sweat. 

 I'll talk about ways that my speech therapist has suggested to deal with this in a future post, but for now, I thought it was important to help others understand what I am just beginning to process. ;) 

Chaos

I’ve talked about how frustrating the invisible nature of a traumatic brain injury is before.  Today I am going to address it but in a slightly different way, one that can likely apply to many more people than just those with unseen injuries. We all have different masks that we wear in different situations. When you are meeting with your boss, you don’t want to display all of your pains and complaints; but when you are meeting with your doctor, you may very well want to do just that. This conditional expression of our feelings applies especially to mental health. Even when we appear to be doing “fine,” we may be experiencing turmoil and distress just beneath the surface.

              This prevailing sense of “I’m not okay” often comes from a feeling of complete and total internal chaos. This chaos is something that cannot be seen by others, (except the rare times that an anxiety attack emerges). But my brain, like many others, is constantly on fire, while trying to extinguish the flames of chaos.

              Something that I have studied and advocated for a long time is the chaos of your external surroundings are often a good indication of the chaos of your internal world. And one of the best things to do to restore order to the chaos inside of your mind is actually to organize something in your external world. Somehow, it actually allows your brain to sort through and organize some of the crazy thoughts or synapses firing all the time.

              So, with that in mind, you would think that my house is ALWAYS a complete mess. But, remember what I started this post with. Someone can still be in immense chaos, even if it is not seen. Therefore, my house can appear very clean sometimes, but I have no idea where things are, my drawers are a mess and I feel such a lack of control that I become incapable of doing anything at all.

              This is the place I have been in literally ALL year long. And I have been so frustrated with myself for it. I have felt worthless and stuck. So, if I ended the post here, while it may help give someone a voice, it would still feel pretty hopeless. However, last night, I received a priesthood blessing that changed everything! I was reminded that when God the Father created the Earth, He looked upon it and saw it as good. But He also saw that there would be much chaos that would descend upon the Earth. He saw that there would be a great upheaval that needed a Deliverer. So He sent His Son, Jesus Christ. Through Jesus, there was order, there was peace even amongst all of the chaos. And even among the great, miraculous, and infinite source of peace Jesus created throughout the entire universe, He will still be my individual vehicle for peace throughout the tumultuous seas inside my broken brain. In fact, that is the only way to overcome the constant chaos within me. I must pray to the Father, in Christ’s name, to help master the chaos I feel.

Finding Peace in Pain

No one can even fathom what it feels like to live my life. Everything I do, I'm constantly surrounded by triggers to my PTSD. I talk somewhat often about how pain is very relative and my "level 4" would probably kill the average person. Some words carry more weight than a ton of bricks to me whereas to others it's just any other word. Even worse, one of those specific words - abandonment - is one that not even my best friend for the longest time post accident (love you Trish) has much of a clue about because it's something I still just can't talk about. I learned that a few months ago when I mentioned something about High School graduation to her and she hadn't heard the story.... Because some things are still too painful. Heck, there are quite a few memories that I don't even have access to because my brain simply will not allow me to remember them. I still have dire aversions to situations, or strange longings that I don't understand, but no memories of situations or people. So please, do not misunderstand me in the second half of this post. I am not saying that my life is easy; I am not saying that I enjoy any part of it. However, I wouldn't trade my knowledge of this gospel for anything, especially given everything that I go through. 

I believe we each have a special "dispensation." This means that the Lord, and our Heavenly Parents have a perfect understanding of our lives - challenges, strengths, abilities, afflictions, etc. Most people's dispensations fall much closer to the "ideal" mold. Mine however, most definitely does not. My Heavenly Family know of my deep, deep desires to be better, to learn more, to take care of my body, to have a deeper relationship with them, so on and so forth.... They love that more than I comprehend. But they cry with me when I am so frustrated by my limitations. They are sad when I beat up on myself for not running faster than I have strength. Our Heavenly Parents are much closer and integrated in our lives than we fathom. Heavenly Father wants nothing more than to talk to us, to build/re-build a relationship. He knew that in order for us to grow and attain all He wants to give us, there had to be a veil. We had to face temptations, evil, and carnal desires. It hurts Him when we try to face the world on our own, refusing to ask Him for help. He always wants to help us. It may not happen the way we always want, but His desire is always there. We can't always just expect His will to happen because He respects our agency. He rarely takes away our struggles or pains, but instead He offers strength so we can face it. 

5000 Days

I often think back on the Shannon I became in the first ~16 years of my life. I look back on her with great honor, respect and admiration - all for good reason. She instilled within me a passion for learning, an unconditional love for all my brothers and sisters in this world, a joy for celestial music, a yearning for knowledge of truth and eternity, courage to take on this ugly world, faith to withstand any persecution, and the valiance to face it fearlessly. What I didn't know then was just how tumultuous all of that could mean. 

Did early saints know how rough the road would be when they left their homes behind? Did Paul know what he signed up for when he agreed to testify of Christ? Did Daniel know what would happen if he chose to pray? Did Nephi know what the Lord would command him to do after he promised that he would be obedient? Did Joseph Smith know how persecuted he would be after going to the woods to pray? 

No. They did not. But the Lord, in His infinite mercy and love, said, "okay, prove it." In like manner, I used to say, "I'm grateful it happened to me instead of someone else." So, I can imagine the Lord, in an infinitely loving way say, "prove it." 

All of the pain, tribulations, heartache, etc. is not a way of the Lord punishing His own. But rather it is a way to sand off the rough edges, to be shaped and molded like clay, to wash away all the flaws and earthly imperfections, to be refined by mercy's fire. He does not enjoy watching us cry, but in His infinite wisdom, He lets us learn from falling, just as we do when teaching a baby to walk. After all, if we do not learn from falling, we'll never learn to walk; and if we do not learn from ourselves, how can we trust what we know?

"Everyone will fall a time or two, and time and mercy heal the wounds. But the most important thing you can do is whisper a prayer, then as soon as you dare, try again. .... Even if the world has seen you crying, try again. And the Lord will see you through, and He'll be there to catch you when you fall."

So, through everything I've been through over the last 5000 days, I hope that despite all of my failures, my heartaches, my turmoil and pain, I hope that maybe I have done what I said I'd do when I told God I would return. Because "I am living proof that His love is real." "He heals, He knows, He gives, He cares, He hears, He shows, He's always there, and I'm living proof." 

P.S. thanks to Cherie Call and Hilary Weeks for their beautiful songs linked below 

Prove Me - Hilary Weeks 

Try Again - Cherie Call

Living Proof - Hilary Weeks

I Choose to Go Back

My anniversary (May 12) is super hard every year. Every cell of our body remembers trauma and anticipates anniversaries of severely traumatic events. I have found that it helps for me to get feedback from others. I'll ask them why they are glad that I chose to come back after my accident, when I could've stayed on the other side of the veil. Or I'll ask what kind of difference I've made in their lives. Sometimes it's helpful just to know that I have made an impact, even if it's very small. This year, I asked my good friend, Matt Whitaker to write a letter or make a video for me. He told me that when he put his pen to paper, it came out as a poem. It is the most beautiful poem I've ever heard. So, with his permission, this is the poem. 

“I Choose To Go Back”

She felt the love of Heaven’s Embrace,

Saw the light of a Heavenly Face.

Then heard the words: “They’re pleading for you.

What, dear child, would thou have me do?”

And as she looked into Eternal Eyes

She could hear the echoes of her family’s cries.

And her heart was filled with the faith to ask,

“Would it be alright if I chose to go back?”

In response came a gentle nod

As grateful tears filled the Eyes of God.

“I love you, child, with all that I Am,

For your valiance and trust in the Eternal Plan.

I know that you know how hard this will be

To go back through the veil of mortality.

Back to a body that’s broken and bruised.

Is this what you want? Is this what you choose?”

She paused for a moment, as if deep in thought,

Considering something that she had been taught

By her mom and her dad, her sisters and brothers,

That happiness comes in the service of others.

And so, with a heart filled with hope and with kindness

She squared up her shoulders and made up her mind

That no matter how hard or how steep the path,

She would do it for others, she would choose to go back.

And knowing down deep in her soul it was best,

She whispered to Heaven the Word: She said, “Yes.”

With one more embrace, one more lingering smile,

God spoke to her heart, “I’ll be with you, my child.”

Then turning, she made her way back to our side

Of the veil, where she could only gently confide,

With the squeeze of a hand, “Yes, I’m back and I hear you.

And I want you to know that I chose to be near you.

And often I’ll ask for your help as I go,

For blessings of strength and direction to know

How I can serve and progress on the path,

How to remember I chose to come back.”

And so every morning she picks up her cross.

She shoulders the pain and the lingering loss.

She makes her way forward one step at a time

Up the path, up the mountain she promised to climb.

And with her example we look on in wonder.

“How does she carry the burden she’s under?

How does she reach out to others beside her

And pick up their crosses and make them feel lighter?”

The Answer, of course, is the One that she follows,

The One who carried the cross made for all

Of our sorrows and trials and troubles and pain.

She knows He’s the Path back to Heaven Again.

And that’s why she asks for our help on the way

That’s why we’re blessed and able to say

That because of our weakness and all that we lack

We’re so grateful she whispered, “I choose to go back.”