I didn't start out being an author of
books. I felt like there were enough
books out in the world and what would I
offer that would be a new conversation,
and new principles, or new ideas, or
thoughts, or ideas about specifically
having adversity in your life and dealing
with it. And then my husband lost his job
and within a matter of a few months the
first manuscript of I can do hard things
with God was created and born. And it was
kind of a vision of that book that has
led to more writing and speaking. So
there's 17 chapters and we've—we've
tried to—I've tried to really cover and
touch on on everything we've covered
mental illness from the perspective of
the person dealing with depression and
also from a spouse's perspective. My own
personal story that I, that I share is
the suicide of my sister. There's divorce,
death of a spouse, death of a child,
chronic illness, blindness, deaf child
being born, a child that struggles with
ADD and autism, and kind of the
perspective of a parent dealing with a
child that struggles. We have a
loneliness chapter. One of my favorite
chapters is a chapter on being single
which, for an LDS perspective, over 40 and
still not married may be a different
perspective than what the world sees
that as, but I often share the
experiences that Betsy shares in that
chapter are some of the most inspiring
for me because it really represents her
dream and her will not necessarily being
the same as what she's living or what
God intends and how has she like
maneuvered through and found joy and
still found purpose when really if, if
she could wave a magic wand she would
have things different for herself. So
that's a little taste of what's in the book.
But I find all of them—I get asked
often which is my favorite and that's
like choosing your favorite child and I
don't know if you can do that but what I
love this hearing leaders talk about how
the book has impacted them and that
makes the years of trying to get it
published and edited so worth it.
When I hear readers say that they, you know, the
chapter that meant the most of them
isn't the thing that they're going through.
The suicide chapter helped along
had a child in the hospital for over a
hundred days and and she's not even a
reader she said but when she read it the
grief that I expressed of losing my
sister was some of the grief she was
feeling dealing with a child that was
really sick. So I love that we can learn
from each other stories that's really
the genesis behind what I wrote the book
is that you can talk about principles of
faith, and strength, and adversity, and
hope, but I believe whether you're LDS or
Muslim, or Jewish, or Catholic, we read
scripture because stories teach us how
to have strength and they show us
sometimes the beginning middle and end
of someone's hard thing and my prayer
the whole time that I was working on
this book was that the voices of the
women that shared their stories so
honestly would be preserved and I keep
hearing that back and that's really
satisfying because I, too, feel like even
just yesterday I was dealing with the
emotions of something that's gone on a
long time and there's not a resolution
and and I found myself calling a friend
and saying: "Remind me again what it looks
like to do hard things. How do I keep
walking?" One of those friends was Betsy
who shares this story of being single and
I called her and I just said: "Please tell
me, again, how do you know that I have faith to do this? Because today I don't feel it.
Today, I don't want to be a pioneer. Today
isn't even the hardest day. I've had much
harder days. The day I found out my
sister killed herself was probably the
worst—one of the worst—days of my life.
So why is today feeling like I'm done?"
And she shared some great feelings of
faith and and confidence in me. And she
said: "Well, first of all, I know Heavenly
Father loves you. And I also know that
you've made it through a hundred percent
of all the other hard days because
you're still doing it." And she shared her
testimony of the Savior and his power to
do what feels too hard. And so, even
though I've spent countless hundreds of
hours writing and sharing stories of
faith I, too, find myself still on my knees
saying: "This is too hard and—and I'm
tired, and I don't want to keep going."
And, and I feel privileged to know the women
in this book because they shared some
really personal feelings that were
really honest and then weren't "Pollyanna-answers."
They shared being angry at God
they shared feeling like they couldn't
go on and they didn't understand why and
and then all of them tried to show their
faith and show it in a really honest way
which means some days it doesn't
feel like it's really there and, and that—
The infertility chapter is written from
a perspective different than maybe other
infertility stories have been shared and
her lesson learned was very different
than then I think some readers expected
and it was—it ends with a baby—but
it ends with the baby after 12 years of
trying. And, and I love the joyful
perspective that Carrie-Ann shares in her
story. And her learning to accept help
which I think sometimes—is sometimes why
we're going through a hard thing is
because not only does God show up but
He's—He often sends somebody else
which is what I found even yesterday a
reminder of: Wait, today is one of those
days I need to reach out to a friend and
have them remind me of my faith and I
think that's why we go to church every
Sunday not once a day, or a quarter.
It's because we need to gather together and
share faith and that's why I read
scriptures, hopefully daily, so that we
read stories of faith.