Tough as Nails

Yesterday I went and got this tattoo and I love it.  I thought so long and hard about this tattoo.  Of course I went back and forth on whether or not I should get it.  I am an active LDS member and I know that tattoos are not something that our church encourages or condones but this tattoo is something just for me.  It is a constant reminder that I can do hard things and have done hard things.  I have struggled so much for the last 3 years.  It's actually been much longer than that but Matt's stroke was the hardest thing I have ever been through.  It became the start of a new life for us and also a new me.  Something inside me died that day and I have spent the last 3 years nurturing the new person that I have become.  Nora's accident was also so hard for me.  I still can't look at air med helicopters without having a panic attack.  Those were two defining moments in my life that changed me forever.  I think that what we have been through in the last three years was harder than anything I've ever experienced and I've been through a lot.  I survived a brain tumor and a rare disease at the age of 19 and that was nothing compared to the last three years.  Recently I was diagnosed with Addison's disease.  I have been completely depleted of energy.  I can't find a balance between being mom, wife, working full time as a nail technician and raising my kids.  I was really struggling before the diagnosis and now I just feel helpless.  The other night I was watching one of my favorite TV shows and one of the characters lost her baby.  She said something that really got to me because it was the first time someone had said what I feel out loud.  She said "This isn't fair. It isn't just.  And I have spent my life believing in a God who is just.  He gave me a calling and I followed it...I finally feel like I am becoming the person that he wants me to be...and then this?  To be handed this?!  It's cruel.  And I feel like God is laughing at me.  If this is a test, I fail.  All these years trusting and believing and praying...and if this were just, even a tiny bit, then I could maybe...I can't..."
Now before anyone freaks out and thinks I've lost faith or don't believe in God I have to say this.  I love my Heavenly Father.  I know that he has a plan for me and that he loves me too.  I do believe however that part of the plan of salvation included our ability to mourn and question what we know to be true.  There are days where I feel like I am being punished for something.  That God is sending hard things my way because he is unhappy with me but those are the days that the fibromyalgia, Addison's disease, work, house, kids, everything piles up and crashes down on me.  Those are my pity days.  They don't happen too often but when they do I cry and I struggle and I feel DONE.  Then I have days where I know that I CAN DO HARD THINGS.  There are days when I finish work at 10pm and am dead tired but I feel like I accomplished so much in taking care of my family.
I know that my Heavenly Father hears and answers my prayers.  I know that he loves me and that I am his daughter.  Satan also knows this and works on me everyday.  It is hard.  These are the days that I need to be reminded that I CAN DO HARD THINGS.  These are the days that instead of taking up drinking or giving up I tell myself over and over these 5 words.  I CAN DO HARD THINGS.  So even though there are days where nothing seems fair or just and I feel like I am being handed way too much I know that I can handle anything that God needs me to with his help.  I know that he loves me.  I know....I just have to remind myself sometimes that he made me tough as nails.