A perfect brightness of hope

The last few days I have been feeling down. I cant decide if its hormones or me really actually feeling whats going on in my head. Making the choice to become a latter day saint was one of the single most challenging things I have ever done. Not because I didn't feel it was right but because it was something different than what I grew up and different from my family. Making the call to tell my parents that I was joining was also difficult. I wanted them to know they were invited and wanted them to feel apart of it but knew it would hurt them deeply, especially my mom. However I prayed to my father in heaven for them to try and understand, and they really tried, enough that they came to my baptism. Well here it is 4 years later and things have been for a lack of better words, different. I feel different from my family, I feel distant and not part. That is truly a hard thing for me. I know that they don't want me to feel that way but I do. In a sense I am different and I do believe differently than they do, but I love them unconditionally. I feel like the ugly duckling, or the black sheep. My family really has been great at not bringing up religion and not making me uncomfortable but I know that they talk about me. I know that my mom's way of dealing with it is by talking about it to the people in here church and to my siblings. That hurts, I know she doesn't mean for it to but it does. They all really feel that I'm confused and that I dont believe in the church. And I'm soooo not confused, I have more clarity in my life now than I ever have. Anyone that knew me before I joined the church knows how different I am now and how much happiness I have in my life because of it. I just wish my family could see that. This is one of the scriptures that I reflect upon when I'm having trials like this one.
"Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life" (2 Nephi 31:18–20).
As I sit here with tears in my eyes reflecting upon those words again I know them to be true. I must press forward and put my shoulder to the wheel and know that in the end this will all be worth it. I have a wonderful family that love me very much and struggle to understand me, but I also have a church family that love me also. I have eternal family with my husband,son and unborn child that help me to keep my prospective. I think I just needed to write this out and look back over it to realize the many blessings I DO have in my life and to remember to pray for understanding in my family. For those of you who actually took the time to read this whole post, Thank you. I'm grateful for my life and the way my savior saved me from the path I was headed before my baptism. I know the Church is true, I know that being sealed to my family is one of my biggest blessings. I love them very much. And I'm thankful for the gospel and the real clarity it brings into my life.