Awake, My Soul!

The last little while has been rough. And I say little while because I'm not exactly sure how long. It's been a while. I think it's all catching up to me now. Here's the basics of how much has happened to my family in the last year or so.
We have moved twice.
Like almost everyone else, we have major financial struggles.
My Dad has been in the hospital 6 or 7 times now with unexplainable pancreatitis. He is in the hospital as I'm writing this.
My Dad has also had a knee surgery, and a shoulder surgery, and is probably getting his gall bladder taken out tomorrow.
My Mom had Bell's Palsy for a while.
My brother Spencer now has type 1 diabetes.
My brother Enoch now has asthma.
My little sister Rachel had a cough that almost killed her over the winter.
My brother Ben broke his arm.
3 of my siblings (Ben, Bekah, and Rachel) have ataxia-telangiectasia. While this is not a new development for Ben and Bekah, it is within the last year and a half or so for Rachel. The thing with this is that Ben and Bekah are hitting a critical stage in their lives. If they can stay healthy and out of wheelchairs and stuff for the next few years, they might be able to live a normal life.
My Grandma on my Mom's side died.
My Great Grandpa on my Mom's Dad's side died.
My Mom had a baby.
My grandparents on my Dad's side got home from their third LDS mission to Nauvoo, Illinois.
The feed store which my family owns has this new potato grinding project that brings in a lot of money, but takes an immense amount of time.
To add on to the family struggles, the nation seems to get worse every day economically as well as spiritually - and that is a burden on my family, because we love our country. We love America.
I'm sure I'm missing things, but that's the basics of it. And although some of those things are good things, most of them are painful, and hard. Most of them are things that make a person wonder if they can handle everything given to them.
And that's just my family as a whole. We all have our individual struggles to add on to the family struggles. For me, these are the major struggles.
I lost my state wrestling title because of my own foolishness.
I struggle every day to stay morally clean in a world filled with filth.
I'm starting to have to put serious effort and thought into preparing for a mission.
I've got to get my Eagle Scout before I turn 18. That's still a little ways off, but it weighs on my mind.
I really struggle in school.
Work is becoming more of a necessity rather than an option like it used to be.
I have a new church calling.
To put it simply, I'm growing up. And I'm not ready for it.

Having put all of the above struggles together, and having thought about them, and their incredible weight, I became depressed. I mean, wow. That's a lot. I hadn't even realized the immensity of it until I put it all together.
As I was reading in the Book of Mormon this evening, I felt that I ought to read the selection of verses which is called The Psalm of Nephi. This is located in 2nd Nephi 4, verses 16-35. Nephi wrote these words following the death of his father, Lehi, from which he was in complete agony. As he's pondering his father's death, he exclaims in the agony of his soul, "O wretched man that I am! Yea, my heart sorroweth because of my flesh; my soul greiveth because of my iniquities. I am encompassed about, because of the temptations and the sins which do so easily beset me. And when I desire to rejoice, my heart groaneth because of my sins; nevertheless, I know in whom I have trusted." This, coming from a prophet of God! A man who trusted God when everyone else doubted, and said, "I will go and do." A man like this can have sins that so easily beset him? I didn't know that. How could a man like Nephi consider himself to be a wretched man?
Nephi talks for a few verses about how the Lord has blessed him, and strengthened him, and then exclaims, "And why should I yield to sin because of my flesh? Yea, why should I give way to temptations, that the evil one have place in my heard to destroy my peace and afflict my soul? Why am I angry because of mine enemy? Awake, my soul! No longer droop in sin. Rejoice, O my heart, and give place no more for the enemy of my soul."
I think Nephi put pretty well in three words what I am trying to say in this entire post, so I'll just finish with his words. It's time for me to apply them to my life.

"Awake, my soul!"