I'm glad some things didn't work out

I'm glad I couldn't say ch or j until I was six years old.

I'm glad I never won the spelling bee.

I'm glad I broke my leg in fifth grade and had to learn how to walk again.

I'm glad my Spanish teacher chewed me out on the first day of seventh grade.

I'm glad I wasn't one of the popular kids in junior high.

I'm glad I spent two days throwing up in the snow on my first fifty mile hike.

I'm glad I didn't make the honors program in eighth and ninth grade.

I'm glad I wasn't placed in the front of the violin section sophomore year.

I'm glad I was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis at age fifteen.

I'm glad I had to perform some last-minute miracles to graduate high school.

I'm glad I was required to work one Christmas Eve in my job as a debt collector.

I'm glad I never had a girlfriend before my mission.

I'm glad I had to wait till college to get an article printed in the school paper.  

I'm glad Egypt got too dangerous the semester I wanted to study abroad.

I'm glad the University of Utah rejected my application.

I'm glad it took me so long to figure out what I wanted to do with my life.  

I'm glad some things didn't work out, because they made room for the things that did.  

Two years ago today I took a pretty girl out on a first date.  Now, we're happily married in the temple with a baby coming any day.  We have a nice apartment in the town where we both grew up, and I'm doing what I love in school.  

Not to brag, or anything, but my life is amazing.  

It's also been full of trials and disappointments.  And thank goodness for those!  I shudder to think where I would be without them.  It hasn't been easy, but it's been a great life so far.  Here's to the road ahead--the ups and the downs. 

"What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly."
--Thomas Paine

  

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God.

--Romans 8:28