Happily Ever After

On New Year's Day I went to a movie. With my fiance. My fiance. I walked in holding his hand. Then I went ice skating with him. Then I went to dinner with him. And all day, I just couldn't get over how everyone around us thought it was just a normal day, completely unaware of the miracle in front of them.

Today, I woke up and stayed in bed for a half hour talking with my husband. My husband. Then I studied the Book of Mormon to the sound of him whistling primary songs in the shower. Little moments like that still overwhelm me with gratitude.

I don't take it for granted. I never want to take it for granted. I spent 30 years going places with no hand to hold and waking up alone. Some of those years were difficult. God kept making me promises. And when I was lonely and things were hard, He would remind me of the promises. At first that was sufficient. But then it wasn't enough. I couldn't wait for the fulfillment of promises to be happy, and I was having an increasingly difficult time being happy without them. So I asked God to stop talking to me about promises until he was ready to fulfill them.

He gave me a short respite. And then I went back into the same cycle of being presented with unfulfilled promises. But harder and faster this time. I didn't understand and it overwhelmed me. Finally, while continuing to remind me of promises, God told me to let go of them at the same time. And I really didn't understand. I wasn't sure it was even possible.

Were the promises a lie? I couldn't believe that. I didn't feel to stop believing them. But I was supposed to let go of them somehow - let go of all the hurt associated with unfulfilled dreams. I wasn't sure I could. I wasn't sure I wanted to. I didn't know how to let go of the hurt without letting go of the potential to have all the things I wanted - all the things God had promised.

But He helped me. And in the process I learned and re-learned some things. I learned to separate obedience from promised blessings. I learned that, while God's promises are sure, it wasn't enough to be obedient for the promises. I had to be obedient simply because I loved Christ and wanted to be like him, regardless of ever getting anything for it. I made peace with every hard thing God had ever asked of me, not because it was worth it in terms of blessings (it wasn't), but because it was worth it to follow my Savior, to understand him better and become more like him. I decided I wanted that even if it never made me happy (while still believing that ultimately it would).

And then I met Clint.

I cannot fully express how perfect Clint is for me. There are so many little things I chose to be obedient in that I never realized would be so connected to God bringing Clint to me. Who I am and who Clint is - it's a perfectly tailored fit.

At our wedding dinner, Clint sang me a Rascal Flats song that I'd never heard before meeting him. But some of the lyrics explain so well what I feel:

   In your eyes I see forever
   It makes me wish that my life never knew
   The day before you
   Oh, but Heaven knows those years without you

   Were shapin' my heart for the day that I found you
   You're the reason for all that I've been through
   Then I'm thankful for the day before you-

Sunday Will Come

About a year ago, I was in the Holy Land. I went to the Garden Tomb with my brother and spent a few quiet moments looking at a place like where Christ's body was laid after his crucifixion. That morning, I had read in the New Testament about Mary Madgalene coming to His tomb, weeping and distraught. That's what I felt there. I felt a bit of her despair. The one being who fully loved, understood, and believed in her, this person who had saved and forgiven her, who she had then dedicated her life to, who had given hope and meaning and joy to her life... Now he was gone. She came to take care of his body, the one piece of Him she had left. And found it gone. Weeping, distraught, she just wanted to get his body back. Oh, how that hurt.

As I pondered and felt that despair, I asked God to help me feel what came next - the joy of the resurrection. I knew that bitter moment was not the end of the story. But God simply reminded me that Christ's death and burial were not a happy time. It was a time of mourning and sorrow for all who loved him on this earth. The joy I wanted didn't come in that moment. But though I could not feel it, I knew it existed. I knew and trusted in the story of the resurrection. So I had peace in those feelings of sadness. My life also has moments of sorrow and rejoicing, and that's OK.

This morning, we prepared to take the sacrament by singing "He Died! The Great Redeemer Died." The start of the song reminded me of those feelings at the Garden Tomb:

          He died! The great Redeemer died,

          And Israel's daughters wept around.

          A solemn darkness veiled the sky;

          A sudden trembling shook the ground.

 

But half-way through the third verse, the tone changes:

 

          Here's love and grief beyond degree;

          The Lord of glory died for men.

          But lo! what sudden joys were heard!

          The Lord, though dead, revived again.

 

          The rising Lord forsook the tomb.

          In vain the tomb forbade him rise.

          Cherubic legions guard him home

          And shout him welcome to the skies.

 

And today I felt the story finish. I felt the joy. It always comes. Maybe not in every day and every moment of life, but it always comes. I know that even in the times when I don't feel it. As Elder Wirthlin would say, "Sunday will come."

Not in the Wind

I took a pilgrimage to the Holy Land a few months ago with my brother. I prepared for the trip by reading that excellent tourist guide book, "The New Testament." One of the places I was most excited to see was the Sea of Galilee. There are so many stories of Christ's ministry in Galilee that have touched me so deeply they have become a part of who I am.

We spent our first day at Capernaum and Tiberius. We took a boat out onto the Sea of Galilee at sunset. It was all very beautiful and culturally fascinating. But... I didn't feel a dang thing. I wanted to. I wanted to feel something special and close to my Savior on that trip. That night, I went up on the roof of our hostel and read about Christ feeding the 5,000 and prayed. I felt something then - similar to the spirit I'd felt hundreds of times before reading the scriptures. And I asked God why... Why had I felt to come to Israel? Why couldn't I feel Christ on the water where He once walked?

The answer I got was more or less something like this: "I'm not dead. I walked here 2,000 years ago, but I still live and walk today. I've walked with you - that's why you love these scriptures. You feel close to me when you walk with me as I am now. You feel close to me when you walk as I walk. that's far more important than where I walked 2,000 years ago. So if you want to feel close to me here, seek my spirit and walk as I walked - the same as you've done before."

The next day we went to Jericho. In Jericho, we hiked up to a monestary built into the side of a cliff (fun fact: If you want to understand the symbolism of "living water", walking around Israel in the heat of the day is a great activity). We met a random tour group near the top (they took a cable car up instead), and started up the last bit of the hike with them, which involved several steps built along the side of the cliff. This tour group was made up predominantly of senior citizens and my brother and I offered our arms to some ladies with poor balance. In that moment, my prayer from before came to mind and I felt close to Christ. I was, quite literally, walking as he would walk.

Thinking of this experience today, a story came to mind from Elijah:

   "And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake:
   "And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice."  - 1 Kings 19:11-12

I know that my Savior lives and walks today as surely as He did back then. He is a part of me as fully as He was a part of them. I didn't find Him on the Sea of Galilee or atop the Mount of Olives. I found Him, as I always have, in a still small voice.

Afraid to Believe

I have a sneaking sympathy for Zacharias (see Luke 1:5-24). When an angel told him that his barren wife would have a child, his response was “Whereby shall I know this? for I am an old man, and my wife well stricken in years.”

I get it. I get it because sometimes I’m afraid to believe. I imagine his feelings at the time were something like this: “I’ve been praying for this for years. There is nothing my wife and I have wanted more. This has been our most deeply cherished hope. Now she’s past childbearing years and I think you’re telling me she will have a child. And, oh, how I desperately want to believe that. But I’m afraid. I’m afraid of what will happen to me and my faith if I believe that now and then it doesn’t happen. So please, help me.”

The angel responded: “thou shalt be dumb, and not able to speak, until the day that these things shall be performed, because thou believest not my words, which shall be fulfilled in their season.”

I think I would have been grateful. I would have thanked God for something tangible to help me believe it really was from Him, something to help sustain my faith until a child was conceived. And then, throughout the pregnancy, with all the fears of complications and the many things that can go wrong so easily when an older woman has a child, it would have been a daily reminder of God’s promise.

I trust God. I really do. He makes me promises. Sometimes He makes me very specific promises. And I believe them. For the most part.

I have so many experiences where I trusted inspiration and it was clearly right. God tells me a friend needs me and I find out they do need me. God tells me what to do for them and it works. Or God tells me he’ll take care of my financial stress and then I get an unexpected promotion. He does that kind of thing all the time.

But sometimes, things don’t happen the way I think they’re supposed to. Sometimes that’s pretty easy to reconcile. There was the time I felt strongly to pursue a job. Every time I’d felt that before, I got the job. So I was excited, because I really wanted this one. And I prayed before, during and after the interview and felt really good about it. And then I didn’t get it. But God never actually told me I would get it. He just told me to pursue it. So that’s OK, right?

But every so often, it doesn’t work like that. Every so often I feel like God is telling me something that I desperately want (like an investigator is going to get baptized, or I’m going to meet my husband this year). And I believe it. And it doesn’t happen.

My reaction is usually not to doubt God. It’s easier to mistrust myself. Maybe I misunderstood. Maybe He was just telling me to work towards it and I wanted to believe it was a promise that it would actually happen. But, then, there are times when I’ve clearly only felt “work towards it” and that felt different. So why did it feel so sure that time? People say “well maybe it’s what you needed at the time to get to where you were supposed to be.” No. I won’t accept that. God doesn’t lie to me. He won’t lie to me to get me to do something.

I’m a lawyer’s daughter. I’ve learned to break down wording. Things like “soon” and “but a small moment” are not legally defined lengths of time. “This will happen” without a qualifying timeline can mean it will happen in the next life. God can and does give very specific revelation. I don’t want to chicken out of fully receiving it. But I don’t want to be a sucker either.

So I hedge my bets. I leave myself an out. When God makes promises, I believe Him, but tuck away an alternate interpretation just in case. But where’s the line? Where’s the line between patiently, humbly submitting to the Lord, and insufficient faith? I don’t have the answer to that. I like to think the gap is narrowing with time, but I don’t know that it will ever disappear completely.

I'm Not as Good as You Think I Am

“I found someone new for you to help.” She said it with the same tone that I would expect someone to say “I have European chocolate for you” or “I got you a new book.” She literally thought she was offering me one of my favorite things in the world.

I didn’t have the heart to tell my friend she was wrong, that I wasn’t the person she thought I was. Because I wanted to be that person. I really did. And apparently that was enough to fool her.

It’s not that I don’t genuinely want to help people. I do. I want to care. But sometimes, that’s all I’ve got. I know I should be patient with a new employee, or go talk to the new person, or offer to do the dishes. And I usually do it. But I don’t always want to. It’s a choice. It’s a habit.

My friend saw me as the person I want to become, the person I try to emulate. I am grateful for that. She saw the best in me. She didn’t see that sometimes I fight it. She didn’t see how often I have resented the expectation that I will act altruistically. "Oh, ask Laura. She's good at that." No, I'm not. It's no easier for me than anyone else. I just choose to do it because it's right.

But it really isn't just others’ expectations. I expect it of myself.

God has set me up. My whole life is a set-up. He sent me seven younger siblings. He gave me responsibility early in life. Some of my first visiting teaching assignments were to sisters with serious medical problems. God led me to jobs that involved teaching, training, and coaching. He called me as a missionary. He set me up, over and over, to care for the most vulnerable – for children and for people with disabilities.

And I’ve walked right into it every time. I’ve walked right in because that’s where I want to go. Or at least, I want to want it.

I’m grateful really. I worry about who I would be without that drive to serve, to take care of people. I have other characteristics, too. I’m ambitious. I’m comfortable with hard work. I like to think I’m reasonably intelligent. None of those qualities are inherently good. They can be used for good. But they can easily be used to be manipulative and selfish, and even downright evil.

God has given me a focus, and it has (mostly) kept me out of trouble. It’s grown within me. I am closer today to the person I want to be than I was when my friend told me so enthusiastically of an opportunity to serve.

Things I No Longer Believe

There are some things I used to subconsciously believe. They were never taught as doctrine, but I don’t think I am the only teenager who developed a dangerous kind of faith. In a nutshell, I believed something like this: If I follow God, the really, really bad things can’t happen to me.

What qualifies as “really, really bad” is probably not the same for everyone. In my case, it would be things like rape, divorce, or a child committing suicide. I think having to come home early from a mission was on that list at one point for me, too.

There were some fundamental flaws in my thinking, but they are so subtle it’s hard to see. Because God does protect us from things. Because the truly worst things really cannot happen if we follow God. But there’s a heck of a lot of room for suffering before it reaches that point. He doesn’t promise that things won’t happen. He just promises that he’ll be able to heal us. He promises that if something truly horrific happens it won’t rob us of our exaltation, of our opportunity to endure to the end.

And I think that’s my problem. I subconsciously categorized some things into being beyond healing. Like rape and divorce. For me, the opportunity to give my virginity to my eternal companion is essential. Rape or divorce would take that away. And regardless of how much emotional healing Christ gives, I would not be physically restored. Granted, I couldn’t be physically restored from amputation either, and the thought of any permanent physical damage bothers me a lot. But somehow that doesn’t seem quite as bad to me. Maybe it’s because I could see how a missing hand would be restored in the resurrection, but I somehow exempted other forms of physical restoration from that miracle.

Whatever the reason, there are certain things I believed God would protect me from. He would warn me not to go to a party, or not to date/marry someone, or to check on my child, or not to do the thing that would cause the injury that would send me home from a mission. And the thing is, I still believe God does that frequently. And I believe that sometimes really, really bad things happen because promptings are ignored. I have ignored promptings and had bad things happen. And when that happens, it is important for me to accept that and learn from it.

But what if there are times when you are following God and the bad things happen anyway? What if you hide Jews during the holocaust and the end result is that you end up in a concentration camp where you’re sexually abused? What if God is the one who told you to hide Jews in the first place? What if it’s not that obvious? I think it would be a lot easier to come home from a mission because you got hit by a bus while saving a child than because you developed severe depression as a missionary. But what if God needed you for six months and you never fully realize how that changed lives? What if a battle with depression was the inevitable result of your service (just as permanent health problems and an early death were an inevitable result for three young men who carried a handcart company through the icy Sweetwater River)? What if you’re Job?

I think, in the course of discipleship, everyone will eventually come up against something “really, really bad.” That doesn’t mean it will be something exactly from your list. It may not be something you realized would be that hard. After all, I think that list is mostly subconscious. But there will come a point when you ask “God, why didn’t you show me how to avoid this? Did I miss something? How could this be right? Why didn’t you warn me?”

When that happens there are a few possible answers. One is “I did warn you, but I let you choose. And now, stick with me, and I will heal you and turn your suffering to glory.” That answer takes a lot of humility to receive and time to sort through.

Another answer is “I won’t protect you from everything. That’s part of mortal life.” Or, even, “There was no righteous way to avoid this.” And that can be faith-shattering. It can challenge foundations of belief. It can mean discovering that God is not who we thought he was, or at least that we misunderstood our relationship with Him. It doesn’t mean that God wanted it to happen. He never wants something like rape. That only happens through sin and God hates sin.

I get that the drunk driver has to have the agency to drive drunk, but I want God to tell me not to drive down that road with my family that night. Sure, I’m willing to die to follow Christ. But am I willing to suffer other forms of abuse and still follow Him? Am I willing to watch loved ones suffer or die and still follow Him? These are questions I once conveniently ignored.

In the last few years, I’ve grown a lot more comfortable considering these questions. The following things have helped:

•  I’ve gained a deeper testimony and understanding of the atonement. Part of this is seeing the atonement in my own life. Part of this is seeing the atonement in other people’s lives. I’ve seen people go through terrible trials and come through battered, wounded, but eternally OK

•  I’ve had bad things happen to me. Not really, really bad things. But I have asked God “Why? Why didn’t you protect me?” and He’s told me “I won’t protect you from everything. But, let me show you how I already prepared everything to allow you to heal completely.”

•  I have followed the Spirit and experienced results I didn’t expect. I have asked “Why? Why did you tell me to do that if it was going to have this result?” I’ve had him respond with “trust me” and found that I really do.

I think the most important thing is that I’m better at believing that who I become is more important than a sum of events that happen to me. For example, I genuinely see sexual purity as being about whether I am filled with pure Christ-like love for myself and those around me, whether I see everyone as a child of God and not an object, whether I have control of my passions, whether I have the ability to give myself completely to a spouse and be entirely faithful. That is, in fact, what the doctrine teaches. It’s just hard to wrap your head around it as a teenager in Sunday School.