written March 21, 2017
Here we are again, another night where writing has been taunting me for the last few days and I have been trying to get it all sorted out in my head as to what it was I really needed to say. At first, it was why being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is for me, and then that idea seemed to fade…no, being a member of Christs Church is not fading for me, that is a lifelong choice I have gladly made and will not ever deny. It has been a long week, it seems, one filled with much emotion. It wasn’t until I checked my email tonight that it hit me, but first, I had to finish the project I started earlier today…
I have long felt impressed to send a friend a copy of the Book of Mormon, today I marked the verses I felt should be marked and finished things tonight by writing a letter to accompany the book. Now, with that being complete I am able to devote my time and writing to the things that have been on my mind and in my heart. Things that were brought together in one moment when in an email from a person who has become very dear to me in the last year or so.
A little back story to this friend of mine. We have not ever actually met in person, by some twist of fate he was given the wrong phone number by someone he had met, that number just happened to be mine. I was getting text messages from him as he thought he was texting the person he had been talking with the day before. I politely explained to him that he had the wrong number and that I was not the person he thought I was. All I remember of the next message that followed was that this person wanted help drawing nearer to Christ. At that moment I knew what I needed to do. I had been called as a missionary not long before this happened, true it was only as a missionary for our ward but why should it stop there. I had been called as a missionary and for me, this was a missionary moment. I knew I needed to help this person, I was then and am still striving to be like our Savior Jesus Christ so the only answer was to act as Jesus would and follow in His footsteps.
This young man, though he is well in his 60’s, and I have had some of the best conversations on the gospel, it was through him that I came to understand what it truly means not only to have charity but also and more importantly be possessed of it. Moroni 7:47 But charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him.
I don’t know how much I have really helped him but I know he has truly helped me. somehow life has taken us each in different directions and our communications stopped for a time. I missed them but I don’t know that I was really in a place to help anyone there for a while.
While I knew exactly where I was and for the most part, in the eternal scheme of things I knew and know where I belong, I wasn’t sure where I really fit at home. Slowly I watched all that I knew at home fade away into nothing and all I could do was watch it fade. I felt so helpless and so I prayed my heart out. I so desperately wanted to save my marriage, I wanted that so badly. All I seemed to get for an answer to my prayers was to immerse myself in the scriptures, in my learning of Christ, His life, His ministry here on earth in the Americas, and so I did my best to do just that. I also read countless talks on marriage and relationships, I talked with the bishop, sought his counsel and guidance in this matter. I did everything I knew to do, I prayed, I read, I went to church, I was active in my attendance and my callings as best as I could be and I attended the temple regularly-because I had to, not because I was being forced but because I knew it would help.
As I attended the temple I would pray while there, because in no other place am I closer to my Heavenly Father than when I am in His Holy House. I would read the scriptures while there and the things they said to me, the things my Heavenly Father said to me through those scriptures really made me think. It helped me to see that He truly knew what I was going through at that moment in my life and He knew exactly what I needed and for the most part I was willing to listen, except I didn’t want my marriage to fall apart. The truth is, it already had, I just didn’t want to see it.
I am so grateful for Heavenly Fathers patience with me, always. He gave me just what I needed to help me through this terrible time I was struggling with, the harshness of my reality. He gave me Himself, all I had to do was reach for Him, to seek Him. I had already asked what I needed to do I just hadn’t realized how desperately I truly needed Him nor had I understood how He could truly help me. The scripture that comes to mind is Jeremiah 29: 11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. This is a verse I recall seeing a lot. I truly believed He was trying to tell me something, all I needed to do was listen, to relinquish my own will and come to better understand His will for me.
At some point, my prayers changed from asking Heavenly Father to save my marriage to inquiring of His will and wanting my own to be swallowed up in His will for me. One Family Home Evening (FHE) lesson was on a talk given by our Prophet and President of the Church of Jesus Christ, Thomas S. Monson during the April 2016 General Conference titled Choices.
“It has been said that the door of history turns on small hinges, and so do people’s lives. The choices we make determine our destiny… Our goal is to obtain celestial glory, and the choices we make will, in large part, determine whether or not we reach our goal. …May we choose to build up within ourselves a great and powerful faith which will be our most effective defense against the designs of the adversary—a real faith, the kind of faith which will sustain us and will bolster our desire to choose the right. Without such faith, we go nowhere. With it, we can accomplish our goals. …May we ever choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong.
As we contemplate the decisions we make in our lives each day—whether to make this choice or that choice—if we choose Christ, we will have made the correct choice.”
Thomas S. Monson
Making the choice to change my prayers did a lot for me. No, it didn’t necessarily make things easier in my life but it did help me to see things differently. The hardest thing for me to comprehend in all of this was that Heavenly Father would want my marriage to come to an end. It seemed to contradict everything I had been learning but in Isaiah 55: 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. Who am I to doubt Him who has created me, who knows me better than I know myself and knows more perfectly what I need? I am no one and yet I know that I mean so very much to Him. For that, I am eternally grateful.
Okay, on to how this came to be whatever this is now. I got an email from my missionary moment friend in which he had made mention of how close he feels I am to our Redeemer and asked me, “How do you do it?” I told him the only thing I knew to be true for me. The only way for me to explain how I have the relationship I do with Christ is because He is the only one who has never left my side, literally. In times of sorrow, loneliness, despair, whatever the case may be, He is always there. It is I who must make a conscious effort to continually turn to Him, lean on and rely upon Him. I must learn of Him, each day.
As I have learned of Him and then exercised my own faith in Him and His ability to help me, to heal me, to love me, I have seen for myself how He is ever-present in my life. One time that comes to mind was a couple of years ago when I went to visit my dad just before he died. I had known my dad was going to die soon, he had stage 4 metastatic melanoma and in June of 2014 was given 6 months to live. I talked with my dad a lot before he died, almost every day when I could. I was even able to visit him a couple of times before he passed away. It was near to the end of those 6 months in December when it seemed things were advancing into other areas of his body that I had a big decision to make. Do I go and see him one last time before he dies or do I wait until after he passes away to go back home so I can be a support to my baby brother and baby sister? I prayed a lot, every day, to know what choice to make. Finally, I did what any kid hates to have to do, I prayed that if I went while he was still alive that if he was going to die soon, he would do it while I was there. This would allow me to see him one last time before he died and be there to support my siblings after.
No one can ever tell me that Heavenly Father doesn’t hear or answer our prayers. It was the hardest thing I had ever asked of Him and He blessed me with the sweetest answer. I arrived on a Wednesday, my dad was with it, talking, laughing, smoking. It was nice, I had such high hopes for the next few days, I had questions to ask him and things I wanted him to teach me some card games. I was looking forward to spending time with him. That night a while after we had all gone home for the evening my brother received a call from our dad, he was wanting to go home. He was in a nursing home at this point and would need care if he were to go home so I told my brother to do what he needed to in order to have dad sent back home and I would stay there with him and help take care of him for as long as I could.
I spent all day Thursday with my dad, sadly I don’t think he really knew I was there because he wasn’t. His body was there but he was…I don’t know. All he did that day was sleep but I didn’t leave him alone. The one time I did leave his side my baby brother was there with him. We spent that night with him until it was late. My brother eventually went home to get some sleep because he had to work the next day but my Sissy and I along with our mom stayed there by his side. It was after 1 a.m. that mom told us to get some rest and she would stay with him, so we went and made a bed for ourselves in the physical therapy room of the nursing home. I had just said my prayers when mom came in asking me to be with dad because they were going to give him some medication and she wanted me there in case he became agitated as he had earlier in the evening. He did fine and so I sat with mom, talking about my life and how things were going.
Before I knew it 3 a.m. was upon us and so I told her I would let her get some sleep and I went again to lay down. I had just finished saying my prayers when the lights went on and mom was there saying that my dad was gone. I had received the very thing I had prayed for and while it broke my heart that he was gone it touched my heart so deeply that Heavenly Father should care so much for me as to answer my worst prayer.
The next few days were stressful mixed with laughter, tears, prayers and for me….peace. I felt so out of place there and yet I was comforted. Words that I will never forget are found in Isaiah 41: 10 Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. I made a new friend that day and that was the very scripture reference that was engraved on the necklace that hung around her neck. It was the same verse she sent home with me around my neck. In that scripture I found strength, strength I was given by my Heavenly Father, strength I was blessed to receive in the very moment I needed it.
I don’t know if any of this really explains “how I do it” but maybe it shows how. I know He loves me, there is proof of that in my everyday life from the moment I wake up each morning, in my every breath, to the people I see and meet each day, the friends I have that love me without end and accept me for who I am and are able to see past the wrongs I have done, and the family that loves me. I see His love for me as I sleep safely each night. Every bit of my life I owe to Him who has created me, who has helped me every step of the way, even when I am stubborn and feel I am independent enough to do it on my own. He lovingly takes me into His open arms as I continually realize there is nothing I can do without Him. I am grateful for my relationship with Him, the one true relationship I have always had (whether I have realized it at the time or not), the greatest and best one for it is the relationship that has saved me, the only one that will truly save me to the very end. Amen.
