Not this time

Well the wait is over, we have our answer and unfortunately it wasn't the answer we were hoping for.

I started spotting a few days ago and then it just got worse, so we pretty much knew since Wednesday that it was going to be negative, but I also had hope because people always say that things like that happen when you are pregnant. But since it got worse with each day, I spent each night crying and worrying.  Yesterday we got the actual confirmation that it did not work so we spent the day having fun - retail therapy at the JCrew Outlet, dinner, watching movies, ice cream in bed.

Thanks to others for helping me through this, I have found some comfort.  I can't thank you all enough for all that you've done for us during this time, I am truly overwhelmed by all of the amazing support I have in my life. I have never felt more loved. THANK YOU!!

Lize sent me this talk on Thursday and it was exactly what I needed to hear.  

But If Not

Bethany Christensen

BYU Women’s Conference 2010

"It feels a little bit funny to be speaking about unanswered prayers or when prayers seem unanswered. As Latter-day Saints we usually showcase our best gospel stories in lessons and testimony meetings, the ones where prayers are answered, sickness is healed, accidents are avoided, keys are found, neighborly visits are inspired, or someone is baptized.

 However, in our lives there are times when our prayers seem unanswered and righteous desires are unfulfilled. Perhaps within the walls of this room, there are some dear sisters who, despite pleading with the Lord, have experienced the untimely death of a husband, or sat beside the bed of a chronically ill child; and there may be others who kneel down each night and yearn for the blessings and challenges associated with a marriage and children of their own.

 When life deviates from our own self-plotted courses, we may look to the heavens and demand, “This is not how I pictured it”. ­­­­­­When our earthly patience has worn thin and our self imposed “waiting periods” have expired, we may assume that the Lord has forgotten us.  

 My husband and I had been married for eight years before we were blessed with our son through the miracle of adoption. He is now four years old and the light of our lives.

 During the course of this challenge, our friends seemed to be on the fast track we so desperately wanted to be on; having babies, and struggling with the many things that new parents do.  I would often find myself on the sidelines of a conversation about pregnancy, giving birth, nursing, and parenting little ones.  These conversations were impossible to avoid and left me feeling alone, isolated and angry. I felt like an outsider watching others live the life I wanted for myself and wondering why the Lord would not answer my prayers and fulfill my righteous desire to be a mother.

 Early on I felt like I understood the Lord’s plan for us. When we found out that we could not have children on our own, I thought, “This is a test and we are going to pass it with flying colors.” We would fast, pray, attend the temple, receive priesthood blessings and undergo the necessary medical treatments in order to create our miracle baby. Surely the Lord would bless us with something so eternally significant. It wasn’t like we were praying for a new car – we wanted a baby. President Uchtdorf said, “The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul… If you are a mother, you participate with God in His work of creation—not only by providing physical bodies for your children but also by teaching and nurturing them.”

 We were devastated over and over again as the outcomes to our costly attempts at having a baby were always negative. Eventually our emotional, spiritual and financial reserves were spent and the irony associated with this trial became the most difficult part of the test. How could the Lord withhold this blessing from our family? Did we not deserve to be parents? Why were some less deserving, even neglectful and abusive parents given the opportunity to have children when we weren’t? Did the Lord hear our prayers? And if he did why did he ignore them?

As we study the great plan of happiness and the purpose of our lives here on earth, we come to realize that this is actually “just how we pictured it”. We knew that the purpose of this life was to obtain a body and to be tested.  We knew we would experience firsthand the bittersweet opposition in all things. We knew that we would be tempted, tried and refined through adversity. All of this was designed “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man”. While we have been blessed with the ability to communicate with our Father in Heaven and to exercise our faith through fasting, prayer, and priesthood blessings, we cannot expect to be exempt from the very purpose of our lives – the tests.     

 President Kimball points out “If all the sick for whom we pray were healed, if all the righteous were protected and the wicked destroyed, the whole program of the Father would be annulled and the basic principle of the gospel, free agency, would be ended. No man would have to live by faith.”

 “If joy and peace and rewards were instantaneously given the doer of good, there could be no evil—all would do good but not because of the rightness of doing good. There would be no test of strength, no development of character, no growth of powers, no free agency, only satanic controls."

 “Should all prayers be immediately answered according to our selfish desires and our limited understanding, then there would be little or no suffering, sorrow, disappointment, or even death, and if these were not, there would also be no joy, success, resurrection, nor eternal life and godhood.”

Knowing all of this we still wanted to come to earth and have this mortal experience.

Be content with the things allotted unto us.

In 1987 Emily Perl Kingsley wrote an essay entitled: Welcome to Holland. She says:

“I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

 When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

 After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

 But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

 So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

 It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

 But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

 And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

 

 But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.”

And so it is in our lives too…at first there is a shock “This is not how I pictured it”. But once we decide to accept and trust in the Lord’s plan for us, we can begin to appreciate the many blessings that are also in store.

Being “content with the things allotted unto” us takes great faith – and a shift in our focus from the things we do not have to the talents and blessings which we have been given.  As we do this, faith will replace doubt, hope will replace despair, and charity will replace self-pity.

President Kimball reassuringly states “I am positive in my mind that the Lord has planned our destiny. Sometime we’ll understand fully, and when we see back from the vantage point of the future, we shall be satisfied with many of the happenings of this life that were so difficult for us to comprehend.”

 Through the atonement of Jesus Christ “all things can work together for our good.” Because He took upon himself, not only our sins but, all of our “infirmities”, weakness, sickness, sorrows and grief – he knows from experience how to “succor” us, how to rescue us, and how to help us find peace in the midst of trials.

 Elder Maxwell said “deprivations such as these can end up being like excavations that make room for greatly enlarged souls.”

Elder Holland said “Just because God is God, just because Christ is Christ, they cannot do other than care for us and bless us and help us if we will but come unto them, approaching their throne of grace in meekness and lowliness of heart. They can’t help but bless us. They have to. It is their nature. That is why Joseph Smith gave those lectures on faith, so we would understand the nature of godliness and in the process have enough confidence to come unto Christ and find peace to our souls. There is not a single loophole or curveball or open trench to fall into for the man or woman who walks the path that Christ walks. When he says, ‘Come, follow me’ (Luke 18:22), he means that he knows where the quicksand is and where the thorns are and the best way to handle the slippery slope near the summit of our personal mountains. He knows it all, and he knows the way. He is the way.” 

I testify that even though our prayers at times may seem unanswered - our prayers are never in vain. As we yearn for the righteous desires of our hearts to be fulfilled, we must also be patient and trusting of the Lord’s plan for us. “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

 We can be sure that the Lord teaches us and blesses us with the things that He knows we stand in need of and that there will come a day, if we are righteous and endure to the end, when all things shall be given unto us.

 Elder Wirthlin said: “The Lord compensates the faithful for every loss. That which is taken away from those who love the Lord will be added unto them in His own way. While it may not come at the time we desire, the faithful will know that every tear today will eventually be returned a hundredfold with tears of rejoicing and gratitude.”


Until next time......