And Afterward They Shall Come Out With Great Substance

I had a really embarrassing moment a few months ago.  I was at a church meeting and was asked to stand up in front of the full room of meeting attendees and share how I was feeling.  I'm not very articulate to begin with, but especially not when asked to speak on the spot--I'm one of those people that always looks back on conversations thinking, "Boy, I should have said this," or "Wouldn't that have been better than what I actually said."

And, to be honest, I'm not sure what I was really supposed to have stood up and said.  I had sort of zoned out, and was thinking over the last year, and specifically reviewing that day and the last few months in my mind.  So as far as my feelings regarding the content being discussed...not sure about that one...but my feelings in general?  Yup, I could give you an earful about how I was feeling.

When I first stood up, and stared at the officiator of the meeting at my side, my mind started racing.  I thought, "My husband and I just moved here a few months ago; I don't know anyone in this room; should I just say something generic, or open up and share a bit of my broken heart?"  The problem here is that my emotions overrode everything.  I started speaking generally, and never said anything specific about what I was struggling with, just my feelings attached to it (because everything was so very clear in my mind, and was therefore clear to everyone else, right?!).  I don't remember what I said, but I know it came out as an emotional garbled mess and I probably made it sound like we were struggling with some sort of unpardonable sin.  Which we aren't.  Just my unpardonable emotions.

A little background.  Just that morning I'd discovered, for the 20th month in a row, that I wasn't pregnant.  I was thinking of the first year of trying; I was thinking of all those unexpected and irrational times I started crying; I was thinking of the doctors who have looked at me like I was silly for feeling concerned and told me I only feel this way because I live in Utah (?!), and that there's only a 20% chance of getting pregnant each month anyway, and my favorite, the last doctor I saw who told me we don't know all the intricacies of the female body and the symptoms I was feeling and experiencing (for the first time in 20+ years of menstruating) were psychological and just PMS.

I'd probably feel differently about things if I were 25 going on 26, but as I'm 35 going on 36, I feel a little anxious, like this window is closing.  And I know we "started late," but I'm not ready for this window to close.

So as I stood there sharing an emotional garbled mess, the weight of anxious desperation and desperately wanting something weighing on my shoulders, I know I sounded melodramatic, emotionally unstable, consumed.  I'm pretty sure my mother wouldn't have approved.

I know what I'm struggling with--going on two years of trying to have a baby--is a small thing, comparatively speaking.  And this particular struggle, and struggling in general, isn't exclusive to me.  Everyone has something that runs a little deeper.  So.  If I had a rewind button, here are some things I wish I had the head to have shared:

Let's be honest.  I know no amount of "praying enough" or "hoping enough" or "believing enough" or "faithing enough" is going to make me pregnant.  We live in a fallen world, and fallen things happen.  And sometimes, biology fails us.  Sometimes there are reasons, and sometimes there aren't.  I do know, however, that prayer, hope, belief, and faith have everything to do with how I react and respond to a struggle, even and especially if the outcome is one different than I would have wanted.

It's really hard during those moments of unwanted outcomes to maintain hope and belief.  I don't know of an efficient 1+1=belief equation; I very often feel like the father who desired help for his son: "Lord, I believe; Help Thou mine unbelief" (Mark 9:24).  I am really good at the "doing" end of faith, and feel like I struggle on the "believing" end of faith.  I have learned that unwanted outcomes don't mean there isn't a God, or that He doesn't hear you, or isn't interested in you.  And unwanted outcomes also don't always mean "God wouldn't give you something you can't handle," or "God knows what's best for you," or "It's all about timing."  I mean, would you seriously walk up to a Holocaust survivor and tell them, "God knew you could handle that, so..."  or, "That had to happen because God couldn't take away Hitler's agency to slaughter 6 million of your people."  I hope we'd  have more compassion than that.

I have so often been on the giving end of advice--I've learned it's really all about giving compassion.  Advice isn't the Balm of Gilead you offer someone when they are hurting; it's saying, "I'm here to listen; I'm here to hurt with you."  Even if you don't completely understand or haven't felt what they are feeling or even agree with how they are displaying their hurt and grief.  Falling and reaching and stretching and grieving is part of this uncertain, emotionally draining, sometimes unwanted outcome of human experience.  These times of falling, reaching, stretching and grieving are needed--they make us drink deeper.  Find quiet stillness.  Peace.  Strength.  They make us realize we can do things we didn't think we could.  We end up finding healing in the most unexpected places; often in the places we thought we wouldn't be able to face or bear.

My place of drinking deeper and finding quiet stillness is the scriptures.  Some of my most favorite scripture studies have been over these last couple of years of trying and not getting pregnant.

Abram felt confusion about an heir because he had no children and prayed to the Lord for direction.  In a vision the Lord promised Abram his seed would be as numerous as the stars, promised his seed would inherit the land, and then sent another vision of darkness, in which the Lord promised Abram's seed would go through trials and struggles and be counted as "stranger[s] in a land that is not theirs," and endure slavery and servitude and afflictions--for four hundred years.  But at the end, the Lord also promised that "afterward they shall come out with great substance."  (Genesis 15:1-14)  This posterity that Abram so desperately wanted would go through trying times.  For a long time.  But it would sanctify them and they would grow and become a people of great substance.  In a very simple but powerful response, it's recorded "And he believed in the Lord."  Abram believed the Lord and believed IN the Lord, knowing full well what would come.    

Knowing Isaac's personal history with an altar, I was surprised to find it one of the first things he constructed on his own as a shepherd when he is first married to Rebecca (Genesis 26:25).  Sometimes it is the very sacrifice of self or desires that gives us the strength to approach God.  And after finding the strength to build our personal altar, we pitch our tents at its side and dig a well--we dig deep to quench our thirst.  

The Lord promised He would "bring [us] up again out of the depths" (Ether 2:24).  This "bringing up" is sometimes just that--bringing just to the top so we can get some air to keep moving through what encompasses us.  And sometimes it's in the form of a "furious wind" we might feel is blowing against us, when really, it's the force moving us towards the promised land.  And even when we're buried, we have been promised light continually (Ether 6:5-10).

We will find healing, one by one, individually; we are the "mighty work" of God.  That healing may very well be of a physical nature, on occasion, but it will always be of a spiritual nature.  Jesus heals our spirits and this healing love propels us forward to testify of His love to others.  Healing is conversion (John 9).  "The pure love of Christ can remove the scales of resentment and wrath from our eyes, allowing us to see others the way our Heavenly Father sees us: as flawed and imperfect mortals who have potential and worth far beyond our capacity to imagine...Let us put down our stones.  Let us be kind.  Let us forgive.  Let us talk peacefully with each other.  Let the love of God fill our hearts.  Let us do good unto all men."  (President Uchtdorf)

Women are a community of healing, strength, conversion, doing good.  My favorite study (which I am still doing) has by far been sitting at the feet of strong and righteous women of the scriptures who turned to their Savior for guidance, peace, direction, healing.  I came across Patricia Holland's talk "One Thing Needful" about 6 or 7 months ago, and it has become the one staple I always return to.  I always leave this talk feeling not just buoyed, but empowered, like I have an earth full of sisters--and I will stand up for you and defend you and hurt with you and cry with you and rejoice with you and find light with you and in you, because you are my sister.  We are in this together; I got your back.  Sister Holland outlines 5 characteristics women of strength use to become women of greater faith (Prayer, Scripture learning, Charity, Contrite hearts, Temple).  Not women who trudge through; not women who make it through by the skin of their teeth; not women who are melodramatic, emotionally unstable, or consumed.  I decided to take these qualities and study all the righteous women in the scriptures who have gone through trials or struggles, and how they applied any or all of these qualities to become someone new.  These are women who have trials and struggles and used them as springboards to becoming someone of greater faith.  "To see ourselves as we really are often brings pain, but it is only through true humility, repentance, and renewal that we will come to know God.  We must have the courage to be imperfect while striving for perfection.  We must be patient with ourselves as we overcome weaknesses, and we must remember to rejoice over all that is good in us."

I wish I had said any one of these things.  I am human and not very courageous in my imperfections.

I have thought a lot this Christmas about new babies.  About Mary and One New Baby in particular.  How things aligned for thousands of years to be signs and wonders in the heavens announcing His arrival.  How prophets for hundreds of years testified of His coming.  How Mary bore the task of bringing Him into this mortal experience.  How Joseph listened.

I was touched to tears by this song the choir sang at church on Christmas Sunday, "Where Shepherds Lately Knelt".  I felt like I was among the shepherds coming before a King, unexpectedly in the form of a newborn baby, and feeling all the words of the prophets whispering to me it has been fulfilled.                

Where shepherds lately knelt, and kept the angel's word,
I come in half belief, a pilgrim strangely stirred;
But there is room and welcome there for me,
But there is room and welcome there for me.

In that unlikely place I find Him as they said:
Sweet newborn Babe, how frail!
And in a manger bed:
A still small Voice to cry one day for me, for me,
A still small Voice to cry one day for me.

How should I not have known Isaiah would be there,
His prophecies fulfilled?
With pounding heart I stare:
A Child, a Son, the Prince of Peace--
For me, for me,
A Child, a Son, the Prince of Peace for me.

Can I, will I forget
How Love was born and burned its way into my heart
Unasked, unforced, unearned,
To die, to live, and not alone for me, for me?
To die, to live, and not alone for me.

My Christmas wish is to add my voice to those who proclaim Jesus as the Christ.  He is the Savior that carries me through struggles, emptiness, and the aching of humanness.  He is the Savior who heals.  He is the Savior even and especially when outcomes are different than I would have wanted.