'Feeling Gratitude for the Intangible'

Talk given in Maryland Heights Ward 11/24/2013.

My name is Letty Goering, and I am going to speak today about different kinds of gratitude, being grateful for trials and enduring well, learning to be grateful for intangible things, and the sin of ingratitude. I also want to touch on the commandment to become like unto the Savior, the doctrine of the Atonement, and the role it plays in enabling us to gain eternal life. Above all, I hope to communicate the message that the Atonement should be an essential part of our daily lives, and can be an infinite source of comfort , strength and joy.

KINDS OF GRATITUDE

It is easiest to be grateful for tangible things than intangible things.  

It is easier still to be grateful for tangible things that we use everyday.

-I feel gratitude for my house, for heat, for clothes and food.

We often feel great gratitude for things that we have not previously had or possessed

-It took me 27 years to find my husband, and I believe that his had given both of us a depth of gratitude for our spouse, the crazy person who looked at us with all our baggage and decided to board the plane anyway, that is perhaps deeper than it would have been had we married and 19, 20, or 21.

-I feel grateful every time I drive our new car. Unlike the driving experience, for those of you who have joined me in Betsy, of wondering when the next bump will short circuit that electrical problem again and leave you stranded, if the check engine light really means business this time or if its just that pesky short again, if the clattering noise will stop once the engine ‘warms up’ and wether or not I still have the spare quarts of oil and jumper cables in the back where they are supposed to be. Having had this experience for the past ten years, I feel a sigh of gratitude whenever I sit behind the wheel of Richard’s treasured new Volkswagen.

Humans are also likely to feel gratitude for things that we have recently lost, in a kind of sad, retrospective gratitude. You feel this kind of gratitude when you look back at your life and wish you had realized and cherished how good those moments were when you  had them.

-I feel very grateful for the years filled with fun, afternoon naps, and all night talk sessions on the steps of my condo in college.  Because now afternoon naps are almost impossible to come by, and staying up all night comes with an ever-increasingly painful price tag.

-You might feel grateful for a loved one who has passed on, or for financial security that has since escaped you, or for a time of health that you no longer enjoy.  In remembering and being grateful for the past, it is important we walk the fine line between gratitude and feeling sorry for ourselves – do not let being grateful for what you once had create dissatisfaction and anger with the situation you currently have. Rather, let your time on the mountain peaks of life buoy you up, and give you the strength to keep moving forward through the valleys.

BEING GRATEFUL FOR TRIALS AND ENDURING WELL

Of enduring trials well, the late Apostle Neal A. Maxwell said this.

“The valiant among us keep moving forward anyway, because they know the Lord loves them, even when they “do not know the meaning of all things” (1 Ne. 11:17). As you and I observe the valiant cope successfully with severe and relentless trials, we applaud and celebrate their emerging strength and goodness. Yet the rest of us tremble at the tuition required for the shaping of such sterling character, while hoping we would not falter should similar circumstances come to us!

I like the last point he makes here, that shaping a ‘sterling character,’ becoming more Christlike, requires a steep tuition, and cannot be achieved in a life without these ‘tutoring trials.’

Since the Lord wants a people “tried in all things” (D&C 136:31), how specifically will we be tried? He tells us, I will try the faith and the patience of my people (see Mosiah 23:21). Since faith in the timing of the Lord may be tried, let us learn to say not only, “Thy will be done,” but patiently also, “Thy timing be done.”

We cannot, unfortunately, demand to be lifted up on the peak NOW because we are TIRED of struggling through the valley. We can only endure and submit to the will of the Lord. This concept, if you try to explain it to the worldly, pleasure loving people of our society, is simply not one they can grasp. ‘Enduring’ and ‘submitting’ are considered wussy words or cop outs.

Neal A. Maxwell also addresses this point. ‘… enduring and submitting are not passive responses at all, but instead are actually more like being braced sufficiently to report for advanced duties, while carrying—meekly and victoriously—bruises from the previous frays.

Which brings me to my next point ---

LEARNING TO BE GRATEFUL FOR INTANGIBLE THINGS

I’m not saying that humans DON’T feel gratitude for intangible things – but I somehow feel that this kind of gratitude is left to be expressed in birthday cards or Oscar acceptance speeches. Where they look back and realize that they really could NOT have done it without their spouse’s support, their parents belief in them, etc. etc.

TRUE KEYS TO HAPPINESS

And I believe that the true key to happiness is found in being grateful , above all, for the intangible¸ every day, in each moment.

Gratitude for the intangible is a key to anger

-When your child overturns their cereal bowl at breakfast, stop, and take a minute to be grateful that Heavenly Father has placed this precious spirit in your home for you to love, guide, and be blessed by their love in return. Refuse to allow anger to damage their confidence in your love for them.

Gratitude for the intangible is a key to loving your neighbor

-Sometimes people say hurtful things. Thoughtless things. Sometimes they say downright stupid things. When this happens to me, it helps me to pause and think of the reasons I am grateful to have them in my life.  Maybe all you can come up with is that they sign your paycheck – but that’s still something big to be grateful for! But usually I find a multitude of reasons that I am grateful to have someone in my life, like their big heart, their work ethic, their many kindnesses in other ways.

Gratitude for the intangible is a key to depression

-On days when getting off the couch seems like an insurmountable obstacle – spend the time you are on the couch being grateful you HAVE a couch, a TV, a home. Be grateful for your experience with this debilitating emotion – even though it might seem so meaningless, and so unfair. I love the added perspective the Apostle Jeffery R. Holland gave this October in general conference when he spoke about this illness that touches so many of our lives.

In striving for some peace and understanding in these difficult matters, it is crucial to remember that we are living—and chose to live—in a fallen world where for divine purposes our pursuit of godliness will be tested and tried again and again. Of greatest assurance in God’s plan is that a Savior was promised, a Redeemer, who through our faith in Him would lift us triumphantly over those tests and trials, even though the cost to do so would be unfathomable for both the Father who sent Him and the Son who came. It is only an appreciation of this divine love that will make our own lesser suffering first bearable, then understandable, and finally redemptive.

So how do you best respond when mental or emotional challenges confront you or those you love? Above all, never lose faith in your Father in Heaven, who loves you more than you can comprehend. As President Monson said to the Relief Society sisters so movingly last Saturday evening: “That love never changes. … It is there for you when you are sad or happy, discouraged or hopeful. God’s love is there for you whether or not you feel you deserve [it]. It is simply always there.”4

The Sin of Ingratitude
In researching for this talk and thinking about gratitude, a remember hearing a quote somewhere that struck me with great forcefulness. This same old saying was reference in an October 1989 conference talk by Elder W. Eugene Hansen.

It has been said that the sin of ingratitude is more serious than the sin of revenge. With revenge, we return evil for evil, but with ingratitude, we return evil for good.

Before it was explained to me this way, I would have said ‘hands-down, revenge has got to be way worse. I mean, yeah, we should all be grateful , yadda yadda – but ingratitude as a sin? It had never occurred to me. Until I looked at it this way. Until I recognized it in this light –  that with so much good that has been given us,  the nurturing of an evil and angry heart, of ingratitude, is repaying good, with evil.

So. Ingratitude. BAD sin.

In the New Testament, we are commanded in Ephesians 1: 15-16 to “Cease not to give thanks” and in Colossians 3:15 “Be ye Thankful.”  In the Book of Mormon in the book of Alma Ch. 34 vs. 38 we are commanded to “Live in Thanksgiving daily.”

So I don’t think we can be in any doubt about how the Lord feels about gratitude – and ingratitude, for that matter.

We’ve talked a lot about the kinds of gratitude we feel, for tangible and intangible things. But lets look at ingratitude now. First, where does it come from?

In the Book of Mormon, it the Book of Mosiah, the prophet and King Benjamin gave the quintessential spiritual description of this ‘Natural Man’ fellow.

19 For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.

From this we learn that illuminating gospel truth that we are here on this earth to be tried, and to be tested, a purpose that President Thomas S. Monson, the living prophet of the Lord on the earth today, reminded us of in October.

“This should be our purpose—to persevere and endure, yes, but also to become more spiritually refined as we make our way through sunshine and sorrow. Were it not for challenges to overcome and problems to solve, we would remain much as we are, with little or no progress toward our goal of eternal life.”

WE ARE TO BECOME EVEN AS THE SAVIOR 

So, here we are on the earth, living life, hoping for eternal life, but naturally selfish and unkind and prone to sin. And yet, upon his visit to the Nephite people on the American continent after his resurrection and Atonement, he taught the people “Therefore, what manner of men ought ye to be? Verily I say unto you, even as I am.”  Not, as good as you can be. Not, do more good than you do evil. Not , love everybody and the karma comes back around. But astonishingly, staggeringly, he commands us to be ‘even as I am.’

Thankfully, by the grace of God, the more we concentrate on becoming like unto the Savior, on sublimating our will to the will of the Father, we can dramatically decrease our tendency to whine, feel sorry for ourselves, or in other ways respond like the natural man.

In that same October address, the Prophet explained, When the pathway of life takes a cruel turn, there is the temptation to ask the question “Why me?” At times there appears to be no light at the end of the tunnel, no sunrise to end the night’s darkness. We feel encompassed by the disappointment of shattered dreams and the despair of vanished hopes. We join in uttering the biblical plea, “Is there no balm in Gilead?”1 We feel abandoned, heartbroken, alone. We are inclined to view our own personal misfortunes through the distorted prism of pessimism. We become impatient for a solution to our problems, forgetting that frequently the heavenly virtue of patience is required.

Does this sound familiar? Oh Boy. It did to me anyway. President Monson went on to explain the importance of learning from the hard times, of refusing to be broken by them, and of coming through them a better person.

Our Heavenly Father, who gives us so much to delight in, also knows that we learn and grow and become stronger as we face and survive the trials through which we must pass. We know that there are times when we will experience heartbreaking sorrow, when we will grieve, and when we may be tested to our limits. However, such difficulties allow us to change for the better, to rebuild our lives in the way our Heavenly Father teaches us, and to become something different from what we were—better than we were, more understanding than we were, more empathetic than we were, with stronger testimonies than we had before.

The key to becoming something ‘different from what we were” and ‘Better than we were” lies in the most important of all intangible gifts

The Gift of the Atonement enables us to become better than we were.

So often forgotten in our daily ‘gratitudes,’ or mouthed as a ‘Sunday school’ answer “Oh, of course, and that.”  The gift of the Atonement should never be a postscript in our mental gratitude journals. It will transform our existence on this earth, and bring HOPE to every moment of our struggling, fallen, imperfect life, if we let it.

Neal A Maxwell explained, in the same talk from 2001 I have been quoting so heavily

Ultimate hope, of course, is tied to Jesus and the great Atonement, with its free gift of the universal Resurrection and the proffer of God’s greatest gift, eternal life (see Moro. 7:40–41; Alma 27:28; D&C 6:13; D&C 14:7).

The Atonement: Ressurection vs. Eternal Life

Do not miss the careful doctrinal distinction. Because Christ died on the cross and rose again on the third day, he broke the bonds of death, and ALL MANKIND, every living soul on this earth, will be resurrected when he comes again. We will ALL live again, good, bad, and in between.

However, the greatest gift, is the gift that Elder Maxwell describes as ‘proffered’ – a gift we are given a chance at receiving, but no guarantee – the gift of a eternal life, meaning, a live in the presence of Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and our own eternal families. THIS gift was achieved in what went on BEFORE the cross, in the Garden of Gethsamane, where Christ literally sweat ‘even as it were, great drops of blood’ as he took upon him all the sins of mankind. Where he paid for every murder, every rape, every unkind thought and petty thievery, every moment of ingratitude and selfishness.

Again from Elder Maxwell.

“Several scriptures describe the essence of that glorious and rescuing Atonement, including a breathtaking, autobiographical verse confiding how Jesus “would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink” (D&C 19:18). Since the “infinite atonement” required infinite suffering, the risk of recoil was there! (2 Ne. 9:7; Alma 34:12). All humanity hung on the hinge of Christ’s character! Mercifully, He did not shrink but “finished [His] preparations unto the children of men” (D&C 19:19).

In the agonizing atoning process, Jesus let His will be “swallowed up in the will of the Father” (Mosiah 15:7). As sovereigns, choosing to yield to the Highest Sovereign is our highest act of choice. It is the only surrender which is also a victory

Utilizing the Atonement in Our Daily Lives

In order to seize hold of this ‘proffered’ gift, of eternal life, we must ACCEPT the Atonement of the Savior. We must allow ourselves to be saved. We must do our very best, every day, and then kneel at the close of the day, repent with honest heart, and ask for the places where we have fallen short to made up for with the blood that has already been paid for our sins of that day. And it is willingly, joyfully applied.

Remember how we humans tend to be most grateful for the things we use every day? Ask yourself, do I use the Atonement of Christ every day? Do I repent each evening, and strive to do better each morning? Do I feel gratitude for this incomparable gift EVERY day – or only on Sundays? Or only at Christmas?  

Beyond Repentance for Sin, the Atonement as Succor for Our Daily Hurts

Something I felt very strongly to touch upon, in addition to how the gift of Christ’s Atonement has paid for our sins, is the other use of the Atonement that is often overlooked. 

Uniquely, atoning Jesus also “descended below all things, in that he comprehended all things” (D&C 88:6; see also D&C 122:8). How deep that descent into despair and abysmal agony must have been! He did it to rescue us and in order to comprehend human suffering… Moreover, Jesus not only took upon Him our sins to atone for them, but also our sicknesses and aching griefs (see Alma 7:11–12; Matt. 8:17). Hence, He knows personally all that we pass through and how to extend His perfect mercy—as well as how to succor us.

Therefore, let us not resent those tutoring experiences which can develop our own empathy further (see Alma 7:11–12). A slothful heart will not do, and neither will a resentful heart. So being admitted fully to “the fellowship of his sufferings” requires the full dues of discipleship (Philip. 3:10; see also 1 Cor. 1:9).

Do we realize, on those tough days, those sad days, those ‘couch’ days, that Christ has also felt EXACTLY what we are feeling? And that the gift of the Atonement is also a gift of power. A wellspring of strength beyond our own that we can reach out and tap… that we can say as the New testament father, who brought his stricken son to be healed of Jesus Christ “Help Thou Mine Unbelief.” 

When my heart aches and some days feels like it might just burst with the anguish of wanting a child, I know there is one friend I can go to who knows EXACTLY what that pain feels like. And when I go to Him on my knees, the anguish eases, and peace and comfort flows into me.

·         If you are suffering from addiction, might I recommend my Savior? He knows how hard that struggle is, He experienced it.

·         If you are nervous and frightened, might I recommend my Savior? He experienced what it feels like in your gut when you are looking at an uncertain future and hoping you can survive.

·         If you feel guilty or angry, might I recommend my Savior? He experienced your feelings of inadequacy, and frustration, and helplessness. Your fear that you might never overcome your natural man.

·         If you are feeling lonely or lost, might I recommend my Savior? He experienced what it feels like to stand in a crowd weeping inside and feel like no one notices or cares. He experienced abandonment, and betrayal,

·         If you are physically or mentally ill, might I recommend my Savior? He experienced that heavy sinking feeling that ties you to a couch, he experienced what it feels like to look at a day and wonder how you will get through it, he experienced how much some simple tasks can hurt a fragile, malfunctioning body.

I have always loved that Thanksgiving precedes Christmas in the standard Holiday calendar. It gives me a time to reorient myself, to remember to be grateful, and to remember to be MOST grateful for incredible day my Savior was born, for this first gift of Christmas, which paved the way for the gift of His Atonement. I might not be able to hold this intangible gift in my hands, but I can feel the joy of it rush through my veins, and the peace of it fill my heart in an aching hour. The incomparable gift of the Atonemnt brings me, like the prophet Nephi expressed to beautifully, to “Sing the song of redeeming love” and to say with the prophet Alma “there can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as was my joy.”

Announcing The Launch of Our Adoption Blog

Dear Friends and Family-

We are writing to ask you to keep us in your prayers and help us reach out to birth parents who might be considering making an adoption plan. We offer some simple suggestions, like posting our blog link on your wall, on how you can do that in the message below.

Background

We have always wanted to raise several children. Earlier this year we experienced two failed In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) surgeries as the conclusion to several years of medical attempts to have children. We are still passionate about becoming parents and are excited to have finished all the required training and certifications to be eligible to adopt.

How You Can Help

We are pursuing adoption in two ways:  our adoption agency and through private placement.  Currently the waiting list for adoption thru LDS Family Services averages about 3 years (our case worker told us in 2012 they only had about 300 babies available to place nationwide). We ask that you pray for us.

Successful private placement is all about making contact with the maximum number of potential birth parents.  We hope that, through your friends, you can help us connect with individuals we would not otherwise meet.  Our goal is to get the address of our adoption blog and our contact information to as many people as possible, FLOODING every social media platform.  Here are a few ways you can help us make this happen.  

• Send a short message via Facebook and/or e-mail (example below) with our adoption blog link (http://www.WaitingWishingPraying.blogspot.com) to all of your friends with whom you feel comfortable doing so
• Like our FB page at http://www.facebook.com/waitingwishingpraying and invite your friends to like it to
• Post a message with the adoption blog link on your Facebook timeline, Twitter feeds, etc
• If you are a blogger, grab the button from our adoption blog to post on yours.

We will be updating the adoption blog and sending updates on our progress every month or two.  We hope that you will be willing to share blog updates as well. If you would prefer to NOT receive any more messages about this, please let us know.

Example Message To Post:
My friends are hoping to adopt! If you or someone you know is considering making an adoption plan for their baby, please check out their adoption blog www.waitingwishingpraying.blogspot.com a the link below. And feel free to repost this on your own timeline if you wish to help spread the word!

Thanks in advance for all your help, the few minutes you spend will make all the difference for us.

Sincerely,

Richard and Letty Goering

Unsung Hero: King Helaman's Servant

Helaman 2:6-9

One of my favorite unsung heroes of the Book of Mormon, the Servant of Helaman. This dude seriously rocks. As the first undercover government agent mentioned in the Book of Mormon, we know about his methods only that he is described as 'having been out by night.' While the scripture doesn't specify, he clearly had 'go out by night' more thanto do so more than once in order to infiltrate such as secretive gang unit as the Gadiantons. And somehow he manages to obtain 'through disguise' information about their plans to assassinate Helaman and throw the government into chaos.

After which point the narrative jumps immediately to where he manages to intercept Kishkumen en route to assassinate Helaman with not a moment to spare. He gives him the secret gang sign / password, and Kishkumen confides his plans to murder Helaman. He accomplishes what one might call, in our world, a total James Bond moment of perfect timing. It would be interesting to know if Kishkumen 1) knew Helaman's servant personally before this moment, from his infiltration of the gang, 2) If he knew OF him before this by word of mouth, or if 2) He simply seized upon what he saw as an perfect method to infiltrate the palace, via the King's personal (and obviously trusted and highly placed) servant.

I personally think it is a combination of all three factors - Kishkumen has already successfully sneaked in and out of the palace once before during his previous successful royal assassination, so he clearly has a route. But he's a clever little bugger, so I can definitely see how having an inside man would appeal to him. And maybe they sealed off his old route - but since he was 'on the way' as it were, I doubt he had no plan of entrance. But, having met Helaman's servant and seeing what looked like, for whatever reason, a better way, Kishkumen seizes the opportunity, confides his plans, and asks him to lead the way.

Which leads us to the next event in the severely edited for scripture version we have, verse nine. Somehow, as they are skulking along on the way to murder the King, Helaman's servant manages to turn the tables and stab Kishkumen. First of all, Kishkumen is a seriously bad dude. Think, Jet Li. As a successful assassin and founder of a robber/murderer gang (which has in turn been taken over by the smooth-tongued Gadianton) I doubt he was some pansy rollover type who was easy to knock off. Which again reinforces that Helaman's Servant = James Bond.

The scriptural verse does provide the rather gory details that Kishkumen was stabbed 'to the heart' and that he fell dead 'without a groan.' Now, anyone who's watched any action films knows that it's extremely difficult to kill people with such pinpoint accuracy that they are dead before they can make a sound. If they don't get off a shout of alarm (which Kishkumen apparently didn't) they at least have a death groan or wheeze or rattle - unless the killer is SO pinpoint accurate that they die instantly and silently. Which is hard to do with a knife. With the Vulcan death grip, maybe not. But with a dagger? Probably only James Bond - and Helaman's servant.  Which again reverts to the theory that he was a prototype undercover government agent, because that kind of skill does not get developed scrubbing floors.

After Kishkumen's death, Helaman's servant sprints off to Helaman to report events, and to call in the SWAT team for gang unit roundup. But clever Gadianton has already become alarmed by Kishkumen's late return, and orders the gang to split. It's somewhat reassuring that King Helaman's SWAT team equivalent were not totally incompetent in rounding up criminals, and the scripture notes that Gadianton and Co. left 'by a secret way.'  Gadianton's ability to infiltrate and take over the gang started by Kishkumen (unless it was HIS all along...hmmmm), his operational planning awareness (WHY isn't Kishkumen back yet?!) and his forethought in having a secret route to skip town planned all along all serve to foreshadow why this particular bad guy will prove the downfall of the entire Nephite nation.

Discouragement: A Germ of Its Own

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, For Times of Trouble, as published in "However Long and Hard the Road." (p4)

F. Scott Fitzgerald once said "Trouble has no necessary connection with discouragement, discouragement has a germ of its own...as different from trouble as arthritis is different from a stiff joint."

Elder Holland quotes this famous line from F. Scott Fitzgerald on P.2 and again on P.3, in his talk For Times of Trouble.  He then goes on to expound that discouragement is a nasty, growing, corrosive disease, one that "...takes an increasingly severe toll on our spirit, for it erodes the deepest religious commitments we can make - those of faith, hope, and charity."

I loved Elder Holland's point that when we allow ourselves to become discouraged, we turn our focus inward, and become increasingly self-absorbed. This self-centered focus inhibits our capacity to love and care for others, and decreases our desire to serve others, as well as our ability to love ourselves and our spouses. One of the greatest struggles I hear myself and other women who are dealing with infertility describe is the tendency to overwhelming discouragement. The bone-deep weariness that comes with  yet another doctor's office, yet another procedure, yet another time of waiting. As I read this talk, it was a gentle message from Heavenly Father that even in the midst of undeniable sorrow, discouragement did not necessarily need to follow. And rather than luxuriating in my 'right' to be discouraged, because, well, who wouldn't be, this sucks----instead I needed to go forward with faith, and battle against this 'germ' of discouragement, lest it infect my entire being.

In this talk Elder Holland shares the story of a 67 year old Thomas Edison, who had yet to make any of the inventions for which he is now famous. (And isn't that an lesson on 'retirement!'). Anyway, there was a huge warehouse fire that burned down everything he had, required the fire companies from 8 different towns to control the blaze. Edison's reaction? First, he called his daughter and asked her "Where's your mother? Tell her to go get her friends. They'll never see another fire like this as long as they live."  Just before dawn the next morning he announced plans to re-build, standing in the ashes of everything he had once had.

The moral of the story? Times of trouble can and will come to everyone, but discouragement is not the inevitable companion of trouble. It stems from an entirely different source. Trouble is impossible to avoid, but to allow or disallow discouragement is a choice we make. And when we truly understand this principle, when facing these 'times of trouble' we are empowered to make a different choice than discouragement, and/or depression. We can choose to be happy, to see the good, to recognize that at the very least the fire was impressive. I remember one week in our marriage where an astonishing number of things had gone wrong...when yet another thing exploded in our faces, Richard and I looked at each other and just started laughing, enjoying the disaster, the unlikely coinciding of all of these events in such a short time frame.  Today I don't remember the details of all the things that went wrong, I just remember the laughter. There is a lesson in that, as well, I think.

If Ye are Prepared Ye Shall Not Fear

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, For Times of Trouble, as published in "However Long and Hard the Road." (p3)

"If ye are prepared ye shall not fear." (D&C 38:30). The scriptures teach that preparation - prevention, if you will - is perhaps the major weapon in our arsenal against discouragement and self-defeat. Of course, some things are not under our control. Some disappointments come regardless of our effort and preparation, for God wishes us to be strong as well as good."

This section really resonated with me in my study today, because I seem to be feeling a lot of fear in my life lately.  Richard will be starting a job where he travels 5 days a week and is home for 2 of them. Despite feeling that this is the absolute best thing for our family at this time, and being tremendously grateful for the financial blessings it will bring, (hopefully enabling us to grow our family), I am terrified of the emotional price we might pay. I keep telling myself that we will work through it, that we can always quit if the cost is too high, that modern technology gives us so many mediums for contact that it will hardly seem like he is gone at all. I even tell myself that since he has worked full time while simultaneously completing two different advanced degrees programs for the duration of our married life, I will hardly notice any real reduction of time spent with Richard. But in my heart of hearts, I am still afraid.

This fear comes on top of our continuing struggle with infertility. A struggle that at times, often in unexpected moments, will leave me breathless with pain and fighting to hold back tears. It is a challenge that sometimes fills me with overwhelming fear: That I will never be a mother, that I will never hold a child of my own, that Richard will never have a son or daughter. It is a powerful, deep, paralyzing fear.

In view of my current struggles, scripture and wisdom on how to combat fear are becoming some of my most treasured discoveries.  For some reason the term 'self-defeat' stood out to me in this quote. The idea that not only could trials and troubles and the adversary's best efforts defeat me, I could defeat myself. The preparation Elder Holland is referring to here is both your relationship with God and your habits of holiness in your everyday life. Keeping a regular habit of prayer, scripture study and church attendance fill your lamp with the oil of testimony and faith, so that when the troubling trials arrive, (not IF, but WHEN) they can be faced with courage.

I also I liked Elder Holland's emphasis that even for the prepared, discouragements and trials will still come. I used to be afraid to be a mother, concerned that I might get bored, or not be equal to the task. So I prepared and prepared and prepared, taking classes, reading books, taking notes on parenting styles. And yet this preparation did NOT prepare me for being unable to conceive. That trial still came. But what carries me through it, on the darkest, most fearful, most paralyzing days, is the other preparation I did to be a mother.  My study of the scriptures, my testimony of tithing, the invaluable lesson I learned during 18 mths on a mission. My knowledge of how to plead with my Father in Heaven for more grace, more mercy, more comfort. The precious habits of preparation I gained from  previous trials, which taught me where to go to find a haven, a place of loving kindness, a place where arms are wrapped "unfailing 'round me."


On the hard days and through the hard times, I pin my faith on the concept that "all these things will work together for my good"(Romans 8:28) and that it is not enough to simply be righteous, we must also be strong. Strong enough to face our fears, to take the Lord's hand, and walk the path He has given us to walk. And hope with burning faith that these "tutoring trials" will grant me His image in my countenance (Alma 5:14) , that when he sees me, I will be like him. (Moroni 7:38).