Trusting the Lord

Trust is a very tricky thing.  We expect people to let us down.  It is disappointing. They lose our trust; but somehow, we move on, learn to forgive, and maybe, just maybe, the person can earn our trust once again.  But what happens when the being who is incapable of lying lets us down?

In my last blog post (found here), I talked about my brief history with infertility and adoption.  My Patriarchal Blessing promised I would be a mother in Zion and have a large posterity. But here I am in my 40's, childless. (Now before you all start writing me about how Patriarchal Blessings are eternal blessings and not just for the here and now; let me state very clearly, I KNOW.)  While I don't feel unfulfilled as mother, you know and I know, it is not the same.  I hold "my children" and know they are mine for a short fleeting moment.  It is not the same as holding your child and knowing they are yours for the eternities; connected legally, physically, and sealed to you for the eternities.  I love who I am as a mother. I have a different connection with "my kids" than their mothers, I see things their mothers can't see, and I nurture them in ways they cannot.  Please don't read this post as some whiny, 'poor me' post.  It is not. OK? Side bar over.

So I have been promised this blessing of children, and yet my life is here where it is with promises so far into the future. I cannot see them.  The being who cannot lie, lied. Or at least on some level that is how I took it.  I don't even think that I had consciously realized that I didn't trust the Lord.  I just didn't.  I figured I was on my own with this life.  I clearly had not worked out the way I thought the blessing had laid out my life, so what was there to trust?  Which is most interesting because as a youth and young adult, if I felt the Lord had directed me somewhere, I went with gusto, jumping into any situation with both feet.  So, now at 40, I had lost that trust and confidence in the direction the Lord commanded me.

It wasn't until several weeks ago that I even came to the realization that I didn't trust the Lord.  I was talking to one of my "sons" about what we should I should teach at the next young single adult meeting that Monday.  He eagerly announced that I should teach about trusting the Lord.  All of a sudden, my eyes filled with tears as I realized that anything I had to say about it wouldn't be truly from me.  I didn't know about this topic enough to give an effective lesson about it. I was in shock.  I suddenly realized the truth, I did NOT trust the Lord.  What do I do?

Christ wiped the mud from my eyes, healing my blindness.

After our conversation ended, I immediately went to my bedroom knelt in prayer asking for Heavenly Father's forgiveness and asked him to direct me in why I didn't trust Him.  How could I, a faithful daughter of God, not trust the Lord?  The Lord directed me to read my Patriarchal Blessing which I had not in probably a year. So I went to where I always kept it, but it wasn't there.  After a frantic search throughout my house, I found it about 2 feet away from where I usually have it. (Blessing in disguise, by bed-side table got a thorough cleaning.)  As I read it, every instance that spoke of motherhood would bring great emotion and it clicked, this is where my trust in the Lord took a wrong turn.  It was as if Christ had wiped the mud from my eyes restoring my sight.

Interestingly, through out this whole realization the Lord kept whispering to me, "Look at how faithful you have been even though you have not trusted me."  Boy is it a good thing the week before this, he taught me that faithful does not equal perfect as I wrote about here.  Otherwise I might have thought he was lying to me again.  It was an interesting thought that I have been faithful, but I didn't trust the Lord.  I wasn't sure how those two thing could really exist together, but there it was.  Somehow they did in me.  So here I am faithful daughter of God with a huge trust issue.  What now?

Remembering Alma's great lecture on faith (Alma 32), he tells the people that if they no more than desire to believe their faith will grow.  Well, I had a desire to trust him, and that seed could be planted and grow.  So I prayed to have the Lord help me plant that desire deep in my heart. I prayed that it would grow until it was a full strong oak of trust, never to be blown or bent by the winds of doubt again.

I wish I could tell you that my tree of trust looks like the one above, but sadly no.  It will take some time, but I can tell you that the seed of trust has begun to take root.  It looks more like the one below, but the seed and tree are in His hands, and so it will grow to the mighty strong oak of trust and complete devotion to His timing and His way.  There is hope, and with that hope their is great growth.