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.

Leaving Sodom

I've been thinking a lot about Lot and his family.  As it states in Genesis 13:12 ";...Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom."  As we know it did not turn out well for Lot's family in Sodom.  In contrast the people of King Benjamin "...pitched their tents round about the temple, every man having his tent with the door thereof towards the temple..." (Mosiah 2:6)  King Benjamin's people took upon them the name of Christ and were fully converted to the ways of God.

All too often we walk away from our Sunday School classes securely believing that our "tent door" is pointed towards the temple.  I know I have.  For years, I thought my tent door was pointed towards the temple and the Gospel of our Lord and Savior.  I also believe that most people that know me would walk into my house and believe that my tent door, the focus of my home, was pointed near the temple.  However what went unnoticed for years even by myself was the huge picture window pointed towards "Sodom".

Let me back-track a little bit to explain.  I have an auto-immune disease.  Please don't ask me what specific one I have, nobody seems to know and really it doesn't matter.  I have been dealing with it for about 20 years now.  This causes me periods of joint inflammation and pain (think hammer smashing a joint level of pain).  It has also caused some hormone issues and I believe my infertility problems.  Lately, I have also been dealing with excessive fatigue, depression, and anxiety which is fairly common with those dealing with chronic pain.

So what does this have to do with my picture window towards Sodom?  I promise, I'm getting to it.  In the last few years, I have noticed that a lot of my symptoms are increased or worsened by different foods.  You would think that any semi-intelligent person would just say, "hey this food is not good for me, I will stop eating it" and then just do that.  But for me it hasn't been that easy.  It has caused me to admit that I am an addict.  I am a food addict.  I'm not talking about the I-really-love-chocolate-so-I-always-say-I'm-a-chocoholic.  I'm talking about I-can-feel-the-food-making-me-sicker-and-sicker-and-I-still-can't-stop-shoveling-it-in-my-face-addict.

I went to see a well known and respected naturopathic doctor who specializes in chronic pain conditions and he gave me a list of foods I needed to avoid for at least 6 months and then he uttered the words, "no cheating".  I went home and cried because I knew I would fail. Instant panic and anxiety right there.  I would shop for foods in my new plan and cry as soon as I got done shopping because I couldn't bring any of my comforting food friends home.

If you are still reading this and still wondering what this has anything to do with that picture window towards Sodom.  I'm coming to it right now.  King Benjamin tells us that the natural man is an enemy to God and unless I yield to the enticings of the Holy Spirit using the atonement to root out the natural man, than I am longing after Sodom.  My food addiction is my Sodom.  Food has always been there for me, it has helped me bond with others including my family, but it is also keeping me from being healthy and feeling the ultimate joy the atonement brings.

I now can relate to Lot's wife.  She did more than just look back at her home being destroyed, she longed to be back in Sodom, but may I remind you that as a woman, her whole identity especially in that day and age was her children and her home (I'm not sure much has really changed about that).  She had a lovely comfortable home in Sodom.  We know she left behind two married daughters who with their husbands refused to come.  It is reasonable to think that if she had married daughters, she also had grandchildren; whom I'm guessing she loved and took great joy in.  What pains she must have felt, but she was not willing to leave behind her natural man/woman to follow the Lord.

It is time for me to close up my window towards Sodom, to flee the natural man and not look back.

PS One of the other ways the Spirit has told me to leave Sodom is to come out from hiding and let others get to know the real me...thus the blog.  Join me as I work through the ups and downs of life.