Why it didn’t just go away

I ran from the car to the front door with my arms full of slipping blankets and jackets, a bag of prescriptions, a baby on my hip and my four year old trailing behind. “I’m gunna pee my pants. I’m gunna pee my pants.” WHERE ARE MY KEYS?!

In we go. run run run!

I had a uti this morning and once I got in the bathroom I didn’t want to come out.  Know the feeling?

Today I’m feeling grateful for good health. And medicine and doctors and cars and available doctor’s appointments.

I know this is such a small thing, but sometimes it’s nice to have these little experiences to remind me that I am so blessed and life is going well and we are so fortunate to have our good health when so many do not.

This morning when the symptoms were in the minor stages and I really hoped I could just flush everything away with water and not have to pack up my kids and go to the doctor and pay all that money and then go to the pharmacy—all the while going crazy because I was feeling so uncomfortable–I asked Ava if she would say the prayer on our breakfast and bless me too that I might feel better.

She did, and I was hopeful, for 30 minutes or so.

And then I started feeling worse.  It quickly progressed and knowing how this goes I wasted no time making a doctor’s appointment, and then rush rush rush out the door to make it in time.

Ava seemed a little confused when I told her we were going to the doctor so I could feel better. Every time we prayed to find the remote or my keys or her toy, we would find it.  Why didn’t this prayer work?

These are times when I am grateful for faith. Faith reassures us that when we pray to God, He listens and He cares. And then He answers them in His own way, in His own timing, all for our greater good.

But why did I have to go to the doctor and spend that time and money and discomfort when He could just make it go away?

Why is life so hard?

I know I would be a far more lazy, entitled, unsympathetic person if life was easy and my prayers were always answered the way I wanted them too. I wouldn’t learn patience and humility and I certainly wouldn’t have much compassion for others in trying circumstances. I wouldn’t know how to really love. I wouldn’t learn how to endure, to commit. I would throw my hands up and jump ship if things didn’t go my way. I would be self obsessed and anything but enjoyable to be around. And I know for certain that motherhood would be pretty much impossible.

Regardless of circumstances, I trust God because I have learned time and time again that He knows what He’s doing. Things always turn out better when I let Him work things out and I let go. And wow, I’m really glad He didn’t answer this prayer or that one the way I wanted because things would have been a whole lot different if we got that job and ended up there, or bought that house that went upside down.  Many times the things we wish with our whole hearts, the really good things, don’t work out like we hoped and prayed and prayed that they would. I don’t mean to trivialize the really hard things–the traumatic, heart breaking, real test of endurance kinds of experiences, those often require lengthy time for grief or understanding. Sometimes understanding doesn’t ever come in this life. But faith can still be there, and it will always lift us up when we are ready.

So I am grateful that we have a God who understands life a lot better than we do, who knows what will ultimately bring us growth and happiness–what will ultimately bring us back to Him.

We are often reminded in the scriptures that “all these things shall give thee experience and shall be for thy good.”  And then the comforting, faith inspiring promise, “Therefore, hold on thy way…for God shall be with you forever and ever.”

I love this comforting reassurance Linda Reeves gave in General Conference last year–  She reminded us from the scriptures that “this life is the time to prepare to meet God,” not the time to receive all our blessings. She said, “I do not know why we have the many trials that we have, but it is my personal feeling that the reward is so great, so eternal and everlasting, so joyful and beyond our understanding that in that day of reward, we may feel to say to our merciful, loving Father, ‘Was that all that was required?’ What will it matter, dear sisters, what we suffered here if, in the end, those trials are the very things which qualify us for eternal life and exaltation in the kingdom of God with our Father and Savior?”

I believe that’s true.

So while we drove to the doctor I told Ava that I know that Heavenly Father heard our prayer. He wants me to get better too, but sometimes getting better right away isn’t always the best thing for us.  Sometimes we need to experience hard or uncomfortable things so that we can become better and stronger than we were before, so that we can help other people, and so we can become who we need to be to return to our heavenly home. And that makes it all worth it.

I don’t know that she really understood, but someday she will, I hope she will. My faith has carried me through my trials and I know it will for her too. #mamanotes

(We played on the frozen lake up here in North Dakota.  Winter’s quite fun this way.)

You can find the talks I quoted here:

“Worthy of Our Promised Blessings,” by Linda S. Reeves

“Living the Gospel Joyful,” by Dieter F. Uctdorf