Trusting

I guess I knew that a trial was on it's way. Several months ago I was feeling very happy and content with my life. It had been about 5 months since I'd had anything remotely "hard" in my life, and I guess my Spirit just knew it was time to grow again. Samuel was released from the Young Men's Presidency, and given a simple teaching job. So I figured it was time for me to finally have a calling, even though I still had a baby. I didn't have a calling the entire time we were in Vegas, and I thanked the Lord regularly for that, because I didn't really think I could take on one more thing. But the calling never came, and I slipped back into my easy happiness.

But one Sunday afternoon, I was taught a spiritual lesson that I will never forget. Annaliese had taken a major spill out of the bumbo seat, which I had placed on a kitchen chair. She'd gone face-first into the ceramic tile, and landed right on her mouth and nose, and a little bit of blood was trickling out of both nostrils. She screamed like I'd never heard her scream before. I threw Kalia in her crib (literally?) because she was whining and crying and making things very difficult. Then I called a 24 hour nurse hotline, who told me what to watch for, in case I needed to take her in to a doctor.

I spent the next 30 minutes trying to calm her down. The loud screaming quieted down into a sad, painful cry. I tried to feed her, but she wouldn't have it. I knew she was already really tired anyway, so I took her into the dark quiet room and rocked and bounced.

It seemed like I could hear her thoughts, wondering why in the world she was hurting so much, and not knowing when it was going to go away. I knew it probably didn't seem fair to her, there she was just sitting there, innocent as can be, and then all of a sudden WHAM! Major hurting going on.

I was so overcome with love for her. Watching her cry and suffer like that was almost unbearable. So I tried to talk to her, just in case she could understand me. I told her that I knew how much she was hurting. I told her I would take her pain in an instant if I could. I told her that this pain was a part of life, and that she would experience opposition throughout her life, and that it would help her know and understand the good and the sweet. I told her how much I loved her, and since I had a broader perspective of what happened, I asked her to trust me. I knew that the pain would be gone very shortly, and if she could just TRUST me, and be comforted, that it would all be over soon. I just told her over and over: Just trust me! Trust me! Trust me! Tears were rolling down my face.

Then I sang some primary songs to her. She would quiet down when I sang I Am a Child of God. If I tried to sing any other song, she'd start to whimper again, so I'd just go back to that song. Once again I realized how precious her little Spirit is, and that she must really know that she is a child of God.

As she was finally quieting down, I had an overwhelming lesson come over me. I realized that our Heavenly Father and the Savior are very aware of what is going on in our lives. They know that often....it hurts. It hurts like heck. And often we didn't do anything to bring that situation on ourselves. And we don't know how long it's going to hurt, and we don't know how it's going to get better. But they loves us SO MUCH. They would take away the pain if they could, but we have to experience these things if we're going to grow. But in the eternal perspective of things, that pain is just a blip in time. It will be over soon, and we will have learned from it. So in the meantime...we just have to TRUST HIM. All will be well. We will be better people because of it. At that time I had the impression that I would need to remember this in the future, for my own reasons.

And now here we are. I know that our last trial (with Annaliese being sick and crying for 2 months straight) was very very difficult. I got a little bitter and did NOT do a very good job of trusting then. But it all worked out and the answers came. So I learned a little about trusting then too. I'm going to do a better job trusting this time.

"Things will work out. They always do." That's my favorite quote from President Hinckley.

I don't know how long we'll be in this mess, or how we're going to make ends meet. But things will work out. They always do.