I DON’T KNOW, PART 2
"Everyone says that Christ knows exactly what I'm going through. How is that supposed to help me?"
That, was the tear-jerking question I posed to my mother just a few nights ago. However, the build up to this question has been gaining momentum for months on end.
Since I was a teenager, I've always felt like someone who was in-tune with the Spirit. I felt confident in the moments I heard it's whispers. I knew when my Savior was trying to relay a message to me through that third member of the Godhead. I appreciated it immensely when He expressed His love, guidance, comfort, and peace.
I knew what those sensations felt like. Until I didn't.
Months ago, I received what I believed to be an answer from God. A question that had been poking and prodding at my soul for years had finally received its resolution. And I could not have been more thrilled.
Until, the prompting turned out to be wrong. Then, the ground fell out from under me.
Now, I knew this was not a particularly unusual occurrence. Sometimes the Lord asks things of us that seem to have no point, or guides us towards paths that don't feel as if they have any closure. Sometimes the reasons behind actions don't come until the next life.
I knew that. But it didn't matter. It didn't matter that an incident like this had happened to me times before. This time was different. This time, it had me questioning everything.
Had I ever felt the Spirit?
Did I even know what the voice of the Holy Ghost sounded like?
Was my Savior ever really talking to me?
Was there even really a Savior? A Hevaenly Father? A point to all of this?
What had I done wrong?
Had my "right" answers before, actually been wrong ones?
These questions plagued me for weeks on end, causing me to wane and wander. All the while, I felt weak, helpless, alone, heartbroken, betrayed, confused, and disappointing.
I felt disappointing to my Savior and my Heavenly Father. Because I didn't know if I believed anymore.
I have never had a testimony more of the callings we are given in church, or the fact that they are truly guided by the Lord. There were many Sundays over the course of this trial where the only reason I went was because of those sweet kids calling my name, giving me a hug, sneezing in my face, and distracting me for that one hour.
Because church became hard. It became really, really hard. It felt uncomfortable to go, to sit and listen to messages that I was struggling to have faith in. Testimonies that spoke of a Savior who loved us, who wanted what was best for us, when all I felt was abandoned.
Abandoned by the Spirit. Abandoned by my Savior. Abandoned by my Father in Heaven.
I managed to scrape and scrimp by, holding fast to the tattered ends of my testimony by my fingernails. Sometimes the pain of what happened was easy to ignore. But no matter what I did, something would set of the face of the memory, forcing me to retrace my steps to my Savior again, and again, and again.
In the Spring, things came to a head once more: I got another prompting.
A prompting I tried desperatley to ignore, because how could it be from the Spirit? I didn't know how the Spirit spoke to me. I was truly and utterly convinced that all the times I'd felt my Savior revealing things to me had all been made up in my mind.
And the last time I felt to do something this out there? This uncomfortable? This stretching? It had blown up right in my face. I was not going to do it agian.
Until, a faint voice in my head whispered something like this, "Do you have the faith to do it?"
I didn't. But I tried. I stepped out of my comfort zone.
And nothing changed. No flash of light. No sudden understanding. No extra knowledge. No reasons for all the pain and hurt. No clarity in my relationship with the Spirit.
Nothing. Just me, feeling like a fool, once more.
Which brings us to the question I posed at the beginning. "How does knowing the Savior suffered what I have suffered help me?"
Because right now, I can't feel Him. I can't feel His love. I can't see His hand. I truly feel I have been left behind to figure it out on my own.
And that is terrifying. And painful. And it makes you question if that's really love.
My mother, of course, had wonderful answers to this question. Everyday, I feel worse and worse that she was stuck with me and all of my worries. I only hope that one day, I can be half the mother she is. I doubt I will ever get that close.
However, I think the real answer to my question came before I could even pose it.
This past Sunday, I barely made it to church. It was real touch and go there for a while, and even the promise of my smiling chidlren almost didn't sway me.
Because I didn't see the point. I didn't feel my Savior's love. I didn't know if any of this was real anymore. I didn't understand why I had to suffer this way. I was tired of hearing the miraculous stories of others' prayers being answered, when my pleas for relief seemed to go unheard and ignored.
But they weren't. And my answers were given, in the eyes of a child.
Sitting in the three and four-year-old row at church, (my absolute favorite place to be) I felt the love of my Savior. With one child holding my hand, one strewn across my lap and playing with toys, and one informing me that their they called their father, "Chicken Daddy", I knew my Savior's love was real.
Gazing into those sweet, little faces, I knew my Savior loved them. I knew He had suffered for them. I knew that He cared for them, that He had a plan for them. They were in His watchful care, they were carried in His heart, and they were so, so loved.
And so am I. Because if I believed it for them, I had to believe it for myself, too.
There are a lot of things I still don't know. I don't know if those bits of inspiration were really that, or my own musings that have caused me far too much heartache. I don't know why this trial has been sent my way. I don't know why, in my weakest moment, the heavens feel silent.
There is a lot I don't know. But what I do know is, my Savior loves me. He is aware of me. He has a plan for me. He will make it all right, He will make it all clear. I will feel the love He freely gives for me once more.
Because, as my mother said, "This won't last forever."
1 Nephi 11:17
"And I said unto him: I know that he loves his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things."
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