Mighty to Save

A talk I gave last fall. I wasn't sure how I felt about it at the time, but looking back, I like it. It puts into words some of the thoughts that are starting to congeal in my mind and in my heart. I also spoke last Sunday (one of the perks of moving into a new ward). I'll have to post that one when I decide I like it as well. :)

August 2013

As a Primary Presidency we were given the topics of Faith, Hope, and Charity. Mine being Faith - a subject that has weighed pretty consistently on my mind for the past couple of years. Not in an “I’ve lost my faith” kind of way, but more in just feeling like I haven’t really understood it. - and I’ve spent a lot of time simmering the topic around in my mind - trying to figure out “what is faith?” “what does it mean to me?” and “HOW can it bring me peace?”

About a year after Nels finished school at BYU-Idaho, we settled our family in Idaho Falls. He was offered a good job and we bought our first home a short time later. From the get-go it was a challenging job that required a lot of long hours. It was hard, but over time we both came to accept that that was the sacrifice needed at the time. However after a couple of years Nels started looking around for something that would allow him to be present in our everyday family life. After three years of randomly applying for other jobs, Nels was offered a job at Coldwater Creek. I was eight months pregnant with our fifth baby and the timing could not be worse.

As if being a hugely pregnant crazy woman isn’t enough of a challenge, the housing market for sellers was bad, school was starting, the baby would be coming any day, and I really didn’t want to make the wrong choice. As I was incredibly stressed, trying to know what we should do, I asked my dad for a Father’s Blessing while visiting my family one weekend. I was told very clearly that there was no right or wrong choice. We were at a place in our lives where the paths split and there would be blessings and challenges along either road and to remember that the hardest choices also reap the greatest blessings.

We made a true leap of faith and two weeks after Clara was born, we packed up our essentials and were moving to Sandpoint. A lot of things were uncertain, we didn’t even have a place to live yet. I don’t really like change - especially when nearly every single thing in my life changes all at the same time. We found a tiny apartment with our now five girls and I had a long list of things I was really, really hoping were going to happen.

I think for much of my life, I’ve looked at faith as a tool. That if I think pure enough, if I can get rid of any fear, any doubt, and just channel enough belief and hope into what I want to have happen, then it will. Because Heavenly Father loves me and I had enough “faith”. My brother Jake described it as “faithing your way through life.”

The problem with this method is that it’s bound to eventually fail. We do question, and I imagine most of us can testify that no amount of wishful thinking can make our lives smooth sailing - no matter how good our desires. 

The house didn’t sell the way we were hoping, my post-baby hormones were going haywire, I was lonely for my friends and my family, and within two months of moving the sun was setting at (what felt like) 2:00 in the afternoon. Looking back, I can now see that I dealt with some mild depression and frustrating, sleep-depriving anxiety. It felt like someone had put my idea of my life in a blender and I was starting over from scratch. We had thought that we were moving forward with this job and instead it felt like we were only further behind. It was a jumping off point for me to reevaluate a lot of things.

Many of my naive views have been challenged over the last couple of years and I’ve slowly had to redefine what faith means to me. I’m so thankful that Heavenly Father knows me so well and can teach me so gently.

I’ve learned that FAITH (alone) is not the first principle of the gospel -- it’s “faith . . . in the Lord Jesus Christ.” I think that perhaps when challenges have come in my life, I’ve focused too much on the mountains that I want to have moved and less on Christ. In the Book of Mormon, Alma teaches that faith is a “hope for things which are not seen, which are true.” Sometimes I forget about the part that’s True. I get so caught up in my own plan that it’s all I see.

In the April General Conference, Elder Holland gave a talk on belief and faith that touched me deeply. He shares the account in the New Testament of a father bringing his afflicted child to Jesus and asking him to please help them. When Christ tells him, “If thou canst believe, all things are possible.” the father quickly answers, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” Elder Holland counsels:

"In moments of fear or doubt or troubling times, hold the ground you have already won, even if that ground is limited. In the growth we all have to experience in mortality, the spiritual equivalent of this boy’s affliction or this parent’s desperation is going to come to all of us. When those moments come and issues surface, the resolution of which is not immediately forthcoming, hold fast to what you already know and stand strong until additional knowledge comes."

So what is true? What do I already know? What are some of the things that I’ve already won?

I know that my Heavenly Father loves me. I feel it in the sunshine, in the joy that comes from being alive. I can feel it in His tender mercies.

Last Sunday, with family visiting, I really wanted to attend Sunday School and Relief Society with them. I talked to Karen (pres.) and she graciously covered for me in Primary. We’d had a busy weekend, we were all tired, and obviously getting six heads of hair ready for church on Sunday morning is not my forte anyway. I was stressed, we missed the sacrament, and all I really wanted was to feel the Spirit -- a difficult thing to do with children talking to cousins and climbing all over me. Sitting next to my mom and sister Wendie as Relief Society started, I prayed, “Please just let me feel peace. Please let me feel the Spirit.” A moment later the thought came, “You should go to Primary.” I was so bothered! No. I want to stay here. Karen said it was okay. I can stay in Relief Society. But the feeling would NOT go away. Finally, about halfway through the lesson, I hadn’t heard anything that was being taught because I just kept having this annoying internal dialogue, so I quickly exited. Fine! I’ll just go!

As I walked into the primary room the children were singing A Child’s Prayer. “Heavenly Father, are you really there? and do you hear and answer every child’s prayer?” It was beautiful and immediately the Spirit that I’d been seeking all morning washed over me. I couldn’t help but recall numerous times I’ve had similar experiences. I am so dumb and so stubborn, but even with my silliness, I know my Heavenly Father really, really loves me.

I also know that Christ’s Atonement is real. I don’t know how it works but somehow, someway all of the experiences in this life, through Christ, can shape us into the people that we want to be. The people that we CAME here to be.

That is a miracle.

I think the answer to my questions of “what does faith mean to me and how does it bring me peace?” is truly believing that no matter what life brings - whether by my own choices or the choices of others or by life just being life - I can become like my Savior. I don’t know how it happens, but I know that it can.

Elder Holland’s advice to “hold the ground [we’ve] already won” reminds me of one of my favorite scriptures. 2 Ne 31:19-20 says:

“ . . . for ye have not come thus far save it were by the word of Christ with unshaken faith in him, relying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save.
"Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ having a perfect brightness of hope and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life.”

I have a testimony of the Savior and of our Heavenly Father’s perfect plan. There are a lot of things that I don’t know and that I don’t understand but as I’ve chosen to put my faith in Christ, I have seen miracles in my life and I’ve found peace. He really is “mighty to save” and I have felt that my very imperfect efforts are enough.