HOW STRONG IS YOUR FAITH?

November 7th, 2011 I had just sent a couple of my boys off to school and chose to lay back down in bed and be lazy for just a little longer before getting the rest of the boys ready for school.  Around 7:30 a.m. I got a phone call from my sister telling me that my dad had a cardiac arrest and all I really remember feeling is that we had lost him - that he was gone.  They had taken him to the hospital and we were all meeting over at the hospital.

I couldn’t leave my house without showering so I hurried and showered and found myself walking around the house saying I just need to have perfect faith.  If I have perfect faith then somehow my dad will make it.  We raced to the hospital and when we all got there we found that they had finally gotten my dad breathing and had started the process of freezing him to stop the damage.  

There are a ton of details to this experience, but a few days into the process I was driving to the hospital to spend another long and emotional day at the hospital.  I had the words come to me clearly that I didn’t need to have perfect faith, it was alright to feel nervous, scared, emotional and worried, but to have faith, do all I could and the Lord would take care of the rest.  That the atonement applies in all of our lives in many different ways.  We don’t have to be perfect, that’s not what this life is all about.

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I had the words come to me clearly that I didn’t need to have perfect faith, it was alright to feel nervous, scared, emotional and worried, but to have faith, do all I could and the Lord would take care of the rest.

We witnessed many miracles and on November 30th my dad returned home.  There wasn’t anyone that thought he would return home by November 30th, the damage to his brain was significant. 

We were in St. George for a baseball tournament this weekend and Tanner took his favorite baseball hat.  On Saturday morning Tanner realized that he hadn’t seen it and couldn’t find it.  We searched the hotel room before leaving and searched the van as much as we could.  Before we left the baseball field to return home we tore apart pretty much everything.  This was a hat we had gotten from another tournament earlier in the year and so we even looked into purchasing a new hat for him, but they were sold out of that specific hat.  On the way home we stopped by each spot that we had stopped on our way to St. George hoping that we could be able to find his hat.  

Internally I was sad and wondered if we would be able to find his hat.  In a way I was losing hope that we would find it, but I was trying to be optimistic, have faith and give him some hope that somehow things would work out.  There was a point at one of our stops and Tanner was frustrated and said we are not going to find my hat.  I smiled and said I had faith that we would find it.  After all of the stops we didn’t find his hat so we headed home.

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We searched the house, unloaded everything and checked all of the luggage and went to bed feeling there really wasn’t anywhere else to look.  Deep down I had faith that it would turn up.  Tanner was irritated and as he went to bed I said to him, “Let’s not give up hope.  We will find it.”  In his frustration as he headed to bed he said, “No mom.  It’s gone.  We won’t find it.”
I woke up this morning thinking about it and told Rick that I just felt we were going to find it.  I had faith.  Not perfect faith, but just felt that we would.  As Tanner got ready for church he came in our room smiling big and holding HIS HAT!!!  Of course I had to remind him what I said last night, but we laughed together and we were all excited that his hat was found.  He had unpacked his suitcase and the hat was scrunched up in one of his pieces of clothing, which is crazy, because he takes very good care of his hats.

As I’ve pondered these different experiences I’ve thought a lot about faith and timing and the things we have the opportunity to learn from our life experiences.  Life’s not about having things go perfectly.  In fact, quite often things don’t go as planned at all.  Sometimes things get really hard and we grow weary.  We give up hope.  We find ourselves thinking we know how things are going to turn out.

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With my dad the doctor would come in and tell us often that he had significant damage and he wouldn’t be healed.  He would tell us that if he made it he would be a vegetable.  The scans showed the damage and my dad couldn’t communicate with us.  He couldn’t walk for awhile.  The facts as we know them here on earth definitely painted a grim picture.  Just like with Tanner’s hat that meant alot to him.  We had searched, the facts were showing that the hat was gone. 

Over this last year as I’ve gone through counseling and faced extremely difficult experiences and times on this journey I’ve struggled to want to keep moving forward.  There have been days I’ve given up faith.  I’ve listed all of the facts, the reasons things wouldn’t work out.  Then through priesthood blessings, power of prayer, important people in my life have come through, digging down deep and recognizing my inner strength and at times telling myself to take one more step I’ve moved forward - sometimes still hurting deeply, but moving forward.  

As I’ve moved forward, sometimes gingerly and feeling like I needed a sign that said handle with care, I’ve been blessed over and over with strength and growth and miracles and healing.  Little by little, step by step, we can all find blessings and find that things turn out much greater than we could ever dream.

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