Looking back and looking inward

This is not an announcement at all. We are still waiting for the time to feel right to get pregnant. But I do feel that this trial is getting closer to being over and so recently I have been thinking about the ways that I have grown and changed during the time of this experience. The Relief Society lesson today was on the 120, 121 and 122 sections of the doctrine and covenants and was about trials. So naturally I started to think of the trials that I am experiencing right now. I had so many thoughts during the lesson but one of them stuck out to me and I felt like I should share it during the lesson and also on this blog plus some I did not have time to say (and I did not talk specifically about the trial either). And this is it:

If I were given the opportunity to change the past and have our first baby due August of 2007 I would not even consider it. I would never EVER want to give up this experience because through it I have grown so much closer to my Heavenly Father and my testimony has grown so much. I would never give the dark times of this trial for an easy out because it is during those times that I have felt the Lord by me in ways that I have never felt in any other situation and at any other time. My most sacred and spiritual experiences have been during the times of extreme emotional pain when I cried out to my Savior for help and I was overcome by peace. It has not been easy but that is why I am so thankful for this experience. I feel that I have grown in ways during this trial that I would not have been able to do in any other situation. I would never trade those amazing and special experiences of feeling the Savior so close and knowing he cares so much about me for a baby at the wrong time. I have learned so much about myself and about my relationship with my Savior and I can see the divine point of trials in our life. I have looked back at the little immature 20 year old that was pregnant with her first baby and I can see that how this trial really has made me such a more grounded person. When I was first pregnant, I wanted a baby because it sounded fun and basically wanted a play doll. Now I want OUR children at the right time so that I can help them mature into the servants of God they are meant to be. It has not been an easy path, but through it all I can see the wisdom of a loving Heavenly Father in allowing me to go through this trial. I have come to be so much more grateful for every blessing in our lives because I know that everything is given to us at the perfect time by a perfect God. I can see now how this trial will help me be a better mom for our special children, just as I was told in a blessing. I have learned so much and grown so much and now feel more ready to be the mother for my children like my mom was for me. And it is through this experience that I have felt the love and concern and care of my Savior for me in the most tangible way. Why would I give all this up for something before it is the right time and something that will come, but at the perfect time? I feel that this experience has made my life real and made me more of a substantial and real person. Everyone has those times where after an experience they come out a more real and whole person and this is mine. I was so used to having the perfect life where nothing went wrong before this experience. I had a very strong and loving family who all are strong in the gospel and my best friends. My parents have the most amazing marriage relationship still after 25 years. I was given everything I always wanted and needed as a child. I lived in amazing paradise like places (Laguna Beach, California). I always had supportive and caring friends. I always had a very strong testimony of the Savior. I meet my husband when I was barely 18 years old and was able to see that he is the most amazing person in the world and then get married at 19 after an perfect and problem free courtship. I am now more in love with my husband after almost 3 1/2 years and I have more fun with him than any other person in the world. I have been given almost 3 1/2 years of perfect time to enjoy my husband. I could go on and on. My life has been so amazingly blessed and ultimately perfect And it is through this experience that I have had my testimony and view of life tried. But it is through this experience that my testimony and view of life is a million times more strong and real. Why would I give up having my testimony strengthened and made more real for something before it is the right time and something that will come, but at the perfect time? The fact is, I wouldnt. I do not look back and think "if I could change this experience I would". I look back and see how much more of a person I have become through this, and this is only because of a loving nad all knowing Heavenly Father. Like I have said before, it has not been an easy process and some of my more tragic and horrible experiences of my life have been during this trial (like all 3 times of finding out that our prescious baby had stopped growing and the excurrtiating pain that comes a long with 3 natural miscarriages for starters). But the scripture that talks about how trials are furances to make you a more purified and stronger person is so real to me now. I have felt this and I have felt the amazing strength that comes when you go to the Lord in desperation during those dark times. The strength that I have through all of this is ONLY because of my loving and merciful savior.

So it is on this easter Sunday that I want to share my knowledge of a loving Savior and the truth that if it wasn't for this knowledge in my Savior I would not be in the place that I am. And I mean this specifically in regards to this trial. I would be a wreck of emotional pain constantly without a glimmer of hope. But it is only because of my Savior that I have hope and faith that he will make this trial be for my good (D&C 122:7) and make all things right in the end. It is only because of my Savior that I am as happy as I am and as peaceful as I am during this trial. And it is only because of my Savior's help and love that I know this trial is supposed to happen and will make me a better person. I know without a shadow of a doubt that my Savior and Heavenly Father love me unconditionally and that they are watching out for me. I know without a shadow of a doubt that my Savior lives. This easter takes on an even more personal note because I know that there is someone that I can go to when I feel a lone because no one I know personally has gone through the same thing I have and feel like no one really understands. It is because of the atonement that I know that I am not alone and I can turn to someone who knows my situation and has felt the feelings I have felt. Because of this experience my gratitude for the atonement, the reason for our Easter holiday, is so much more personal and so much stronger. My gratitude for a loving Savior is more than I can express and more than I can put to words. It consumes my soul and every time I think of my Savior I am full of a love that I cannot express.

Today in sacrament meeting one of the speakers read a quote that I have to share. It is an amazing quote and makes my gratitude on this season of Easter so much more.

"I think of how dark that Friday was when Christ was lifted up on the cross.

On that terrible Friday the earth shook and grew dark. Frightful storms lashed at the earth.

Those evil men who sought His life rejoiced. Now that Jesus was no more, surely those who followed Him would disperse. On that day they stood triumphant.

On that day the veil of the temple was rent in twain.

Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of Jesus, were both overcome with grief and despair. The superb man they had loved and honored hung lifeless upon the cross.

On that Friday the Apostles were devastated. Jesus, their Savior—the man who had walked on water and raised the dead—was Himself at the mercy of wicked men. They watched helplessly as He was overcome by His enemies.

On that Friday the Savior of mankind was humiliated and bruised, abused and reviled.

It was a Friday filled with devastating, consuming sorrow that gnawed at the souls of those who loved and honored the Son of God.

I think that of all the days since the beginning of this world’s history, that Friday was the darkest.

But the doom of that day did not endure.

The despair did not linger because on Sunday, the resurrected Lord burst the bonds of death. He ascended from the grave and appeared gloriously triumphant as the Savior of all mankind.

And in an instant the eyes that had been filled with ever-flowing tears dried. The lips that had whispered prayers of distress and grief now filled the air with wondrous praise, for Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God, stood before them as the firstfruits of the Resurrection, the proof that death is merely the beginning of a new and wondrous existence.

Each of us will have our own Fridays—those days when the universe itself seems shattered and the shards of our world lie littered about us in pieces. We all will experience those broken times when it seems we can never be put together again. We will all have our Fridays.

But I testify to you in the name of the One who conquered death—Sunday will come. In the darkness of our sorrow, Sunday will come.

No matter our desperation, no matter our grief, Sunday will come. In this life or the next, Sunday will come."

--Joseph B. Wirthlin "Sunday Will Come"

All of us, in our own personal ways have felt or will feel a "Friday" in our lives. In the wisdom and knowledge of a loving God, we are given these times to make us more humble, more reliant on him, more grateful for the "Sundays" and so many more things. Each of us are supposed to learn and grow in different ways, but we will all be given trials of our own. But, we have an amazing command and promise given to us to help us during our "Fridays" D&C 24:8 "Be patient in afflictions, for thou shalt have many; but endure them, for, lo, I am with thee, even unto the end of thy days". We are commanded to be patient but given the blessing that he will be with us during every moment of our afflictions. What a wonderful blessing. So while we endure our "Fridays" and the darkness seems to stretch on and on, know that our glorious and joy-filled "Sunday" will come. It is during my moments of dispair and "Friday" moments that the personal promises of my "Sunday" make it worth going strong.

I am so thankful for my Savior and all of the wonderful and amazing peace He has blessed me with during the hard times of this trial and during the times he has given me strength. I am truly grateful for the companionship He has been and is to me.

My heart is so full on this Easter Sunday and I know that my Savior lives.