Believing Heart

Sometimes my heart still aches when I think that I'm not going to get a new baby to fill our home in a couple months. My younger sister is pregnant. Our little boys are only about a month apart, and the one she is pregnant with was only going to be about a week and half younger than mine, before I miscarried. One night while I was visiting I watched our little boys play together and it was SO cute. I kept wishing our next kids would have been like that. That night I cried.

I still get those moments when attention is given to someone pregnant and I feel neglected. Or I read a blog of a friend who is pregnant talking about her thoughts and I just wish I could be saying and feeling the same thing, but instead I feel a sense of loneliness. Other times it is overhearing people talking about how crazy or hard it is to have kids so close in age, but my hope is that mine were. And there are those that do it and talk about their experiences and I want to be like them. They are admirable to me. I wonder, am I not strong enough to handle it?

If it was up to me, I would be having a baby in September, and it hurts that I am not... but at the same time, I am so glad it's not up to me. Sometimes I do wish I knew why it wasn't right at that time, but as I was reading a talk recently some othings stuck out to me that I could relate to my experience. It is titled Is Yours a Believing Heart by Bruce C. Hafen in 1974.

It mentions the way Christ entered this world. He could have born under amazing circumstances that people would know he was the Son of God, instead of being born in a lowly stable. He says, "It was all part of a plan carefully and deliberately designed not to compel belief. Further indications of the deliberateness of that plan appear throughout the accounts of the Savior's life. Frequently he told those who were blessed by a miracle that they "should tell no man what was done." (Luke 8:56, also Mattthew 8:4)

When I read this I thought, I don't need to know why it happened, I just need to believe that there is a reason. Of course it would be easier to trust in the Lord if I knew the reason. In essence, Christ is doing miracles, I just don't know what they are yet.

Brother Hafen also says,

"A key reason for the Lord's unwillingness to compel our belief may be found in those scriptural phrases about doing the will of the Father and "receiving him."Something happens to people who receive him-who do his will. They learn. They develop Christlike capacities and skills beyond the reach of other men. Following his will changes them. These changes do not happen to those who merely see the sign or hear the word. Such changes in character and spirit do not happen without our active, voluntary participation. Thus, by being believing, by receiving the Lord, and by following him, the process of becoming like him is set into motion. That is a point he does not want us to miss."

I like that a lot. It is through believing in Him we can become like Him. We can't reach that on our own.

The last part of his talk which I really liked is-

God is close, so available to those who have ears to hear and eyes to see. In Jacob's dream about the ladder reaching to heaven, with angels ascending and descending it, he saw God standing at the top of the ladder saying, "I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest." And then Jacob awoke and said, "Surely the Lord is in this place: and I knew it not." (Gen 28:13-16). ... He is closer to us individually than most of us have any idea. The Lord is here, and who knows it? The faithful, those who are willing to be believing, because their greatest desire is to find him and serve him. When he is there, they know it.

...

Yet the real confirmation, the actual realization of his having been there, often comes later-the harvest of those early decisions to be believing. "...On the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience." (Luke 8:15). After a few seasons of such harvesting, and of doing what believers do, the faithful, believing heart becomes more and more a knowing heart."

I think it is such beautiful imagery to have angels around us. Are my ears and eyes opened? A believing heart will feel that strength and know He is there with us. And sometimes that confirmation will come later, after we prove we are believing when it may be difficult. It is the the fruit of our patience. Some day perhaps I will know the reason why, but until then, I can believe and know there is a reason and that God is with me. With that, I can become like Christ.