Line upon Line

"Being mad at God won't change matters.  It'll only make you feel worse.  Then not only will you be mourning the loss of your sisters, you'll mourn the loss of His comfort." -pg. 158

*Update*
Sorry it has taken me a while to post.  I have been working on a hard post that I am hesitant to publish for how dear it is to my heart but how important the lesson was I learned I knew I needed to share it with others.  This is a very almost sacred post for me due to the lesson that I learned.

My friend Tamarah last week had a theme on her blog about overcoming trials and had guest posts all week long.  I wanted to be a part of the challenge and while I had some trials that I easily overcame I was still fighting in the middle of a trial that had been consuming my life for the last three years and wasn't able to post by the time deadline.  I don't want to get too personal as this blog is open for others to read and I don't want my dirty laundry to be seen for everyone but I will be open and honest in the lesson I learned.  For almost the last three years each prayer that I have offered has been one of why me?  Why would you allow these horrible things to happen to me?  Why if I got married in the temple, tried to live righteously my whole life did you let this happen to me?... and the questioning goes on and went on.  There were days where I thought I had surmounted the trial of having doubts and fears about my marriage.  J and I have faced scary trials that I didn't think we were going to make it through and I saw heaven open the day baby Jessa was born and come into our lives but the trials didn't stop and my bitterness towards God became almost surmountable.

I can't explain how hard it is to continually try to have faith and do all the "right" things when you feel like God isn't listening or that He just doesn't care.  As a teenager I listened to talks over and over by youth leaders that stated we are each important to Him individually and He knows us and loves us.  He cares about us.  I knew this was true but questioned its validity when it came to my own life and own trials and it felt as if God's silence was deafening.   I felt like for months after I had started to truly try again that I still was forlorn and alone.  When I would read my scriptures I felt as if I wasn't getting anything out of them and I truly felt abandoned.  So I spent many of my days reading Christian novels of mostly female heroes in the old times who surpassed their unsurmountable trials even in times when they were faced with doubt and uncertainty.  But the question of why me always remained for I had faced trials that truly left me heartbroken and doubting God's love for me.  And after months of the same words uttered in prayer I was finally given my full answer.

Too many times I believe in church that with some of the stories we hear and or read about we have come to believe that answers come as a strike of lightening, a big "ah-ha!" moment and we do such a disservice to ourselves and each other when we don't always have those moments.  Through a painfully long trial and a sense of betrayal I was finally given the quiet answer that I would learn this trial and many others by line upon line and precept upon precept, here a little and there a little and where I am not completely whole in my healing process of the loss I feel I finally understand why it happened in the sense of why God let it happen to me.  It came in the form of a book I was reading that as it says drove a knife right into my heart and I knew that a change had to come upon me.  And for the first time in a long time I was able to offer a prayer without the bitterness and betrayal weighing upon me that I felt for so long.

The book Land of My Heart by Tracie Patterson:
"I finally met a man who talked to me without milking it down for me.  He wasn't in the least bit concerned about sparing my feelings.  He told me I was acting like a selfish sinner.  Of course at first I was offended and decided I wouldn't hear the man out.  Then he said something that drove a knife right into my heart....  He told me I could go on being a lost sinner, living my life as I chose, ignoring the offer of eternal life and the peace that only God could give me.  But, he told me, 'you will literally have to step over the broken, bleeding, nail-pierced body of Jesus in order to enter the gates of hell.' ...Tears blurred Cole's vision. "But my father killed the woman I loved.  God let her die in my arms. Let her die."  "He let His Son die too." Bram said softly.  "He let Him die so that you might live."

And finally it clicked.  Jesus Christ was willing to bear all my burdens to take upon my heartache and my sorrow and Heavenly Father allowed evil men to persecute Jesus Christ to spit upon Him, to bruise his poor miraculous working body and to pierce those very hands that had healed so many.  If Jesus was His beloved and begotten son and He allowed for this to happen.  I finally realized that God did actually love me.  And the words on the page came back with a resounding heart enlighting force.  Jesus Christ atoned for not only my sins but my pains and heartaches as well, and by not forgiving the things that had been done against me was me literally rejecting the atonement that the Saviour had done for me.  So the questioning in my mind changed from why God don't you love me and why could you allow these evil things to happen to me? to Can I live my life knowing that I was rejecting the Saviour's gift of His atonement?  And it became clear that I needed to understand the atonement more and apply it personally.

I am not done healing I am not going to lie.  The experiences still hold a lot of pain for me that I am trying to work through but I slowly learned the valuable lesson that although horrible things happen to us and even when we curse God or turn away from Him, or give a half hearted to no effort at all.  He loves us.  He still loves us and His arms will always be stretched out still waiting to succor us when we humble ourselves to ask.