Talk in Church - Waiting On the Lord

Sooo I was asked to give a talk in church. I thought I'd copy and paste it here for posterity!

At certain times in my life, I have wondered why my prayers were seemingly not answered as quickly as I thought they should be. After the passing of our first child, my husband and I waited the requisite three months to try and conceive again. We desperately wanted a child – not only to fill the holes in our hearts and empty arms, but also simply because we yearned to be parents. This pursuit, we reasoned, was a righteous one, and after the loss of our child certainly the Lord would quickly grant our desire.

A month passed, then another. Soon, my body stopped functioning the way I needed it to so we could conceive. I became very discouraged. We had been faithful. We had followed the Lord through one of the most difficult trials either of us had faced, yet here we were, struggling to fulfill our righteous desires.

By the time we’d reached three months post-partum, Charles and I were living in Plattsburg in a home we were renting from an acquaintance of my brother. It was a cute little house and we loved having our own place, but we soon realized why the house had be sitting empty before we moved in.  One of those reasons: Mold. It was in the kitchen, around appliances, under carpets which had been soaked over and over again from a leak in the back door, and ohhhh that smell wafting up from the basement….

While we loved the independence, we realized the living situation was anything but hygienic, and Charles’s hours had become irregular and sporadic at work. We decided to move. With all my focus on the move, I didn’t think much of the strange symptoms I had begun to experience. It’s so easy to hope yourself into symptoms that I’d decided to let my body do its thing and essentially ignore the signs I’d been waiting for.

Long story short: we’d conceived Charlotte. They say “hindsight is 20/20” and Charles and I both believe the Lord was waiting for us to leave a potentially harmful situation before blessing us with the little girl we so desperately desired. To add to this, Charles lost his job shortly after we moved. Had we been living where we were before, we would not have been able to meet our financial obligations.

How often have you noticed the wisdom of the Lord’s timing when looking in hindsight? How many times have you thought “I’m glad this certain thing didn’t happen at that point because it did happen at the best time possible”? I’m sure each one of us has an example of a time we had planned to be somewhere and one thing or another prevented us from keeping those plans. We then found out something would have happened if we’d been there, or things turn out better for us in the alternate plans.

Let’s pretend you were alive during 1912. You’re originally from Ireland, but seeking more opportunities for you and your family. You scrimp, save, and sacrifice in order to secure steerage tickets on a ship heading to America. When the day comes to leave, you’re all packed and ready to go. You couldn’t be more excited. You arrive early to drop off your bags – only something is wrong. Somehow, you’ve misplaced one of the tickets and you need all of them to get your family onto the ship. You’re devastated as, later that day, the ship you’d dreamt about taking you to a better life leaves without you. Life proceeds as it had before while you work on purchasing tickets for another voyage. Would you be tempted to sink into despair? To question why the Lord had deserted you when you were just trying to get a better life for your family?

What if I told you the ship you were trying to go to America on didn’t make it. It hit an ice burg and sank, killing over 1500 people. As a man, you had an 80% chance of perishing in the accident. As a woman or child you would have had a better chance of survival, but do you think any of those who missed being on the Titanic felt upset they had missed it after hearing of the disaster which awaited the passengers? Do you think they had more trust for the Lord and His plans when they realized they may not have survived the trip they’d desperately wanted to take?

Elder Neal A. Maxwell said “Faith [in the Lord] includes trust in [his] timing.” We know the Lord loves us. He has already demonstrated this. He wants the best for us and has only asked us to ask Him and have faith that He will provide. When we really want (or even feel we need) something, do we trust that He will provide it when the time is right or do we think we must have it this instant?

At risk of death glares, I will share another personal example. I attended public school, and it seemed there was always something my school had me bringing home which asked for money. Money was always fairly tight growing up, and I remember my mother frequently groaning and asking “When is the last day to turn in the money?” I came to both expect and dread this question, but I would answer her none-the-less and typically the requests were met with payment by the time it was due. Even better, whatever benefit I gained from payment of the money was always the same as those who had paid early – it didn’t matter that it’d come “just in time.”

Our Lord does something similar, only He doesn’t need to ask when you need something. He knows what you need and exactly when you need it. Unfortunately, many people fall prey to worry and anxiety, forgetting to recognize that if they truly need something, the Lord will provide.

I have a dear friend who recently offered me several bags of baby girl clothing she had been saving for years in hopes of clothing her own little girl one day – a girl who has yet to come to their family. Although she had been collecting this clothing for years and likely had an emotional attachment to some of the pieces, she freely offered her entire stash, saying, essentially, “If we end up needing girl clothes in the future, we’ll come up with them. The Lord has always provided for us. What we need may come just in the nick of time, but we always have it when we need it.”

This struck me because I’m a worrier of the worst kind. When I face an issue, especially those I can’t control, I agonize over solutions. Where will the money we need come from? When will we be able to be on our own? What is the best answer for this or that? I want answers now, and if I can’t find them I tend to search and search until I wear myself out.

When I was asked to give this talk, I was told the topic was to be “waiting on the Lord.” As in, waiting for His will to be done in your life. However, sometimes people tend to interpret this as “waiting on the Lord to give me what I want.” I want to be able to provide nice things for my family and not have to struggle with money. I want to be patient and kind, preferably without having to endure the experiences it takes to become so. I want to see my daughter again – like, now. I want peace in the world, to know my Great-Grandmother and all sorts of worthy things…. But do I need them at this moment in my life? If someone we love passes away, or something negative happens in the world, does that mean the Lord doesn’t love me or care what I want?

My life has been a process of learning to accept that the Lord knows what I want and what I need. Many times, I have wanted something intensely, only to find the realization of that goal would have kept me from even greater blessings in the future. The Lord has said “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.” He can see the past, the present, and the future all in one eternal round. He knows what is best for me in my life; even if that means righteous desires go unfulfilled. Sometimes even certain righteous desires, like having children, a reunited family, health and strength, et cetera, are not what are best for us in that moment or in our lives at all. We must learn to be grateful for our Savior’s wisdom in blessing us with what we actually need instead of focusing on what we might feel we have been denied.

Faith in our Savior means accepting His timetables and the absolute fact that He wants you to have what you need. Those who study their scriptures daily can attest that the Lord frequently answers burning, current life questions through the words of long-deceased prophets - but not a second before you start looking. Sacrament meetings have long heard accounts of one thing or another coming in an hour of need from unclear origins.

These examples are often as simple as a home or visiting teacher calling to check on someone when they feel moved to do so, or there suddenly being enough money in the bank to cover all your bills when, just days or hours before, there seemed not to be. Occasionally, what we actually need is patience and we are tasked with waiting for answers; or humility and we must be willing to ask for or accept help.

Do you have faith in the Lord’s timing or do you - like I tend to do - agonize and worry away moments in which we could be building our faith in the Savior and His infinite ability to provide? Do you trust Him to guide your life in ways which benefit you in the eternities better than you can imagine with your finite understanding? I urge you, when you feel like giving up or like situations in your life are hopeless, to instead get down on your knees and pray for an increased measure of faith in the Lord’s timing and to be able to accept His plans as your own because, in the end, maybe that’s actually what you needed all along.

I submit that, instead of “waiting on the Lord” to decide to bless us with something, He is waiting on us – to learn an important lesson, grow our faith, increase our patience, foster humility, or even just be humble enough to ask.