One of the first days after discovering we were pregnant with our first baby, I was desperate to find Todd on campus. We were 23, young, still a long ways from being done with our schooling, poor, and so naive. I cried and cried to him. I had no idea how we’d afford a baby. Initially the little lines on the stick overwhelmed me with excitement I could hardly contain. But when reality sank in, all I could think about was how we’d pull it off. Shouldn’t we feel older, more ready, more mature, more settled in our careers if we were thinking of having a baby and becoming responsible for its welfare?
But I went back to what I knew. I knew we were solid in our faith. I knew we loved each other and had a strong marriage. I knew we’d been trying to get pregnant for several months. I knew we wanted a big family. I knew I was healthy and strong (mostly because I was young!) and that we were doing everything we could think of to make it work. We both had jobs, I was nearly done with school. What I knew more than anything was how amazing it felt to think about being a mom!
What I didn’t know was how we’d find a doctor we could afford. How we’d be able to buy everything a new baby would need. How we’d know how to be parents. How we’d make it to vet school and juggle finishing up school while working and packing up our house on our own with no parents around to help us out. Or how it would be to move across the country and start a life in an unfamiliar city just two weeks after giving birth while I would still be recovering.
But one of my favorite scriptures has always been, “Did I not speak peace to your mind concerning the matter? What greater witness can you have than from God?” And that’s what I kept going back to, the confirmation that this felt right. And because we felt peace about it, we knew somehow things would work out. One of my favorite men in the world has famously said, “It isn’t as bad as you sometimes think it is. It all works out. Don’t worry. … If you do your best, it will all work out. Put your trust in God, and move forward with faith.” (President Hinckley) We have clung to that promise ever since.
When we just do whatever we can and exercise even a sliver of faith, somehow (that’s the part we don’t need to stress about) he figures out the how for us. We’ve lived our lives and raised our kids on this scripture, “I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them they may accomplish the thing which he hath commanded them.” And so we, like so many of you, just plow ahead tackling the hard things in life with this promise in mind, knowing that God will take care of the particulars.
Consider what he asks of us, so contrary to what we’d consider common sense. Even though we felt to do so, we got married when the odds were against us. Divorce rates had never been higher, we were 22, we still had years of school ahead of us, I had no idea how to make a relationship like this work. But we trusted God’s promise that he would walk beside us, helping us with the how. Same with having kids. I have a friend who felt to have another baby when they were unemployed. I’ve learned over and over and over to believe and trust his methods. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.” So we continued to have kids even though it didn’t make sense. We continue to do all sorts of things that don’t seem rational or that feel too complicated or difficult for us; I think that’s how many of us travel through life, full of questions while at the same time full of faith.
But no place is this harder than when it pertains to matters of the heart. To forgive when someone we trusted with our hearts breaks that bond and hurts us to the core, we wonder how on earth we can ever feel normal again. But I know he heals us and allows us to move forward when we put his promises to the test. When we pray for our enemies and those who despitefully use us, when we turn our heartaches over to him, when we do our small part in asking for charity and humility that we don’t even want to ask for in the first place, he comes through. I’ve experienced this miracle over and over, and I know you have too. But somehow he manages to numb the very real pain, like an Ibuprofen. He takes my mind off the situation and distracts me, most often by helping me notice ways to serve others (which should be annoying but is actually cathartic). He helps me see inside another’s heart when all I care about is how my heart is hurting. He helps me take one moment of the day at a time. And lets me cry. I don’t know how this all works, and how he manages to take a heart that’s in shreds and makes it beat again is beyond me. It’s like magic.
We’ve seen this play out when early on we had to test our faith as Todd became a part business owner. It was so scary to take on that much more debt when we already had thousands in school loans to worry about. But, as always, once we received confirmation that it was a good move, we could securely leave the hows in God’s hands.
We did this all through college as we put aside our studies on Sundays. Todd’s classmates were incredulous, but he made it through vet school relying on God to work out the details. We have likewise always encouraged our kids to not study on Sundays, telling them if they do their best to work hard the other days, he will bless their efforts to keep the Sabbath day holy.
We have also encouraged them to always go to their youth meetings and activities, no matter what it is, no matter what they have going on. Obviously they’ve missed their share, but we really believe they will be blessed in their school work and lives when they are where they are supposed to be when they’re supposed to be there, doing what they’re supposed to be doing. He has set up these programs for their good, and even when we can’t see how a scavenger hunt with a small group of girls could possibly be more important that geometry homework, we know he does something like squish time or open her mind to make concepts clearer, but I don’t have a clue how he does it. I do know that when we put our faith in things like reading scriptures when we don’t feel like we have one extra second in our day, for instance, he somehow works miracles, allowing us to get way more done than we could’ve on our own. We simply don’t have to worry about the how. We just believe him when he gives us a commandment or idea. Our job is to obey, to trust; his promise is that he will “cause the heavens to shake for [our] good.”
So many times over the years we’ve regressed, forgetting that we don’t have to worry about the how. We stress, we close the door on an idea, we lose hope, we fail to move forward simply because we can’t see how things could possibly work out. Our fears tend to paralyze us and stunt our progress. I feel like this situation is the one to finally stump God. I have thoroughly done my homework and I simply cannot come up with any remedy to our plight. But even then, I’m absolutely in awe when he comes in from a completely different angle, presenting a solution that wasn’t anywhere on my radar. And it’s always the perfect, simplest solution. And I wonder again why I ever doubted or worried about how things would work out.
Todd wanted a little hobby farm for years. But I’d always put him off, it scared me to think of investing so much money, a larger mortgage payment, how it would stretch us. It had nothing to do with adding to our workload, it was all about money (and a little bit about mice). My entire life I’ve longed for financial security and stability. I don’t need fancy. In fact, I sort of hate fancy. And even though a farm wouldn’t be elaborate, for us it would be expensive. And we were just fine the way we were; I didn’t want to strain our resources any further. But we couldn’t deny that it felt right when we came to look at this little unassuming piece of land last fall. I cried. You know that. But I desperately prayed for direction that I would be able to understand. My answer was I couldn’t stop thinking about it. And when we visited it again a few days later, I felt calm, like this could be ours, like this was actually a generous blessing. But I balked inside, I couldn’t see how we could swing it. But we decided to go forward, constantly praying for guidance, for confirmation that we were doing the right thing in spite of not knowing how it would all work out. Scarier still was that we’d have to put our house up for sale and buy the new one regardless of whether or not our old one would sell; there was no contingency clause. We continued to feel peaceful about it even though financially it didn’t make sense. And I guess there was more than money at play, I hated to leave our neighbors, I thought we had a good thing and was confused as to why He would take us out of our beautiful situation. But as we moved forward with faith in what we’d felt, we saw the hows fall into place. We secured a bridge loan to help us out for the days between the two sales. Our old house sold within three days. Our new payment is a mere $200 more than our old mortgage. We are still close friends with our old neighbors and continue to get together and build relationships. I don’t know how God managed to orchestrate the details, but it’s all worked out. We’re slowly becoming more self-sufficient as we’ve been able to plant trees, get cows and chickens and grow our garden, which was the whole reason we wanted a hobby farm in the first place. I am completely overwhelmed with gratitude and often pause when I’m driving or looking out at the land just to thank Him in awe, with unbelievability that this all came to be. I am stunned. And humbled beyond words.
I know He’s in the details of our lives. He’s not just powerful, he’s all-powerful. Omniscient. He’s the God of the Universe. And our Father. He’s real. And he can somehow make things work. Even when we’re positive—absolutely certain—this one’s beyond him. Not true. He can make things happen in ways we can’t even imagine. He is truly a God of miracles. All he asks is that we trust him.
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