Thoughts...

A couple Sundays ago I was asked to read a quote and share my thoughts on the Savior. I was very emotionally fragile that day, I don't know why but am pretty sure it had something to do with the 100+ degree days that continued, my ever growing girth and discomfort, and another fun Sunday of getting kids to church...or maybe I'm just a crazy female.

It was a powerful lesson and I learned so much from what the other women shared. I love that every week we, as women, are loved and strengthened by other women that are traveling this path we call life right along with us.

I read the quote quickly before the lesson started and knew I was in trouble; it pierced my soul.

From the talk:
He Lives! All Glory to His Name!

"I try to imagine what an intensely poignant moment it must have been for our Father in Heaven when the Savior cried out from the cross, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' (Matt 27:46; Mark 15:34) I don't believe Father in Heaven forsook His Son on the cross. I do believe the cry was motivated when that Son felt removed the sustaining support He had always enjoyed from His Father. His Father recognized that the Savior needed to accomplish the Atonement totally and completely on His own, without external support. The Father did not (emphasis added) abandon His Son. He made it possible for His perfect Son to win the eternal fruits of the Atonement.

None of us can ever adequately appreciate in mortality the full beneficial consequences of the Atonement."


As I tried to share my thoughts I struggled to form any kind of coherent thought. This so perfectly summed up thoughts I'd been trying to put words to for sometime now. SO many things rushed through my head and came out so disjointed. Frustrating...

We were in such a free fall, all we could think about or focus on was the immediate. Whatever was pressing the hardest at the moment was what we took care of...everything else just waited till it started pressing the hardest. There were no plans or foresight involved in our lives. We didn't like it, but what else was there to do? Now that we're in a time of rebuilding I have been able to step back and analyze...just didn't have words to put to it.

I am acutely and painfully aware that our problems were, and are, minuscule in comparison to many others.

Were there times we felt a little abandon? Yes. Well, I should clarify, I felt a little abandon. I've never pried into what Stephen was feeling, but could see the fleeting flickers of emotion that would flash across his face and be gone again. He was stressed, but did a good job of not showing anything.

Were we really abandon? No. Just like our Savior, we were not abandon, but left for a time to struggle and conquer on our own. We are not even remotely close in comparison to our Savior, when we began to approach a breaking point the loving hand of Father in Heaven would step in again with guidance.

I was surprised more than once at the random solutions that came to us. We were prompted to drastically modify our lifestyle and to do it immediately. It was hard to give up some things, and every now and then I felt the need to pout about it. I am a woman, after all, and have honed the ability to pout for many years. It was ugly. Did we survive it? Of course. My Stephen loves gadgets and cool toys; turns out we didn't need quite so many and lots of people are willing to give you money for them. As we dug through the shed, house and all the nooks and crannies that housed said toys I had a very clear thought come to me that getting broke is better than moving. You get to clean out and cull without the stress of finding a new place to live or packing what remained. Although, to say I wouldn't love a bigger house would be a lie. :-) At the same time I felt comforted that if we came to a point that a home sale was in order we'd already be half way ready to move out. Turns out people were willing to give us money for some of my "treasures" too. We needed to cut back more, out went the home phone. The health insurance that refused to pay a cent towards Lincoln's $9,000 birth started costing more than our mortgage so we canceled that too. They let us retro cancel so we didn't have to pay the current month. It was scary with a new baby, but that worked out too. A car broke. That Stephen of mine looked at the spa sitting on our patio and got another idea. He traded that spa for a "little red race car" (Garrett's name for it), then we traded that "little red race car" for a huge U G L Y full sized van (I loathed that van, but it got us from point A to point B), then one day Stephen got an email from a guy that had landed on harder times than us and was looking for something to live in. We gathered some non-perishable food, a couple blankets we didn't need and a few toiletries from our year supply to put in that horrid van and traded it for his motorcycle. Stephen doesn't have a motorcycle license so we had my Dad ride it to make sure all was well. Turns out that motorcycle was in great shape and had some original decals that increased it's value quite a bit. We finally sold that motorcycle and had the money we needed to fix the broken car. Back in the day we'd borrowed money against my Explorer to finish off the last little bit of our family room addition. We chose borrowing money against the car on purpose because if anything ever happened I would rather lose a car over my house any day. We were saddled with this darn car that still had payments. We were blessed that the loan was through a credit union, not a bank, they worked with us and we were able to find a buyer and get rid of that thing too. We were able to find fun free activities to do with the kids...they were sheltered from the reality of the situation. Their childhood bubbles are still in tact. The toilet broke, found one on craigslist for FREE. A system for using coupons and ad matching came together in my mind and reduced our food bill by several hundred dollars per month. Some months we made it on exactly $100 dollars. The kids were begging for a swing-set, found one with some broken wood from a storm for FREE. A couple hours replacing the broken wood and the kids got their swing-set. Stephen found hourly work that brought in some money, I swallowed a SIZABLE amount of pride and approached my supervisor, that DOES NOT like me, and asked for a little more work. A new career idea came to Stephen; one that I'd never even thought of, in a direction totally opposite of what he'd been doing or studied in school. It felt right and we went for it, despite the total disapproval from his Mom. In the middle of interviews I discovered I was pregnant. It felt like a boulder had been dropped on my chest. I couldn't breathe and was more than a little panicked! (We couldn't afford a baby and had no business being pregnant...and I knew it.) The Lord blessed me to be able to keep quiet for a month before I told him so he could focus on getting a job. These times of guidance were spread over a 2+ year period with times of suffocating desperation in between. We were not abandon, but definitely given ample time to grow and learn through the struggle.

Throughout the entire time we were scooped up by the loving arms of family and friends and carried during our times of weakness. We would've NEVER made it without them. Christmas 2009 will forever be burned in my memory. I was left in tears more than once at the generosity, love, and warmth shown to our little family. We were humbled and felt the pure love of our Savior through the sweet acts of others. To this day I have no idea who to thank (oh how I wish I could let them know how profoundly they touched our hearts). On Christmas Eve it dawned on us that Mom and Dad hadn't purchased anything to put under the tree for us. We prayed that the kids would be distracted enough to not notice. Our prayer was answered. Those, sometimes too savvy, boys didn't notice a thing. We learned that when the Lord calls on us to serve one of his children we must act; for we are here to serve Him and His children.

Are we abandoned? No.

Do we have to do some things on our own? Yeah.
Is it painful and hard? Without a doubt.
Would it be easier to skip the hard parts? For sure.
Did we learn from this time? More than I can ever tell.
Humbled? I was choking on all the pride I had to swallow.
Do I want to repeat it? No way.
Will hard times come again? Yes.
Will we be abandoned? Never Ever...

Thanks for handing me that quote. I now have the words I was looking for; we will never be abandoned. It is taped in my journal to remind me of it's important message for many years to come.