Rewind to 2002 with me for a moment:
It had been six months of waiting for a baby and every month we bought those pregnancy tests: so excited! {Just kidding, false alarm x 6!} After graduating with my AA degree in Office Systems Management (I didn’t want to be ambitious, I was just sent to make babies, you see) I’m working as the full-time receptionist at Pres. Bednar’s [1] Office on BYU-Idaho campus. One Tuesday Elder Grow came for devotional and spoke a little about what a blessing it has been for his family to follow the prophet and have his wife stay home with the children and not work. There are MANY working mothers in the Kimball Building that I saw every day. I observed as many of these women (some had to work, single moms, etc.) turned off the devotional or slammed their office doors as not to hear the radio, and some blatantly stood there and criticized his words, i.e. “He has no idea what he’s talking about. Ricks College would shrivel up and die if all of the mothers went to stay home with their children.” etc. I was getting a little riled up because at this point I would have given my left arm to be able to get pregnant and stay home with a baby and I literally wanted to stand up and tell them all, “the guilty taketh the truth to be hard!” I wrote Pres. Bednar an email and explained the situation and asked him how you know when you should bite your tongue and how you know when to make a stand up and let people know they are wrong. Thirty minutes after coming back to the office from devotional Pres. Bednar asked his secretary to have me come into his office. (Can I just add as a postscript after being a SAHM, part-time, and full-time working mother — this issue is just a little more complex than my 20 yo mind could grasp).
Here I sat, a 20 year old, lowly receptionist in front of Pres. Bednar. And I will be grateful until the day I die that he took the time from his schedule to teach me a little about life. First of all he asked how long we’d been waiting for a baby. I told him it’d been six months. The man literally laughed loudly in my face and said, “Well, first of all maybe you need to learn some patience!” He had a family member who had been trying for over 3 years, he tells me. One day he was alone with Elder Eyring and this problem had been weighing on him and he asked Elder Eyring about it. What do you say to the couple who has done everything right, who has prepared themselves their whole lives for the day when they can build a family and raise children up unto the Lord, and they remain childless?
Elder Eyring told him that the Lord doesn’t send children for us to teach them; the Lord sends children for them to teach us. God could find a different way to teach children what he wants them to know, that in the parent-child relationship the child is actually the teacher and the parent is the student. The point of this life is for us to learn how to become like God. Sometimes that is accomplished by having children; sometimes the Lord determines that it is accomplished by NOT having children. Do parents learn patience, long suffering, service, and humility from having children? Yes. Do couples learn the same things from NOT having children? Yes. So the point is for us to submit our will to the Lord’s to become all that he wants us to be; to become like our Heavenly Parents – no matter the path they give us to get there.
This moment was huge for me – if I had not been able to be taught so clearly at such an early stage in our journey, I’m not sure how well things would have worked out for me. Pres. Bednar quickly sent me back to work. Over the next three years we eventually conceived our daughter after an IVF cycle with the only surviving embryo (out of 31) that survived an oocyte thaw. It took another 8 years, 4 foster kids, and 1 failed adoption for me to find space to take a breath and stop trying to have children. In the peaceful silence that filled my life I found that it’s possible for me to “become” not just on a difficult, bumpy path; but on an entirely different one.
I hope that we can all learn to rely on our Savior as we move forward; not with bushy tailed optimism but with clear eyed perspective. Hope for a righteous desire to be fulfilled….but if not – have faith not to be healed, not to be blessed, not to be married, not to survive cancer, etc. This takes an entirely different kind of faith. May you find strength and beauty in your own unfulfilled righteous desires.
Is there anything you’ve experienced that you’ve found strength and progress from unexpectedly? Do you think with enough faith you can “overcome” your trials, or does a different faith accept the the lack of desired outcome? Often I feel the language/rhetoric of faith is used in such a way that belittles the faith of those whose prayers go unanswered. (See here [2]) What do you think?
[1] please excuse my use of “President” Bednar. I still find myself slipping up every once in a while. I thought for this flashback it would be appropriate. Besides, I used to answer my phone at home by saying, “Executive Office, this is Kristine” – at least I broke that habit.
[2] I can no longer find the FB link with the title “Fighting Infertility with Faith” title – they may have changed it – there was quite the dustup in the comments section
Kristine, thank you for this. It is so true that it takes a particular type of patience and faith to be faithful in the face of not being blessed the way we want…particularly when we have been directly promised that we will be.
It takes daily effort to not become bitter, but to instead turn our hearts outward in service.
Brilliant article, shining amongst our many other thoughts.
For me, the most obvious thing I’ve tried to find faith not to be healed is in the chronic pain I have from Fibromyalgia. I can’t even imagine what life would be without it, and I hope I can continue to learn compassion for the various pains others have that I may not have direct experience with.
There is something implicit in the language of “overcome” that makes it seem like we won’t have that problem anymore. Sometimes overcoming involves accepting.
Frank, last year I was diagnosed with lupus. My whole life I thought I had arthritis and that everyone else’s body always hurt like mine did. I went to acupuncture once that completely took all of my pain away (that lasted two weeks). The acupuncturist just said: this is how normal people feel every day. I was overwhelmed imagining how it would be to go through life pain free. I wouldn’t wish auto-immune on anyone.
SilverRain, thanks for your comment. I wonder how many people are silently figuring out the path of not receiving promised blessings. In a recent general conference a GA promised that all of your righteous desires would be fulfilled. I think I may have verbally made a pfffft sound, because unfulfilled promises has become such a big part of my faith.
You and me, both Kristine. I have to admit, my laugh was more of a bitter one than anything else….
i know anecdotal stories are an unfair way to judge a person, but i have yet to hear of an encounter with Bednar that doesn’t make him sound awful. Conversly, I’ve yet to hear about one with uchtdorf that doesn’t make him sound awesome.
eventually those add up and mean sosmething.
You probably know that many people with inflammatory diseases such as Fibromyalgia and Lupus are helped by turmeric but turmeric is not absorbed well orally, you may not be aware that turmeric’s active ingredient Curcumin is now made in a bio-available version of nano Curcumin liquid.
Nice post Kristine. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but once you do, peace can come.
PangWitch: I and other Rexburgians have many wonderful stories about Bednar. I also know some faculty had a HARD time with him as president, but when he’s returned (since his A12) they’ve reported to me a transformation.
Personally I just think his nature is very black [AND WHITE THINKING] and very into exactness. He’s also hilarious. He almost fell off his chair laughing when I waked into president’s council dressed as a cowgirl with a guitar to sing a “school song” (hickified)
{Edited to add missing bracketed words pointed out by commenter below}
I loved this post.
Kristine, did you mean very black and white? He doesn’t strike me as brooding or anything, but I don’t know him.
The part about children being the teachers, and us adults learning either with or without children really resonated with me. We had our son after 5 years of trying. 9 years later he is our only child. One day when he was 3 or so, I was praying, and was inspired to ask if we were just supposed to have our son, instead of asking for more children. The answer was a sweet and calming yes.
I firmly believe that we are all individuals, we have different strengths and weaknesses and God knows us better than we know ourselves. I no longer accept one size fits all mentalities or attitudes about what we should be doing with our lives. Our different life experiences make us stronger, and we need to celebrate that.
The man has a laser like focus, when it’s time for business it’s all business. When it’s time for fun it’s all fun. He’s a massive sports fan and he and his three sons once had a ceremony to accept sister Bednar into the “Bednar boys club” bc she surprised them with hockey tickets. Anyways we weren’t besties but I don’t think he’s what people make him out to be. I’m as frustrated with his orthodoxy and his obsession with exactness as the next guy, but I think we need to cut the guy some slack.
Now that my kids are entering adulthood, I realize that I’m as far from “graduating” parenthood as could be. On the contrary, I suddenly see that I’m still growing up. Or trying to figure out how to anyway.
I am sorry for your suffering and your pain.
I am sorry Bednar is so unfeeling as to laugh in the face of a daughter of God in pain.
Sorry but not surprised.
I have found that throughout my life (all 50 plus years of it) when I have been truly suffering through loss or disappointment, I have heard the same message as given by Eyring, “God’s will, submission, patience”, followed by a litany of all” that I am doing wrong and why God is so kind as to alternately slap me in the face and ignore me.
As a man, a husband, a father and now a grandfather I find it curious that this “counsel” comes from men of wealth, men of high civic and ecclesiastical position. It comes from men beloved by thousands or millions, surrounded by their beautiful successful families, protected as much as possible from the storms raging in our lives by their millions in the bank. (money buys a lot of protection, health, opportunity and peace of mind)
In other words, men who couldn’t be more different in their experience than the Christ described by Alma in Alma chapter 7.
Of course they laugh in our faces, they have all the answers and none of the compassion.
I refuse to believe that God deigned that you and millions like you should have suffered and known such terrible want.
Do these things happen? Of course they do. They are the product of a fallen world.
It is our most divine mission and blessing the “do the works that Christ did and greater still” (John 14).
What a tragedy that because of arrogance, or greed or envy, or lack of faith, we are taught that God is the author of suffering instead of the source comforter and healing.
Ask yourself a simple question: When did the Savior ever say to one that came to him for healing or blessing?
“Sorry, make the best of it.”
Or “You need to learn patience.”
Or to the blind:
“Count your blessings, at least you can hear”
Our leaders, because they lack faith, have perverted the works and words and promises of Christ into bizarre gospel of a God who hurts the lowest, the poorest, the most ignorant in order to show his love, this “Philosophy of men mingled with scripture” is supported only by circular logic and desperate need that keeps us broken, and them in power.
But the saddest thing of all is that we lap it up as if it were true.
Well sean, I was a twenty year old judgmental witch who was acting like an idiot. I’m glad he laughed in my face. I was a friggin know it all who needed taken down a notch. And he had a good enough respectful working relationship with me that it came across as needed.
That you can’t get that from this post….perhaps is my weaknesses. I’d much prefer some tough love when I needed it than your type of condescension.
But you be you and just see things how you want to. I’ve got enough of my own experiences to know I’m good where I’m at and how I see these men who lead us. This is a snapshot of his and my life in one small moment. You don’t know jack about him. And You have no idea the transformative, healing power of atonement that I’ve had privilege to access through my experiences.
Kristine A! Wow, you have a good handle on the fact that God calls His chosen leaders and the support of those leaders is up to us. Keep up the good work.
kristine
I am profoundly sorry that I sounded condescending to you.
My only desire was to let you know that I am mourning for you in the only inadequate way i have available to me.
I am indeed sorry.
Sean, I was too knee-jerk in my response to you! I’m sorry!
I re-read it and you were approaching it from a place of empathy . . . but I felt condescended to because we have different perspectives on things. This came up in my facebook feed one day where I posted about this being God’s will in my life — but many people took issue that it’s just the nature of a fallen world. God’s not in the details, because it can’t be reconciled with three -year-olds being sold into sexual slavery that he cares about our first world problem details while not theirs.
I totally think that’s an acceptable viewpoint. It sounds like it’s yours. But I don’t think that’s my viewpoint. And it feels condescending to hear it be preached to me that it should be.
I agree with most of your post . . . at church I’m given awful one liners about how I should just live with it. “at least you can. . . ” (a posted a lot about this last week on my empathy post). but I just became so defensive of Bednar. He’s easily misunderstood. Just as I am!! And I suppose you are too, right? Our top 15 aren’t perfect; they need more diversity of backgrounds etc. But I accept their flawed offerings.
If we ever meet IRL I’ll buy you a drink 🙂
Thanks Kristine.
I believe the words of Christ in John 14, completely “The works ye have seen me do, these ye shall do and greater still, because I go unto my father”.
I get the feeling from your posts that you believe them too. However, one thing I have learned, we cannot do that which we need the most for ourselves, while our faith is essential, the blessing and the miracle must come from someone else to us. Thus we fulfill the injunction in D&C 90 “Remember the covenant ye have made one with another”.
I hope and pray that as a church we can repent of our unbelief and literally do his works, exactly as he did them, giving sight to the blind, unstopping the ears of the deaf, casting out devils,(healing addiction and mental illness) and giving motherhood to the barren.
God bless you.
I’ll hold you to that drink.
Sean
PS I know I am hard on the brethren, but they are big boys, and don’t assume I don’t know “jack” about them :).
PPS Someday if I get the chance I could tell you about one of the most profound experiences I have ever had; two of my friends who had never met, one whose son and daughter in law tried every avenue possible for six or seven years to become pregnant and finally after wading through much sorrow, adopted. Another whose son and his girlfriend had become pregnant and decided to give the baby up for adoption (not to my other friend but to another mother and father).
Here were two sets of grandparents who had shed their own tears and suffered in different but equally painful ways. I introduced them to each other and briefly related their stories.
The father of the son and daughter that had finally resorted to adoption, threw his arms around the other parents and with tears running down his cheeks said:
“We love people like you and your son.”
It was one of the most sublime and moving moments of my life.
Thank you Kristine A. for this beautiful post. I’m glad to hear of this story, because it shows a depth and a wisdom to him that I have not seen through his public persona.
I must say that your encounter truly puzzles me. I have always assumed that the leadership just didn’t understand those of us who weren’t living the prosperous-mormon-nuclear-family-life, because that’s all they talk about in conference and in the manuals. The traditional family is upheld as the gold standard for essentially everything in our church, so much so that the nuclear “family” is perilously close to being our idol (meaning, it is sometimes a principle that is emphasized over God and Jesus.)
So, my question is this . . . why isn’t Elder Eyring and Elder Bednar’s wisdom from this story EVER shared in conference? When so many of us painfully can not and do not have the nuclear family, wouldn’t it be comforting to hear this very message? And yet, the exact opposite occurs. The nuclear family is the standard and the rest of us are whisked away with a caveat sentence at the beginning or the end of family-based talks- assuring us that in the next life God will let everyone have a chance to be a mother or have a spouse, etc. It just isn’t your turn yet so please sit down and be quiet while we (the leaders) talk to those who are actually carrying out the purpose of life.
Yet according to you, they (the brethren) KNOW that our non-traditional paths are as valid, as worthy, as necessary, as instructive, and as purposeful.
So why isn’t anyone pointing that out?
It enrages me to think of all the saints like you, like me, like so many others, who walk around feeling ‘less than’, stunted, in limbo, and empty, when all along our path was as instructive, as divinely led, and as valid as anyone else’s.
The danger in devaluing the paths of the “others” is that we don’t have the same Prophetic insight into the divine hand that touches our lives here and now in this hellish world. We are led to believe it hasn’t happened yet, it will happen in the millenium when God’s finger finally touches us and we are blessed with a baby or a spouse, or a healthy physical body, etc.
Sorry, long rant, but the question is . . . why is the lesson you shared here not talked about in conference or in other public places? Why are we always given the caveat “you’ll have your chance in the millenium” when you finally conform? Until then, keep looking forward to the day you are like us.