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“One of the worst things about losing my mother at the age I did was how very much there was to regret.” \u00a0 ~Cheryl Strayed<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
My father passed away when I was 21.\u00a0 21 and full of the “faith as a grain of mustard seed” which meant that I could remove the mountain of my father’s cancer.\u00a0 At least that’s what I told myself.<\/p>\n
At that age my perception of faith–as pure and good intentioned as it may have been–was lacking in understanding.\u00a0 For I believed that in order to “prove” my grain of mustard seed faith meant that I had to plant my feet firmly in the knowledge that my God would cure my father, never deviating from that truth in thought, word or deed.\u00a0 I would show absolute faith at all times and never, never “let them see me sweat”.<\/p>\n
I did not yet fully understand the example of my Savior when He said,<\/p>\n
“Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me:\u00a0 nevertheless not my will but thine, be done.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Because of this, my relationship with my father at the end of his life–what had been the most authentic relationship I had ever experienced with anyone–became one that was filled with formality and artificial pleasantries.<\/p>\n
Only after his death–with my fa\u00e7ade shattered–did I recognized that I had been fighting so desperately to make lemonade that I was actually drowning in it.<\/p>\n
Such has been a pattern in my life.\u00a0 In times of trial, disappointment or sorrow I have been quick to break out my juicer and Pollyanna my way through it.\u00a0 Because I have an absolute testimony in an eternal plan and “I know in whom I have trusted”.\u00a0 My Savior is my salvation and “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me”.<\/p>\n
But in all of this I failed to recognize one of my Savior’s greatest examples, a gift, tucked within the pages of John…<\/p>\n
“Jesus wept.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Jesus, the very pinnacle of faith, the author of eternity, the keeper of His Father’s will… wept.<\/p>\n
Through His example I have learned that though it my be true that\u00a0I have an absolute testimony in an eternal plan and that”I know in whom I have trusted”. That my Savior is my salvation and that “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me”, I can still hurt and mourn and grieve and weep.<\/p>\n
So when (as I mentioned in an earlier post<\/a>) I recently found myself spending most days unable to leave my bed, I knew that I was not running away from my trials–to have pulled up my bootstraps and painted on my best Pollyanna would have been to run away from my trials–I was facing them in the purest truth possible.<\/p>\n
I wept.<\/p>\n
I wept until I could feel His arms around me.\u00a0 I wept until I could receive His teachings and understand His will with added clarity.\u00a0 I wept until I heard Him cry–as He had with Lazarus–“come forth”.<\/p>\n
And then I took up my bed,<\/p>\n
and walked.<\/p>\n
I cannot go back and weep with my father, tell him how scared I am or talk to him about his fears but I can go forward in new found faith–even as a grain of mustard seed–in the will of my God.<\/p>\n
And with added patience and empathy for myself and others I now remember that, before the rising,<\/p>\n
Jesus wept.<\/p>\n
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“One of the worst things about losing my mother at the age I did was how very much there was to regret.” \u00a0 ~Cheryl Strayed My father passed away when I was 21.\u00a0 21 and full of the “faith as a grain of mustard seed” which meant that I could remove the mountain of my … Continue reading “Stop and smell the lemons…”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":468,"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460\/revisions\/468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}