Embattled Christian

This past week I’ve been posting “I’m Thankful for” messages on my facebook and twitter accounts.   Given how fortunate I am,  it seems appropriate to proclaim my gratitude often and publicly.   Here in Alaska as the dark descends and the cold deepens I am very grateful for my cozy home.  Grateful for warm boots, a fleece lined coat, gloves and a vehicle that blows heat on my toes as I commute from Eagle River to Anchorage and back each weekday.  I’m grateful for my well stocked pantry and grateful for numerous opportunities year after year to feed family, friends, and guests many satisfying meals whipped together from the contents of that pantry. That is something I do a lot of: feed people. Which I will do again on this  Thanksgiving Day.

On Friday the 13th, I posted:  “I’m thankful for MY problems.”  Perhaps throwing a challenge in the teeth of fate.  It  isn’t simply that my problems aren’t as bad as those suffered by others.  It isn’t just that my problems could be worse and I’m grateful that they aren’t.  No.  My problems have brought experiences and lessons I could have learned in no other way.

It is one of the prime directives of parenthood that we teach our children how to avoid pain and problems.  We teach them to stay out of the street, to not touch the hot stove,  to study for tests, to save and prepare to earn a living,  to drive carefully,  to be responsible, the list is obviously endless yet essential.  So much suffering is avoidable if we avoid problems to begin with.  My parents tried to make that point with me. I’ve tried to teach it to my children. We spend a great deal of energy avoiding problems but pretty regularly the sky falls on us anyway.

Twenty years ago, in a hospital in Richland, Washington, I spent a frantic night holding my shivering daughter as she lay on an ice bed to bring down a life-threatening fever.  She had been in and out of the hospital for several months and developed an infection which stubbornly refused to respond to antibiotics.   Over the next year she endured multiple brain surgeries and hospital stays before the doctors at Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City corrected her problem.  During that year we wondered if she would ever be able to live a normal life.

The truth is she has not lived a normal life. She has lived a spectacular life. She flourished in spite of her health challenges. We learned how to cope with the affects of her condition.  She learned to be in tune with her body. She went to college on a scholarship, went on a two month mission, married, has two beautiful boys, and is living a very exciting life traveling the world with her husband.   She has taught me about grace, cheerfulness, and persistence.

Two and a half years ago a diagnosis of cancer seemed to overwhelm our family resources and resilience beyond repair.  And once again my problem became my instructor, my refiner, my intimate companion that revealed much about myself to myself. And once again with the help of loved ones and friends we not only survived but flourished.

I am absolutely and resolutely converted to the idea that all things can work together for our good.  To me it is the only option in the face of all that life can throw at us. I still avoid problems with all the energy I can devote to the task. But inasmuch as I cannot hold the sky up every time it threatens to fall, I will continue to bow to the tutorials God allows me to experience.  He has forseen my way through the labyrinth and, as in times past, will provide the grace fo me to reach the other side wiser, kinder, and more fit for His kingdom.

I am grateful for my problems.  If I endure them well I might have the privilege of being one of God’s lights on the path of another soul working their way through unexpected, uninvited, yet essential experience.

Doctrine and Covenants 90:24 Search diligently, pray always, and be believing, and all things shall work together for your good, if ye walk uprightly and remember the covenant wherewith ye have covenanted one with another.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 23rd, 2009 at 2:28 am and is filed under Christian living, Giving Thanks, Habits of Belief. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.