Turning to the Lord

I gave a talk in church today. It was one of those, like so many seminary lessons, where I didn't feel confident that it was the best thing I've written but I felt like this was the message I was supposed to give. One of those that I let go and trusted that it resonated with someone in the room . .  .

I was 26 when I got married and 32 when I had my first child. At neither milestone was I that old, but for a person with controlling tendencies who thought for sure she would be married before she graduated from college and never conceived of the possibility of having issues with infertility both came as a shock. One of the major regrets in my life is that I spent so many of those years while I was single, or those years married without children feeling abandoned by my Heavenly Parents.
When I was single, I devised a series of annual plans surrounding getting me hitched. My family thought I was ridiculous. I had the “Ring by Spring 2001” or “Catch the Vision of Sara 2002”. I followed the Lord’s missionary “set a date plan” genuinely thinking that if I just believed hard enough that my desired outcome would follow.

After I got married and that darned biological clock started ticking and after we had tried unsuccessfully for some time my prayers got uber specific, like TMI specific. I thought if I just got the wording of my prayer just right and again, believed hard enough, God would make me successful. It says so in my Patriarchal blessing - seek the Lord and you will be successful in any endeavor you choose. Up to that point I had very little experience with failing at something that truly mattered to me.

After years of unsuccessfully trying to control either circumstance, while somehow thinking I was being faithful, and feeling month after month that God wasn’t recognizing my efforts and blessing me accordingly, I gave up. I gave up in the best ways possible.

I gave up on my “set a date” plans. I finally realized through the help of a boy who lamely hadn’t caught my vision that I was a catch darn it but that it was going to take a miracle to get this catch married. I realized that all I could do was keep myself as physically attractive and emotionally available as I could while waiting patiently in and trusting God’s plan for my life. Two years and my most fun time being single later, Matthew and I were married.

I should have learned my lesson, but I guess I needed an extra dose because I spent the first multiple years of our marriage once again despondent before realizing that I had been given a beautiful opportunity to draw closer to my Savior in a truly meaningful way. After I realized that, the Spirit directed me that my Heavenly Parents were trying to teach me patience. I worked through the Church’s addiction recovery program, Hi, I’m Sara and I’m an impatient person. And once again, a couple years later I gave birth to my science miracle, Dude. 15 months later I gave birth to my free miracle, Luca, and then God once again shut my womb. No more for us.

So, with that basis laid, let me tell you the topic I was assigned which comes from this week’s Come Follow Me lesson. It is an invitation to ponder how the Lord has been “gracious” to you as you have sought Him, even during your times of trial.

I’ve given you the foundation of a few pivotal trials in my life, now let me give you some scriptures.

In Amos 4 we learn that trials are gifts God gives us as opportunities to seek Him.

“And also I have given you cleanness of teeth (meaning nothing to eat) in all your cities, and want of bread in all your places; yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.

And also I have withholden the rain from you . . . I have smitten you with blasting and mildew . . . I have sent among you the pestilence after the manner of Egypt . . . I have overthrown some of you . . . yet have ye not returned unto me.” Those are some serious trials all meant, not to make the Children of Israel suffer for the sake of suffering but to turn them to God.

In Doctrine and Covenants 98:1 we are commanded “in everything give thanks.” which means not only that trials are gifts but that we need to give thanks for them. Have you ever done that, give thanks for your trials in the moment you are struggling through them? It is A LOT easier said than done.

And in section 88:63, we are invited to “draw near unto me and I will draw near unto you; seek me diligently and ye shall find me.” This invitation has really spoken to me of late, especially studying the Old Testament. How often does Christ beg the Children of Israel to Come to Him. He’s not hiding, he’s not being manipulative or withholding. He is consistently inviting them and us to seek and find Him.

This invitation and the commandment to give thanks for our trials are what I want to focus on today.

In the midst of my singleness and my infertility, I was most definitely not grateful, and while I thought I was drawing near unto God, I’m pretty sure it was a conditional drawing. A drawing near to get what I wanted. For most of those 10 years, I wasn’t thinking about how I could use these opportunities to grow my testimony in the Savior’s atoning sacrifice for me nor was I grateful for the opportunity of this special time to bless others in ways I maybe couldn’t otherwise. I was so focused on the lack I perceived in my life that I had no place in my heart for the blessings I was being given on a daily basis.

It’s only in looking back that I see how blessed I was to live on my own and have to figure out how to live in a new city completely by myself. The confidence I found in myself that I can do hard things. I traveled, I spent lots of guiltless amounts of money on myself, I enjoyed making friendships, and I found love and peace while serving in the Lord’s house both as a consistent patron and as a temple worker.

As a married couple without children, Matthew and I enjoyed getting to know each other since after our whirlwind courtship and wedding we found we didn’t know each other as well as we thought we did. That was both stretching and so fun all at the same time. We served in time-intensive callings, we took the opportunity for Matthew to get additional education - a choice we would not have made had we had children since he already had one advanced degree. We were able to finance said degree on the inconsistent contract work I did and the generous blessing of a full scholarship. And then beautifully three weeks after he graduated and three weeks before he had to start his first job after Business School, we had Zachary. I can’t ever look back on that remarkably amazing timing and not know that it was the very perfectly and intimately orchestration of a loving God.

When I look back on those 10 years of my life, I am so ashamed at how little gratitude I showed because of my perceived lack. But I am grateful for all the lessons I learned in trusting my Heavenly Parent’s plan for my life. It’s because of those pivotal lessons that when I was going through our first and only round of IVF, when nothing was going according to plan and my body was raging with hormones, causing me to be an emotional disaster, that I could confidently feel that if the Boston Red Sox could win a statistic-defying world series after 96 years God could work amazing, statistic-defying miracles with my body - which He did.

My patience, once such a weakness, now, because of the Atoning Grace and sacrifice of Jesus Christ, is so much stronger than it was in my 20s.

Fast forward a lot of years to 2020 when I had a hard time with our ward’s treatment of the pandemic. My limited vision on the workings of the ward council at the time, made me feel like they had given up on us as a ward family. I really enjoyed doing our own Home Church, but I was so excited to go back to church to once again feel that sense of community only to cry every Sunday as I walked home. I really struggled with our ward leadership at the time and church became something I did because I was “supposed to,” not something I did to draw nearer to Christ and my Heavenly Parents.

Matthew and I had countless discussions on why it was so hard for me when it wasn’t a big deal for him. I talked with our bishop, I fasted and prayed for a forgiving heart. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t get over these hard feelings no matter my efforts, but I did know that not coming to church wasn't an option. And somehow I had faith that if I kept working and trying, then God would help me understand at some future point.

Five months later, after diligently trying to follow God’s direction to learn what it means to really sustain our leaders, I got the answer to my concern from a talk at church - an answer that if it had been given at any time in the preceding five months I would not have been ready to accept, an answer that changed all my feelings on the matter.

And then six months later I got called into ward council and experienced myself, precious families who needed that same gift of forgiveness for things I had done. God had truly given me a gift that had changed me for the better because of the struggle.

But what I am so especially grateful for about that time in 2020 was the faith I had that God would use this experience and those hard feelings for my benefit. It was such an alternate way of viewing my trial that helped me move forward in faith, confidence, and peace. That peace and faith and confidence to keep moving forward despite the struggle was such a gift I never consistently felt during those 10 years of struggle. It was a gift born of experience and intentionally drawing closer to my Savior.

And it is that faith, confidence, and peace that I think our Heavenly Parents want for all of us. Yes, trials are going to come. But if we can recognize that all things work for our good if we turn to our Savior and Heavenly Father, we can experience joy and peace in the moment of our trial instead of only seeing the blessings after the fact.

Elder Martino in the April 2010 General Conference said, “Our Heavenly Father, who loves us completely and perfectly, permits us to have experiences that will allow us to develop the traits and attributes we need to become more and more Christlike. Our trials come in many forms, but each will allow us to become more like the Savior as we learn to recognize the good that comes from each experience. As we understand this doctrine, we gain greater assurance of our Father’s love. We may never know in this life why we face what we do, but we can feel confident that we can grow from the experience.”

Whatever we have, and there are many here facing excruciating obstacles and challenges, I pray that we can draw near to our Savior and our Heavenly Father with faith and gratitude instead of doubt and despair not to change the outcome, but to make it easier on ourselves.