Wait on the Lord

Rachel is one of the inspiring women I know. I have taken excerpts from a post on her personal blog. To read the entire entry you can go here.

I am a woman of many words. I love to talk, I love to write, I love to express, I love to communicate. I feel that in order to truly understand the things that are most important to me, I must verbalize and record them.

So why is it so hard for me to capture in words all that I have learned and experienced in the past few months?

I sit down, and I try to write blog posts or journal entries...and I just can’t do it. It’s not that it is too sad or too hard for me—it’s just that I don’t have the words. I have learned so much more than I can possibly verbalize in one sitting. I feel like it will come out little by little over the months and years.

We had a particularly tough week [recently]. I was getting discouraged about myself...and a little angry with God.... Life didn’t feel fair.

I often wonder what that phrase means—“the way that they were supposed to.” How much of our lives are planned/controlled by God? How much does He mean to happen, and how much does He just allow to happen? I know that we all have free will and agency, so it’s not like He dictates exactly what we are going to do.... He has the ability and desire to help everything work out for the best. He can take an experience that could be considered a trial and turn it into a blessing for all involved. That is the power of His Atonement.

One of my favorite scriptures is Romans 8:28: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.”

God may not have intended for me to have fertility problems, but He has promised that He will work it out for me somehow so that it will be for my good and so that I will still be able to fulfill my calling as a mother....I [have] felt that truth settle on me, and I’ve felt an uncanny peace in the weeks that have followed. Sure, I’ve had a few meltdowns (just ask Ryan), but for the most part, something inside of me is saying, “It’s all going to be okay, Rachel. Just hang on.”

I am proud to say that I am learning. By nature, I am a control freak. I am impatient. I am used to working for what I want. I must say that as much as this experience hurts me, it is good for me. I can feel myself changing.

Which leads me to my last religious thought for the day. (Well, at least my last religious thought to be shared on a public blog.) In Psalms 27:14, we are promised, “Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.”

I am waiting. And He is strengthening me.