Belief in the unknowing
The anxiety didn’t stop as soon as I got to school. It stayed through the whole day, each hour feeling like a new mountain to climb. It stayed like that for years. Years.
And through those years, prayer was my biggest tool. Like having heaven on speed dial. I would just talk to Heavenly Father, tell him about how scared I was and how I needed His help. I never hesitated to pray. Then as I got older, in my later teen years, I started having the sneaky feeling that I was bothering God. I was annoying Him with how much I prayed. I was taking advantage of His love and grace. So I backed off. And the distance between us grew and grew and as time went on, it felt harder to come back. Like I was afraid to ask for help, in case I didn’t get any. I didn’t want confirmation of the fear I had, that He no longer cared.
But then I started becoming sick. Took some years of investigating and fighting. And then after getting diagnosed, it was obvious life wasn’t something I could, or even was meant to do, on my own. I didn’t know what I needed, what help to ask for, but laying in pain on the dark bathroom floor, I knew I just needed to pray. I couldn’t promise that my prayers would be happy, positive, or even grateful as I struggled with my grief. But I knew that isn’t what Heavenly Father wanted. He wants a relationship, an authentic one, even if that means hearing about my sadness or anger.
3 Nephi 19:26 says,
“And Jesus said unto them: Pray on; nevertheless they did not cease to pray.”
He wants that connection with us. Prayer and our Savior IS that connection.
There is a daily devotional app I use called Glorify, and there was one devotional recently that really resonated with me. A part of it reads:
“Jesus wouldn’t ignore or pity or preach to you in your pain; He would have compassion on you. The Greek word for compassion here means a yearning from deep within, something occurring deep within his gut. Jesus’ compassion wasn’t a fleeting sentiment or empty emotion. It was an active posture, overflowing into practical love. His compassion didn’t just notice needs: it moved Him to meet them.
Contrast that with pity. Pity looks down, feeling sorry for someone. It’s condescending, keeping its distance, unwilling to get its hands dirty. Pity whispers “Poor thing,” but walks away unchanged. It’s fools gold, glinting like compassion but ultimately shallow and degrading. Pity stops short of true empathy- it devalues the person it claims to care about.”
That really made me think about the difference between compassion and pity. Pity, like said before, “devalues the person it claims to care about”. Why is that? I think it’s because pity comes from a superior perspective. Acknowledging the sorrow or pain from a distance, but not quite meeting them at that level. Whereas compassion breaks that distance barrier and brings the perspective down to become equal. Like Sister Runia said in her general conference talk this April, “No one can sink lower than the light of Christ shines.”
His love reaches us in the depths of our darkness, meets us there instead of spectating from the outside. He sits with us in our pain. He knows our struggles not just because He can see it, but also because He felt it.
My prayers sure became ceaseless after that. Every pain, every trial, every fear, I was reaching out. I truly began to appreciate prayer as the heavenly gift it is.
I saw how God can be present and helpful in my life even through challenges. Prayer hasn’t healed me, it hasn’t taken away all that I go through. But it gives me different support. And I’ve learned different ways to pray, with different intentions. On days that I have an appointment I’m nervous about, I’ve started praying asking for ways to focus on others and share Gods light. An example of this- I have... not the best veins, but I have to get a lot of pokes for IVs and blood draws. I have had some horrible experiences with that in the past, and it’s become a struggle of mine mentally. I’ll pray before I leave for an appointment and pray in my heart the whole way there, asking for strength and ability. Asking for peace. And asking for ways to brighten others' days instead of darkening my own. With this new intention, I have made some great connections with people. Instead of caving in on myself in fear, I turn outward.
If I were to keep a list of all the appointments I were stressed about and prayers I prayed, I am sure with hindsight now I would be able to see Gods hand in each and every one. I’m sure I would see that He really was listening and showing up, the whole time.
Recently, I went through the temple for the first time. And I was really concerned about how my pain was going to be. I knew it would be a lot of walking, sitting upright, and time without pain management. It was a fear that sat heavy on my mind leading up to our set date. They say fear thrives in the unknown. But I think so can faith. It is only when we don’t know, that our faith can grow. That is the point, belief in the unknowing. I wasn’t sure how my body was going to cooperate at the temple. But I had faith I would be okay despite it.
The day came, and I struggled, needing lots of breaks and some pain flares taking my full focus. But I felt peace, I felt strength. I knew my Heavenly Father knew all I was doing to be there that day. There were just the smallest things that made me feel seen and known, but I was SURE there were angels cheering me on.
Matthew 10:29-31 says:
Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.”
I always loved that scripture. And my first time through the temple, a sister quoted it to me, and said it was proof, and that she knew that Heavenly Father knew I was there. Not many people recognize the effort it takes to get out of the house when struggling with health. I can show up and smile through the pain, which most people take at face value. But there is so much that goes into getting there, so much hidden behind a smile. I knew that my Heavenly Father saw the effort I put into being there, the strength I had to have and faith I had to foster.
Going to the temple taught me a lot about my divine nature. About who I am, truly. About what it means to be a daughter of God. I learned and marveled at the innate divine power women hold. I grew up not knowing for sure the role women played. I heard lots of mixed thoughts, and experienced lots of different things. I’ve felt that ugly thought before, that I am “lesser”, for whatever reason (there is never a good one, which proves it’s just not true.) I have felt that exclusion and sad wonder, reading time and time again and noticing an obvious lack of women mentioned. But I’ve seen for myself the natural heavenly power women are born with. Our inherent ability to perform ordinances and make covenants in the temple. We are not just a step, not just a tool, we are divine beings. Daughters of God.
Taking that knowledge into my daily battles is my greatest strength. I have an inherited power as a daughter of God, but also I have my Heavenly Father looking out for me. I have had to face a lot of fears, and often too. The weight of scary days ahead used to bear down on me. But I have a scripture hanging on my bathroom mirror now that says:
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.” (Proverbs 3:5) And that brings me a lot of peace. We have been directed by God to put our trust in Him. We don’t have to understand. We don’t have to think about the days to come. He knows our needs. And that is fact.
3 Nephi 13:32-34 says:
“For your Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient is the day unto the evil thereof.”
These scriptures not only give us permission to, but fully direct us to give our worries to God. For some, it's a scary reality to accept, but for others, it's a comfort to know that it all is in God's hands.
I struggled a lot with grief after becoming chronically ill. Mourning the past life that I had and also the future one I dreamed of having. It felt impossible to heal from. I was, and am, so young. I should have endless possibilities ahead of me. I shouldn’t have been forced by my hurting body to no longer be able to work the job I loved, go the places I like to go, and do the things I want to do. I would grieve just thinking about the procedures and struggles that await me. I would grieve my old self, the abilities I had.
But the thing is, as much as I may have planned on or dreamed of a certain life, it was never a part of Gods plan. For whatever reason, this is the mortal experience that was in store for me. And I’ve been asked before how I can possibly believe in God when I go through what I do. How can I have faith in a world with so much pain and sorrow?
My answer? This Earth is not where God resides. Faith will get me to where He is. There is good and bad here. Many different forces in play. We are here for a mortal experience, to go through it all. We were never promised a purely good life. We were promised to experience life. The good parts of it come from God. And I choose to seek that good, to find Him where I can while I’m here.
I like to think, “Who would I be if I lived in the years leading up to Christs birth?”
Would I be a believer? Would I share my faith with others? Whoever I would be then, I can be now. Because Christ is coming again. There is work to do here in the meantime. If Jesus were here, He would do all that we are called to do. Speak, teach, serve, comfort. But His work has become ours. We are to do it in our own special ways.
Going back in time again, back to Washington state, I think about me in middle school. In the depths of my struggles with anxiety. I was called to be my ages church class president. This meant meetings with people I didn’t know, leading at activities and even in class, reaching out to other girls my age, basically all things that pushed me out of my bubble. One thing that came easily to me though was talking about my anxiety. It was never something I was ashamed of, and at this point I had been in years of therapy and in the process of getting accommodations at school- it was just my truth, and I was okay with that. And I had a leader who never failed to let me know that that was a strength. She told me about how she struggled, and how I helped her. I helped her. And others too. Just by doing what came naturally and talking about my own experiences. I didn't fully understand how.
It has been a reminder to me that our purpose doesn’t always happen on purpose.
It reminds me that even when we might feel like we aren’t making a difference, we actually are but maybe just in ways we can’t see.
I am the same girl I was then. Not hesitating to talk about or share my struggles. I’m not proud of them, and I don’t have all the answers. But I think that it may be a gift. To be able to share my story and have it feel like a mirror for someone else. It’s the gift of connection, of community. Realizing we’re not as alone as we thought.
And we never are, truly, alone. Even as I have felt and gone through pains that no one close to me may fully understand, I know that my Savior does. He felt my literal pain. He felt my emotions, the isolation, and the confusion. He knows this all and still has a purpose for me. I am still worthy in His eyes. The world may see me as broken because of my body, and even my mind, but Christ makes me whole. He lets me know there is more to my life than pain. More to me than just my weaknesses. And I don’t have to navigate any of it by myself. And He will fill the gaps in the work I am called to do.
