A God Of Love

*sigh* I’m not ever sure what to write right now. I’m just sad. My friends are going through a lot right now. I belong to a Navy wife support site and have become good ‘friends’ with most of the ladies on there. One has been with her boyfriend for a while. Well, he’s her husband as of a few weeks ago. Yay! They’ve been trying to have kids for a long time and they’ve only had miscarriages. Another has a boyfriend and found out she is pregnant a few weeks ago, which is so exciting for her after going through a rough miscarriage a while ago. After getting her boyfriend all excited about the baby (he has other kids and was totally against having more at first), she found out yesterday she might have lost the baby. She has an appointment to find out for sure today. Another lost her husband and two-year-old daughter in a car accident right after he got home from deployment in January. And another good friend recently had a miscarriage, too.

It just breaks my heart. It makes me so sad that my friends are going through this and there’s nothing I can do to help. Just saying you’re sorry and not really being able to do anything sucks. Caleb and I pray for all of them, but that just never feels like enough. I know there is nothing I can do except be there when they want to talk and pray for them. It just sucks. Really really bad. I know how badly K1, K2 and D want kids. I can’t even imagine how hard it must be for K3 to lose her whole world. Especially after being so relieved that her husband made it home from Iraq, just to lose him to a careless driver.

It’s things like this that make someone feel inadequate. Not knowing what to do or what to say. Knowing that all I can do is sit and listen.

It’s also things like this that make me so greatful for the Gospel. What would life be like without it? I feel so bad for Catholics. Up until recently, they believed that if their child died before being baptized that the child would be in Limbo and would never make it to heaven. How depressing would that be? To either lose a child to miscarriage or to have a child die young and believe that you’d never ever see that child again? I know there are other religions that believe similarly. It’s just so heartbreaking. And Athiests! To believe that there’s nothing after this. I can’t even imagine not ‘being’ any more. I know science explains all of our worldy existence, but how does it explain the perfectness of our bodies? How does it explain our souls and personalities? How does science explain our feelings and our differences? Only the miracle of God can explain that.

Knowing for a fact that we will all be together as a family is such a wonderful comfort. To know that even though we lose someone in this life, that we will be with them again has brought so much peace to my life.

I have been lucky enough to have only lost grandparents and distance aquaintances. I haven’t really known the loss of someone very close. When dad’s dad died, I think I was in Middle School or Elementary School. I just remember him being so sick and suffering a lot, so it was a blessing when he died. It was the same for both of my mom’s parents. Her mom died when I was in Sixth grade. She’d been sick for such a long time. I think she had lung cancer and being addicted to an inhaler made it worse. Mom’s dad died a few years ago. I remember her knocking on my door at 2am on my sister’s birthday. She was so sad. We just sat on the couch and she cried and we talked. Grandpa had lived with us for over a year. The thing that made his leaving us so hard was that a hospice worker had been over the day before he died and told us he had about a month left. Less than 12 hours later he was gone. Grandpa had had a rough two years with many strokes and losing his faculties. It was so hard watching my mom deal with all that without help from her brother and sister. All they did was complain that mom was trying to get Grandpa’s money. She didn’t take any money. She used the little her sister gave her to pay for Grandpa’s doctors and for his medicine. Everything else was out of her and dad’s pockets. That’s how much she loved Grandpa. She put her whole life on hold to give him the 24hour care that he needed. We all loved Grandpa so much. I still cry when I think about how much I miss him.

Knowing how much I miss Grandpa even though I know I’ll see and be with him again makes my heart break for the people who don’t have that knowledge. I mean, if I’m this sad even though I know I’ll get to talk with him and hear all his silly jokes again, imagine how sad and heartbroken people are who don’t have that knowledge. It just makes me cry when I think about that. K1, K2 and K3 don’t have that knowledge. I’m not really sure what they believe because I’ve never asked. Being ‘web buddies’ with them has made me too shy to ask about that. I don’t even know how to bring it up to them. I so badly want to let them all know that they will see they precious children again. That God loves them so much that He wants to comfort them and bless them if they will just ask.

It’s not just with those things that God helps people. I’ve been through some stuff in my life and I just felt so alone. I used to wonder how God could let someone do that to another person. When I finally let God into my life and let him help me, I realized how much He loved me. He didn’t want those things to happen to me. He didn’t want me to feel alone and lost. He didn’t want me to go through all those years of thinking I was a horrible person and being so angry. God loves each and every one of us and WILL NOT give us more than we can handle. When I finally realized that, it opened my eyes to so many things. God gave me this trial to go through so I could become a stronger and better person. It’s taken me almost my entire life to realize that. God isn’t a God of punishment and retribution. He is a God of love and forgiveness. He wants to help each and every one of us. He wants to bless us with every blessing He can give. God throws people in our paths to help us realize how much He loves us.

The best thing about my life is the realization that God loves me. He loves me because I am His child and because I am special. I am special because I am His child. The thing that makes me so happy is that He loves each and every person on this earth for those very same reasons. He doesn’t love Bob more because he’s a Bishop and He doesn’t love Joe more because he runs a children’s charity. God also doesn’t love Sam less because he drinks and does drugs. God loves each and every person that is, has been and ever will be on this earth. While He does feel sad and disappointed about some of the choices we make, he doesn’t love us any less. That is the beauty of the Gospel. God loves us all so much that He has made a way for us to get back to Him. All we have to do is accept Him and repent. How easy is that?

On Sunday, our Sunday School lesson talked about how the Israelites were travelling through the wilderness and kept dying from the bites of ‘fiery serpents.’ Moses prayed to God and asked for help. God’s response was for Moses to put an object on the top of a pole and to tell the people that all they had to do was look at or in the direction of the pole (if they were too far away to see it) and they would be healed. So many people died because it was too simple. Would I have been one of those people? It’s possible. I still have a lot of pride and have a habit of thinking my way is always the best. It’s usually only after my way doesn’t work that I will sit down and ask God what I can do. Sometimes the solutions He gives are so simple that I’ll try other things first. It’s sad to realize that I may have been one of the Israelites that died because I wouldn’t just look at something. I mean, what could it hurt? How hard is it to just look at a pole when you are dying?

Wow. This post has gone all over the place. I guess the main thing I’m feeling this very early morning is thankful that I have the Gospel in my life. I wouldn’t be in a very good place if I didn’t have it. I wouldn’t have my wonderful husband who loves me so very much and I love him. I wouldn’t have the peace and happiness that comes with knowing how much God loves me and wants me to suceed. I wouldn’t have this eternal relationship with my family. I wouldn’t have the knowledge that God won’t give me any trials that I can’t overcome. It’s so wonderful knowing that He’s there with me every step of every day. It’s so wonderful knowing that I have someone to talk to and lean on every second of every day. He’s there with me at all times. He’ll never leave me alone.

I just wish my friends had that knowledge. I wish my friends knew that they will be with their children (and husband) again. I wish they knew that one day they will be able to hold all their precious children in their arms.

For those of you reading this that are interested in finding out for yourselves if these things are true, go here: http://www.mormon.org/mormonorg/eng/ Just read a little. It won’t hurt anything. The truth doesn’t hurt when it helps improve your life.

4 Replies to “A God Of Love”

  1. Jen Bundy

    After having 6 misses, I was angry for a long time until I realized God had a plan for us and we just had to wait to find out what it was. In the end, I look back and think that if I hadn’t miscarried all those times and we had kids 2 years earlier our lives would definately have ended up way different. We might even be divorced, Shawn might not have made it through college and I could have been stuck living with my parents. So for your friend I would say one baby will in the right time “stick” and when it does they will be more joyed than any other parents because of all the pain it took to get to that place in life. I give them my deepest sympathy in this difficult time.

    Reply
  2. Jen Bundy

    After having 6 misses, I was angry for a long time until I realized God had a plan for us and we just had to wait to find out what it was. In the end, I look back and think that if I hadn’t miscarried all those times and we had kids 2 years earlier our lives would definately have ended up way different. We might even be divorced, Shawn might not have made it through college and I could have been stuck living with my parents. So for your friend I would say one baby will in the right time “stick” and when it does they will be more joyed than any other parents because of all the pain it took to get to that place in life. I give them my deepest sympathy in this difficult time.

    Reply
  3. Mrs. Lay

    So true. The gospel is one of the greatest blessings in my life. It's so hard to see someone going through something so difficult, even more so when they don't have the assurances & peace that the gospel can bring.

    Reply
  4. Mrs. Lay

    So true. The gospel is one of the greatest blessings in my life. It's so hard to see someone going through something so difficult, even more so when they don't have the assurances & peace that the gospel can bring.

    Reply

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