Avoiding the Whale

Dear Friends,

So... remember back when I was funny?  Yeah, maybe those days will come again.  But today is not one of those days.  Today I need a little bit of advice.

Life's been pretty rough for the past month.  The hard part is, in many ways, rather than getting better, it's getting harder.  Here's the thing.  I have had many very significant experiences with Heavenly Father.  He has answered my prayers in many ways, ways that I think are impossible to misinterpret.  (For example, the day I chose to give up, and just walk away from my problem, I went to a fireside and Robert D. Hales spoke.  His topic was having faith through our trials and never giving up.  How else could I interpret that?) Through all of this, I have come to know that He is VERY aware of me, and I am oh, so grateful for that.  The problem is, He has told me things that seem perfectly impossible.  I know He's a God of miracles, and I see miracles in my life, but this one really, really big miracle that He's told me will happen just seems like it's too big of a job.

How have you dealt with something like this?  I have no problem believe in miracles in other people's lives.  I know that they happen.  And I've heard about a miracle that happened in my life.  But I was only 6 weeks old, so I don't remember it at all.

I guess... Well, Heavenly Father has asked me to do a lot of things.  He told me where to go to college, he asked me to go on a mission, he asked me to move to Texas, he asked me to move back.  Some of those things were very scary, and I didn't understand them.  I didn't know if I could really do them.  But I had faith, so I moved forward and did what I was asked.  And they all worked out.

What he has asked of me now is the hardest thing yet.  It hurts.  Every day I question the answers I've been given.  I've had people tell me that Heavenly Father doesn't want me to be unhappy, so why would he be asking this of me.  But he has.  And it doesn't make sense.  It's not easy.  I don't have perfect control.  When I was told to go on a mission, I started working on papers.  I had control over it.  Sure, I had to be living a good life, and pass all of the interviews, but I had control.  I don't have any control over this.  I just know the idea of what I need to do, but not how to do it.  And it really involves someone else who, to my knowledge, hasn't asked or received the same answers.  They don't want the same answers either.

So, what do I do?  How to I find the balance between having faith in something so hard, that I just can't see?  It's not logical, and right now, I don't even really want it.  It would be so much easier to just turn around and walk away.  That way my heart wouldn't have to break, over and over.  But I know what I've been told.  How do I have hope, and faith in something that seems so impossible?  How do I come to believe in miracles in my own life?

My dear sister, L7 bought me a book.  It's called Believing Christ.  So far it's good.  But it's mostly about believing in the Atonement to cover your sins.  I know I'm not perfect, but I don't really question that.  There have been some things that have really touched me in the book, but I'm not quite there.

Don't think I'm questioning the Gospel.  I'm not.  I'm just questioning my ability to do this.  So, dear friends and family, how have you done it?  Because I don't want to give up.  When the Lord tells you something and you do something else, you get swallowed by a whale.  That would be a total bummer.

Ok, so the big question is:  How do you have faith in the impossible?  How do you get yourself to believe in the illogical?  And how do you find the strength go keep going when everything else around you is telling you to just move on?

"If you are helpless, He is not.  If you are lost, He is not.  If you don't know what to do next, He knows.  It would take a miracle, you say?  Well, if it takes a miracle, why not?" ~ Boyd K. Packer, Conference Report October 1970