Space. Make space. I'm quite good at making space. Clear the clutter, purge the unwanted, organize it just so, I was born to do that. Little did I know, that one small word would impact my life in unimaginable ways.
At the age of 33, I naively thought I had sorted life out. After years of struggle, the light at the end of the tunnel was shining bright, beckoning me forth. The elusive dream of building a home was becoming a reality; a place to settle down, grow roots and watch our boys grow into young men. My life was neat and organized and falling right into place. My plan was coming to fruition. I had it all mapped out, ready to fit it into nice little folders called : build a home, move into the home, decorate, host the family for holidays, settle into a rhythm. I thrived on certainty and my plan gave me that. I didn't feel like I was asking for much. We had worked hard, overcome our fair share of challenges and it felt good to finally slow down, to breath and enjoy the fruits of our labor. And so, my plan carried on. We went through the whole process of picking out the floor plan, finding the perfect lot and meticulously choosing all the design details. We knew there would be one slight hiccup though; we had to be out of our rental at the end of May (of 2016) and the house wasn't projected to be finished until late July. A new plan emerged. Owning an Airstream had always been on my bucket list. I desperately wanted to make that dream come true and now felt like the perfect time. Financially we could make it happen and logistically we could make it work with our current lifestyle (business owner and homeschooler). It just made sense! Traveling for a few months during the summer sounded dreamy and soul enriching and a little bit crazy, so basically, completely us. After a little cajoling, I convinced my husband to jump on board with my scheming and we took the plunge My plan started unraveling as soon as we hit the open road. Concerns on the quality of construction of the home started popping up, which brought to the forefront a feeling my husband and I had been experiencing but never shared with one another. Through the whole process of building the house, we both had been questioning it. Was it the right thing to do? We knew it was at the onset of this journey but now we weren't so sure. We wrestled all summer with this decision. What if we backed out of the house? What then? Where would we go? What would we do? Besides the Airstream, we had no house, no place to go to after the supposedly dreamy summer travels. My husband seemed to roll with the punches, while I on the other hand felt like I had been sucker-punched. I felt alone. Everywhere we went people would profess that we were living their dream, living the life, doing what others only thought about doing but never did. But you know what, this wasn't my dream! My dream was to settle down in that gorgeous house we were suppose to build. I was grieving the loss of what I envisioned life was going to look like and I felt guilt, extreme, bone crushing guilt. Who was I to be sad? I didn't lose a loved one, I wasn't terminally ill, my husband didn't lose a job. It was a house, a life I had painted in my dreams and now, it wasn't happening. Even now as I type this it sounds silly to me but you know what I've come to learn? Grief is grief and if given the space, it will occupy every ounce of it. This pain was real to me and ignoring it only made it worse. Coming to the realization that my plan wasn't His plan was hard. So where did we go from there? My testimony has grown and stretched and become more full as a result of turning to Him. I have studied my scriptures, attended the temple and pleaded for answers. I have prayed continually to know the path that we should take. There were so many times I wanted to rewind to a time when I knew what the next step was. The uncertainty felt overwhelming. But one thing we did know, we needed to back out of the house and make the giant unknown leap into full time travel. We didn't have the why but we had the how. We would do it on faith and complete blind trust in the Lord. Even the Savior had moments of struggle in His final days and He was perfect. How could I think I would be immune to that? I feel there are moments I have been falsely lulled into a belief that if the Lord asks us to do something, He can, and perhaps, will make it easy. Unfortunately or maybe fortunately, that's not the case. He will always provide a way but that way isn't guaranteed to be a walk in the park. I think Nephi had the right idea when he said, "...I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded...save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commanded them." (1Nephi 3:7) Blindly trusting in Him has been hard. I wanted answers. I had an idea of how I thought things should go and I felt if I prayed hard enough and patiently waited, he would slip the answers into my open folders. I started to believe that had to be it, maybe I'm suppose to be patient. Isn't that what we hear? Be patient and the answer will come on His time table, not ours. And so I practiced my patience and patted myself on the back for doing a good job. Then one day, it hit me. He's the patient one. He's waiting on me, not the other way around. His plan is so much bigger than mine. He's willing to give me so much more than what I need and more than what I ever thought I wanted. But He can't. I've given Him no space. I can't receive until I let go. I need to let go of everything I thought my life should be like and embrace all that He has given me and still has in store. I have to move on from what I wanted, what I've been told and shown life should be and walk head-on into the unknown. The Atonement provided the way for me to let go of the hurt, the pain and the uncertainty. As soon as I can release my will, I can be filled up with His. I will finally be ready to receive. He is gracious and merciful and so much more patient than I will ever be. His plan is infinitely better than mine, it always is and always will be. When I felt alone, I wasn't. The Savior descended below all men, so that He could succor each one of us. No matter the trial, big or small, He has felt our pain, acutely and intimately. He is always there, we just need to be willing to make the space to receive. "He built a depth of beauty into my story that a life without suffering would never have known." Kara Tippetts The Hardest Peace : Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life's Hard ❤ Molly |
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