Spiritual Strength Part I

Certain things have happened over the last three years and as I try to look forward I feel the need to regroup spiritually.  I need to remember things that have happened to me in the past.  So my next few posts are going to be a retelling of some of the pivotal spiritual points and lessons in my life so I can remember and have a renewal of hope.

Have you ever had a dream where everyone can do something except you?  I have, several times.  In my dreams everyone can fly, but no matter how hard I try I only hover a few inches for a few seconds and then fall back to earth.  I am doing everything right in my dream so I should be able to fly, but I'm just not able to do it. 

As a young teenager this is how I felt about personal revelation.  I felt somehow everyone else could receive it, but for some reason I wasn't capable.  I was reading the Book of Mormon and I wanted to put Moroni's promise to the test.  I just didn't believe I could receive an answer, though.  I think in my own way I was preparing myself to lessen the disappointment of no answer coming.  I firmly believed my parents had received answers and could receive revelation and the prophet and apostles too.  I just didn't think I qualified somehow. 

Well, when I got to the end of the Book of Mormon I reread Moroni 10:4-5 and knelt to pray.  Nothing.  It was kind of a self-fulfilling thing since I had anticipated nothing.  I didn't give up because the idea of God not being real was too frightening to me so I continued through the motions.  I knew from my study of the Book of Mormon that if I wanted my seed to grow I needed to nurture it.  So I continued to pray each night and I started reading the Book of Mormon again.  For months I didn't receive any answer and I really believed it was because I just could receive personal revelation. 

One night I decided to pray first and then read my scriptures.  I was really frustrated and confused because I knew I needed my own testimony but if I was incapable of gaining one what would I do.  Again I felt nothing as I concluded my prayer and I began to read my scriptures.  I was in Alma chapter 32. The minute I read verse 27 I was changed. 

"But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words." 

I have never had a scripture affect me so.  It was as if Alma wrote it just for me.  All I had was my desire to believe, I no longer had an expectation of an answer, but I wanted to believe and I had given place for his words.  As I read the scripture I realized that the only qualifying thing I needed to have was this sincere desire and I had it so I could receive revelation.  In that moment I literally felt arms of love wrapped around me and I knew God loved me and had heard my prayers all along.  He had waited until I had read back to this scripture to answer them.  Why?  I think it is because of the powerful lessons I learned through this experience, lessons that have become more profound to me now.

First, I know God hears my prayers and indeed they are answered in His time.  Second, many answers come through diligent reading of the scriptures.  What would have happened had I given up before reaching Alma 32:27 a second time?  I wonder how God felt as I read along and prayed and He knew I just needed to get a little further.  Third, sometimes we are prompted to do things differently and don't even  know it.  I always prayed after my scripture reading, but not that night.  Fourth, I know God loves me.  I felt it reaffirmed in my heart that night and I have remembered it ever since.  In times of doubt when other things seem dim and hard to recall, I grope in my mind and heart for something solid to build upon and I come back to that night.  I know what I felt.  Fifth, I am capable and qualified to receive revelation.  I don't have to be someone special in the church.  I am a daughter of God and lived with Him before I came to earth.  I have a relationship with Him that extends before my mortal birth and therefore I can have a relationship with Him here on earth and all I need to do is sincerely desire it.  A great comfort because sometimes I feel that is all I have.

I have had other experiences that have reaffirmed some of these lessons to me like The Parable of the Dignitet.  I am grateful for the Lord's mercy to me in letting me feel again and learn again things that I already know.  In the darkest of times it is comforting to feel anew that He cares and has been present through my whole life.  I hope Alma knows how blessed I am because of his words.