Tuesdays with Naqvi--8

Eight is *great.*

I started this morning with reading Psalms 103:1-4 and am trying very hard to focus on the tender mercies and loving kindness versus the sadness and frustration at the stumbling blocks in an already difficult journey.  Another tender mercy: I met with my doctor today, and the results on my doplar came back clear, there's not a blood clot there, and she released me from the prescribed bed rest!  Prayers and blessings worked to ease that stress in this case.  I am just supposed to keep the arm elevated when I can, take a half dose of the prescribed coudamin daily, and sleep on my left side.  Hooray for the little things! 

Bed rest and I do not go along well together.  I was only on it for a few days, but felt like that was too much on top of everything else.  I was starting to feel worthless in my role as a mother and utterly useless as a human being.  I even started down that slippery slope of asking WHY when I was already going through so much did this have to happen, too?  After starting to feel down, I finally took the time to listen to Elder David A. Bednar's {one member of our church's Quorum of the Twelve Apostles} recent talk called "That We Might Not Shrink."  {I strongly encourage people listen to it.  The link is here.} I'm trying to follow the good thoughts and ideas that come to my mind, to not put off opportunities to do good things, and to follow through on actions that I might otherwise brush aside in the name of busyness. After many, MANY references to this talk from my mother, Stephen's dad, mention of it at church, more than a couple of links by email or other forms of social media from friends and acquaintances, and the specific discussion of it in a personal visit from our bishop, I knew that this was something I needed to pay attention to.

Normally when I hear the word, shrink, my first thought is in the context of laundry, weight loss, cooking, or bank accounts as in, "I better not put this sweater in the dryer, or it might shrink" and "I need some workouts that will shrink these thighs" and "those burgers really shrunk on the grill" or "I can just feel my bank account shrinking this year." In other words, I first think of shrinking as becoming smaller, losing weight, or lessening in value. In the context of our souls, "to shrink" can mean so much more than just moving down in size.

The message to "not shrink," during trials is telling us to not recoil, curl up into a scared ball, hold ourselves back, retreat, or lose the value of our souls, even when times are tough. Scripturally, there are references to people, "shrinking with awful fear" and "shrinking with shame," "shrinking from the presence of the Lord," and even from the Savior himself in Gethsemae asking His Father to "not have to partake of the bitter cup and shrink." Not shrinking, spiritually, means to work through our own trials without becoming discouraged or giving up faith, to partake of our own "bitter cup without becoming bitter." {Neal A. Maxwell} 

This was just what I needed to hear. Especially now when this swollen arm and bed rest seem to have added insult to injury over the last few days, Elder Bednar's words make an even stronger point to me that "not shrinking is more important than surviving." {Quoting Elder Maxwell}  Not shrinking--or standing firm and immoveable in our testimony and faith--can be the bigger step in our growth and learning, often more difficult than the trial itself, even if it be one of life and death.

The talk referenced Elder Neal A. Maxwell's battle with leukemia. Elder Maxwell learned that he did not want to just survive cancer, but he wanted to not shrink in the trial. Elder Maxwell lost the earthly battle, but did not shrink in the process.  He pressed forward and was blessed with time "to love, to serve, to teach, and to testify." What wonderful ways to spend your time on this earth!

I loved the quote from Orson F. Whitney that said, "no pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted.  {We develop} patience, faith, fortitude, and humility.  All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our character, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called children of God...." Again, it is the endurance with patience that helps us to "not shrink."

Often, the Savior teaches in paradoxical statements--lose life and find it, last shall be first---and sometimes we have to ask ourselves if we not only have the faith to be healed, but do we have the faith NOT to be healed.  Talk about a paradox!  Elder Bednar also referenced the trial of a young married couple who endured a first round of cancer only 3 weeks into their marriage and another round a few years later.  He presented them with this paradox.  How do we overcome the "natural-man tendencies to demand what we want and believe we deserve" when the Lord may have other plans?  "Strong faith in the Savior is submissively accepting of His will and timing in our lives, even if the outcome is not what we hoped for or wanted." We have to be willing to "submit to all things and offer our whole souls as an offering unto Him" just as our Savior did in His atonement.  Only then will we truly grow and learn the lessons from the experiences.  We need to put trust fully in the Lord's plan for us and have the faith to accept his will. "God's power does not change," but we are not displaying true faith in that power by ONLY having faith that is dependent upon receiving the outcomes we want. The paradox is that we have to develop faith that if the outcomes we don't want end up happening, it's okay, too.    

But, we are never alone in our experiences.  Remember the story of the troubled waters and the disciples having fear of the storm while Jesus slept?  They woke him and asked, "carest thou not that we perish?"  The Savior calmed the water and relieved the trial.  We have to remember that our Savior does care, and he would remove all pain and suffering from our path if that would still accomplish His plan of Happiness for us.  But, "many of the lessons we are to learn in mortality can only be received through the things we experience and sometimes suffer.  God expects and trusts us to face adversity with His help to learn what we need to learn and become what we need to become."  As those of us who are parents and/or ever work with children know, sometimes we have to let children struggle and work things out on their own, for if we did for them what we already know how to do yet they do not, learning and growth would not exist for them.  In a similar way, we, as children of a Heavenly Father, must be allowed to learn to endure with faith and submission.  We have to learn to simply have faith that Christ could heal us, not only that He will heal us.  

I love the final blessing that Elder Bednar left: "As you press forward with steadfast faith in Christ, you will be blessed with the capacity to not shrink."  And, as I've learned lately, to "not shrink" does not mean to simply refrain from recoiling, to remain unchanged, to hold the same value, to stay put and not retreat, or to keep the original size intact.  In this case, the opposite of shrinking, "to not shrink" actually causes us to grow.