Grateful for Hope

My sister has a Thankful Thursday post every week. This week she asked people to share what they are thankful for. So this post is for her but you all can read it.

With my first pregnancy I remember feeling rarely worried. Which is strange for a first time mom. I knew in my heart the Lord would provide for us and everything would turn out how He wanted it for us. I remember that faith being so strange and unwavering. And our Heavenly Father did take perfect care of us and everything went better then I ever could have hoped for having Lillie at the time in our lives when we did.

I could never really tell what the difference has been with this pregnancy. Perhaps it has been seeing other Medical students and their families with multiple children up close, it really isn't easy. Perhaps it is just how hard this past year of med school has been on us. Perhaps I am just a little older and "wiser" and understand I'm not invincible. Perhaps... perhaps... perhaps... I really don't know, but I have been having I really hard time finding that faith I had with Lillie and I have been scared, worried, unsure, and feeling like I can't do this.

A few weeks ago I was so overwhelmed by these feelings, plus being pregnant in itself, I couldn't stop crying all day. I felt a little crazy because every rational though that I could muster in my head didn't seem to comfort me. After a good nights rest I did feel much better but these feeling still lingered with me.

A Sunday ago in Sunday School I really feel like our teacher was inspired to go in the direction he did with our lesson. It was in Doctrine and Covenants 135, this is the section about the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph Smith. The teacher asked the class to share their feelings on some big event they had in their life. Many people shared having similar feeling as I do right now with big things like having a baby, changing jobs, marriages. I couldn't stop asking myself what was so different between this baby and Lillie. Then the teacher had us read part of Doctrine and Covenants 135:4

"When Joseph went to Carthage to deliver himself up to the pretended requirements of the law, two or three days previous to his assassination, he said: “I am going like a lamb to the slaughter; but I am calm as a summer’s morning..."

I am not comparing my situation with the Prophet, but I learn a great lesson from him. I realized Hope was missing from this equation. Not the I "hope" it doesn't rain today kind of hope, but the kind of hope that goes hand in hand with faith. Hope that everything WILL turn out how it should and the Lord loves us and only what's the best for us even if it doesn't seem that way at the time.

I have been considering this from the past few weeks and as I have prayed for the hope and in that time I haven't had a day where I am as overwhelmed. I have also spent a lot more time reading more about hope and I love this quote.

President Gordon B. Hinckley

Fear is the opposite of faith

"Who among us can say that he or she has not felt fear? I know of no one who has been entirely spared. Some, of course, experience fear to a greater degree than do others. Some are able to rise above it quickly, but others are trapped and pulled down by it and even driven to defeat. We suffer from the fear of ridicule, the fear of failure, the fear of loneliness, the fear of ignorance. Some fear the present, some the future. Some carry the burden of sin and would give almost anything to unshackle themselves from those burdens but fear to change their lives. Let us recognize that fear comes not of God, but rather that this gnawing, destructive element comes from the adversary of truth and righteousness. Fear is the antithesis of faith. It is corrosive in its effects, even deadly.

“For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Tim. 1:7).

We need not fear as long as we have in our lives the power that comes from righteously living by the truth which is from God our Eternal Father.

Nor need we fear as long as we have the power of faith (from Ensign, Oct. 1984, 2–3)."

So today I am grateful for HOPE