What Do You Do?

What do you do when the answer to your many prayers is, "No."

How do you accept that you will not be healed, your family will continue to struggle, the job you want will not be forthcoming, the child you love will continue to make bad choices, the person who has hurt you will never apologize, the help you are seeking will not be provided, that your lot is to endure?

How do you endure when your heart is absolutely broken, your faith is stretched to the breaking point, you can barely convince yourself to keep breathing because even that feels like more than you can do?

I remember hard things coming my way in college, and making it. Somehow those things seem so miniscule now. Which means that someday what I am enduring now will seem so small.

But if I survived back then, I can survive now. So looking back, how did I do it?

I kept doing the things I knew were good and right, even when it seemed like I was simply going through the motions. I went to church, read my scriptures, served others- even when and especially when- I was dying inside.

I didn't give up on the notion that this was all in God's hands. There were many times I wondered if my prayers were reaching past the ceiling, but I would not stop calling on Him, hoping He was listening, waiting for His answers.

What do I do now? These very same things. Only this time more often than not, when I'm reading my scriptures I'm searching for those words that bring me peace, scrolling through for wisdom lurking in the spaces I have glossed over. Looking for wisdom in the white spaces. Waiting for breathings from the Spirit in the quiet loneliness.

I serve others a little more aware that their struggles are as real and painful as mine, so the service is little more sincere and a lot more from a place of compassion.

I refuse to believe this isn't all in His hands, but that doesn't mean I have gotten wise enough to let Him carry it. Unfortunately, I still have a lot of work in that area. I still struggle even knowing how to turn it all over to Him. I hear people say it, I hear it in songs, I just haven't figured out how exactly to do it right now. Instead I  tend to say, "I give up, I don't care anymore." Which is far from true.

I dig a bit deeper in holding onto trust that the Creator of this life knows what He is doing even when I don't and that all things will work together for my good. Trust that He is my adoring Father and wants to give me great things, in His own time. Trust that He will not let me go, even when I am wondering where He is.

I find myself spending more time trying to discover who He is and what He wants because that calls my attention away from myself. I'm finding that the more I try to discover Him, the less I worry about my own circumstances.