Have you ever felt God’s hand guiding you to do something you do not want to do? If so, how did you respond to the dissonance?
This, my friends, is the overwhelming theme of my life. If I had followed the path I wanted to walk rather than the one God laid out for me, my life would look very different than it now does. In previous episodes, I have shared some of those soul-stretching experiences. But, as I listened to General Conference last weekend, one thing I heard from multiple speakers was this: Be willing to follow the Lord wherever He leads. And, as often as the Lord has taught me that exact same lesson, when I heard it repeated several times at Conference, it came as a powerful answer to a prayer I have been saying for almost a year.
So, while there are SO many things I could say about Conference (seriously…every talk was JUST for me), this theme rises to the top today. With that introduction, let me take you back in time with me to the spring of 2004.
My husband was getting ready to start his last year of dental school, which we knew would be a busy and stressful year. He was working on his applications for pediatric residency programs, which included flying to interviews around the country. He was also preparing for a clinical board exam which would require him to travel to a location three hours away, pay for several patients to travel with him, and successfully complete their dental treatment in front of a panel of judges. Meanwhile, finishing his clinical requirements for graduation was proving to be a challenge, and keeping his grades competitive enough to get into a residency program was on the top of his mind.
We had three children under age six at the time, the youngest of which was almost two. We knew we wanted to have another baby at some point, but when? Would it be better to move forward with another pregnancy given the craziness of the coming year, or wait until after we were settled into residency the next fall?
We looked over the calendar of the upcoming year, giving special consideration to the timing of Greg’s travel schedule and board exam. We worked backward from there, ultimately settling on a date after which a pregnancy would not make sense. Then, we took that date to the Lord. The conversation went something like this:
“Heavenly Father, we are grateful for the opportunity to be parents, and we would be thrilled to have another baby. But this next year will probably be the most stressful of our lives, and we are not sure if the time is right for a pregnancy. We are willing to move forward if that is what you would like for us to do, but this offer expires on such and such date. After that, we will have to wait until after we are settled into residency next fall. Please let us know if the timing is right.”
After that prayer, we felt nothing. For several months, we continued to pray for direction on our family planning, completely open to the idea of moving forward with another pregnancy. But the green light from the Lord never came.
Before we knew it, the date we had chosen came and went. We interpreted our lack of inspiration as the Lord’s answer that waiting a few more months was the right decision. Truthfully, I was relieved. My hands were overflowing with the three young and spirited children already in my care, and I worried about my ability to add another one into the mix. The answer to wait felt heaven sent, and I was at peace. I was blissfully unaware that I was about to experience a taste of the Lord’s sense of humor.
A few weeks after our chosen date passed, I had an unexpected brick-on-the-head moment. Out of nowhere, a clear thought permeated my mind with such power that it nearly knocked the wind out of me, “It is time to have another baby.”
What?!? NO.
At that point, I had an unfiltered conversation with the Lord: “We have already been over this, Heavenly Father. Greg and I picked that date for a reason. If I get pregnant now, this baby will be due right around the time of his board exam. He cannot miss that exam if he wants to practice dentistry. Did I mention he has to travel three hours to get there and pay for several patients to travel with him? My babies have all been born early. What if he misses this birth because he is three hours away taking a mandatory exam? And what about finals and moving to another state a few weeks after that? I cannot get pregnant now. We were open to this idea for months, but that ship has sailed. You had your chance.”
That one-sided conversation/rant was not my finest hour. But the Lord was patient.
The intensity of my brick-on-the-head moment faded into a constant nagging feeling that there was a baby waiting to come to our family. I could not rationalize my way out of it, no matter how illogical it felt, but I was not about to bring it up with Greg. We had already decided to wait. How could I spring this new development on him?
A few days later, we were saying our morning prayers, and Greg said something I was not expecting, “Please help us to know when it is time to have another baby.”
That phrase disappeared from our prayers after we decided it was best to wait a while longer, but he brought it back. What did that mean?
After the prayer, I gathered my courage and asked him why he prayed to know when it was time to have another baby. He answered without even thinking, “Because I feel like it’s time.”
Unbeknownst to me, he had his own brick-on-the-head moment with the Lord. Our individual revelations were identical, nearly simultaneous, and too powerful to deny.
As we looked at each other, pondering what felt like the stupidest decision of our collective lives, an undeniable clarity passed between us. We were going to follow the Lord’s direction, even though it made zero logical sense.
Shortly thereafter, two pink lines on a home pregnancy test confirmed what I already knew. I had no doubt this was the Lord’s will, but I was still terrified. So, I asked Greg for a priesthood blessing. It has been 19 years since that blessing, and I can still remember some of the words as clearly as if I heard them yesterday: “This decision will be a turning point in your life. You have proven to the Lord that you are willing to follow Him, even at great personal sacrifice.”
Those words have repeatedly proven themselves true.
The next nine months were, as predicted, among the most stressful of my life. Though I had a constant stress headache for the duration of my pregnancy, I look back and marvel at the challenges we overcame with God’s help. Greg was able to successfully complete his board exam and our daughter was born ten days before the dental school graduation that almost didn’t happen (another long story for another day). By the skin of our teeth, we made it to residency, where we could finally breathe for the first time in a year.
To this day, I do not believe the Lord needed to send our daughter to our family at that precise moment as much as He needed to prove our willingness to follow Him, even when the path felt impossible. In the years since them, He has repeatedly asked us to follow Him into the darkness, and do things that don’t seem to make sense. Most of the time, those paths are lined with roadblocks and challenges that stretch our faith and teach us to trust Him more completely.
Even with all of that practice, however, I wish I could say that it has become easier to follow the Lord’s promptings to do things I would rather not do. And, even though I know He always has my best interest in mind, and I always learn things by following Him that I absolutely need to learn, sometimes, I still fight it.
When I attended General Conference last Saturday morning, I went in with a very specific question that I had been asking for almost a year. There were times in that year when I felt like the Lord had given me some clarity, but confusion always returned, mostly because the bits and pieces of inspiration did not seem to fit together well. So, I started to second-guess all the inspiration. And, to be honest, I wanted to take a different path than the one the Lord seemed to be inviting me to walk.
I was in this mindset when I walked into Conference, praying, yet again, for clarity. I am certain every message from the Saturday morning session was just for me. I was fighting back tears the entire time, not because I was sad, but because I felt seen. And, through many talks, the Lord encouraged me, once again, to be willing to follow Him down whatever paths He leads me to walk. And, with that encouragement, came an overwhelming sense of heavenly peace and divine love. It was as if the Lord was saying, “Lynnette, I know it is not always easy to follow Me, but I know you better than you know yourself, and where I am leading you is infinitely better than anywhere you would lead yourself. Trust me.”
And, for the first time in a long time, I felt completely settled. I knew what I needed to do, and every inclination to question that inspiration was gone. I wanted nothing more than to give the Lord my heart, my will, and every second of my life. The inner transformation I felt was dramatic, and I understood, for perhaps the first time, what it truly means to have my will swallowed up in the will of the Father.
I had surrendered my will to the Lord lots of times before, but this felt different because I no longer had a desire to hold anything back. I didn’t feel like it was a battle of wills that I knew I would eventually lose, but still felt the need to fight. I didn’t feel resentful because I was giving up the hope of a path I wanted more than the one He wanted for me. (And yes, I have, at times, felt resentful when sacrificing my will for His – a fact that I am not proud to admit.)
In President Nelson’s Conference address from last weekend, He said: “I have learned that the most crucial question we each must answer is this: To whom or to what will I give my life?”
I don’t know about you, but I want to answer that question by saying that I choose to give my life to Jesus Christ and His work. I choose to, as President Nelson counseled, “Come unto Christ and “offer [my] whole [soul]” to Him.”
Doing so, according to our prophet, is the secret to a life of joy! And we all want a life of joy.
What, then, does it look like to give our lives to Christ? What does it mean to offer our whole souls to Him?
For me, that means setting aside what I think is best (or easier…or more fun…) and devoting my life to the work of gathering and strengthening Israel. It means getting out of my own way so I can see Him. It means following Elder Neal A. Maxwell’s advice to “Act now, so that a thousand years from now, when you look back at this moment, you can say this was a moment that mattered—this was a day of determination.”
With the great sense of urgency I felt from our prophet just a few days ago, I don’t know how many more days of determination we have. My mind was reeling when he declared that “now is the time for you and for me to prepare for the Second Coming of our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. Now is the time for us to make our discipleship our highest priority”(source).
He then followed that declaration with a call for you and me to “help gather scattered Israel and to prepare the world for the Second Coming of the Lord. I call upon you to talk of Christ, testify of Christ, have faith in Christ, and rejoice in Christ!”
Gather. Prepare ourselves and the world. Talk of Christ. Testify. Have faith. Rejoice.
These are all action words, as we discussed in the last podcast. The Lord is hastening His work. Will we hasten ours? Will we step up, stand out, and hold up the light of the Savior?
Will we give our whole souls as an offering to Him, even (and maybe especially) if that means putting our will on His altar every day for the rest of our lives?
Will we trust that He has something better in store for us, and can make infinitely more out of our lives than we ever could make on our own?
We will say, as did Elder Soares, “What works for Thee, works for me?”
If we are to be ready when the Savior comes again, we must choose each day to yield our lives and our will to Him. He has a great work for us to do that will require much personal sacrifice. But, when all is said and done, I wonder if we will fall down at His feet, bathe the nail prints with our tears, and joyfully exclaim: “My contribution was not a sacrifice at all.”
Will you, with me, pray with all the energy of your heart to be filled with a lasting desire to align your will with His, and the courage to do whatever He leads you to do? Will you talk of Christ, testify of Christ, have faith in Christ, and rejoice in Christ? Will you relentlessly prepare yourself and your family for the Second Coming of the Lord? Will you stand forever with Him?
It will not be easy, but it can be joyful and fulfilling. You’ve got this. We’ve got this. And together, may we joyfully stand.
