Time to Grow Again

If you've been reading my blog for awhile, you might remember my Time to Grow post about a year and a half year ago where I announced my pregnancy with Greta. Well, it's time to grow again, I guess. . . . this time in a different way. Growth is uncomfortable. And I don't really like it.

I think of this story told by President Eyring often:

Dad was the senior high councilor in his stake with the responsibility for the welfare farm. An assignment was given to weed a field of onions, so Dad assigned himself to go work on the farm.

Dad never told me how hard it was, but I have met several people who were with him that day. I talked to one of them on the phone the other night to check the story. The one I talked to said that he was weeding in the row next to Dad through much of the day. He told me the same thing that others who were there that day have told me. He said that the pain was so great that Dad was pulling himself along on his stomach with his elbows. He couldn't kneel. The pain was too great for him to kneel. {He had bone cancer.} Everyone who has talked to me has remarked how Dad smiled, and laughed, and talked happily with them as they worked in that field of onions.

Now, this is the joke Dad told me on himself, afterward. He said he was there at the end of the day. After all the work was finished and the onions were all weeded, someone asked him, "Henry, good heavens! You didn't pull those weeds, did you? Those weeds were sprayed two days ago, and they were going to die anyway."

Dad just roared. He thought that was the funniest thing. He thought it was a great joke on himself. He had worked through the day in the wrong weeds. They had been sprayed and would have died anyway.

When Dad told me this story, I knew how tough it was. So I said to him, "Dad, how could you make a joke out of that? How could you take it so pleasantly?"

He said something to me that I will never forget, and I hope you won't. He said, "Hal, I wasn't there for the weeds."

Now, you'll be in an onion patch much of your life. So will I. It will be hard to see the powers of heaven magnifying us or our efforts. It may even be hard to see our work being of any value at all. And sometimes our work won't go well.

But you didn't come for the weeds. You came for the Savior. And if you pray, and if you choose to be clean, and if you choose to follow God's servants, you will be able to work and wait long enough to bring down the powers of heaven.

(To read the whole talk go here.)

I think of that often. I'm not here for the weeds or the onions. I'm here for the Savior. And I pray every single day to be of service to Him. My intentions with those prayers are to know who and how to help. Often they are answered with ideas of who might benefit from something I can give. But now, my prayers are being answered in different ways. And frankly, I don't want to do it. Really, I don't. But as I said in my other Time to Grow post, "I have learned that innumerable blessings come from the submission of our wills to Heavenly Father. . . .That isn't to say that there haven't been internal struggles. There have!! But it is when we condescend below what we feel as acceptable that spiritual growth takes place and power comes into our lives in ways it can't otherwise. " And since faith without works is dead, what good is my faith if I'm not willing to work and serve where and when asked? It's not good for much. So that is why I accepted the call to be Primary president even when I didn't. really. want. to. Please don't get me wrong. I will jump in and work hard and do my best, but this is just not something I would choose for myself. I was really hoping to sign up for nursery after the presidency I was in was released. But obviously we don't always get what we want.

I came home from church on Sunday and looked in the mirror and said out loud to myself "What in the world just happened to me?" And then I cried. This is very, very uncomfortable. My inadequacies and weaknesses are glaring and many. Which is probably why I get this. . . .I've got so much to improve on. But since I'm not here for the weeds or the onions, I will do it, comfortable or not.

ps. . .I've debated as to whether or not to post this. . . I really don't like to even put this out there, but the family historian in me won out. . . this is important for my posterity to know.

Another ps. . .it is against the law on my blog to say 'congratulations' about something like this. This is not something I aspired to or a status I've attained. So if you have something to say, please don't use that c word.