Sunday Scribbles February 26

Happy Moments

• Traci Suggs got to spend a week with her sister and her new baby.
• Jodi Nelson was blessed to be proxy during the sealing of Cara Gabel's family.
• Cara Gabel was sealed to her family this weekend. (Sorry Cara - I don't know your married name!)
• Brady Davis got to fight Darth Vadar at Disneyland!
• Gayla Freckelton's grandson is getting ready to come home from his mission.

Announcements

The Relief Society Birthday Dinner will be held at the church building on March 8, 2012 at 6:30 p.m.  There is babysitting available, and a sign up sheet to volunteer to provide a cake.  Let Tawnya Byington know if you can bring a cake or need babysitting. 



Lesson:  "Waiting Upon the Lord: Thy Will be Done"

Teresa Hemminger gave the lesson this week, based on a talk by Robert D. Hales.  We discussed what it means when we are instructed to "wait upon the Lord."  Wait is a verb, meaning to look forward to expectantly.  In a scriptural sense, to "wait" is to hope, anticipate, and to trust.  (See Alma 32:41.) 

Moroni taught that we receive a witness only after the trial of our faith.  Sometimes, we are given trials or struggles to learn patience, to learn to trust the Lord's hand in our lives, and to help us to grow from our challenges.  Sometimes, that growth comes just by virtue of having to wait until the Lord's time frame is met.  (Psalms 123:2.) 

One quote that I really internalized was this:  "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning."  (Psalms 30:5.)  I think I need to make a sign and put that up in my house!  Job lost everything while he waited for relief from the Lord: He lost his home and worldly possessions; he lost his family; his health -- even his mental health.  Job's response to these tragedies was:  "...For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though ... worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God...  Though he slay me, yet I will trust in Him..."  How long and traumatic those events must have seemed to him.  But the Lord did come, and he was saved, after the trial of his faith.  

I was thinking also of the trials of Pres. Joseph and Emma Smith.  Emma gave up family to be with Joseph and to join the church.  She lost her health, many of her children, and her home over and over again.  Joseph was promised that his family's sacrifices were necessary, but that the Lord would provide him with that joy in the morning if they would endure.  Joseph did not receive that peace in his earthly lifetime, but he did endure, and was willing to wait up on the Lord. 

We are not promised that our lives will be easy, that we will not face tragedy or heartache.  We are not promised that we will not be tempted to sin, or that our families will remain untouched.  But...  We are promised that if we wait upon the Lord, endure our trials well, and hold to the gospel plan, whether in this life or the next, our mortal trials will seem like that one night of weeping, and we will have joy in the morning.