Sometimes you wonder WHY?

I can’t seem to fall sleep and I need to get up in 5 hours, I hate when that happens!

While I couldn’t sleep I was looking online and my cousin’s facebook status is a quote from conference. It got me thinking and that didn’t help my try to fall asleep at all! So here are my thoughts:

7 years ago I was blissfully engaged. I didn’t know exactly how our lives were going to turn out or where we’d be living, but I pictured us owning a home and having roughly 3 kids by now. Instead we are renting because we lost our home when the economy crapped out and my husband lost his job (no worries, that was 2 ½ years ago). Instead of 3 kids, we have 1 beautiful, sweet, crazy daughter! For so long I wondered WHY, why did we have to struggle with infertility, why did we have to go through this? Hadn’t I been through enough in my life already? Why does it have to be so painful to hear other people announce they are pregnant? Why does it have to make me so uncomfortable just to hear conversations about pregnancy? Then why after already so much, did we have to endure the horrible events with Sam? (Which we just got some new news that will not be blogged about, but she might be doing more prison time because of something else she did to us!)

My cousin’s Facebook status: “Thank you Mr. Gardner for loving me enough to cut me down.”

I LOVED this talk. This talk and ones like it always remind me that God does know what he is doing, even if it seems to suck for us, there is a reason. Without our infertility we wouldn’t have our Emma. I mean, yes we would have biological children whom I would obviously love, but I could not imagine not having our Emma. I could not possibly love her more than I do, even when she does drive me crazy! Without our “fake baby” our foster care file would currently be closed for placements. Now, we haven’t gotten a call about a child yet, but eventually we will. If we had not been planning on that baby coming right now we would not be emotionally or physically ready for another child. But, we are! We are ready and anxious for another little one now. Our plan before the baby ever existed; wait until we had finalized Emma’s adoption for a year before opening for placements… A whole year, that’s 7 months from now. Any foster child we get before then will come to us because of Sam’s lies! What if we were meant to adopt another foster child, but it was to come before November 2011? (I’m not saying it will, just a “what if”) How would Heavenly Father get that child to us if we were not ready? By causing a little pain to make us ready!?! There is a reason and purpose for all things. Something, okay, a lot of the time, we don’t know Why. We just have to trust that Heavenly Father knows what he is doing and just go with it!

By Elder Hugh B. Brown, January 1973 New Era: “I was living up in Canada. I had purchased a farm. It was run-down. I went out one morning and saw a currant bush. It had grown up over six feet (two meters) high. It was going all to wood. There were no blossoms and no currants. I was raised on a fruit farm in Salt Lake before we went to Canada, and I knew what ought to happen to that currant bush. So I got some pruning shears and clipped it back until there was nothing left but stumps. It was just coming daylight, and I thought I saw on top of each of these little stumps what appeared to be a tear, and I thought the currant bush was crying. I was kind of simpleminded (and I haven’t entirely gotten over it), and I looked at it and smiled and said, “What are you crying about?” You know, I thought I heard that currant bush say this: “How could you do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth. I was almost as big as the shade tree and the fruit tree that are inside the fence, and now you have cut me down. Every plant in the garden will look down on me because I didn’t make what I should have made. How could you do this to me? I thought you were the gardener here.” That’s what I thought I heard the currant bush say, and I thought it so much that I answered. I said, “Look, little currant bush, I am the gardener here, and I know what I want you to be. I didn’t intend you to be a fruit tree or a shade tree. I want you to be a currant bush, and someday, little currant bush, when you are laden with fruit, you are going to say, ‘Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for loving me enough to cut me down. Thank you, Mr. Gardener.’”

Years passed, and I found myself in England. I was in command of a cavalry unit in the Canadian army. I held the rank of field officer in the British Canadian army. I was proud of my position. And there was an opportunity for me to become a general. I had taken all the examinations. I had the seniority. The one man between me and the office of general in the British army became a casualty, and I received a telegram from London. It said: “Be in my office tomorrow morning at 10:00,” signed by General Turner. I went up to London. I walked smartly into the office of the general, and I saluted him smartly, and he gave me the same kind of a salute a senior officer usually gives—a sort of “Get out of the way, worm!” He said, “Sit down, Brown.” Then he said, “I’m sorry I cannot make the appointment. You are entitled to it. You have passed all the examinations. You have the seniority. You’ve been a good officer, but I can’t make the appointment. You are to return to Canada and become a training officer and a transport officer.” That for which I had been hoping and praying for 10 years suddenly slipped out of my fingers. Then he went into the other room to answer the telephone, and on his desk, I saw my personal history sheet. Right across the bottom of it was written, “THIS MAN IS A MORMON.” We were not very well liked in those days. When I saw that, I knew why I had not been appointed. He came back and said, “That’s all, Brown.” I saluted him again, but not quite as smartly, and went out.

I got on the train and started back to my town, 120 miles (190 kilometers) away, with a broken heart, with bitterness in my soul. And every click of the wheels on the rails seemed to say, “You are a failure.” When I got to my tent, I was so bitter that I threw my cap on the cot. I clenched my fists, and I shook them at heaven. I said, “How could you do this to me, God? I have done everything I could do to measure up. There is nothing that I could have done—that I should have done—that I haven’t done. How could you do this to me?” I was as bitter as gall. And then I heard a voice, and I recognized the tone of this voice. It was my own voice, and the voice said, “I am the gardener here. I know what I want you to do.” The bitterness went out of my soul, and I fell on my knees by the cot to ask forgiveness for my ungratefulness and my bitterness. While kneeling there I heard a song being sung in an adjoining tent. A number of Mormon boys met regularly every Tuesday night. I usually met with them. We would sit on the floor and have Mutual.

As I was kneeling there, praying for forgiveness, I heard their singing: But if, by a still, small voice he calls To paths that I do not know, I’ll answer, dear Lord, with my hand in thine: I’ll go where you want me to go. (Hymns, number 270)

I arose from my knees a humble man. And now, almost 50 years later, I look up to Him and say, “Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for cutting me down, for loving me enough to hurt me.” I see now that it was wise that I should not become a general at that time, because if I had I would have been senior officer of all western Canada, with a lifelong, handsome salary, a place to live, and a pension, but I would have raised my six daughters and two sons in army barracks. They would no doubt have married out of the Church, and I think I would not have amounted to anything. I haven’t amounted to very much as it is, but I have done better than I would have done if the Lord had let me go the way I wanted to go. Many of you are going to have very difficult experiences: disappointment, heartbreak, bereavement, defeat. You are going to be tested and tried. I just want you to know that if you don’t get what you think you ought to get, remember, God is the gardener here. He knows what He wants you to be. Submit yourselves to His will. Be worthy of His blessings, and you will get His blessings.”