Trials and Tribulations (Stella)

First off - Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all. I hope that everyone made it through the holidays with happy memories and fun experiences.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the trials and sufferings we experience during our mortal journeys. How different our struggles are. How tailor made they are for our strengths and weaknesses, personalities and fears. How your trials would have little effect on me and mine would seem simple to you.

Have you ever wondered why you have the lot you have? Why you struggle so hard with a particular hardship while others don't seem to have a care in the world? Over the years that I've read and participated in this blog I have often felt anger boil up in me at some of the comments that have been left to various posts. Until one day it hit me - that most of those comments were not meant to be cruel or unkind. Most were simply made of ignorant bewilderment. How in the world could this experience of single-hood in this day and age be a source of such great pain that you actually formed a support group and write about it?

Single hood is not a death sentence. It is not even close to the very worst thing that could happen to a person however if this is your trial then you know the ache that lives in your heart on a daily basis. If this is your particular cross to bear then you know how bleak and dark the future can look and how desperately hard it sometimes can be to focus on just today. If this is your mountain to climb then you know what it feels like to be able to almost see those who are missing from your life. To see the children your arms ache to hold, to see the spouse you desperately wish you could talk about your day to, to almost be able to taste the family dinners that go uneaten night after night. If this is your trial then you get it and I don't need to explain further.

If this isn't your trial then I ask you to think about the thing that keeps you up at night. Maybe it's a health issue, employment or the lack thereof, your children's happiness, financial security, personal safety, sins or regrets you would undo in a second if you had the power to. Maybe it's wondering if you will ever have the opportunities you've worked so hard for or having the secret dreams of your heart realized. Maybe it's feeling like you have no worth or value or doubt where you fit into the world. This thing I know - we all have them.

I had a pastor once give the following analogy: Imagine that your individual struggle is a cross that you wear on your shoulders all day. Now imagine that we are all given the opportunity to put that cross down in a room. We leave the room and re-enter to choose a cross more to our liking. We would all pick up the cross we had sat down in the first place. Interesting thought isn't it? I have no doubt that it is true - there are things that others go through that I wouldn't want to deal with for even a moment and if I'm truthful there are things that others deal with that are so inconsequential to me I wouldn't be challenged in the slightest.

I understand on some level why this is my trial. I need people more then I need air. I need love and others to love. I need relationships and connections and am motivated to change only when I know it will benefit someone else. That makes me sound more altruistic then I am but to say that I'm people orientated is an understatement.

What better trial to give me then the withholding of the most important relationships? The most important connections? To prove and try my faith, my belief, my strength? To see if I will endure all things the Lord sees fit to put upon me and stay true to Him? If I had to design a cross just for me I can't imagine one better fit to my weaknesses or one that will better push me into becoming a queen in my Father's kingdom.

In closing I guess what I'm saying that if you've come here to visit and what we say doesn't seem so important to you it's okay. Your struggles are different, your needs are different and your plan is tailor made just for you. I hope there is a blog out there for your particular need because for me on the tough days, this is my haven. My Cheers (alcohol free of course), and one of the few places I know I'll always find a kindred spirit or two.

Patriarchal Blessings (Posted by Stella)

As I've mentioned before I take a great deal of joy in reading the posts that readers leave. I take encouragement and support from those who confess having similar struggles, I take a renewed sense of commitment from those who cheer me on, I shake my head at those whose judgements are well...nonsensical and ridiculous and I hurt when I read someones comments about their own pain.

Some time back someone made a post and asked that we discuss patriarchal and other Priesthood blessings. You know the ones, the kind where we have been promised certain blessings only to wait, and wait, and wait some more to have them realized. Where we are given comfort and peace only to have it disappear as the days, weeks, months, or even years continue by. This particular comment broke my heart because I could envision through her words a certain hopelessness that her promised blessings were being withheld and all of the feelings that came with it. I know that feeling well and struggle myself to make sense of the Lord's will and many times have questioned my personal revelations. I've thought about her post many times and wondered how best to go about it.

I'm not going to give you Stella's interpretation or vision of what our blessings mean - I have neither the wisdom, understanding or authority to do so BUT I will share some of the things that I have come to learn through my own trials and will reference some talks by those who do have the proper authority to have a valid opinion.

• Promises made to us in our Patriarchal blessings may be realized at any time during our spiritual journey (pre-existence, mortality, or in the eternities.) Oh how I wish I had perfect faith so that I could say "OK, if not now then I won't worry about it." But, if you're anything like me then this is little comfort...



• I remember watching a panel discussion on BYU TV where one of the panelists said that the desire for marriage or children is a RIGHTEOUS desire (i.e. if you're living as you should your desires are in line with God's will.) If those desires are as yet unrealized that desire isn't going to go away as long as you continue to live RIGHTEOUSLY. Seems wildly unfair to me and not much incentive to keep holding on to the rod, HOWEVER;



• I do believe with all my heart that if being single is not okay with you, if you can't get peace about it, if the heartache and the desire refuse to go away (despite prayers and pleadings and a true effort to focus on the life that Heavenly Father has blessed you with) THEN there's a purpose to it. I do not believe for one single second that our loving Heavenly Father would let us be miserable and watch us struggle if He did not intend that struggle for our good. What would be the point to have so many of His daughter's in quiet pain and sorrow if it were not for our betterment? So what then is He trying to teach us and why does it hit us at different times in life (meaning - why some women in their early, mid or late 20's and some of us can handle it until our 30's etc...)

#1 - We all have our free agency. I imagine many of us have an experience where the person we were dating would have been a great match and we could have had a very happy life only to watch them turn their back and walk off (and maybe even some of us were the ones walking away.) That's not God's intention but He doesn't take our free will away. So if this has happened to you I believe that our blessings don't disappear just b/c someone else used their free agency poorly - we are affected unfortunately but it doesn't make our blessings null and void. It does mean we have to continue to wait, which is akin to having your fingernails pulled out one by one...very slowly...with plastic tweezers.

#2 - We are in the last days - the Prophets have been telling us this for quite some time. I think (?) it was President Kimball who said that (I'm paraphrasing here) only those with a DEEP and UNMOVABLE testimony about the importance of families would be able to navigate their family successfully through the last days. I interpret that to mean that only those who have this testimony will be able to keep their family together, teach their children the gospel, and successfully overcome the adversary's full on attack on anyone with any level of goodness in them.

#3 - I take this thought a little further and realize that few people appreciate things that they haven't had to work to the end of their strength to obtain. The things that I value the most are the ones that didn't come easily and that includes my desire for a husband and children. The wait has been unbearable at times and the path to get to this place (and the places still yet to be traversed) has been strewn with opportunities to forget who I am and more importantly why I am here. Now, tell me that's an accident.

#4 - I feel confident in saying that I have made some huge mistakes in my quest to find my family. I have certainly chased my own wisdom and have not been as vigilant as I could have been in trusting Heavenly Father. I have learned through my own experience the good from the bad, happiness from sorrow, that my way will always lead me to destruction and I hope have proven to our Heavenly Father that He can trust me. No matter how far I fall it is Him I will always come back to.

To our dear sister who questions the blessings that she has been given. I wish I had the perfect words to share or the right story to say that would renew your strength and bolster your faith. I'm sorry to say that I don't - but I will say this: If you are continuing to go to church, to follow the counsel of the Prophets, to do the things that you know are right, to serve and love others then YOU ARE BEING FAITHFUL! Do not, for even a moment, let a self-deprecating feeling or a thoughtless observance from someone else make you feel forgotten or lost or wrong or worthless.

Heavenly Father knows with perfect knowledge how hard this is on us. Single-hood is not His way or plan nor is our hurt His purpose. Our Savior feels our pain and I have no doubt They cry with us during those times when we feel like we just can't take one more day. He doesn't expect us to be perfect but He does expect us to try, to keep going, to fall down when we must but to not give up. He needs to know that He can trust us with His precious children because I also believe that the spirits that we are waiting for are going to be some of His most choice. They need mothers whose strength goes to the core, our future husbands need women who will not falter, and the world needs women who will fight for righteousness. If we're being successful out here on our own just imagine what we'll accomplish in the walls of our own homes with a righteous partner by our sides. While we are being prepared so is the one we will take this journey with. Maybe he's not quite ready and our time would be well spent praying for him.

I also believe that if I didn't have something truly spectacular to offer my future family satan wouldn't waste his time on me. If I wasn't going to be a fantastic wife and mother he'd go harass someone else. I believe the same is true for you. When you feel lost, forgotten, alone, lonely, hurt, afraid, hopeless, or less then please remember those feelings do not come from Heavenly Father. The plan of happiness is about 1 thing and 1 thing only. Families. If we weren't future feathers in the proverbial cap of the kingdom satan wouldn't bother. If we weren't heading in the right direction we wouldn't struggle so hard with being single. If it wasn't in the cards for us Heavenly Father would make it okay. If it's not okay, then it's not over.

One of my favorite talks that remind me that my promised blessings and personal revelations are real is by Jeffrey R. Holland: Cast Not Away Therefore Your Confidence: http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=795&tid=7

Your promised blessings are real. I don't know when our hopes and desires will be realized and I don't understand why they are so long in coming but I do know that they will. I believe that the endurance and strength we utilize every day living full and productive and most importantly FAITHFUL lives despite going through this particular trial that seems to so strongly affect the lense that we look at life with is no small thing and I like to think an indicator of just how special we each are.

Who signed up for this? Anyone? Anyone? (Stella)

I must admit I love reading the comments on posts almost more then I love reading the posts themselves. I so appreciate the honesty that is shared and the realness in those words. Being a single woman (in the church or out of it) is a painful, infuriating, seemingly never ending journey. I would love to know how the single men feel - so if you're a fellow please speak up!More often then not our counsel and our encouragement is to keep going, have faith, don't give up, the Lord has a plan for you, every promise the Lord has made will be fulfilled in His time (if you hold up your end of the bargain, of course) in this life or the next...

Somtimes I wish that those with the proper authority and who have walked in these shoes would shout from the pulpit -

"This Sucks!" "I'm angry!"

"What the *!#&*#! happened to my life?"

In fairness, I have heard Sheri Dew speak and talk about the depression she experienced for several years in her early 30's after a broken relationship. I have heard Sister Perry (wife of an apostle, no less) talk about being angry at Heavenly Father for remaining single long into her adulthood and not one single Apostle who all but sobs how sorry he is for us single girls makes it out to be an easy thing. But, not one of these choice individuals have ever said anything that remotely comes close to how I've felt at times in my life. Time for a confession - I've spent the last 5 years...maybe more, but definitely the last 5...absolutely furious. I pasted on the happy face for others to see of course but inside I was miserable, angry, jealous and flat out pissed off. I compared my gifts, talents, and DESIRE to be a wife and mother with those I saw around me (who have what I want) and most didn't add up to what I thought I could offer. Now why in the world would Heavenly Father keep me from building up His kingdom and fully participating in the plan of happiness when all I want to do with my whole heart is raise a righteous posterity?

So - back to my point - have the Sheri Dew's and Barbara Perry's, and Barbara Thompson's and Kristen Oaks of the world not had the same feelings that you and I are dealing with? I'm quite certain that they have - and yet I've never seen or heard one of them give more then a casual reference to it. Why is that?

I can't speak for everyone, I can't speak for anyone actually. I can only speak to my own experience and hope that it speaks to your heart too. Throughout these 5 (maybe more) violently, demented, raging years I've tried as hard as I knew how to do to learn, to grow, and to figure out why. I prayed repeatedly feeling that only my ceiling was ever listening and gave up on family and friends offering me any comfort or even any real support. I have felt alone, I have felt forsaken, I have felt forgotten and have questioned my worth and value. I have desperately dated men whose choices make them unworthy for the life I desire to live in the hopes that one of them would marry me and my influence may bring one of the proverbial sheep back to the fold. I have raged against Heavenly Father while simultaneously clinging to the Gospel. I have done all of this (and more) in my attempt to control this area of my life and somehow I have been saved and protected and brought to this point of understanding.

I can't tell you exactly how I got here but somehow I gave up (in a good way.) Somehow I finally figured out how to CHOOSE to have faith, how to CHOOSE to believe my patriarchal blessing (as well as other personal revelations), and CHOOSE to trust that what I've been told is TRUE. My situation hasn't changed. I'm as single as I've been for the last 5, 10, 15, 20 years. Yet somehow I have HOPE that I don't think I've ever had. I have FAITH that I know I've never had, and I have CHARITY for others that is deeper then anything I've ever experienced.

Now don't get me wrong - I have my bad moments. I have moments when I reminisce about past relationships and question again why things worked out as they did but in these moments I have learned to CHOOSE to pray and ask for strength and the strength comes. I have learned DO NOT LOOK BACK (just think of Lot's wife - looking back does no good.) I have learned to PRAY with my whole heart - sobbing, honest conversations where I pour my heart out to Heavenly Father, I have learned to not just READ my scriptures but SEARCH for the answers to my prayers. I have learned to be PATIENT (well that's a lie - but I've learned that I must be patient) if I am going to make it through this trial and make no mistake - THIS IS A TRIAL!

Moroni 7 is my anchor during this storm. I encourage you to read it. I encourage you to mark it up, underline it, write notes on it, dissect it as it compares to your life. In my opinion it is a road map for unwilling single people - things that are good come from God (happiness, joy, hope, belief.) Things that are evil come from the jerk (anger, depression, low self worth, hopelessness.) Miracles do still happen (and I believe my marriage will be a MIRACLE!) What we ask for in FAITH the Lord will give us but it has to be faith like we've never had before. Please don't misunderstand me - I am not making some crazy statement that if we believe enough our husbands will fall out of the sky but I am saying that if we CHOOSE TO BELIEVE with our WHOLE ENTIRE BEING the Lord will either answer our prayers or He will show us our way and most importantly HE WILL MAKE IT OKAY. I love this quote - no idea who said it but:

"In the end everything will be okay. If it's not okay, it's not the end."

For reasons that only the heavens seem to know our generation (again both in/out of the church) carries this painful burden. Fear, unbelief, and selfishness seem to drive many. Living too close to the world, a refusal to grow up and accept responsibility, even watching the experiences of parents, family and friends are often offered as explanations. These explanations bring me little peace - actually they just tick me off - but this I know: Let mankind (and womankind) do what they will. The Lord's plan will not be thwarted - the plan of happiness does not change - my promised blessings aren't going anywhere - and those who have withheld or hindered the blessings of others and ignored the council of Prophets will have much to answer for. I have come to believe we are pioneers, after all what other generation has been asked to endure like we have? Just like the early saints who were asked to endure physical hardships beyond what I think any of us can really imagine, WE are asked to endure a daily (sometimes minute by minute) ASSAULT on our Spirits, our worth, our value and our life purpose.

Hang in there friends. Keep going - one more step, one more day. The answers are out there but if we are to receive them we have to stop looking at only one door.

Could It Be? (Stella)

Whenever I experience a break-up I go through the normal stages of grief which inevitably have me turning to the scriptures and prayer for comfort and solace. I'm ashamed to admit that my most notable times of gospel feasting are almost always on the heels of having my heart broken.

In true Stella fashion I have been delving into the scriptures, our Prophets words, and any other gospel resource I can get my hands on as I struggle to find the answers to my why, why, whys? I should add that my feasting is usually accompanied by a lot of foot stomping, wailing and gnashing of angry teeth...which of course makes divine revelation a little difficult to come by. This time however - I must have matured since my last soiree.

I came across something today while reading in Alma that made me wonder - could being a single member of the LDS church at this time, during these last days be a calling? Is it possible that some of us experience singleness because we were asked to experience it during our mortal journey? That just like some are foreordained to be Prophets or pioneers are some of us called to be single for a period of time?

I'm not talking about 20 something singleness - I'm talking about being single WAY past the LDS norm of 20...or whatever it is these days. I'm talking about singleness that has you laying on your bathroom floor, sobbing into a pile of kleenex doubting every decision you've ever made and semi-convincing yourself that somehow you've brought this great scourge on your head through a Sodom and Gomorrah level atrocity.

I took this thought a bit further and realized the STRENGTH that it takes to be an active, faithful, single member of the church. I've heard it said that 50% of singles become inactive when they leave their YSA wards, and I recently heard at a stake meeting that my stake alone has over 3,000 mid-singles in it (men more then double the women. My jaw is still on the floor.)

So between the 50% and the 3000 in my little corner of the world how many of our brothers and sisters does this add up to? Even one is too many - but I think my point is easily proven by how many times we're admired by others. For example how many times has someone said something like..."I admire you so much," "You are so strong", or my personal favorite - "I don't know how you do it, I know I never could."

As I've let this idea roll around in my mind today I realize how much my ward blesses my life and how much they love and support me BUT I also realize how I may have a very special, singular influence that may make some of my sisters more grateful for their husbands and children, may inspire some to magnify their particular life calling, and may even be an example to the youth of staying faithful when you don't feel you fit in. Yes - being a single member of the LDS faith where we celebrate and promote families and eternal marriages in every breath is well.. NO PLACE FOR SISSIES!

That said - does it make you feel a little special, a little strong, a little chosen and set apart to be single? For so many of us who have not chosen to be single, who would marry tomorrow if the opportunity presented itself - I have to wonder if we would walk a little taller and hurt a little less if we looked at this life 'predicament' (regardless of how we got here) as a calling?

If we stopped to think of the faith, strength, and ENDURANCE that we go through our life with. How we continue to move forward without the help of a companion, striving to be faithful despite heartache that sometimes feels like it will end us? That this season of life (and I pray it ends tomorrow for all of us who desire righteous companions to create forever families with) is our calling because we are strong, faithful, and the ones the Lord knew He could count on to keep going. He knows what we can carry and He knows what we can't. I just have to wonder...

Could it be?