Prayer

Thank you for all your comments. It has been strengthening to hear your encouragement, experience, and expression of love.

One night one of my friends and I got into a deep conversation about spirituality. We were talking about the struggles of life and how they affect our spirituality. I began to express something to her that I have never talked to anyone about. Obviously, the past few months have been difficult for me, but I have never felt angry at God. I have never doubted that my Heavenly Father loves me and is aware of me. BUT, it has been difficult for me to pray and to read my scriptures every night. It is not because I don't believe Heavenly Father will listen to me or because I feel unworthy. It is quite the contrary. I know he loves me so perfectly, so profoundly and feels my sorrows. The reason my prayers or my scripture study aren't as sincere as they could be is because there are some nights when I just don't want to feel. There are some nights when I don't want to get down on my knees and pour my heart out to my Heavenly Father because I don't want to cry. I don't want to be sad. It's like when you are upset about something but you can hold it together as long as someone doesn't hug you or ask you if you are okay. When I pray, I feel my Heavenly Father's arms around me and I weep. I sob like a little child. I know that it's probably not healthy to hold in my emotions, but there are some days when you just don't want to cry; when you just want to be "okay." And I think Heavenly Father is okay with that. I think he understands and knows I am doing the absolute best I can.

A lot of people ask me why I am not angry at God about what happened. I "did everything right" and yet it turned out so wrong. While I was separated, I listened to a lecture given by an LDS speaker named John Bytheway. The lecture was called "5 Scriptures That Will Get You Through Almost Anything." One of the scriptures he read and discussed was found in the Book of Mormon (Another testament of Christ that accompanies the Bible)The scripture is found in 1 Nephi 11:17. It states "And I said unto him: I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things." John Bytheway talked about how many things happen in our lives that we don't understand. Because each of us have our own free agency, we have the power to choose and unfortunately sometimes the choices others makes hurt us. God allows tragedies and hardships in our lives. There is a big difference between causing and allowing something to happen. So we may not know why things happen to us, but the one thing we do know is that Heavenly Father loves us. I don't know why my marriage fell apart. I don't know why I felt good about marrying my husband. BUT I know my Heavenly Father loves me. That is my absolute and constant. If I hold firm to that knowledge, I do not need to know the reason behind all things.