A Week About Faith: By Becca

Hey. My Name is Becca. I’m a young mom of 2 gorgeous kiddos who are amazingly fun and drive me crazy all at the same time. I do photography, manage a storage business, take care of the house here and there, and sometimes I even cook when I’m too sick of fast food. My handsome hub and I have been married for 4.5 years, happily so, I might add. I love what I do and I do what I love.

I’ve been thinking about what I wanted to say about faith for the last week or so, and I have to say, I was disappointed with myself. I was disappointed that I didn’t just have all of these moments in my life that I could say “hey everyone, look at this amazing example of faith.” I have to say I wanted to have something so profound, something powerful, something that would leave all you readers left with a sense of the great faith I had.

But I couldn’t do any of that. I couldn’t even think of anything, really, that felt important enough to share. And after reading the Madhouse post, I have to say, nothing compares to a story like that….

And that’s where the problem is. I am trying to be profound. I am comparing my spirituality with that of others. And therein lies the biggest lesson that I have to remind myself all the time: the gospel is personal. And therefore, everything about it is personal. And so now, instead of using all the stuff I had been thinking of prior to this, here is what comes to my mind, my personal tid bits about faith. These are my feelings. And I hope that even though they aren’t super amazing or crazy stories, that you can see how personal it is, and let that build your own testimony of Heavenly Father’s knowledge of each and every one of us in our individual situations, and our individual personalities.

So here we go…

James and I had been married for a couple years, our daughter Grace was about 15 months old. I was 6 months pregnant with our little boy, Rocky. Our lives had been in a great place – we had saved money for a home, James had a great job as a Sales Director for Circuit City – we were good to go. The very week we scheduled to look at homes, the bomb went off: Circuit City was going out of business. James had lost his job. He had a few weeks of work, and then it was over. No income. No insurance. And we had a baby coming.

I remember being so upset. I remember feeling that we had been cheated out of our big dream we had worked so hard for. I had wanted a home of my own so badly, and I was actually upset that it wasn’t going to happen for us at that time. We prayed as always. We went to church as always. But for some reason…I didn’t feel close to the spirit. We tried to get Medicaid, but because of our savings we couldn’t be approved. If everything went fine with the birth, we would have enough money to pay for it – but if something bad happened…if Rocky had to have special care like our first child…we would have to go into major debt. I was stressed out. I didn’t know how we were going to make it. We lived off of our savings, and kept re-applying for insurance. Time pressed on, the due date drew near, and things just seemed to get worse.

Then, James got a job that had promised a decent income and insurance within 30 days. That would have landed us insurance right about the time of birth, so we took the job. It seemed like a good idea. We felt strongly to take it, and we moved to an apt. right by his new job. After the first 2 weeks, we realized that they were not paying what they said, and then found out it was 90 days until we could have insurance. I remember crying basically every day at this point. I felt so.stressed.out. I didn’t understand why we would have felt so strongly to take this job if it wasn’t what they had told us it would be. I’m pretty sure I was just pissed off most of the time.

On the flip side – and this has honestly been a major example of faith in my life since it happened – my oldest brother and his wife lived outside of Utah. They had 6 children and she was pregnant with their 7th. They had felt the need to move to Utah. So they did. They trusted that God would take care of them. My brother applied for jobs, and they lived with my parents until they could find a place of their own and a job, etc. I remember my sister-in-law showed amazing faith and strength during this rough time. When nothing seemed to work out, she always spoke with confidence and spoke with trust in the Lord that things would work out. I knew that their situation was worse than ours, but for some reason I couldn’t find the same faith that she seemed to have. So I looked to her to strengthen my own faith. I figured if they were so trusting that everything would work out, then I could be trusting as well. I tried to improve my attitude.

I remember I focused especially hard on the principle that if you do all you can do, He will carry you the rest of the way. So I looked at my imperfections. I wanted to make sure I was doing everything I could do. I magnified my calling, I prayed constantly, I did scripture study, etc. I felt the strong need to go to the temple, so we went. I needed peace. I was aching for some sort of relief, some sort of sense that things really would be ok. While we were there, it was nice, but as soon as we left, all our troubles were still there. I felt the spirit while I was there, but that didn’t change the fact that things weren’t working out. As we drove home…our car broke down. I remember I just wanted to burst into tears, but instead I just laughed. I laughed and I laughed. My hub didn’t think it was funny. But I just said “You know, they say all you need is love. And I guess that’s true, because we don’t have money, we don’t have insurance, and now we don’t have a car. All we have is love. So I guess that’s all we need.” And we called for a ride home.

A few thousand bucks later, and our savings depleted, our car was repaired. We had about 3 weeks until Rocky was due. I remember reading the story about the man who said “Oh Lord, I believe. Help thou my unbelief.” And I felt it. I connected with that story. I told Heavenly Father that I wanted to believe like everyone else – like my brother and his wife. I wanted to just have that faith. I believed that things could work out, but I just didn’t see how. I felt so cheated because we had been so smart with our money to stay out of debt, and now, we were about to go into thousands of dollars into debt and I knew it would increase each month as James’ job wasn’t paying him anything. I cried. And opened my heart. And then I simply said “help thou my unbelief.” I couldn’t see an answer. But I hoped that He could.

The next day, we received a phone call. It was from our good pal, Brad. He had recently gotten a job for Rosetta Stone as the area manager over Kiosks in Utah and Salt Lake Counties. “How would you like to head up the new kiosk in the University Mall?” After asking many questions, we would get insurance within 2 weeks (amazing!) , it was good pay, and it was short enough hours that James would even be able to go back to school after a 2 year break.

are you kidding me?

I couldn’t believe it! James took the job, started immediately, and we had insurance the week that Rocky was born.

I cannot tell you what an amazing eye-opener that was for me. There was no way that things should have worked out. No way at all. But they did. He really did help my unbelief. And it has taught me to not doubt again.

When things are tough, and they will be if they aren’t already, know that they will work out. Faith to me means believing that there is a rainbow after the storm. That Spring will come after a dark and long winter. Apply that to your life – when you feel like your life is in a dark and cold season of a bitter winter – have faith and believe that in time, your spring will come.

Faith isn’t only to get through difficult times in life, but it’s something that you can use to get through anything. A hard day with your children. A challenging calling. Learning how to forgive and forget. Learning how to repent.

Faith to me means trusting our Heavenly Father. Trusting that He actually does have a plan, and trusting that he does in fact guide our lives. When He calls me to a calling that I don’t feel like I can do, I trust that it’s to help me grow and progress in ways that He sees fit. I have faith that it is for my good, to better me. Trust the lord, rely on Him for your strength no matter what it is that you need strength for – and He will bless you.

We got our Ensign yesterday and I read a bit of it today – the talk “It Is Better to Look Up” really spoke to me when it comes to faith. “IF we, like President Monson, exercise our faith and look to God for help, we will not be overwhelmed with the burdens of life. We will not feel incapable of doing what we are called to do or need to do. We will be strengthened and our lives will be filled with peace and joy…But we must have the faith to look up and the courage to follow his direction.”

I love that the gospel is really very simple – do what we are supposed to do, and God will take care of us. If you are doing all you need to do, don’t stress. God hears your prayers. He knows you personally. He knows your needs, He knows your heart. Have faith that He is there and that He is taking care of you.

And to end, another quote from that talk, “As we remember Him(Christ) and trust in His power, we receive strength through His atonement. It is the means whereby we can be relieved of our anxieties, our burdens, and our suffering. It is the means whereby we can receive the faith and strength to endure all things.”

You can read more from the lovely Becca at http://jbclary.blogspot.com/