December 2012 was when the pain and breathing problems began. It wasn't until March of 2013 that I was officially diagnosed with sarcoidosis. It is has taken me over a year to be able to come to accept the fact that I have a disease and the fact that it has change my life so dramatically. I was very healthy 43 years old woman, just finishing college after 7 long years, and starting teaching 2nd grade. So happy to have had two children raised and off on there own and only two children left in high school. I was in such a good place in my life and felt everything was going great.
I think the Lord could see this and knew that in order for me to grow and become stronger he needed to find something that would really stretch me both physically and spiritually. Even after one long year I am still being stretched to my limits! I know that I have had many tender mercies along the way and the Lord has not left me comfortless. He has been with me every step of the way. I have never had to be alone in this process. He has been there to lift me up when discouraged, strengthen me when I am in pain, and bless me when I have felt that I could not go on any longer.
I know this trial has been placed before me because I needed to learn patience. Patience is such a virtue that for me is so hard to endure. I am learning it line upon line, precept upon precept. In fact, I have said to my friends…." I just want to learn what it is I need to learn from this trial and then get on with it." This statement is exactly the opposite of what patience is all about. It makes me laugh to say this because this is definitely not patience. LOL
Every trial we are given we must endure patience. It could be patiently waiting for the trial to resolve, or patiently enduring a lifelong trial. It really does not matter what type of waiting is involved but we must do all we can do and do it well in order for the Lord to bless us in his own way and in his own time.
I found a a few quotes that I really loved from an April 2010 conference, by Dieter F Uchtdorf entitled: Continue in Patience.
"Patience means accepting that which cannot be changed and facing it with courage, grace, and faith. It means being willing to submit to the father all things which the Lord seethe fit to inflict upon (us), even as a child doth submit to his father."
"Patience means to abide in faith, knowing that sometimes it is in the waiting rather than in the receiving that we grow the most."
"Patience means active waiting and enduring. It means staying with something and doing all we can-working, hoping, and exercising faith; bearing hardships with fortitude, even when the desires of our hearts are delayed. Patience in not simply enduring; it is enduring well!"
I am so grateful for this opportunity to learn patience and the many blessings that have come into my life because of it. I am thankful for the stretching and refineing that it happening to me. I just hope and pray that I will become everything the Lord wants me to become because of this trial. I know that if I endure it well then he will make much more out of my life than I ever could on my own!
"Continue In Patience"
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