MM: Trial of Faith

I had a hard weekend this last week. After another unsuccessful attempt to get pregnant, I was feeling pretty discouraged. My faith in my own ability to hear and understand the word of the Lord was wavering, and my soul was in pain.

After reading a few scriptures, I decided I needed to fast and pray to find some comfort and answers.

So, I began fasting Saturday night through Sunday afternoon. It was just what I needed.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had its general women's meeting Saturday night and many of the talks seemed to be directed at me. One in particular that I enjoyed was President Uchtdorf's talk called where he told a story about a women who managed to be happy even when life didn't turn out the way she expected.

However, it was during Sacrament Meeting the next day that I really felt the love of the Lord. Our bishopric spoke in church on Sunday, and everything that they said pretty much made me tear-up. Everything seemed to speak to my heart and answer some of the questions that I had been having.

During primary, the primary president shared an experience that also really touched my heart and brought me comfort.

One of the main lessons that I learned was about faith. Without faith, we can't have hope. I felt that I really needed to work on building up my faith. I was reading in the Bible Dictionary just now, and I read:

Faith

Faith is to hope for things which are not seen, but which are true (Heb. 11:1; Alma 32:21), and must be centered in Jesus Christ in order to produce salvation. To have faith is to have confidence in something or someone....Miracles do not produce faith, but strong faith is developed by obedience to the gospel of Jesus Christ; in other words, faith comes by righteousness, although miracles often confirm one’s faith...

...All true faith must be based upon correct knowledge or it cannot produce the desired results. Faith in Jesus Christ is the first principle of the gospel and is more than belief, since true faith always moves its possessor to some kind of physical and mental action; it carries an assurance of the fulfillment of the things hoped for. A lack of faith leads one to despair, which comes because of iniquity.

I did learn some things that I needed to work on in my own life, that might have been contributing to that despair. I had lost my confidence in myself, and thus my faith was lacking. It wasn't that I didn't believe in my Savior or my Heavenly Father, I just was doubting previous revelation that I thought that I had received.

However, after a wonderful weekend of talks and spiritual upliftment, I have felt a rekindling of my faith and confidence in myself. Faith is difficult to have sometimes, especially if you're not sure that the thing you're praying for is God's will. However, I have been reminded that in order to know if it's God's will or not, we have to experiment upon His word. As we do so, he will let us know if we are on the right path.

Link to picture source

We just have to plant the seed to know if it will grow. 

I am so grateful to the faithful men and women who prepared their talks over this last weekend. I feel that they were inspired to answer my prayers, and I'm sure they answered many others' prayers as well.