Faith That Gets Tested

Faith is pretty easy to talk about when nothing is on fire.

When life is calm; prayers feel answered; everybody you love is still here; and the hardest thing on your mind is whether you are going to be late for church again.

That kind of faith is nice.

But it is not the kind that tells you what you really believe.

Faith gets real when you are standing in grief. When you prayed; and the thing still happened. When the old answers feel too small for the pain sitting right in front of you.

When you bury a child.

After Sierra-Rose died; I did not have neat spiritual thoughts about it.

I had questions.

I wondered if loss was punishment. I wondered if Heaven was collecting a debt. I wondered if somehow I had failed badly enough that losing her was part of the bill.

That is not a pretty thing to admit in church.

But it is true.

In October 1999 General Conference; Elder Jeffrey R. Holland gave a talk called “An High Priest of Good Things to Come.” His message was not that faithful people never hurt; or never wonder why; or never get tired of trying to understand things that do not make sense.

His message was that some blessings come now; some come later; and some do not come until heaven.

I used to dislike answers like that.

When you are hurting; “someday” can feel like a long way of saying, “Not today.”

And when you have lost a child; today is the part that hurts.

Today is the empty place.

Today is the name you still want to say.

Today is the life that kept moving; even though part of you did not want it to.

But over time; quietly; I started to understand something.

Sierra-Rose was not the price.

She was not God collecting on some debt.

She was not punishment.

Jesus Christ already paid the price.

That does not make me miss her less. It does not turn grief into a nice little lesson that fits neatly into a Sunday talk. I am not interested in pretending pain becomes easy just because faith is still there.

It does not.

But Elder Holland’s message helped me see that faith is not always getting the answer you wanted. Sometimes faith is believing Christ is still good after the answer broke your heart.

Sometimes faith is accepting that a blessing is real; even when you cannot hold it again yet.

Sometimes faith is saying; “I do not understand this; but I am not walking away from Him.”

That is the faith I have now.

Not the easy version. Not the clean version. Not the kind that has a cheerful answer for everything and a scripture ready before somebody has finished crying.

Mine has grief in it.

Mine has questions in it.

Mine has Sierra-Rose in it.

And it still has Jesus Christ in it.

Elder Holland called the Savior the High Priest of good things to come. I believe that now in a way I never wanted to have to learn.

I believe there are good things Christ has not finished giving us yet.

I believe love does not end because a life ended too soon.

I believe Sierra-Rose is not gone from God; and because of Jesus Christ; she is not gone from us forever.

Faith that gets tested is not faith that never hurts.

It is faith that keeps reaching for the Savior after the easy version of belief is gone.

And somehow; even in the grief; even in the questions; even when the blessing feels far away;

He is still there.

I leave these thoughts in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

General Conference Reference:Elder Jeffrey R. Holland; “An High Priest of Good Things to Come”; October 1999 General Conference.

#MyLDSTalks #LDSFaith #LatterDaySaint #ChristianFaith #FaithAndLife #RealFaith #Testimony #JesusChrist #Grace #StillBelieve