A Long-Awaited Answer to a Desperate Prayer

This week has been an emotional week.

I don't know if I had recorded this here before, but have been having difficulty feeling like my prayers were being answered.  Or that my prayers were even being heard.   I know that God is there.  I know that God hears my prayers.  But I wanted to feel it deep down in my soul.  I wake up in the morning and go into the garage to exercise.  Afterwards I pray.  I have been praying and praying and asking for forgiveness.  I have been feeling guilty about so many different things.  Small things, but I still need forgiveness for them.  There are many small things that I do repeatedly each day, no matter how hard I try to stop doing them.  I am trying my hardest, but I am far from perfect.  I just wanted to feel God's love for me.  I wanted to feel deep down in my soul that God forgives me and that He loves me.  This has been going on for a few months.  Each day I have been begging Heavenly Father to help me feel His love.  To help me feel something.

I begged and begged and prayed and prayed.  For days on end.  But I didn't feel like I was being heard or answered.  I had hope.  I had faith.  I was acting on my faith.  But I just didn't feel it like I wanted to.  It was my deepest desire.

A few days ago I finally told Jon about this.  I cried and cried and admitted to Him that I feel like God is disappointed in me because I wasn't feeling His love.

Fast forward a few days later to this morning.  It is Saturday and I usually go on a run on Saturday's.  Today, however, I chose to just wake up early and ride the exercise bike in the garage.  I started listening to the "Don't Miss This" podcast, however, I decided to watch it on YouTube instead.

They were talking about Moroni 10 today.  I can't believe that we are done studying the Book of Mormon.  It has been such an amazing year studying this sacred book and I have learned so much more this year than I have in my entire life.  It's been an amazing year.

Anyway, as they were were reading in Moroni 10:3, I was overcome by the spirit.  Even as I write this I am brought to tears.  Verse 3 says, "...that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things,and ponder it in your hearts."  I was overcome with the truth of this statement.  From Adam on, God has been so merciful.  My thoughts turned to all of the tender mercies that I had read about this past year in the Book of Mormon.  So many tender mercies!  I remembered Lehi, Nephi, King Benjaman, Mosiah, Alma, Alma the Younger, Helaman, the 2,000 Srippling Warriors, Abinadi, Samuel the Lamanite, Ammon, The Sons of Mosiah, Amulek, Enos, 3rd Nephi, Jesus Christ, Mormon, Moroni, and all of the rest.  I felt their spirits in the garage this morning.  All of them.  They were there with smiles on their faces (in my minds eye).  They were all there and they were letting me know that God loves me so much that He gave me the Book of Mormon to read and to study.  God loves me so much that all of these ancient prophets recorded their experiences and their words...just for me.  God has been speaking to me this entire year through the words in the Book of Mormon.  It is a book that was written for me, in my day.   For us, in our day.  It is true!  It is a book that has brought me closer to Christ.  It is a book that has motivated me to "Let God Prevail" in my life.  I felt like the ancient prophets were overjoyed that I had finally understood their message.  That God is a merciful God and that He loves me.  That He has forgiven me and will continue to forgive me for all of my shortcomings.

I realized something.  The iron rod (the word of God) leads to the the tree of life...which is God's love.  If we read the words of God we can feel of God's love for us. 

Any space, even a messy garage, can be a sacred space if you allow God to enter in.  The garage was messy.  We have lawnmowers, tools, a broken piano, strollers, bags of pellets, and random wood pieces everywhere.  Yet, even in that mess, God came to me.  I know now with a surety that God will come to us in our messes.  Not just our physical messes, but our spiritual messes as well.  As long as we humble ourselves and come to him with a broken heart and a contrite spirit (an obedient heart and a repentant spirit) he will come to us where we are, as we are.

I cried for 20 minutes straight.  I just sat there and felt the spirit and cried.  I felt joy.  I felt happiness.  I felt gratitude.  I felt light.  I felt God's love.  He was there.  He answered my prayer.  He has always been there, answering my prayers.  He answers my prayers every single time I make the choice to read the Book of Mormon.  It is His gift to me.

I have read the Book of Mormon many times.  I have prayed about the truthfulness of it many times.  I have always felt and known that it was true.  I had never been overcome with emotion about it until today.  I assumed it just wasn't in the plan for me to receive such a powerful witness.  Heavenly Father gave me a gift today.   He gave me, through the Holy Ghost, a powerful witness that the book is indeed true.  After today, I can testify with 100% confidence that the Book of Mormon is a true book.  How grateful I am for this witness and this experience.  God is so good to me.  He loves me.

It's interesting to me that God made me wait until the very last chapter of the Book of Mormon to receive the answer that I so desperately wanted.  He waited until I had studied every page and every verse harder than I had ever studied them before.  He waited until I was truly humble and desperate.  If He would have answered my prayer earlier, I don't think the answer would have been as sweet.  He waited until I was ready.  What a magnificent lesson.  One that I will never forget.

Through the power of the Holy Ghost I may know the truthfulness of ALL things.  What a blessing.  What a gift.  I was also thinking about Charity this week, as we were studying it for Come Follow Me.  I was actually feeling a little discouraged because I didn't feel like I had charity.  The scriptures say that if ye have not charity ye are nothing.  I was feeling horrible about myself.  Today, however, I was able to interpret the scripture differently.  Jesus Christ IS charity.  If we don't have Christ, we are nothing.  It's true!  Christ is the reason that we can rise above our nothingness, rise above the dust, the natural man in us, our carnal nature's...and becometh a saint.  Christ chose to leave His throne on high to be born in the most humble of circumstances, in a lowly stable, laid in a manger and wrapped in swaddling clothes.  Swaddling cloth was used to bind broken limbs as well as wrap those who have died to prepare them for burial.  Similarly, Christ was born to heal the broken...and to die...with the purpose of rising again.  Christ heals all that was broken, is broken, and will ever be broken.  Because of Him, we have the chance to choose to change to become more like Him.  We don't have to stay as we are.  If we let Him in, He will meet us where we are, as we are, and then take us to places that we have never been before.

I have received similar powerful witnesses about Jesus Christ, Joseph Smith, and President Nelson.  Witnesses so powerful that I cannot deny.  Now I can add The Book of Mormon to that list.  I will never be able to deny what I felt this morning.

I am overcome with gratitude.