Episode #222 - Deep Desires - Infertility-Single Life-Divorce

For many members and individuals blessings such as marriage, children and a loving spouse have not yet materialized.  It can be a deeply painful experience to have righteous desires left unfulfilled without answers.  Trials of righteous desires can be perhaps the most painful in one's life.  Finding peace and joy can be a difficult process fraught with doubt, unworthiness, and sleepless nights.  I hope that this podcast can bring a small measure of peace.

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Episode #222 – Deep Desires – Infertility-Single Life-Divorce.  I am Damon Socha.  I know that today is Easter and it is the day we celebrate the resurrection and completion of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  And celebrate we should, after all this is the day and moment that the plan of Salvation became complete for us.  And yet I am always aware that sunny days and the warmth on our face is not always felt by everyone.  For some, it can feel as though they are always in the shadows, watching the warmth of others but never truly able to feel that same warmth.  For many wonderful individuals Easter marks a rebirth along with spring renewal and it is a reminder of those covenants they hope to have but have not experienced.  It can be difficult to attend wards and branches where all around you covenants are being fulfilled while you continue to wait for the Lord to bless your righteous desires.  It can be difficult to understand why the Lord delays or postpones righteous desires.  In some ways, there exists no greater trial then to have the blessings of children or loving spouse postponed or delayed without consent.  The experience can cause a deep sorrow and hurt to occur that only those who pass through it understand.

If the experience were much less prevalent in our society and church, we could perhaps pass it off as bad luck or coincidence.  We might be able to relegate it to statistics.  If the Lord had not spoken directly to it, we might have but a fallen world to blame.  But more than one-half of the church, currently finds themselves without those covenants and children they long for and deeply desire. And the Lord has established a pattern in the scriptures demonstrating that these trials occur to righteous and chosen individuals.  Let’s begin with a few names. Sarah, Abraham’s wife, Isaac’s Mother; Rachel, Jacob or Israel’s wife, Joseph of Egypt Mother, Hannah, Samuel the Prophets Mother, Ruth, the Grandmother of David, Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist.  What do each of these mother’s have in common, they dealt with infertility concerns and in Ruth’s case being single and childless.  Each is a mother of an important figure, patriarch or prophet in the scriptures.  Their children were of supreme importance to the plan of salvation.  Abraham’s posterity was to carry the priesthood and the ordinances to the entire earth.  Joseph of Egypt was to provide for Ephraim and Manasseh who would be the sons of Abraham tasked with spreading the gospel in the last days.  The branch that was to be broken off.  David the King of Israel.  John the Baptist, whom the Savior called the greatest prophet.  Each was the son or grandson of a mother who dealt with infertility.  I have found it comforting and interesting that the Lord has included infertility as a major theme of some of his most important leaders.  These were Mother’s in Zion who suffered depression, pains, anxiety, tears and fears of infertility and yet bore some of the most important individuals in history of the Jews, Christians and Islamic religions.  But why, why place a mother of these important men in a desperate situation.  So desperate that Rachel cried out give me a son or I die.  

So many wonderful women and their husbands in a lesser sense have suffered through the trials of infertility.  Being single or divorced is no less troubling for many.  And those trials have often led to emotional health issues and deep emotional trials of trust, love and faith.  Conditional emotional health issues are prevalent in our society and within our church social structure.  When a young married woman possesses a deep and personal desire, a righteous desire to bear children, and cannot, it can cause a deep and abiding emotional struggle. When a young man or young women find themselves without a companion and their younger years waning, they can feel deeply lost.  And divorce can feel like leprosy sometimes, always feeling on the outside of the city.  In almost every way these struggles present symptoms similar if not identical to longer term mental and emotional illnesses.  While the emotional struggle is conditional, it does not make it any less severe or troubling than a longer-term emotional health issues.  In every way, these individuals suffer emotional health concerns that need as much attention as mental and emotional health issues that are without a defined cause.  Because the pains and sufferings are conditional, we have heard the refrains of individuals saying just turn to the Lord, just get over it, don’t worry about it, it will happen when the Lord decides.  While these phrases have imbedded an idea of relief and comfort, I have found that they rarely provide that comfort.  Yes from time to time the Spirit does visit and provide comfort and some understanding but between those moments dark emotions often reign supreme.

The cause of emotional distress is possessing a deep, abiding, righteous desire, a core expression of one’s innermost hope that is unrealized often without a clear answer.  It is having a defined purpose and identity and then having that purpose and identity entirely reconfigured seemingly without ones consent.  Why would God allow such faithful women and men to experience such a trial of faith?  Holding back as it were the expression of those desires?  From a rational, mortal perspective it simply doesn’t make any real sense.  Everything we know about the gospel points to eternal marriage and children and yet for some these blessings are seemingly withheld.

When we discuss such difficulties and desires as children and eternal marriages within the context of the core doctrines of the church and its teachings, identities of mother, wife, grandmother, father husband are core identities of social church existence.  Indeed when every doctrine points to the defining relationship of eternal marriage and children and neither materialize in ones life, even the religion itself can be a burden.  That disappointment can and often is profound.  When these suffering individuals attend church, evidence of their desires and hopes surround them.  Children play in the aisles, couples sit next to one another, talks are about eternal marriage and the blessings of children.  The prophets declare that all roads lead to the temple and the eternal blessings of marriage and children.  Single women and men, and mother’s who have not yet born children, and those who are single and divorced a compounding trial, must see hear and live feeling isolated and alone, hoping that one day their dreams and identities will be realized but watching that hope slowly drain from their bodies.  For many the feelings are simply too much and they pull back from attendance to avoid reliving a difficult experience each week.  This itself is a symptom of conditional emotional health difficulties.  When we don’t feel as though we fit the mold of the church, it can be exceedingly difficult to bear the trial.  

It is not that these individuals are not faithful or have a strong testimony of the gospel the emotional discord simply becomes to much.  It is much easier to avoid the questions such as “When are you going to have children”, “where is your husband today”, “What temple did you marry in?  And so many other innocent questions, that are often daggers to the heart.

How do you move forward when you have this conditional emotional health issue?  How can it be resolved so that church can again be a place of peace and learning?  How do I live with delayed blessings and perhaps until the next life delayed blessings?  I often don’t feel worthy, living righteously enough, doing everything I should and can to obtain the blessing?  Don’t I have sufficient faith to have a child or a husband or wife?  What is it that God expects me to do?

First of all, I want everyone listening to understand that it is rarely an issue of faith.  Almost every person with whom I talk about such issues has more than enough faith, desire and determination.  Faith is not your issue.  When it comes to a trial of faith concerning righteous desires, one must consider a deeper more divine origin.  It cannot simply be a random event, a poor choice, or simply bad luck.  When you are under the protection of the covenants, these types of trials are chosen very specifically and given only to those who have proven they can bear such.  It may not feel that way when we are in the trial, but if you think about various examples in the scriptures, it seems that the Lord chooses very specific individuals.  The same appears to be true in our day when you consider Sis. Wendy Watson, who is now Wendy Nelson.  Her trial appears to have been a matter of timing and training to serve with the prophet.  Her righteous desires were postponed until a later day for a definite reason.  I believe that each person who suffers through the fiery trial of righteous desire has been specifically chosen to experience that type of suffering and learning.  I personally call these type of trials, celestial trials.  These are the Job trials where we are within our covenants and the protection of the Lord but he sees fit to teach us celestial lessons.

To learn to become like Christ we must pass through the same trials and experience as he did, although it will be tailored to our capacity.  We must pass through our Garden of Gethsemane, we must experience pains and sufferings we don’t deserve.  We must question our beliefs and who we are.  We must be broken down to our core elements and rebuilt.  Celestial trials are celestializing because they deal with struggles and trials that truly test our testimony and relationship with the Savior.  You will never know how much you truly believe or trust in the Savior until you have that trust tested.  The only way to test trust is to place yourself within the experience.  Trust is not a rational learned element we can glean from a book.  Trust is something we must experience.  When we have developed trust in the Lord, we should expect him to test that trust and in so doing expand our relationship and trust in the Savior.  We become like and develop our relationship with the Savior by experiencing trials with him.  The longer the trial the deeper the relationship becomes if we do not walk away.

Celestial trails are meant to develop the trust, faith and relationship necessary for us to obtain exaltation.  They are the defining trials of this life that will determine who will be exalted and who will not.  Every person must pass through these trials if they hope to obtain celestial life.  Abraham could not have been chosen had he not trusted Jehovah enough to be fully willing to sacrifice his son.  Job could not have been chosen if not for his trusting Jehovah when he lost everything in his life.  Because the desires are righteous and the recipients worthy, those who face celestial trials enter the doors of the celestial training center where mortals become exalted Gods.  These are the trials that are not simply about correcting behaviors, but learning Godhood.  We should expect them to be difficult.  However, it is always privileged to be asked to be part of the training center.

Yet because we live in mortality and because the trials must test our very limits, the trials can feel far more like a punishment than a blessing.  We can feel relegated to the shadows of the membership.  We can feel as though we don’t belong.  We can feel lost and even hopeless.  There is actually nothing wrong with these feelings, they simply tell us that the Lord is stretching our very nature.  We are truly his when we are in his training center and he will come to us and be with us as we pass through the fiery trial and that is how we come to know him.

So today I don’t have answers as to how to daily work through ones concerns when righteous desires are left unfilled and we are suffering through emotional difficulties.  But I do know one thing about you.  That you have been chosen to pass through the trials of your personal Gethsemane and while that path may even lead to some deep pain and suffering.  You will come to know Christ in no other way.  What I do know is that you do not lack faith but have more than enough to be placed in the exalted training program of the Lord.  May he bless you to see joy in your trial and purpose in your pain.  Until next week do your part so that the Lord can do his.