In A Swings and Roundabouts Kind of Way

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It will all work out, in a swings and roundabouts kind of way. 
I have faith that I can be healed. I have faith that I am home for a reason, outside of just the surgery. I have faith that God KNOWS me and LOVES me. I have faith that you don't have to be serving as a full-time missionary to progress eternally. I have faith that every little detail, everything, is all for a specific reason. I have faith that even though things are not always easy, they are possible. I have faith in my Saviour, Jesus Christ and the healing, enabling power of His atonement. And I have faith that whatever storms come our way will surely pass. I have faith that we really can do it!

The truth is sometimes, things do not go the way we planned them. Sometimes your plans, though GOOD plans, don't work out because God has better ones, even when they don't seem better at all! He can see the biggest picture while we can only see and comprehend bits and pieces of it. 

I had always dreamed of the day I could leave on my mission! When I started going to church I just knew that I would serve! I had this unbelievable craving to feel and share the Spirit! The gospel had brought me so much happiness I knew I needed to share this happiness with others! It was like I had found this secret recipe that makes the already good cookies, even better! Everyone needed to taste it, to feel the paradise of it! 


For anyone who was keeping track, I should have been flying back to England about a month ago. That was my Plan A, and B, and C. One of my favourite quotes is, "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans." HA! I never imagined anything different, because I knew that MY WILL was to continue to serve God and serve the blessed people of England. My will was to never stop serving. I served nine months of my mission in pain, knowing that I needed surgery. Everyday for nine months not only did I fight the physical pain, I fought the mental and emotional pain that came with the thought of me ever coming home. 

But each of those days I grew closer to my Saviour, because I was relying on him in a way I had never had to do before. Although the pain never seemed to go away, somehow I always had the strength, the work was never hindered. It wasn't until I laid in my bed at the end of each night that I realized how bad the pain actually was. Meanwhile, God was using me, he was teaching me, and he was blessing me. 

The hardest days of my mission were the three days before I came home. I was so afraid of the unknown. I knew I needed surgery, well at least I was pretty sure. But there was no clear and definite plan. I just walked with faith knowing that this was what God wanted for me and that whatever the outcome was, it would be okay. 

 I had a few days before I would be seeing the doctor, still unsure of what really was the problem, I had a pretty good idea that it was the same thing that had happened my senior year and right before my mission, but again I wasn't one hundred percent sure. When I went into the doctor he told me that this surgery would be a little more intense then the other surgeries I had previously gotten, but without doing an ultrasound he wasn't sure how bad it actually was. We knew that some kind of cyst had formed on my tailbone and that it needed to leave so we proceeded with the plans for surgery. 


After struggling to find my veins and many tries for the IV... I was finally out... when I woke up from surgery the doctor informed me that what we thought was one smallish cyst was three cysts.. but 58 stitches later they got it taken care of. Since then, I have been trying to recover, slowly. 
The doctor told me that it was a good thing I came home when I did. If I had waited any longer it would have just gotten worse and possibly left more damage. Who knows if I would have been able to ride a dirt bike, snowboard, or even dance ever again had I waited. He was grateful for me following the spirit and listening to the promptings I had received.
Physically God needed me home because He knew of the potential damages. He knew how bad it actually was. He knew and knows everything.

I just want to also explain that I KNOW, without one doubt, that God needs me here for something else. Yes, he needed me to get surgery and take care of myself, but there is something else he needs me to do. We are always on the Lord's errand, whether wearing a badge or not. Right now I have been called to serve in my hometown Idaho. God may have a different plan for me than I would have ever expected, but whatever the plan is, I know that it is His. God's plan is faultless, and through our Savior Jesus Christ, we can be WHERE God wants us to be, and be WHAT God wants us to be. 

So what now? As the Doctrine and Covenants says, "...be anxiously engaged in a good cause ... and bring to pass much righteousness." So I am staying engaged. I am going to school, taking 15 credits and I am working a full-time job here in Blackfoot. I stay engaged and I wait. I wait upon the Lord. I wait for his plan. 

 I have been asked and told, "When are you going back to your mission?" "Will you go back?" "I didn't think you'd go back anyways." 

 My answer is, we shall see.  I will do whatever the Lord wants and needs me to do! Do I want to go back? Of coarse, one hundred times yes! The thing is, whatever YOU think is best for me and whatever I think is best for me, isn't actually true. You and I can't and determine God's plan. One of my favourite idioms/riddles I learnt in England is "in a swings and roundabouts kind of way." Which is something that you would say to describe a situation where there are as many advantages as there are problems. Or I like to relate it to "In a coincidental kind of way". 

 And I KNOW...
... It will all work out, in a swings and roundabouts kind of way. 

Comments

  1. ecometrochicMay 2, 2017 at 2:52 AM

    I read this Saturday but did not have time or wifi to respond. As a young girl I always dreamed of serving a mission. I mean, we lived in Provo across the street from the Provo Temple and the MTC! My dad was a student at BYU the same time I attended high school. But I became very ill at seventeen. I first started fainting in a cross country race and then I fainted everywhere. I had to stay home my senior year of high school and all of my life dreams were taken away. For a time we did not know if I would live or die. Then we did not know if I would need heart surgery with a pacemaker. Then we did not know if I would walk again or if I would be bound to a wheel chair the rest of my life.

    You saw me in England as a healthy, active mother to four children with a scientist husband. I now run 8-10 kilometres three times a week and I am learning Dutch to prepare us for our move to the Netherlands next year. It probably looks so easy but I am constantly in awe that the Lord has given me so much.

    Before I became ill, I loved to go sit on the Provo temple grounds. I would read my patriarchal blessing, study my scriptures, and try to find answers to what to study at university. I kept praying for direction as to who I was meant to be. I remember distinctly the feeling of love but the disappointment with the lack of an answer. Everyone else knew what they wanted to study but me!

    But only the Lord could prepare me for what I am doing now, and that preparation came directly through the perseverance, trust, and discipline I learned whilst I was sick in bed or fainting. We have a good God and I am so happy to know you and love you so that I can see His works through you, too. I would love to see you return to England to finish your mission. But I know you will serve Him and love His children where ever He places you. He knows He can rely on you and only He knows the marvellous things in store for you.

    Loads of hugs from all the Harpers!

    ReplyDelete

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