Yesterday I heard an interesting story/allegory in church:

A woman dreamed for many years of going to Italy. She studied guide books, learned some Italian phrases, even ate authentic Italian food. Finally the day came when she actually went, nervous and excited at the same time. When the plane landed, she was greeted by the words, “Welcome to Holland.” Stunned, she asked the stewardess what happened and was told, “Your destination has changed. You are in Holland.” No explanation and clearly no way to change course.

Over time, the woman discovered many great things about Holland: windmills, canals, tulips and, of course, wonderful art by Rembrandt. Periodically, she met people either going to or returning from Italy with exciting stories of their time there, which brought back her long-denied dream with sharp pain. Somehow she knew she would eventually get there too, but she just had no idea how or when.

Don’t we all have hopes and dreams that have been derailed along the unexpected roads life brings us? What do we do with those dreams? Let them shrivel up into dry piles of hopelessness? Keep them alive, but do nothing to help them come true? Or worse, turn bitter and destructive to self and others?

I’ve had a life-long dream of establishing a home with a loving, committed husband on a solid financial footing – a safe nest for my children and grandchildren and a springboard for lasting happiness. I’ve worked to become the kind of partner I want to find. I’ve been steadily employed as a secretary, teacher, and finally realtor my whole adult life, but those two blessings have eluded me. My family are all doing well, but I still sorrow for what we’ve missed, even as I rejoice in what we’ve had.

Over the years, I’ve asked the Lord politely for these blessings. I’ve cried my sorrows out to Him, I’ve pleaded, I’ve tried to bargain, I’ve gotten mad, and none of it has produced anything but the continued whisperings of the Spirit to keep moving forward and keep hope alive. I’ve had many spiritual assurances that those blessings are still coming to me, just not when.

This week I read a story by Catherine Marshall in the January issue of Guideposts magazine, originally published in 1960. She was married to the famous Presbyterian minister, Peter Marshall, and had a small son when she was diagnosed with a non-communicable form of tuberculosis. She remained bedridden for many months, rest being the only cure. She went through the same sequence of spiritual gymnastics I have, seeking healing and a return to normal life. Nothing worked. Finally, she read a story about “a missionary who had been an invalid for eight years. She had prayed that God would make her well, so that she might do his work. Finally, worn out with futile petition, she prayed, All right. I give up. If you want me to be an invalid, that’s your business. Anyway, I want you even more than I want health. You decide. In two weeks the woman was out of bed, completely well.” Catherine tried the same thing, the Prayer of Relinquishment, sincerely. From that day her recovery began.

I decided to try it too. So with trepidation, I told the Lord that if He wanted me to continue to bump along with my small emergency fund and no husband, I’d accept it and do my best to serve Him with what I did have. It wasn’t easy giving up the last crumb of my will, but I looked inside and not only did I want God more than my own desires, I finally could trust that what He wanted really would turn out to be best for me and my family in the long run, not just those I might serve.

Well, I’ve had a great week putting together a class presentation, Healthy Food vs Test Tube Food, totally focused, not worried about the future, and feeling more peace than I can remember. Oh, and a neighbor stopped by to discuss listing her town home for sale. I knew I could help her have a good result, building on our long-standing rapport over feeding the birds and our mutual love of gardening. Not wealth, but a nice addition to my emergency fund in the offing, while also doing some good.

Someone once told me that the choirs of angels in heaven singing praises to God are actually expressing their boundless gratitude for the trials they experienced in mortal life, the same trials that refined them and brought them back to God’s presence. True or not, I can now imagine it.

Then I saw the move, The Saratov Approach, a true story of two Mormon missionaries kidnapped in Russia and how they responded when faced with a life-or-death challenge to their faith in God. It’s available on Netflix and elsewhere. Well worth viewing: TRAILER.

The Saratov Approach, Courtesy aidyreviews.net

The Prayer of Relinquishment doesn’t always give us the result we seek. Some people do stay invalids, stay single, live perpetually on tight budgets, or even die violent deaths after they give their will over to God. But even when it does bring our desired blessing, we don’t know why it worked. Either way, it always, always brings peace. And we do know that someday, somehow, He will make up all our losses one hundred-fold:

And he who receiveth all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious; and the things of this earth shall be added unto him, even an hundred fold, yea, more. (LDS Doctrine & Covenants 78:19; see also Job 42:12)

I believe the “all things” part includes the unwelcome ones: adversities, losses, griefs, frights. I’m a whiner and a coward, so I have a lot of work to do here. But I was richly repaid for my small sacrifice this week and that adds to my hope.