Here I am reading chapters 43 and 44 of Alma and really trying hard to relate it to my own life to get the most of the scriptures. And it hits me, I HATE TRIALS. And I often ask "Why Me Lord? I thought you would provide an easier path for me. What did I do wrong to deserve this?'
I don't know why those are always my first thoughts and resentment is a feeling I often feel. I know it isn't right, but part of me also wonders if God really cares about me. If He really does love me. If He really does hear my prayers and want to bless me ever in the ways I desire. Usually blessings are so much smaller than I imagine.
For example, since I got married, we have moved several times. Like 3 times a year several. My husband really only had 1 maybe 2 really successful work years where he made enough money for us to live comfortingly. While the rest of the years, we have been so so poor. So I imagined once this trial was over that God would provide us with a really really really good job to make up for the really really really hard years.
One time a few years back he got a management job in between summers of working at Vivint, and he only made 1800$ a month before taxes. Which is nothing. And now he finally got another job while it is the off year of Vivint, and believe me when I say, we want to be done with vivint, and he only makes 30K a year with zero benefits. And since there are no benefits, he will only get paid that if he never takes days off. Like he makes 16$ and hour and I figured that amount by figuring out if he worked 40 hours a week, 52 weeks of the year. Which he probably won't after holidays, vacation, and sick days.
These blessings confuse me. I guess I imagined so much more for us. My brother who is inactive in the church makes 80k a year. My sister who lived with a nonmember and then married him and is inactive herself makes 90k a year. I know money isn't everything, but 30k a year is just so so so tight for a family of almost 5. Will we ever be able to move out of living with my parents?? Will we ever be able to take our family to Disneyland? Will we ever get our mattress off of the floor and into a real bedframe? Will we even be able to afford rent, clothes, gas, groceries (things that you will die if you don't have??) Will we ever be able to pay off our credit card debt? Or buy a home?
Right now I just don't know the answer to these questions. I am confused why the Lord sees this as needing to be my trial. I just don't understand why after all these years, in a blessing I was told this trial would be over soon, and here almost a year later we are still going through it: no money, no home, trying to figure out where to move to.
Anyway, I went on forever, sorry. But as I was reading these scriptures, it hit me how much they viewed the Lord as delivering them and blessing them as they were having to shed blood and protect their lives and their families lives. They didn't complain, they didn't ask "why me?" Instead they just were like, "well we are righteous, we know that, and God is on our side taking care of us while we go through this."
I long to be more like that. I am not like that at all. I need to show more integrity and be more like Joseph of Egypt, who viewed his LONG HARD path as the path that led him to save his family's lives. He didn't complain, He stuck with God through it all. I want to be more like that. I want to have
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