Allowing the Lord to be our guide on our eternal journey home will help us navigate the unexpected stops and detours of life.
Photo by Brett Patzke
The week my husband was in the hospital with a ruptured appendix was one of the longest weeks of my life. Sleep was always out of reach, and frustration mounted just as high as my to-do list was long. We still needed to sell our apartment contract, I still had school and work to keep up with, and we had to completely reconfigure our life plan.
Marianne von Bracht expresses a similar frustration in the article “Waiting at the Stoplights of Life.” After experiencing miscarriage after miscarriage, she felt like she was getting stuck at one stoplight after another. Along with feeling frustrated, she felt heartbroken and abandoned by God. She often asked God, “What am I supposed to learn from this? I’m trying to do something good! Where is the help I need?”
While waiting at a red traffic light, she realized “all that mattered in my journey was that I stay on the path that would take me back to my heavenly home. How many ‘stoplights’ I waited at would have no effect on my destination. How I responded to them would.”
When I read those words, I realized I needed to change my perspective about my husband and my current predicament. Our lives may have been turned upside down by his unexpected stay at a hospital, but I needed to have more faith in God, more patience with myself and my husband, and more love for others. I wouldn’t be able to alter my circumstances with this attitude change, but I could change my heart for the better by choosing to be more patient at the stoplights of my life. I’m not perfect at it yet, but because of this decision, I’m more patient with myself and others and I have a more positive outlook as challenges come.
Read “Waiting at the Stoplights of Life” to learn more about how Marianne von Bracht learned about peace, perspective, and growth.
Source: ChurchofJesusChrist.org
—Renee Stevens, Mormon Insights
FEATURE IMAGE BY ANTONIO DICATARINA
Find more insights
Read “Has the Day of Miracles Ceased?,” by Elder Donald L. Hallstrom, to learn more about the spiritual miracles in our lives.
To find out why hard things in life are good for us, check out “Do We Trust Him? Hard is Good,” by Elder Stanley G. Ellis.
Read “An High Priest of Good Things to Come,” by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, to learn how you can receive peace concerning your current trials.
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