Submission

I have never felt like I was the submissive type. Or maybe I was for years and then one day that changed and I have never been that way since. It's all a very long and involved story, my life that is, but suffice it to say that I think I was a fairly submissive child, but have become less so as I have gotten older. I tend to think of it as a negative thing, no doubt as a result of my experiences with it as a young child. But really it's a good thing. I know that and yet I still struggle to embrace it as a character trait I truly desire for myself. I was reading today and this is what struck me:

" . . . yea, the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord." - Mosiah 24:15

Like I said, I'm not much of the submissive type, or the patient type and not always the cheerful type. I guess I have a lot to learn (no surprise there!). I am struggling with a medical issue that makes my life unpleasant. I recently, like last week, learned that there will be no change for the better in the foreseeable future. It affects every aspect of my life and for me is a great burden. There may be others who could shoulder it easily and never think twice, but that's why this is my trial and not theirs. I keep looking for what I am supposed to learn from this, hoping that once I learn my lesson something will be able to change. Unfortunately I am smart enough to know that may not be how this works. I don't understand the Lord's will. Frankly it is positively baffling at times. Some things make sense in hindsight, most do not.

I can't say that I have ever been patient or cheerful about submitting to my Father, but I have tried my best to submit my will to His. The best I can do is pray for guidance to know what He would have me do. In a recent talk I shared this thought:

So often in our lives we are asked and sometimes forced to endure trials that we cannot see a solution to. Sometimes even when we can see the end from the beginning we still can't find the connecting road to get us there.

Right now I feel like I am living in the first situation. I am forced to endure this trial with no end in sight. There was a time many years ago when I struggled deeply with depression, not just feeling sad, but dangerous depression. My mother in law loaned me a cross stitch that read: "In Time This Too Shall Pass." And it did. With a lot of effort and a fair amount of therapy I have my depression under control. That was a battle I could fight within myself. That was a mental difficulty, this is a physical difficulty. This is not something I can change or control with pure willpower. This is something else, this is something that will not pass. It's here to stay. And this is what my life will be like for the rest of my life. The thought brings tears to my eyes. So in all this, this desperation, how am I to find it in myself to cheerfully submit with great patience?

I suppose my usual answer will work. You just do it. I see something that I need to do, I know I am the only one who can, so the only thing to do is to do it. In my mind so many things are that simple, even when really they are anything but simple. I have the choice to submit to the physical, or to submit to the spiritual. It's going to be a very long and very hard road, but I won't be on it alone. I can't promise I'll be whistling the whole time, but I'll see if I can eek out a few smiles along the way. I guess with Christ in my corner, I can conquer anything.