Tag Archives: miracles

Healing

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The surgeon cut me open four times. Three cuts were half an inch. The last was one inch. He removed one of my organs (my gallbladder) through one of them.

For one week, I left the waterproof bandages on. I had bled, and the bandages were weary. My muscles were sore, like someone had punched me in the gut. I rested. But then I stood up. I swept the floor. I picked up my baby, and I went to the grocery store. I lived.

After one week, a nurse removed the bandages and the stitches.

Now, four bright red lines mark the spots. The skin has come together. There is no more blood oozing, there is no more pain. My body has healed itself.

As I look at my week-old wounds, I think one word: Miracle. My body is a miracle.

Your body, whatever its natural gifts, is a magnificent creation of God. It is a tabernacle of flesh–a temple for your spirit. A study of your body attests to its divine design.

Believe in God; believe that he is, and that he created all things, both in heaven and in earth; believe that he has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend.

Mosiah 4:9

Watching my body heal has strengthened my testimony of God’s majesty.

Lesson 3: The Fall of Adam and Eve

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Sometimes I think it would be nice to live in a world with no sickness, no sorrow, and no pain. What would such a world be like?

I’ll begin with the trivial: I wouldn’t be uncomfortably hot during the summer. Now, on hot days, I hope for a short summer and early autumn. Of course, I wouldn’t have any uncomfortably cold wintery days either. But, without the extreme weather, I wouldn’t appreciate spring and autumn weather. By eliminating unpleasant weather, pleasant weather gets very boring.

Then I think about a world void of sicknesses and pain. I’ve always been healthy and lacked major health problems. That has changed in the past four months. (Having a baby helps your body fall apart, I guess.) I would love to eliminate pain and sickness from my life! Ironically, though, it is only now that I’ve regularly experienced ill health that I recognize what a blessing it was to have had good health. Every day that I am not ill is a very good day (there still are plenty of those), and some days I feel great! By being ill, I appreciate so much more being well. (However, I really do look forward to not being ill on a regular basis.)

It might sound nice initially, but a world without sickness, sorrow, pain, and sin would lack all enjoyment as well.

In the beginning, Adam and Eve lived in such a world.

When they were first placed there, they were given two commandments:

  1. Multiply and replenish the earth (Genesis 1:28)
  2. Don’t partake of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:16-17)

And here lies the most complex irony: because the garden was a place of innocence, Adam and Eve couldn’t fulfill the first commandment without breaking the second.

When Adam and Eve did choose to partake of the fruit, they committed a transgression, not a sin. Because there was nothing inherently wrong with partaking of the fruit, it was not a sin to partake of it, even though it was a commandment not to.

I like this comparison: A parent tells a child to never cross the street. Does the parent have a reason for the rule? Yes. But is it inherently wrong to cross the street? No. At some point in his life, the child needs to cross the street.

Eve had a dilemma. She had to choose to sacrifice her painless world of innocence in order to gain experience and to bear children. She did not know what the experience would be because she’d never before experienced it. No human had experienced it. It’s hard to choose to experience the unknown. And yet, she wanted to gain experience and she wanted to raise children.

I feel close to her dilemma. A little more than three months ago, I went through incredible pains to bring a child into the world. It was horrible. I thought I was going to die. I wanted the pain to stop. I wanted to give up. Why can’t we have children without the pain?

Well, that’s not the plan, and I’m not talking about the lack of drugs. (I imagine childbirth is still quite painful with drugs.) There is much pain in raising a child, beyond childbirth. The plan of our Heavenly Father is to learn from experience. Experience sometimes entails fear and pain, but it also includes incredible happiness. There is supposed to be opposition as we experience the good.

Eve could only bear children by giving up innocence. I can’t speak for Eve, but because I went through that painful experience of childbirth:

  • I have the most beautiful, perfect little boy to raise.
  • I learned a lot about my abilities to do what I have to do.
  • I gained an incredible spiritual closeness to my Heavenly Father.
  • I am learning every day from my child.

I think childbirth is an incredible miracle. But it required going through a very challenging experience. It required that I not live in a perfect world, void of pain and sorrow.

Adam [and Eve] fell that man [and woman] might be, and men [and women] are that they might have joy. 2 Nephi 2:25

I’m grateful for the Fall of Adam and Eve. It meant I could come to earth. It meant I can bear children. It meant that I can have my joy multiplied as I Experience. And truly, my family is my greatest joy.

Lesson 3 of 45

“I Can” Versus “I Can’t”

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I’ve never had incredible self confidence. I second guess my abilities to do just about everything. So taking on the new role of mother is very daunting. Heavenly Father trusts me with one of his precious spirit children. Me!

I’m sure I’m not the only new mother a bit overwhelmed.

As I mentioned previously on this webpage, I loved being pregnant! But while I can’t say I loved the giving birth part of the adventure, I did love the incredible spiritual experiences I had during the entire process (in retrospect only; I didn’t love it at all at the time). I’ll share some of it because I feel it has so much to do with how I’ll approach motherhood and everything in my life now.

I’ve been told that the labor for first babies is usually a very long time. I figured once I got to the hospital, I’d get an epidural to deal with the pain. How else do women get through it these days? There’s pain medicine, so take it, I say.

When I first entered the delivery room last Sunday, I asked how long I should expect to be in labor. The midwife suggested that normal progress would be 4 hours for every 2 cm dilation. Since I was only 4 cm at that point, that would leave me with 12 more hours of labor! I just about died. I couldn’t stand the thought of such a long time. Because it seemed there was so much time left, I decided to wait until I seriously couldn’t bear it anymore before asking for the epidural. It would be a long time stuck on my back.

It was only another hour and a half before I asked for it. I couldn’t stand the pain. With each contraction, I told my husband, “I can’t do this!” He calmly reassured me that I could. (He was very good to me the entire time!)

Well, by the time I asked for the epidural, the nurse told me that it was too late–I was fully dilated. I couldn’t have an epidural at that point. It was nearly time to push.

In some respects, it was exciting to know that Paul was so near to be born. It’s very good to have a shorter labor! But I just knew I couldn’t have a baby without numbing all the pain!

“How long?” I asked.

“Within two hours.”

Two more hours! I couldn’t do it. I would die. I firmly decided that if the baby hadn’t been born by 3 p.m, I would succumb to death. But I’d make a valiant effort before I did. I owed that to my husband and this baby that wanted to be born.

The contractions were horrible. But then the most amazing thing happened: in between I was able to breathe and get ready for the next one. During each contraction I would feel so horrible and I’d tell everyone in the room I couldn’t do it. But then I’d get a moment to catch my breath. And I’d realize that the baby was coming.

Whenever I said “I can’t do it!”, my husband would say “You’re doing great” and the midwives would say “You are doing it!”

Well, Paul sure took his time. It was more than 2 hours. 3 p.m. came and he still hadn’t been pushed out. But he was nearly there. I decided not to die. And then, with one long push, there was Paul. He was born. The midwife put him on my belly, and there he was.

I can’t describe my first emotional impression of seeing my son. Here’s the physical description: He was blue and squirmy and tiny. (And yet, he was so huge for having just come from inside of me!) It was an incredible thing to finally hold him.

That night, my husband left the hospital and I was left with our newborn son. He was fussy and wouldn’t go to sleep. I was exhausted and the adrenaline was wearing off. I’d been up most of the night before with contractions and so that hadn’t been very restful sleep. As a new mom, I think I must have felt I would be betraying my new son if I put him to sleep all alone in his bassinet if he wasn’t yet asleep. (I was cured of that pretty quickly!)

As I paced the floor, I thought to myself “Come on! Go to sleep, Paul! I can’t stay awake much longer!” It was a silly thought, but like I said, it had been a long day.

And then it happened: I realized I could never truly say “can’t” again.

I had just been through childbirth without pain medication of any kind. I certainly hadn’t thought I’d be able to do that. And yet, I had done it. Certainly, walking the room with my baby was nothing compared to that! I can handle whatever comes!

I know I will forget and I will doubt myself again. And if I’m labor, I will probably say “I can’t do this!” It’s how life is. We forget. But I have had an experience that solidifies the fact that I can do so much more than I think I can do.

When I am up late, exhausted, with my horribly ill infant, toddler, child, or teenager, I can handle it. When my son hurts himself and is screaming and bleeding, I can handle it. When I am ill myself and my house is full of kids needing care, I can handle it. I may not feel like I can, but I didn’t feel like I could deliver a baby without medicine either. We don’t know what we are able to do until we are called upon to do it.

I thought of this again as I listened to President Eyring’s talk in priesthood session this week. (While I wasn’t invited, of course, the audio is available online so I listened to it when my husband did.) President Eyring said:

What is impossible for you is possible with God’s help in His service. … All of us, whatever our callings may be, face tasks that are beyond our own powers. I do and you do.

I certainly feel that my new call of Mother is beyond my own power. But I know that God sustained me during the birth of my son. And, with His sustaining power in my life, I no longer can say “I can’t” to any “call” or challenge along the way in this journey called Motherhood.

I won’t tell anyone to go through childbirth without drugs. I certainly wanted them! Like I said, we have been blessed with pain medicine, why not use it? In general, however, I think we need to stop telling ourselves “I can’t” if we truly don’t know our ability. Our Heavenly Father knows us better than we know ourselves. We shouldn’t let our perception of how bad things will be (or are) cloud our ability to actually do them. Anything truly is possible with God’s help. We can!