Remember Lot's Wife

Alright it is 2:16 in the morning and this post is longer than the average of a certain german exchange student, so it may not be coherent. But I'm not mad about that if you're not mad about that...

Confession: sometimes I get caught up in the past. Specifically the summer of 2009 or any part of my mission(s). I know that is weird and stupid. It makes a little bit of sense, though. I was just happy as a little clam.

Words can't tell you how stoked I was about my mission call, I loved my job, I knew I wouldn't have to step foot into a classroom for a few semesters, I didn't even have to worry about not knowing what my major would be, I had an adorable little crush and it was nice that there was no pressure on our relationship since I was leaving, so we were just great friends, I also had some other really awesome friends who did random/rad crap with me all summer. Basically everything was really chill and fun and happy. (Those might be 3 of my favorite things).

My mission(s) *ahem* were incredible. I would never take back one day that I was able to be on a mission. It was where I needed to be and I learned more from it than anything else in my life, and hopefully helped some other people along the way. It was hard being on a mission and harder to have to come home unexpectedly. I had no idea that health problems would send me home early or that I would be reassigned to OHIO of all places, or that I would also be ripped away from that place so quickly. It is still a struggle sometimes to be okay with it all and to know that it all happened this way for a reason.

In March it hit me that I would have been coming home if I could've stayed the whole 18 months. It freaked me out. Honestly I was still being a little baby in my parents' basement. I decided to stop being a baby and I told Heavenly Father just that. It has worked miracles. I have gone on more dates in the last month than maybe ever. I came back from my sabbatical from all doctors because I am not going to let this sickness define my life. (And the new internal medicine doctor I went to seems to be the best yet! woot). After deciding against majoring in nutrition for many reasons, I can still see why I needed to be in these classes right now, so I don't feel like it is a waste at all. I really love my life right now. It is hard and definitely not the little party that summer of 09 was, but I love it. That is why it weirds me out that I still get caught up in the past. The talk "Remember Lot's Wife" came to mind this week. I have read this talk several times, but somehow forgot about it until now. Maybe I just need to read this talk everyday.... that is actually an amazing idea. Elder Holland never disappoints, but this probably makes it into the top 3 talks by him.

He talks about Lot's wife (I know, good insight) and how her longing for the past was really her lacking faith. "In short, her attachment to the past outweighed her confidence in the future."

That sentence might describe my life for the last few months, but not anymore. I am learning to have faith that God will take care of things that seem impossible if we have faith that he can/will. He has shown me before that he is capable of miracles and there is no reason he would stop that now. Reading this talk made me really excited for what the future holds for me. I really don't know exactly what it holds for me, but I know it will be great and everything will be taken care of. My future will be better than 2009. :] If you ever hear me say that, you'll know that it is only kind of a joke, but also serious. ("because if it's only partially a joke, it has to partially be serious." -abraham lincoln)

Here are some favorite quotes from that talk:

(but you know you want to read the whole thing)

I plead with you not to dwell on days now gone, nor to yearn vainly for yesterdays, however good those yesterdays may have been. The past is to be learned from but not lived in. We look back to claim the embers from glowing experiences but not the ashes. And when we have learned what we need to learn and have brought with us the best that we have experienced, then we look ahead, we remember that faith is always pointed toward the future. Faith always has to do with blessings and truths and events that will yet be efficacious in our lives. So a more theological way to talk about Lot’s wife is to say that she did not have faith. She doubted the Lord’s ability to give her something better than she already had. Apparently she thought—fatally, as it turned out—that nothing that lay ahead could possibly be as good as those moments she was leaving behind.

God doesn’t care nearly as much about where you have been as He does about where you are and, with His help, where you are willing to go.

To all such of every generation, I call out, “Remember Lot’s wife.” Faith is for the future. Faith builds on the past but never longs to stay there. Faith trusts that God has great things in store for each of us and that Christ truly is the “high priest of good things to come.”

The future holds everything.