Reflections on my 23rd Year

Two years ago this time I got some rather intriguing news. My mission president informed me that I might have a brand new missionary coming to my area, although it was halfway through the transfer. Thinking that it was my president just thinking well ahead of time, as he always did, I tried not to worry about it, given that so much could change in the next several weeks and by the time this missionary did arrive into the field, my president would find someone else to train him. The next day he called me on the phone and almost immediately after greeting me asked me, "Are you ready to train?" I swallowed my fear and just said "Yup." I couldn't have felt more unprepared for the situation. While I had been in the field for a total of about eighteen months, there was a great deal that unnerved me about training a brand new missionary. I knew that I would have a great influence on him, for better or worse. I didn't want to be the kind of trainer who's new missionary had to be "re-trained" as a result of my experience with them.

That experience was just one among many that taught me that if there's one thing consistent in life, its change. Throughout my first 23 years of life I've been taught this lesson, especially in this last year itself. I suppose I will continue to be retaught it so long as Heavenly Father wants to me to keep learning, but I can tell you this much about change: ultimately, it can always be to our benefit. For my Literature and Film class, I had to read A Grief Observed by the amazing C.S. Lewis. In this account by Lewis, he chronicles the emotional journey he underwent after the death of his wife. It is an incredible book, many passages of which are highlighted in my copy. One quote in particular stands out to me: "When I lay these questions [pertaining to the death of my wife] before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of 'No answer'. It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal, but waiving the question. Like, 'Peace, child; you don't understand.'... Heaven will solve our problems, but not, I think, by showing us subtle conciliations bewteen all our apparently contradictory notions. The notions will all be knocked from under our feet. We shall see that there never was any problem." In the moment of our trials, it's as if they are on a canvas the size of a wall, and we are right up against that wall, staring it in the face, trying to make sense of it. It takes stepping back and viewing it in perspective of everything else in order to have them make sense. I suppose we really won't be able to do that to the fullest extent until after this life, but I am grateful that the Lord gives us opportunities to see the bigger picture from time to time. I believe that it will take His knowledge and understanding to interpret the canvas upon which lie the details of our life, but knowing that He knows makes all the difference for me.