Originally written on October 18, 2016
I had an interesting insight last Friday night that came as the result of a not-so-fun situation. My husband's family was gathering in St.George to be with my sister-in-law as she went through the LDS temple for the first time and received her endowments. My husband and brother-in-law were going to attend a BYU football game that evening, but in order to do so (the in-law's live in Colorado), we had to meet up with them in a small town along the route, swap spouses, and then my sister-in-law and I drove to St.George with our children in tow.
The first part of the drive down with my sister-in-law, Aleisha, and the kiddos went smoothly. The older ones watched a movie while the younger ones played in their car seats with toys and sometimes got entertained by the older ones. But as soon as night fell and the sky grew black, Aleisha's 11-month-old son Benjamin started to cry, and Gracie soon followed suit. They both had their reasons for being upset, but fed into each other.
It was down-right awful hearing Gracie cry and scream, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it might be when it first began. I handled that first hour pretty well. We knew we couldn't do much. We tried talking to them, turning the lights on, popping their plugs back into their mouths, and having the older kids try to distract them as much as possible. All attempts were met with scrunched up, tear-stained faces that wanted nothing else but to be out of their seats and to be held. Knowing that we'd eventually reach our destination and could take our babies out and calm them down, and that it's a fact of life that car rides with kids can be this way, helped me feel less guilty about not fixing it. We just had to "ride it out", haha.
The second hour of screaming continued and was much harder to bear. Knowing Gracie was just within arms reach but I couldn't pick her up and make it all better was terribly hard! It eats away at my heart and causes me to fall apart when she is in that much distress. I was trying very hard to hide the tears that were trying to escape my eyes.
Did I have the choice and ability to leave my seat and go squeeze back by her side so she could see her Mama was there? Yes. Did I also have the same ability to take her out of her seat and hold her the rest of the way to St. George? I sure did. But-aside from being illegal-doing so would have put both Gracie and I in danger of bodily injury in case of an accident, and I would never make that choice. I knew she would be safe in her car seat, that that was the best place she could have been those few hours. When we arrived at our destination, she could be taken out, snuggled and soothed and be her cheery-self once again.
She could gain a little learning that though it was terrible being cooped up in that uncomfortable seat for several hours without her Mama holding her, that her Mama was always there, that she could get through it and everything would be okay.
And that's what happened! After two-and-a-half hours of two screaming infants, several anxious texts to my husband to vent and lots of deep breaths, we arrived. As soon as the ignition was off, Aleisha and I swiftly got our babies right out and held them close. They both calmed and cheered up extremely quickly! They were smiling at and playing with their aunts and uncles in no-time!
It was only an hour later as I was saying my prayers and nursing an exhausted Gracie to sleep that I saw something deeper in this experience. I was telling Heavenly Father how greatly distressing that time in the car was, how the suffering was felt not just by the crying babies, but by their mothers. I then heard and felt with a swelling, these words: "That is how your Heavenly Father feels too."
Hmmmmmm....We usually think of our Heavenly Father always being the one to do the comforting to our suffering, not how He suffers when we do. There are scriptural references and prophets words replete with the truth that our Heavenly Father is saddened by our sins, poor choices or the sufferings that are no fault of our own. But it hit me powerfully that night, as a mother with a child of her own, in a much different way.
Heavenly Father feels pain and anguish, and I imagine he has cried and desperately ached for you and me when we struggle. It is hard for Him to know and see that we suffer on this ride of life. He could choose to intervene and fix it all up, take us out of our problems or the problems out of us. But He knows what is for our good.
He may deliver us quickly from some things, but others may be long and unrelenting. He will speak to us, sit or walk beside us, and reassure us that we will reach the end of the ride. And we will, whether they come in a day, week, year, or not until the end of this life, we will.
My love for Heavenly Father grew with this experience. It is transforming, understanding a little better what He feels for me, his daughter. I try to imagine what He must do or feel when I struggle, though He can surely deal with it much better than me! With so many children and being an all-powerful, perfect God, it's hard to picture or believe that He can feel such things for each and every individual one of his spirit children. But that is exactly what He does.
So, in the midst of every struggle, every pain, every fear and anxiety that tears at me, I am trying to remember that my Father in Heaven hurts when I hurt. It pulls at His heart strings, even though He knows that I'll be okay. His love for me, and for you, is deeper and more unconditional than we can now imagine.
