Experiences Can Make Scriptures More Personal- And More Powerful

So, to be honest, I feel kind of nervous writing this because I'm about to share with you something that is quite personal to me and I have with only a select few people.  When Cathryn wrote her "ramble" on scripture study, she mentioned looking at the people in the scriptures as real people.  I try to do that, but it can be so hard sometimes.  I will get back to the scripture people in a second.

I've been trying to have a baby for quite a while now.  I know, how long could I really be trying, I have a baby.  Well, when you want lots of kids and have verified that the potential of A, B, C, D, etc. are much greater than normal since they are hereditary and in your family, you don't do much waiting.

Waiting and waiting month after month gets so frustrating and tiring and fills you with emotions you didn't know existed before.  At least, that's what I found.  It's hard.

Then I was finally pregnant!  I was so excited and in so much disbelief and things fell together so well and it was so easy to see God's hand in the timing.

Then it ended.  It didn't make any sense.  It was so confusing.  It's still confusing.  I knew it was ending before it ended and I was still so sick and that made me all the more frustrated.  I was baffled at my need to mourn a person that didn't exist.  Mourn a loss that was not mine to have right now anyway.

At first all I could do was cry, at everything.  All I could do was feel like my body was failing to be fully female.  That I was so inadequate.  Doubt if God really trusted me to be a mother, giving me Miss Perfect and just that. It took me a long time to come to my senses and even longer to process the facts.  I want children.  I can have children (obviously, I have one).  I had a miscarriage.  One miscarriage isn't considered anything.  (It's past that and consecutively that it's a concern.)

Now that all being said, I didn't tell you that so that you would feel sad for me.  I'm really doing better than I expected with the whole situation.  I told you that story so that I can share this next one with you.

In Relief Society this last Sunday, we had a lesson on the Gathering of Scattered Israel (that's a name of a talk, I think, but the teacher gathered lots of talks).  We talked about the obvious, temple work, genealogy, missionary work, etc..  It was a pretty good lesson.  In part of it we talked about the Abrahamic covenant.  About Abraham and Sarah, about Jacob and Leah and Rachel.  Sarah was barren.  Leah's husband loved her sister.  Rachel's "womb was closed" because Jacob loved Rachel.  Now I'm not in any situation quite like any of these women.  My husband loves me and I'm not barren.  But my recent experiences have given me an entirely different view...on the world as a whole really.  When we started talking about these women, I was surprised to find that my heart broke for them.  Understanding more than I had before about the desire to have children.  About doing things right and wishing for righteous blessings and being denied, for whatever reason.  I understood a little better about them.  About their lives.  About what it was they really had to deal with.  I'm quite positive that when the scriptures say that "Sarah laughed", that she also cried and with probably so much joy in her heart.  And knowing that "God remembered Rachel" helps me remember that God will remember me too.  That he lets me go through hard things and for good reasons (that I often don't understand).  All I can hope is that God remembered Leah too.  It's really not her fault, I don't think, that she married Jacob.  I'm sure she would have preferred to marry someone who really loved her...on purpose.  I don't know that any number of children could make up for such a situation.  And I'll take my lot in life over any of these women.