Our very own pday miracle.... a mama post
I wanted to share this post I wrote on in my journal, and put in your blog (don't worry, it's just for you and me) with you because it's about you. It was meaningful to me. I am so glad things went well at the end of the night and that you had the sweet opportunity to keep your July perspective going with a member who is looking forward to it too. I hope you know how much we love you! Keep that energy up- I know you will-- "who's on the Lord's side, who? Now is the time to show!" Do you recognize that hymn?
This is a mama post- but I want to write it here so we always remember-- so I remember how I felt God's love for His missionary and for me as the missionary Mama in an immediate way and as a result of real faith and the blessing of being able access heaven.
The first transfers of your mission were emotional for you at the end of pday-- not because you didn't love being a missionary and weren’t all in- but because even though missions are hard and wonderful, the heartstrings from home are tender and missing family is a real hurdle. I watched Sadie battle it and Emma battle it (their entire missions actually) and I saw you go through it- learning to lean in and lean on God when we couldn’t be there physically to buoy you up, to give you that mama hug—that’s all part of the growing that happens when you launch as a missionary and when you send off a son or daughter to serve the Lord in a place that feels so far away and different. It's a faith leap all around-- and the compensatory blessings that come in abundance are truly marvelous.
As you acclimated to missionary life, I saw you get less sad at the end of a pday call- not that it was easy then, but you were settled in and we could go for one more week and then regroup in a group pday call. Gaining more confidence in your missionary call, and growing in your ability to navigate the day plan , the companion, the area, the challenges, the approach, the language- you became better able to weather it all and with that (which seemed to start improving somewhere after you left a hard trainer situation and before hitting that six month milestone as a missionary), less emotion at the end of a pday call. At times I worried that your pull to home was lessening or I’d have little insecurities that maybe I hadn’t set the hook tightly enough and you were becoming independent of us)- but also in those moments my heart was grateful that you were growing in confidence and your ability to do hard things well. And so we went from Monday to Monday.
Today’s call felt different, week 86 pday call—in the third from last transfer of your mission, there was a meltdown and it broke my heart. You later wrote that you felt bad it happened but I hope you know it's okay to feel things- to be overwhelmed or sad or in a funk. It doesn't define your service or your ability to cope. It's just part of the journey, expected and natural and actually heathy to let it go sometimes rather than pretend it's not there and bottle it up, but to let it go and then regroup and face it all again having had the emotional release. As to this week particularly, I know why it happened—not evidence of any lack of growth or access to heavenly support, or even a particularly hard week as a missionary- but, as I perceive it- a lot of pent up angst about a pday phone call with a bad connection that made it hard to hear each other and see each other from the start that you'd planned on and hoped for. (This of course brough back a lot of memories of pday calls with Sadie in Ecuador when the sound wouldn’t work and she’d be on the screen just sobbing, her not able to express and me not able to console- which in the end is probably a bigger blessing because that’s where we both learned that it’s not for me to rescue—the Savior does that by the spirit in all the needed and personal big and little ways that bind someone up) But still, I could tell it was happening the whole call—with each of us cutting out or the connection going fuzzy. breaking up, repeating the questions, talking more loudly as if our added volume would be the game changer to get the communication going. A long awaited and needed 2 hour pday call with the family is a planned on break from the grind and a chance to help us know how to be more specific in our prayers, to relate to the struggle, to clarify a week’s worth of photos on the camera roll, to cheer about the highs and to reassure about the lows, to keep you close with what's going on here— and it wasn’t happening this pday. Also the more recent news that the way you thought your last couple transfers would go may not be the way it really pans out- and having to switch your mindset (which you will be able to do, it just is going to be inentional to do it if that's how it goes down at transfers) was an added thing to work through- plus I have serious doubts and real mama worry that you are not eating well (no produce, questionable proteins) while you've been in Guyana and that doesn't do you any favors. For the whole phone call we tried to work it out- none of us letting that time go because it wasn’t working, or just deciding to try again and hope for better next pday. We struggled through it- hanging up trying again and again - and hoped if we moved rooms, or moved spots, or turned off wifi, or turned on wifi, something that might make it easier. The last 10 minutes most of the kids needed to leave and so Avery (who was home sick for the day from school) and me on the phone were there when the dam broke- mostly because pday was ending and the call that felt like such a reconnect hadn’t every really worked. (By the way you were still trying to keep it together reassuring Avery that the missionary work was good-- but she knows and understood all the whys-- and didn't fault you at all for being real in that moment-)
I recognized my own helplessness to improve the situation, and grateful the spirit gave me a quick idea and the best way to shift the situation with heaven's help....so in my heart I pleaded—“please, let this connection work for 2 minutes so we can pray together” I asked you if it was okay if we prayed together—I heard you sobbing and say yes- so we all put our phones down and I began to pray (to pour out my heart to lift and strengthen my sweet missionary.) It might seem small, but to me it was a huge faith leap to ask that this specific part of a call that had been totally unreliable for the entire time could be a steady connection during this prayer… I was asking for a miracle—like the lifeline that could send him into another week in a good place. Not because I had anything to give, but because I needed you to know that I absolutely trust the Lord to give you what you need or what is needful in the moment you need it. In my own doubt I wondered if he could hear the entirety of the prayer but I pushed those weak thoughts away and just believed that he did- because right after the prayer we hung up.
Later that night you’d posted your journal entry for the day and my emotions bubbled up reading that you could hear that prayer. The Lord honored my effort made in faith. The Lord demonstrated His awareness and love for you as His missionary and me as your mama. He taught me that prayer is where we can turn for peace because it’s how we can communicate with him. It was important that I know that. It was important that you feel that love and connection. Yesterday on that pday call I felt like the pioneer saint who knelt by her dying oxen and commanded them to move so they could continue west-. And they did. The scale was different, but a miracle is a miracle. You being able to hear that prayer was an affirmation to me that the Lord is really listening & bound when we call upon Him in righteousness and when our pleadings align with His will. I saw His awareness and tenderness for me and for you Miles in real time, in real application, right in the minute I asked for it. Those kinds of experiences solidify my testimony and draw me closer to my Heavenly Father. It’s how I can continue to trust Him, because I know He is walking with me and clearly He is walking with you. We both know it and I am ever grateful. This experience is the sweetest kind of reminder.
Mama
4-8-24
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