Lessons Learned From General Conference

One of the talks that stood out to me during Conference was the one on prayer (I don't recall who gave it - Elder Bednar, maybe?). Let me give a little background on why.

It started when Zaylee was just a baby. I wanted sleep. I craved sleep. I felt that I deserved a good night's sleep. In Church one day a young mother bore her testimony on prayer, saying that when her baby was inconsolable and she was so tired, she prayed that he would go to sleep and she could sleep too. And it worked.

Being a young mother and wanting more sleep myself, this sounded pretty good, and I thought I'd give it a try. So every time during the night that Zaylee was crying and inconsolable and I felt like I'd been up with her half the night and just wanted SLEEP, I would shoot off a desperate plea that Heavenly Father would make Zaylee sleep, would comfort and soothe her, so that I could sleep. I would say, "Thou knowest that I am tired, that I need sleep. I know that thou canst take care of Zaylee and put her to sleep. I've done my part, I've been taking care of her all night. Now it's thy turn."

And it never worked.
Ever.
Not once.

Of course, I kept trying. It had worked for the other mother, I was sure it would work for me, sometime! But every time I pleaded for sleep and sleep wasn't granted, I would feel bitter, resentful. I would doubt Heavenly Father's love for me, because he wasn't giving me what I so clearly desired and needed.

Then I attended General Conference (well, attended is a loose term. Rather, I watched and listened to General Conference sitting on my parents' couch). I was struck by the truthfulness of the talk on proper, sincere prayer. He said that too often we tell God what we want, and expect Him to just hand it to us (exactly what I was doing!), but that is not what prayer is for. It is an expression of faith, to make it so that our will becomes God's will. He mentioned that we need to say, and believe, "Thy will be done."

I realized after a lot of thought and pondering that I've been treating prayer like a wish list, especially my late night prayers for sleep. I came up with a simile that I think defines what I've been doing wrong.

Zaylee loves snacks - cookies, crackers, muffins, cheese, whatever. Often she will come up to me, no matter what I'm doing, and grab my finger. She'll pull me up and lead me into the kitchen, then stand in front of the counter, cupboard, pantry, or wherever her snack of choice is at the moment. Sometimes I'm lenient and let her have a snack. But a lot of times, it's right before a meal, and I'm going to feed her some real food soon. So I tell her no.

This of course upsets her. She juts out her lower lip, knits her eyebrows, and those little crocodile tears start forming in the corners of her eyes. She can make quite the spectacle of it when she wants to.

There's no question that she really wants that snack. She made it very clear and dictated to me exactly what she expected of me. Telling her 'no' doesn't mean I don't love her, or that I just don't care about her wants and needs. It's actually an expression of love, because I'm allowing her to have room in her stomach for the foods that will help her grow and be strong, instead of giving in to her I-want-it-now request. What she wants is good, but what I have in store for her is better.

Do you see the likeness? I have been telling God exactly what I want Him to do for me, and throwing a fit when I don't get it. That is not proper prayer, and it does not show proper faith. I'm asking for a snack, when for all I know there's a feast right around the corner.

So how am I supposed to pray? It's the middle of the night, the kids are crying, keeping each other awake, and I'm getting more and more irritated and sleepy and just want to crawl in bed and plug my ears. What do I do?

The speaker in Conference told us that we need to pray, not that our trials will be removed, but that we will have the strength to overcome our trials, and the patience to endure them. I decided to put this to the test last night. And it was the perfect night to try it out, let me tell ya!

I've mentioned, I believe, that Jeff isn't feeling well (I have mentioned that, right? wink). Last night he got up a couple times and spent quite a lot of time in the bathroom. He was throwing up loudly, keeping me awake, then taking a hot bath because he was freezing cold from his fever, then climbing back into bed, coughing, shivering, and basically just being sick. It was impossible for me to sleep through. Jeff's loud coughing woke up Thomas a couple times, and I had to go in and comfort him. At this point, I was about to shoot off another "Take over, God - make them sleep!" prayer, but decided to pray for something else.

I prayed for patience. I prayed to be able to continue to love my family, and to show them patience and understanding. I prayed that I would not get irritated. I did mention that if it was His will, I would love to be able to sleep, but if not, that I would be able to endure this trial.

This time, it worked.

No, I didn't get much in the way of sleep. Several times during the night Zaylee woke up crying, and Thomas woke up a couple more times too. At around 5:30 I realized Zaylee kept waking up because she had a fever, so I gave her Tylenol and she slept the rest of the night. At 6:30 Thomas woke up ready to eat. How sad is this - I remember being so glad that I was able to have that hour of uninterrupted sleep!

But I wasn't angry. I wasn't irritated. I wasn't even desperate. I calmly soothed and comforted and fed and did whatever my children needed me to do. I did get snatches of sleep here and there, but more importantly, my sincere and proper prayer, asking for patience and love, was granted.

It was a great lesson to learn.