The Power of Hope and Growth of Grief

This last weekend was quite emotional. Sundays and fasting both bring out a lot more emotion for me which maybe isn't uncommon for others too. We had a big family fast and for me personally I felt a lot of peach when I went to bed last night. I read and reread the talk by Pres. Dieter F Uchtdor, The Infinite Power of Hope.
 https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2008/10/the-infinite-power-of-hope?lang=eng
I feel like it has become the new staple in my daily spiritual diet. It's like my soul is clinging to hope - hope in the healing power of the atonement and hope in the plan of salvation. Some of the paragraphs that really stood out to me were these...

"Hope is one leg of a three-legged stool, together with faith and charity. These three stabilize our lives regardless of the rough or uneven surfaces we might encounter at the time. The scriptures are clear and certain about the importance of hope. The Apostle Paul taught that the scriptures were written to the end that we “might have hope.” ¹

Hope has the power to fill our lives with happiness. ² Its absence—when this desire of our heart is delayed—can make “the heart sick.” ³

Hope is a gift of the Spirit. ⁴ It is a hope that through the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the power of His Resurrection, we shall be raised unto life eternal and this because of our faith in the Savior. ⁵ This kind of hope is both a principle of promise as well as a commandment, ⁶ and, as with all commandments, we have the responsibility to make it an active part of our lives and overcome the temptation to lose hope. Hope in our Heavenly Father’s merciful plan of happiness leads to peace, ⁷ mercy, ⁸ rejoicing, ⁹ and gladness. ¹⁰ The hope of salvation is like a protective helmet; ¹¹ it is the foundation of our faith ¹² and an anchor to our souls. ^13"

 

"The adversary uses despair to bind hearts and minds in suffocating darkness. Despair drains from us all that is vibrant and joyful and leaves behind the empty remnants of what life was meant to be. Despair kills ambition, advances sickness, pollutes the soul, and deadens the heart. Despair can seem like a staircase that leads only and forever downward.

Hope, on the other hand, is like the beam of sunlight rising up and above the horizon of our present circumstances. It pierces the darkness with a brilliant dawn. It encourages and inspires us to place our trust in the loving care of an eternal Heavenly Father, who has prepared a way for those who seek for eternal truth in a world of relativism, confusion, and of fear."

Today I woke up feeling more peace than any other morning. There is power in the hope that I feel. I even had the energy to get down and deep clean my house (most mornings I just lay around with Emma and cry). I know there will still be ups and downs with this current trial and that there will be many more trials to come. But as I continue to seek to increase my spiritual knowledge and anchor my soul to faith, hope and charity, I know the Lord will help me become who He needs me to become.

I know the grief we all feel (especially for Nicole and Boyd) will not go away over night or really ever but I also know there is growth in grief. Too often I think I equate grief to spiritual weakness. Maybe it's because when I'm grieving I feel physically exhausted and weak. Over the years I've questioned and studied grief and the role it plays in our spiritual growth and development. After another engagement for me had been broken off I was overcome with grief and I wondered why I would feel so sad if I had a testimony and faith. I thought that if my faith was strong enough I wouldn't grieve so much over a trial. After much prayer and studying I realized that grief wasn't spiritual weakness, it was an emotion that even the Savior knew (Isaiah 52:3)

3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Elder Lance B. Wickman says it best (But If Not),

"First, please know that grief is the natural by-product of love. One cannot selflessly love another person and not grieve at his suffering or eventual death. The only way to avoid the grief would be to not experience the love; and it is love that gives life its richness and meaning. Hence, what a grieving parent can expect to receive from the Lord in response to earnest supplication may not necessarily be an elimination of grief so much as a sweet reassurance that, whatever his or her circumstances, one’s child is in the tender care of a loving Heavenly Father."

There is an article in the ensign this month written by a mother who knows grief and who came to know what I have learned over the years. She just says it much better than I ever could. 

https://www.lds.org/ensign/2013/02/the-refining-fire-of-grief?lang=eng

I know that there is so much growth found in grief and much of the growth comes from anchoring our souls to hope, building a foundation of faith and continually looking show charity. I actually went back this morning and changed some of my last post about Carson and my family. I included many of these quotes because they are so wonderful and uplifting. I also took out a few details of that day that don't need to be remembered. I want to look back on that day and this trial and focus on all the wonderful blessing and miracles that have occurred. I will still miss Carson until I see him again but I know he wouldn't want us to despair, he'd want us to hope and to live a life centered on Christ.