Patience

This past week has been a bit hard - and not just because someone decided to schedule both the Exit Exam and the Praxis within 3 days of each other. I have a hard time when I have to wait for something. Patience is not a strong point of mine (my kids are very aware of this fact - and they are occasionally known to pray for mom to get more patience).

So waiting this week to hear back from doctors has been torture. From the time I found the lump on Paige's back it seemed like everything went really fast - we saw the surgeon and we were in surgery the next day, we got the news of sarcoma and we were up at Primary Children's Hospital the next day.

Then things just stopped - and that has been tough. I like to be able to get answers immediately - thanks to the Internet, I sometimes think I can. In fact, I had been doing lots of research on spindle cell sarcoma's and was "absolutely sure" I knew what Paige had - I thought it was a sarcoma called synovial sarcoma. I had researched everything I could get my hands on about that form of sarcoma and had a long list of questions ready to ask the doctors when they called.

Then I got the call that they don't know what it is - and while I am extremely happy that I was wrong in my diagnosis since it still might be benign, it is extremely hard to research something that "looks like it is something weird" (true quote from the doctor at Primary Children's Hospital - I still have the message on my answering machine if you want to hear it). So I haven't been able to do anything this week and I don't like feeling helpless!

Well - after calling up to the hospital AGAIN on Friday and not hearing back from our doctors - I decided that maybe I needed to study patience. I read the talk by Elder Uchtdorf from the conference before last called Continue in Patience - and was blown away. I had previously thought of patience as merely waiting for something to happen - and wondered how Heavenly Father could expect me to merely wait at a time like this.

Well it seems that I have needed to humble myself yet again - I was wrong about patience. Here are just a few of the incredible truths I have learned from this talk (and I did include the link up above so you can read Elder Uchtdorf's talk yourselves if you want - I am using his words, but he has many more insights that I am not touching on).

- "Patience is not passive resignation, nor is it failing to act because of our fears. Patience means active waiting and enduring. It means staying with something and doing all that we can—working, hoping, and exercising faith; bearing hardship with fortitude, even when the desires of our hearts are delayed. Patience is not simply enduring; it is enduring well!"

- "Patience means to abide in faith, knowing that sometimes it is in the waiting rather than in the receiving that we grow the most."

- "Patience is a purifying process that refines understanding, deepens happiness, focuses action, and offers hope for peace."

After I had read this talk I dropped the kids off at the church to practice for their primary program. Let me clarify - I had meant to drop the kids off at the church for their primary practice, but Abby refused to get out of the car unless I came too. So, I got the twins out and we all went in - as I was wandering in the hall chasing the twins I noticed that one of the wards that shares the building with us had LOTS of old programs in the holder and I picked one up. I did really mean old too - not just from the previous Sunday, but the date was back in March. Well - there in big print on that program was the seminary mastery scripture that I had memorized 20 years ago "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”

It is funny how often answers to my prayers are things I already know - but I know that I needed to be reminded of that scripture during this time. I now have a whole different outlook on "waiting" - and I am grateful for the opportunity to "Trust in the Lord". So I am now "working" (fervently praying for the doctors to figure out what the tumor is and to know the best way to treat it) "hoping" and "excersing faith" - or as Elder Uchtdorf said, I am trying to not just "endure" this experience, but I am trying to "endure well".