Gaining Distance

I remember a warm summer evening on our cul-de-sac in Smalltown, USA.  My anxiety prone five year old nervously watched as I removed the training wheels from her bicycle.  The reluctance to pedal without her security blanket training wheels battled internally with her deep sense of trust she had in me as the mother who never steered her wrong.  The obedient child in her won out and, after quite a bit of coaxing, she hopped on to give it a go.  After a few failed attempts to balance while gaining distance she looked at me with pleading eyes and asked, "If I learn how to ride my bike without training wheels will you put the training wheels back on?"

Oh how I feel like that skeptic, anxious five year old tonight.  Oh how I think I've been that little child of God this year asking that very question to Heavenly parents in whom I once trusted with my life. There are things a person can go through that may lead to exchanging faith for fear, trust for doubt, stillness for anxiety, joy for sorrow, and hope for despair.  What things? Well, repeated failed attempts to balance while gaining distance or as I put it in the first blog post from nearly a year ago, trials of the heart which are the nutshell of mortal experience for each of us.  Dear Reader, I know you have them.  Pssst.  I have them too.  

At times it seems my heart is two sizes too small and there is no balm in Gilead to grow it at all.  In my wanting I find myself wandering and wondering where is the missing piece to the puzzle?  How do I solve this equation?  It will never add up.  Then I'm reminded of Maxwell's caution, "We cannot do the sums because we do not have all the numbers."  But I exhaust my energies in trying to solve it anyway and when I am completely spent I look through the corridors of time to spiritual giants who show evidence they may hold the answer keys.   

I open my scriptures with the declaration to God- "Teach me!"  He replies warmly, "What do you want to learn?"  Then in smallness of soul I whisper to God that I want to understand what Jacob, son of Lehi, knows about anxiety.  I want to understand what Edward Partridge knows about brotherly kindness.  I want to understand what apostle Paul knows about Christ's sufficient grace that covers longstanding thorns of the flesh.  

Does God grant me the full sum of knowledge all in one sitting of scripture study?  Of course not. I must make my own repeated attempts to balance while gaining distance just as Jacob, Bishop Partridge, and Paul did during their own earthly sojourns and I must do it with God's steadying hand on the back of my bike seat while Christ jogs beside me with words of encouragement.  After what feels like an eternity, but most certainly is merely a few moments of it, (or several mortal months in it), my proprioception calibrates itself with the bumps in the asphalt and the topography of the path I see before me.  I'm learning by experience and now I can begin to internalize God's teachings.  Now God can work his pleasure of tutoring me with the numbers and steps required to solve His algebra.  

God lets me see a young Saul who naively and zealously worked to condemn and sentence followers of whom he believed to be the greatest heretic of all- one Jesus of Nazareth.  Then I see glimpses of how that Saul grew into the undaunted apostle Paul finishing his race with firm convictions and unshakable testimony amid great persecution.  That grand journey of growth was opened to him by a personal encounter with the great man of Holiness and perfect Son of God, yes, that One- Jesus of Nazareth.  I find myself wondering if, after his conversion, Paul turned to rehearsing time and again "thy grace is sufficient" as a mantra of sorts to keep the Adversary at bay.  

God lets me see father Lehi speaking to his son, Jacob, and shows me the intimate and sacred implications of 2 Ne 2 vs 4.  Here's a Jacob, who like Paul, also knows deep affliction and here's a Jacob, who like Paul, was also shown by Christ that he matters to God.  Here's a Jacob who will sometimes use the word "anxiety" in his writings.  Here's a Jacob who looks to be a tender and sensitive soul and perhaps suffers with anxiety and sorrow because of the effects of the wrongful actions of people around him, both in his immediate family, and among the families in his society.  What does Jacob know about anxiety?  I'm beginning to understand that he must have fallen back time and again on Christ's supreme comfort bestowed to him when in his youth he beheld the glory of his Redeemer.  

God lets me see that Bishop Partridge was gifted brotherly kindness as a result of offering unwavering testimony of Christ to those who persecuted him. 

“Before tarring and feathering me I was permitted to speak. I told them that the Saints had suffered persecution in all ages of the world; that I had done nothing which ought to offend anyone; that if they abused me, they would abuse an innocent person; that I was willing to suffer for the sake of Christ; but, to leave the country, I was not then willing to consent to it. …I bore my abuse with so much resignation and meekness, that it appeared to astound the multitude, who permitted me to retire in silence … ; and as to myself, I was so filled with the Spirit and love of God, that I had no hatred towards my persecutors or anyone else” (History of the Church, 1:390–91).

Dear Reader, do you see the common answer I see from the accounts of these three men? Could it be that the answer to conquering fear and anxiety and sorrow and despair and every other attack of the Adversary allowed to infiltrate a mortal soul, could the answer be choosing to stand as a witness of Christ in words and actions no matter what? Is that the way to balance and gain distance in life? Is that the catalyst that opens our hearts to receiving the Holy Spirit's gift of the increasingly bright hope in Christ he so desperately wants for us? Of course, that solution is much easier to type than to work out in real world time. The real world poses threat of skinned knee road rash, but the training wheels must come off someday. Why not ask God to remove them today, then trust in His steadying hand and His helping Son? 

Do you know what I observed in my daughter on that warm summer evening years ago? I saw anxious hesitancy evaporate. Exhilaration, freedom, and joy became her new companions and of course I never had to make good on her initial pleading to put the training wheels back on.