Fathers & Love

I guess I could refer to this post as "the one I should have done for Father's Day" because I'm about to get personal about my dad. He's been out of a job for a long time now, over a year, and he's still doing his best to look for work. I know he wishes so bad he could be working again, not just to have the stability and security and good self-esteem again that it brings himself and my mom, but more so for so many other reasons--like wishing he could help out a struggling newlywed son who just moved completely across the country, like wishing so bad he could relax and go visit his grandkids in Delaware and Illinois and send them everything they want for their birthdays or Christmas, like helping two of his kids and about to be a third in graduate schools make it day-to-day and at the least make those vacations to Oregon possible, and now wishing he could give his newly engaged daughter the wedding of her dreams. On the surface it can appear like without money he can't be the father or grandfather he wants to be. Today during a lesson at Church I realized something else that God may have been trying to teach me and maybe other members of my family through this trial.

The lesson was based on a talk called "Adversity" by President Henry B. Eyring, one of our church leaders. Here is some of that talk:
There may be periods, sometimes long ones, when our lives seem to flow with little difficulty.... Particularly when the comfortable times have gone on for a while, the arrival of suffering or the loss of material security can bring fear and sometimes even anger.
The anger comes at least in part from a feeling that what is happening is unfair. The good health and the serene sense of being secure can become to seem deserved and natural. When they vanish, a feeling of injustice can come. Even a brave man I knew wept and cried out in his physical suffering to those who ministered to him: 'I have always tried to be good. How could this happen?'
That aching for an answer to 'How could this happen?' becomes even more painful when those struggling include those we love....
My purpose today is to assure you that our Heavenly Father and the Savior live and that They love all humanity. The very opportunity for us to face adversity and affliction is part of the evidence of Their infinite love. God gave us the gift of living in mortality so that we could be prepared to receive the greatest of all the gifts of God, which is eternal life....
It is clear that for us to have that gift and to be given that trust, we must be transformed through making righteous choices where that is hard to do.... That education can come only as we are subject to trials while serving God and others for Him.

I thought of Christ having to suffer while being on this Earth for all of us. I thought of how much I'm sure God the Father was up there wishing He could just jump in and spare Him from all this pain and suffering. I know now as a parent myself that He must have ached to rescue His Son. And yet He knew that if He did, Christ wouldn't learn what He needed to learn to fulfill His mission, and so he had the strength to stay His hand and only offer His love and comforting Spirit.

I have thought many times, especially in the last year, how I wished my mom and dad could just rescue me from my trials. Sometimes I still want my parents to make it all better. But now I'm that parent that's supposed to make it all better for my little ones. And I find myself doubting my ability to stay my hand and not rescue my children from the trials they need to go through to learn what they need to learn to fulfill their missions. Maybe in the future Jason and I will need to lose our jobs so that we aren't even remotely able to rescue them financially or be there in person to make everything all better because if we had the funds and time we wouldn't be able to stop doing for them what they need to do alone.

This has been a very poinient time of growth for each member of our family, and most of it stemming from things either happening or not being able to happen because Dad doesn't have a job. There are already hundreds of blessings and lessons learned I'm sure each one of his children could list that have come in the past year. So today I guess I learned that if Dad had kept his job and had the money that comes from that he quite possibly might not have been the father or grandfather that God needs him to be. Like President Eyring said, it's the evidence of God's love that He allows us to face adversity so we can be prepared to receive the greatest of all gifts...which is worth more than anything this world has to offer. Suddenly, I feel empowered to face these trials on my own. Suddenly, I don't feel that life is unfair. If I can just keep my eye on what lies ahead and keep that eternal perspective, I think I can be the parent He needs me to be.

Thanks dad. For always being who God needs you to be.
Happy belated Father's Day.