A friend of mine shared a story on FB that reminded me that every one goes through times like these and I need to keep on keeping on and look to Heavenly Father to get through them. I liked the article and I thought y'all might benefit from it, too. So, for your reading pleasure:
Coming up Empty and Casting Your Net On the Other Side
If you don't have time to read the article, here are some of my favorite excerpts:
"Coming up empty after giving great effort and passionate engagement is not uncommon in our experience as mortals in a fallen world. The law of the harvest seems sometimes unreliable. We know we have worked and dedicated ourselves beyond all convenience, labored until it hurt on some things only to have our nets empty.
When certain kinds of success, specific and dreamed for outcomes elude us, we cry out, “I am trying. I am trying. What more could I do?” I have labored. I have planned. I have dreamed. I have hoped. I have been dashed.
Currently the economy is leaving many with empty nets...Others have empty nets when children who have been lovingly reared with gospel principles abandon their faith. There are so many ways to come up empty. The marriage of our youth fails. We are overlooked for an opportunity we wanted. Health is fragile and loved ones die. For many reasons there are times when empty nets abound where we hoped to draw in fullness.
However, what look to us as empty nets may not be as empty as they appear.
Coming up empty has its purpose for it arrests our attention as little else can. It is a message that says “look.” We are stopped cold. Some of us just try harder with the net on the same side of the boat and end up bitterly disappointed that there are still so few fish. We insist that we must do things as we have always done, be who we have always been.
Yet, in reality, this dangling empty net is really the kindest invitation to look up from our trouble to the One on the shore who has been waiting there to greet us all along. We are being invited not just to come to Him, but to come to ourselves. We are being invited to a new awareness."
"It is utterly true that to be with the Lord and like him, we cannot do things the way we have always done them. We cannot be who we have always been. We cannot be glued to see as we have always seen. Thus, in his kindness, God gives us experiences that reveal to us our limitations, the short-sightedness of our personally-constructed worldview. It is as if life is a perfect play, scene by scene, to reveal our flaws, to move us right up against our glass ceiling, to trip us up when we would fly.
Why did I have this experience we might ask with lament. The answer is simple, to reveal yourself to you.
What kindness this is for otherwise we should become content and think we got it right, like the blind child who really believes the whole world is dark. Or like the Masai who, when put in prison, die, because they believe that is all there is and cannot envision freedom. We would be robbed of our thirst for God and feel no need to cast our nets on the other side. We would miss the catch that was so great we could not draw it in. We would not yearn to respond to his instructions."
"These are not do-it-yourself projects. Your soul is not a do-it-yourself project. There must come a day on this journey called mortality that we arrive at the place where we finally confess, “I cannot do this alone.” By taking thought on my own, I cannot add one cubit to my height.
In reality, in the spiritual journey we come to this realization again and again. We are his project and he will not come up empty, if we will just be willing to look to him and cast our nets on the other side.
Only he can take us from where we are to where he is with our mind becoming open to this new world of light. We must give up our resistance toward him, even that small piece of resistance that we think is nearly invisible. We must follow Jesus’ example in the Garden of Gethsemane, and under our own small stress, learn to pray “more intently.” We must be willing to have our very core transformed, the identity we have built piece by piece remodeled, even painfully so. We must cry unto him for all our support, because after all we can do, we will find it wasn’t very much."
What I've learned:
Sometimes I do struggle admitting the whole "I can't do this alone" thing. I don't lack faith, I just forget sometimes that I don't have to do it all by myself. That is probably partially a product of living on my own and not getting married until I was 32. I was Miss Independent and happy that way until I met Michael. Luckily he is happy to let me be me and has let me grow into it slowly.
Sometimes trials can be painful, especially when watching our little gal go through hard times and feeling so helpless. This year has given me a new appreciation for what our Heavenly Father must go through with us as He sees us struggle but has to allow it for us to learn and grow in the process.
I am grateful to know I don't have to go through trials alone. I have a wonderful husband and a very loving Heavenly Father who are both there for me, love me and want to help me succeed in all my desires. Also, I have a sweet little baby gal who loves to cuddle. A little family snuggle time with Sophia and Michael reminds me just how blessed I am and makes it all worth it.
Thanks for listening to me. Feels good to get this off my chest. :]
