Most of us have wondered about prayers and their answers. We hear of a dating couple where one gets an answer that they are to marry, but the other doesn’t. We’ve all prayed for something important to us, then wonder if we trust to get an answer, then when we think we have received an answer, we wonder if we heard correctly. We lack faith and are unsure. We desire to have a Liahona with words we can read, not just feel. Sometimes we tire of trusting in the Holy Ghost, or more accurately, trusting that what we hear was the Holy Ghost and not our own thoughts or feelings.
I’ve had a few wonderful years of learning. Many of my posts talk of that learning.
But what about this issue of prayer? My wife told me she went to the temple and prayed and was told to go through with divorce. Both then and now I trust her. She’s a spiritual woman.
I hesitate giving the detail I just did, because saying she filed for divorce and not me may tell you I blame her. As with both your divorce and mine, we each play a part in a failing marriageasd. And I don’t want to put too much focus on the past (although I have in a number of posts), because we must move forward. We must remember the past and learn from it, but we can’t dwell there and let it hold us back (sometimes easier said than done being human and constantly bombarded by whisperings of evil ones beyond our veil).
Since my divorce I’ve had in the back of my mind the question, “How could my wife have felt that is was of God to break up our family, when the Church (and the scriptures) so clearly state that divorce is not of God, that is is a major cause of the failing of our society?” I’ve wondered often about this. My divorce made no sense from the light of scripture, when to me it says divorce is clearly forbidden but in certain cases, and even then it was never condoned, but allowed because of the weakness of men.
Last year I received a personal sermon while our good bishop was teaching the adult fifth-Sunday lesson. I believe the lesson was on missionary work (more the neighborly type than the knock-on-a-door-with-a-Book-of-Mormon type). We were in Alma 29. (Isn’t that the one we sometimes call the Psalm of Alma?) My eyes fell upon verse 4:
Alma 29:4: I ought not to harrow up in my desires the firm decree of a just God, for I know that he granteth unto men according to their desire, whether it be unto death or unto life; yea, I know that he allotteth unto men, yea, decreeth unto them decrees which are unalterable, according to their wills, whether they be unto salvation or unto destruction.
Before we jump into that verse in detail, remember the story of Joseph Smith praying that he might let Martin Harris borrow the pages of the translation so that Martin could show his wife? It’s a rich story, little of which I’ll share. But Joseph had given a tremendous effort to the translation work. Although it became easier as he honed his gift, that first work certainly took great effort.
When I arrived in the mission field out of the MTC, I decided to read the Book of Mormon from cover to cover in French. I knew it would help me hone my mission language. As I began I was looking up in the dictionary every few words. It was tedious, laborious, and time consuming. Over the days, weeks and months, as the verses and chapters progressed, it became easier and even enjoyable, to the point that I was not only learning the language, but learning from what I was reading. Now I read the entire book in French every few years with ease.
Joseph’s experience I suspect was the same. Those first verses and chapters were slow to translate. Word by word he struggled to understand what he was translating. Verse by verse, then chapters came, until the excitement of finishing the Book of Lehi. I’m sure it thrilling and enlightening. He was filled with the Holy Ghost and the wonder of the effort it took to complete that first translation, and the importance of he was reading. I’m sure he wanted to share this. When his good and trusted friend Martin came to him asking if he could borrow the translation, he saw and felt no reason not to. The excitement of the work, the desire to share it with others and help counter the negative attention he was getting, likely all gave him the desire to accept Martin’s request. After one prayer, then repeated prayers and the requests of the Lord to allow this, Joseph’s wish was granted, the Lord knowing well the dangers … and what would finally transpire.
We know from hindsight that about 1200 years earlier Mormon was impressed to include both the books of Lehi and Nephi, as near as they were in content, in what is now the Book of Mormon. The loss of the Book of Lehi became less serious than it could have been.
So back to Alma 29. Alma is emptying his heart to our Father in Heaven. He is filled with the desire to yell to the entire world the joy he feels is knowing Christ, and with a thunderous voice to tell people to repent! He wants to be like an angel, and fly through skies to declare the word of God! His desires are righteous, and certainly exuberant. So in the process of calming himself down, he says he should be content to work with the people to whom he has been assigned to preach and not request of God things that are not God’s desire for him. And in the process, states that God will give to men what they desire, even if it is bad.
Then comes a repeat of that principle in the next verse:
Alma 29:5: Yea, and I know that good and evil have come before all men; he that knoweth not good from evil is blameless; but he that knoweth good and evil, to him it is given according to his desires, whether he desireth good or evil, life or death, joy or remorse of conscience.
So that entire fifth hour I pondered and reread those verses, and read them in context of the entire chapter.
Is it true that a young woman or young man, praying about marriage to the other, may desire that marriage so deeply that the Lord will answer that yes, that marriage is right, even while he tells the other that it is not right, all because one of them desires it so deeply?
Is it then likewise true that a wife may pray for confirmation of divorce, and desiring that divorce, would get the desired confirmation?
Apparently so.
One thing that has brought me comfort in this learning of mine is that regardless of the rightness or wrongness of the choice to divorce, a wise Father in Heaven foresaw the outcome, and as with the Book of Lehi, provided a backup plan.
Now for me to see that plan. That has not been easy. How can a father be a father seeing his children only a few hours a month?
I am lucky to have an ex active in the Church. But she requested that when they turned 12, that they no longer attend church with me to avoid splitting their youth programs. So my two teens at the time no longer stayed over Sunday, which once that ended, then they started not coming on my weekends at all, and I was lucky to see them on my weeknight. I began losing contact with them almost entirely. I cannot describe my grief at losing contact with my own children. I encouraged my ex to encourage those two to at least come when they could, but with school activities, youth activities, and friends, it was easier to find excuses, especially when we lived almost a half-hour drive apart. And I didn’t want to force the issue to make my relationship worse with those two. These were the hardest couple years of my life.
It didn’t help that I sensed that even though my ex had promised she would never speak negatively of me, the request to not be with me on Sundays, the lack of good comments that there would be in a normal marriage relationship, and indirect and non-verbal communication, all played into giving those two a negative view of me.
At this time the prompting came to me that there was no more important thing I could do with my children than to worship with them. Regardless of the awkwardness of participating in two youth programs, family was more important than youth programs. So as my next two have come of age, 12, to attend Young Men and Young Women, although my ex made no positive or negative comment to me, the topic never came up and now my two youngest attend my ward’s Sunday youth activities (but not the weeknight activities).
Is this a “backup plan”? It’s feeble at best, and I still don’t feel like an active father in my children’s lives. I have to take a step back and realize I likely have it better than most fathers, and that perhaps in the grand scheme of life, in the long run, my Father’s backup plan involves more than just the few years I have seen so far. Perhaps it extends 1200 years into the time beyond the veil for me and them. Perhaps my children came into this world having known beforehand and accepting that they would be experiencing these less-than-ideal situations.
I can only pray, and be thankful I have what I have. So many millions of God’s children have life so much worse.
I run across pictures of you occasionally. I was struck a couple years ago that every picture of you I see shows a face of purity and godliness. This one happens to be open on my screen because I scanned it recently. It may not be a good quality picture, but your eyes, like every picture I find of you, is of the highest quality, showing simplicity … or simply put, the Light of Christ.