untitled.

It's been a minute since I wrote.

School has picked up, the social life too. It seems like I've got a lot of demands on my time lately, which is good -- it's always better to be busy than bored.

But I also haven't written for other reasons. Imma get real with y'all -- I am sitting here looking at this screen, and I don't want to write.

I don't want to write because I'm exhausted and ill. I don't want to write because I'm afraid of what people will think if I write about what's really on my mind. I don't want to write because I don't want my friends who are currently struggling to feel like I don't have time or space for them. 

I don't want to write because I don't want you to know that I am not perfect yet, even though that's not a shocker to any of you. Or at least, it shouldn't be.

It seems like over and over I've been learning that I really, really don't know anything. I don't want to write when I'm uncertain, when I'm sorrowful, when I'm frustrated. I only want to share things with you when I know they'll all work out, because they already have. I only want to testify in retrospect, when God has already taught me the truths I needed to learn from the depths of a really, really hard or really, really fun situation.

But today I was reading in Alma 32, and I came across this passage: 

28 Now, we will compare the word unto a seed. Now, if ye give place, that a seed may be planted in your heart, behold, if it be a true seed, or a good seed, if ye do not cast it out by your unbelief, that ye will resist the Spirit of the Lord, behold, it will begin to swell within your breasts; and when you feel these swelling motions, ye will begin to say within yourselves—It must needs be that this is a good seed, or that the word is good, for it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me.

29 Now behold, would not this increase your faith? I say unto you, Yea; nevertheless it hath not grown up to a perfect knowledge.

That last bit was what got me thinking. Perfect knowledge was never a requirement for pressing forward -- in fact, later in this very chapter we learn that perfect knowledge renders faith dormant. God doesn't expect us to have all the right answers before deciding we're going to follow His plan; in fact, He expects us to to follow even when we don't know where He's leading. 

Such is the case with me. I am uncertain about the eventual outcome of a million and one scenarios in my life. This is why I desperately need faith. And it's important, essential even, to my spiritual growth, that the answers to my questions don't all come at once. If they did, I would have very little opportunity to exercise this faith. To help it to grow stronger, like a muscle or a plant. 

I'm learning, too, that sometimes God will bless us with complete peace and comfort about moving forward, but other times, He just carries you through each moment, minute-by-minute, helping you with exactly the amount of strength you need. Those are the times where you could feel like God is absent, because life still feels really hard & exhausting. But I'm almost positive those are the times when God most longs to reach out and hold us. I may not be an expert on God's methods, but one thing I do know about Him is that He loves us. And His love and compassion are perfect. And so, when we weep, He weeps. Indeed, it's a commission of all who desire to take upon themselves the name of Christ that we "mourn with those that mourn" -- part of our very first covenant with God, our first step on the path to becoming more like Him & His Son. It follows that to mourn with those that mourn is a divine trait we're tasked with developing. 

Guys, I wish I was perfect. I wish I knew the future. I wish I could entirely avoid the pain of mortality. But I also don't. I also believe with all my heart that each experience that stretches me is meant to help me more fully believe in and trust the Lord with all my heart. He has always carried me through, even when I thought life was so incredibly dark.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that right now, rather than testifying from the denouement, I'm testifying to you right in the middle of the plot, somewhere. When the outcome is still up in the air, and nothing is certain. Because it's easy to see God's hand there at the end, but it's harder to acknowledge that even when I'm living one minute to the next, He is just as present in my life. I have faith, though, that no matter what is to come, God will be with me. Whether He is helping me soar, or simply helping me stand. And that is enough.