Foundation of Faith

A Foundation of Faith

“If we do not have a deep foundation of faith and a solid testimony of truth, we may have difficulty with standing the harsh storms and icy winds of adversity which inevitably come to each of us.

“Mortality is a period of testing, a time to prove ourselves worthy to return to the presence of our Heavenly Father. In order for us to be tested, we must face challenges and difficulties. These can break us, and the surface of our souls may crack and crumble—that is, if our foundations of faith, our testimonies of truth are not deeply embedded within us.”
for the entire article, please click here.

We have gone through many trials and adversity that would have cracked many but this past trial of unemployment I believe did leave a crack in my exterior but not my foundation. If anything it fortified and strengthened. I'm thankful for my parents for instilling this belief in me and more importantly my mother. She has been stoic. She has had to rear 3 children as a single mother. My father was always on the road earning us a living and providing for us and for our physical and temporal needs, I adore him but for my spiritual nourishment it has been through observing my mother's example. She has served in so many countless ways and always sacrificing her own wants, needs and desires. My father has also been a great example of unselfish service and unconditional love. I truly, do have two wonderful parents.
They are people who have done their best and I know that's all Heavenly Father asks of each of us. I know I falter as a parent myself, but I try my best and when I learn better I do better. It's not about comparing or being the best, it's about being the best YOU that you can be.  I have seen my mother kneel in prayer when she thought we were all asleep, I have heard her bare testimony many times in my childhood of the truthfulness of the Gospel. I have seen her write in her journal. I have seen much. I have also seen my Father share and bare his testimony in word but more times in actions and deeds and you know the saying about actions are stronger than words. This holds true for him! I know that he loves the Lord and he serves with every breath he has.

Through my husband's family I have seen the strength of the priesthood power and the strength of the gospel flow through from generation to generation. I have learned that it took the strength of one great woman, who did not allow her husband to stand in the way of her taking her children to church, he could stay home but they would walk 3 miles and attend church, that is faith of a strong woman. With or without the support of her husband she knew where she needed to be and because of her strength her testimony grew into 5 children, she would cart off to church into each of them having strong faithful families! This is not to say that all are strong active members in the church and that all have been to the temple. However, it is less than ONE hand! But, it is to say that all members on my side as well as the Solomon side are good, productive, helpful, giving people who value family and wholesome values.

It makes me ponder about the foundation of faith I am laying for my posterity. I am not a good journal keeper at all and my trials and victories are recorded in my memories and even that is failing me. 
 I know I have a faith that is strong that has weathered me through my teenage years. I wasn't perfect but I wasn't awful and I struggled with most things that teens struggle with. I'm so grateful that I never got involved or tried drugs. I have a pretty addictive personality as it is.  I will go 110% in, until I master it and then I toss it aside like an old rag doll. As a teen I always believed that God's hand was in my life and could be in my life if I allowed Him to be. I believed that I could be an instrument to be good and as I followed promptings or little inspirations and thoughts that would come to my mind it made me feel good and I saw it blessed others as well.
If I felt that I should smile at someone in the hall or say hello, I did. Sometimes, I was greeted with a warm hello or smile back and other times it was pretty prickly which made me question why did I even bother and left me feeling annoyed. BUT, you have no idea what the domino effect can be from you listening to those promptings.

Faith as a young expecting mother to know when told she would have to deliver her baby 10 weeks early and the gravity that would mean to both of our lives. I knew I needed to turn to our Father in Heaven. I sought for a blessing and clung to those words.

Faith that even though I couldn't see the end picture to know that the trial and the storm I was going through as a young mother of 3 would only be but a moment yet at the time it felt like an eternity and that I was the only one who had ever trialed this. Faith to know that I needed to do everything on my part by praying, reading the scriptures and serving others would save me from my own depths of despair and provide answers and a softened heart to feel the gentle promptings of the Lord to help my young family and marriage. Faith that I wanted to quit and throw the towel in to believe in the promises of a temple marriage.

Faith when our last child was born and I had a dream pregnancy until my 6th month and in a matter of days everything changed. Three children at home. Bill would take them to school when he left for work and I would drive 45 min one way to pick them up. Or If I had to bring them to school at Irwin Elementary in Charlotte I would stay at Concord Mill with a 2 year old in a stroller and pregnant until school got out so I wouldn't have to drive all the way back home. But, it was faith that got me through 52 days of him in the NICU. I, also was in the ICU and at one point he was doing better than I.  I did believe that it could be my time and it was then that I knew if it was the children would be ok.

It took two years of exercised faith as we entered the hospital almost every month because our baby had RSV and couldn't breath but when he was 9 months old it was the most exertion of faith I have had to dig for.  He had struggled breathing while eating and I had a hard day with him feeding him and having to suction him because he would turn purple his machine would go off and try to bring him around so when I had the opportunity to go to a church RS meeting I jumped at it so quickly I forgot to warn my husband of the AWFUL time we had which resulted in the ambulance coming out to our home 3 times before they rushed him in ambulance with lights to the closest hospital which didn't have the medical tools needed to help him so we had to sit and wait until he stabilized and struggled and weakened with each minute. It was frustrating because they couldn't air flight him and they couldn't transport him because he was so precariously teedering between life and death and they needed to intubate him but didn't have anything small enough to do so! UGH!!! When I heard the news I rushed to the hospital and saw them working on my small baby 1 doctor and 2 nurses and I felt they weren't saving him right, LOL. But, they didn't know how to suction him right so he could breathe quicker. I wanted to get in and show them but I didn't. Then when he turned a cadaver gray and was so tired I was so scared and ran outside knowing that this child needs a blessing. I didn't care that it was 1:30 in the am! I called our Bishop, Bishop Mahler his wife answered he was out of town, I called two other people I could think of that were near by I couldn't get them another was out of town. I was panicked! Finally at about 2:15 we got a blessing and the dr was adamant to say if anything happens we are coming in- they stood behind a drawn curtain.  FAITH- Within the half hour he was able to be stabilized and transported by ambulance to the hospital uptown.

Faith when same child got RSV again despite his RSV shots he got monthly! He would do so well get the shots and land him in the hospital! UGH!! His little body had gone through so much from birth and being intubated that he had scarring and his body was tired of breathing and the dr's wanted to put him in an induced coma to help him breathe and his body wouldn't have to work so hard. However, they said it would cause more scarring which isn't good and they would give him 24 hours to see which way he would fall. I had already been at the hospital for a 5 days with barely a shower. I truly was afraid if I left him he would die! His alarms would go off because he wasn't breathing. I would be there helping him and the alarms still ringing but then when I couldn't get him to breathe I would frantically hit the call button and scream you need to get down here and help me he's purple. This happened too many times that I couldn't leave. Bill, could tell that I was a looney tune and he made me go home and shower and see the other children and he would spend the night. I left that afternoon exhausted and defeated.  I had a good heart to heart with HF in the shower and cried unto him saying I cant do it anymore. I am fighting so hard for him to stay with me, if you want him take him. As I got out of the shower the phone rang and I saw it was the hospital I was so afraid to answer it and I shakingly said Hello. It was Bill and he said the Dr came in and said that Dash had made the turn for the better and he would not be induced.  Have you ever felt so deflated that you gave your will up to Heavenly Father?

I have faith in smaller things. Faith I will get home ok, faith to trust my instincts, faith to believe that everything will turn out ok even if it is harder and faith in the trial to know that there is lesson that to be learned.