Sometimes I feel nothing

I was raised in the Mormon church and have remained a faithful member into adulthood. One of my favorite aspects of my faith is the concept of personal revelation. We are encouraged to pray and talk to God as though he were sitting in the room with us. We have the opportunity to develop a personal relationship with God. It's kind of amazing if you really think about it.

Personal revelation can come in many forms. For me, I receive feelings of peace when I know I'm doing what's right. Sometimes I pray and the answer is no and I feel anxious or confused. Sometimes I feel nothing. Those are probably the most difficult times, when He doesn't answer.

Why didn't I get an answer? 

Heavenly Father wants us to choose for ourselves, that's why we have agency. If we go to Him with every decision He will sometimes withhold guidance. Is it because the decision we make isn't important enough for Him to intercede? I think not.

For example, in my single days I attended a scripture study class and we discussed this very topic at great length. The teacher was talking about marriage and choosing a spouse. He said that if you are dating someone and you think you might want to marry them and you pray, the Lord is not going to tell you yes. Is this because who you marry is not important? No. (Who you marry is a very important decision and if you were about to make a HUGE mistake I think God would probably let you know.) But, He won't necessarily tell you yes for a very good reason.

Sometimes in life there are too many unknowns for Heavenly Father to micromanage our every decision. The biggest variable is our own agency. If He tells us to do something and we screw it up then we are naturally going to blame God when it's really our own fault.

When Keith took his current job it set us on a very good path that led to a great community and allowed us to adopt not one but two kids from China. After we had dinner with the people who wanted to hire Keith I had a pit in my stomach for months. I didn't want things to change but I knew I had to support my husband and that it was the right thing to do. Did Heavenly Father make the decision for me? No. I had to choose for myself to do what I knew was right.

There have been periods of time since moving where I have felt angry and bitter and it's been hard on our family. If Heavenly Father had told us to move and take this job I could have very easily blamed Him for my unhappiness when the blame really fell on me. I get to decide to make the best of it. I get to choose to be happy and find the good. Instead of blaming God, I turn to Him for support and He's there. He's always there.

Yay!