After we think we have done enough

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Saturday Afternoon Session of the April 1979 Conference.

I remember one winter evening many years ago. I had a colicky baby, a gaping fear of the future, too little sleep, and a shaky marriage. I felt so alone. I was driving in the car, crying, with said colicky baby screaming in the backseat, and I thought, "Okay, that's it. I'm done with this life. I'm ready to go. Do you hear that, Heavenly Father? I can't do this for one more day."

I pulled into an empty lot to let my tears take over, and…waited. With a feeling of, I don't know, expectation, feeling like it was God's move now. But as I kept sitting there and my sobs wore themselves out and I stared out at the darkening sky, the expectant feeling was replaced with something like sheepishness. I didn't quite know what to do next. I'd made my dramatic statement, I'd cried till I couldn't cry anymore and now…well, nothing was different. And much as I wanted to be done with it all…here I still was. Eventually I sighed a shuddering sigh, and turned the car back on, and drive home, and put the baby and myself to bed. And that is maybe the first time I realized that what I saw as "all I could handle" didn't really bear any relation to what I could actually handle.

I guess I was a little bit mad, that night, not to have had something dramatic happen. At least a sign that God even acknowledged how fed up I was! But there was nothing. Or maybe (more likely) I just couldn't feel it right then. Still, over the next weeks and months and years I have often thought back to that night (and others like it). But now I don't feel mad about it. I feel amazed. I think, "My goodness, how did Heavenly Father know that I COULD do more; I COULD endure more? I didn't know that about MYSELF—but He knew, and waited patiently, and watched me do it."

The main feeling I have now is gratitude, that God didn't give up on me when I was ready to give up on myself. Even that one night later became something I looked back on for courage. "I endured that, I can endure this!"

Elder Hartman Rector, Jr., said:

Surely, in the work of the Lord, it is what we do after we think we have done enough that really counts with him, for that’s when the blessings flow.

It's a hard thing to hear when you're exhausted and worried and sad. And I'm pretty sure that if we got to choose when we left this life, we'd all consider leaving it long before we got to the best parts. (My heart breaks for people that DO choose to leave early. But I know God has a plan for their happiness, as well.) I'm just so glad that Heavenly Father sees further than we do. He sees our future happiness and joy, and He sees strength in us we can't see in ourselves. And while I'm sure He cries with us as we cry, He probably also can't help being excited for us to discover who we really are, as we go far past the time when WE think we have "done enough." Because that really is when the blessings flow.


Other posts in this series:

• Identifying Myself As a True Saint by Jan Tolman