Waiting on the Lord

So life seems a bit like I am in a black hole right now....I'm not sure where to go or what the next move will be. I kind of have to be ready for anything to come up at any moment. Life has a way of holding you back and testing your patience right at a moment when you think you are sure you have everything lined up that you want.

We are currently in a waiting process, a black hole if you will, waiting for permission to go through the temple. For once in my life, I am not the one holding things up, and I am not quite sure what to do to find balance some days. I am beginning to dread 9:00 pm, it signifies two things, goodbye, and see you later. Two things I am ready not to have to say every night of my life.

I know! I know! I can just hear you as you read this...."Just you wait Jennifer, just you wait. You will soon see that you are just an anxious girl engaged and in love blah blah blah.....", but really truly, I am not here just because of the sweet feelings of overwhelming and consuming love.

I am here (at this turning point in my life) for very different reasons. I am ready to have someone to sit next to on tough days and just know that they care, I am ready to deal with money and not have to make all the decisions, I am ready not to have to ask my honey, "should I buy dinner this time?", I am ready to have a routine that doesn't end in a good night kiss and dark streets/highways flanked on every side by nocturnal deer out to get me for a midnight snack.

Most of all, I am ready to start my life with this wonderful man who knows the importance of the Gospel and heeding the Spirit. He is such a good man, I looked over at him in church today (we seem to have become the local sacrament jungle gym for a few cute little girls) and I teared up just knowing that someday those little kids crawling all over him and I during church would be our own.

The possibility of my own children has seemed so distant and untouchable to me because I have hoped and prayed for it for years yet the opportunity has been so long in coming. I know I was born to be a mother, it is ingrained into every fiber of my being....but it has not been an option, it has not been something I could hope for until I found a righteous wonderful priesthood holder to support and care for me, a man to love and marry in the temple. Now I have him, and I can dream and know that it is a possibility (not a guarantee, but a real dream and possibility), yet here I sit in this black hole, planning my life that I cannot set a time frame on because it is not possible to know when it may happen, and hoping for a date could be disappointing.

And yet there is this peace, a comforting awesome power that has crept into my life....I worry that I am not prepared and that is why I need this time, so I am taking the opportunity,
I am preparing myself, I am preparing my sweetheart, we are working together, we are making decisions together, we are settling differences, and beginning to understand more and more who we are, and not just who I am and who he is....How precious is the gift of the gospel and the joy and peace it brings to those who are willing to wait on the Lord. The scriptures promise that exceedingly great blessings will be poured upon the heads of those who patiently wait on the Lord...who patiently do all he asks while they wait for the greatest desires of their hearts to be fulfilled.

So here you find me, patiently waiting, patiently saying goodnight as that hour approaches, gently leaving my sweetheart with a little kiss and driving off knowing that tomorrow is another day and tomorrow holds great possibilities. WE are best of friends, we are learning to love and cherish each other and recognize the Lord's hand in our lives. We are grateful for the "black hole" because it gives us a time of peace and inability to rush in order to get done the little things that will help us be better as we enter into the sacred covenants associated with eternal marriage.

Perhaps I shall call the "black hole" turbulence and remember President Uchtdorf's words in this fall session of General conference. He said that sometimes handling the turbulence in our lives means we slow down, steady the course, and focus on the essential things. Oh what truth there is in those simple words, and what faith it takes to do exactly that. I hope to take this time and do just that, slow down, steady the course, and focus on the essential things that will make our home and our marriage Eternally knit together with the strands of the gospel and the pure love of Christ.

What joy fills my heart to know that I having waited for years, and having hoped for a long time that this day will come, now know who I will marry....it is now a simple matter of when we will be married. When is a much less daunting task....it is easier to face than who. When is easier because I know that I am worthy and have made the effort to be worthy, and I know that he is too. When is not difficult when you know that you are not waiting on a worthiness issue, but rather a paperwork issue. I hope that I handle the turbulence in my life with a steady hand and that I remember to focus on the essential and important things that really count. I am soooooo blessed!