Doubt Not, But Be Believing

But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves: for the wind was contrary. And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and they cried out for fear. But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid.

And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water.

And he said, Come.

And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me.

And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?

And when they were come into the ship, the wind ceased.

As a kid, I never got that story.

Peter was walking on water. Who cares how big the waves are or how strong the wind is, when you've seen that kind of miracle? Besides, wasn't it that stormy before he even got into the water? Why did he suddenly get scared and start sinking? How could you get scared, when you're miraculously walking on water and Jesus is right there?

Doubt is a funny thing.

Now I'm going to leave you all on a cliffhanger and start telling you about my week.

So on Sunday night, after my last blog post, Mason was going to come over for peach pie. However, due to a laundry mishap on his part and a corn starch measuring error on my part, the peach pie never got eaten. Instead, I fed him leftover steak, because it's a much more effective way to bribe a guy into walking all the way to Wyview.

I spent my entire Monday catching up on homework that I'd forgotten about or procrastinated until the very last minute. And when I say my "entire" Monday, I mean from the moment I woke up until the moment I went to sleep, with the occasional breaks for showering and eating food in there.

On Tuesday, I woke up early for a French oral exam, went to the last of my classes, handed in all my homework, and took my guitar final, which was ridiculously easy. After my guitar final, Mason and I decided to go to Club Velour, since he still had a guitar concert to go to. We decided to get Wendy's for dinner first, but we were still early, so we also stopped at a cute little Gelato place in order to justify using their bathroom, which also sold Kinder Surprises. (Illegally.) Then we went to Club Velour's open mic night, which was completely what you’d expect from an open mic night, on a weeknight, in the only part of Provo that tries to pose as 17th Avenue.

Wednesday was pretty uneventful. I had a few school-related obligations, but Mason and I mostly hung out all day, interrupting idyllic walks along landscaped creeks with laughter about how bad we are at being broken up sometimes.

On Thursday, Mason and I did baptisms at the temple, and then got crepes at Awful Waffle. We then proceeded to spend all day together, because, you know, Reading Days are totally for studying.

Friday and Saturday mainly consisted of getting mundane tax stuff done, going to chem reviews, and taking my American Heritage "final" that consisted of two hours of everyone in the class presenting about how much they loved their service project. The weekend also included phrases like "No, don't worry about getting mascara on my shirt, I'm going to wash it anyways", but I'm getting ahead of myself here.

The next part of the post is called "A Summary of My Rollercoaster Mental State", or, "Why Ex-Boyfriends, Final Exams, and the Process of Saying Goodbye Before A Mission Shouldn't Happen In the Same Week."

(And if none of you catch the self-mockery/sarcasm in this next bit, this is my disclaimer to let you know that I'm not this melodramatic inside my head. Or if I am, I don't have to admit it to any of you)

Monday: aaaaaah it's never going to work out and maybe we were supposed to just end everything in February...I'm so confused...*tears*

Tuesday: No, it could totally work out. In fact, this whole "not waiting" thing is a joke, I'm totally waiting for him. I don't know why I was so upset yesterday, if it doesn't work out, that's fine too, but it will, so it's a moot point. Duh.

Wednesday: I'm totally not upset about this anymore, because Mason's going to come back in two years and we're going to get married and my life is a Disney Princess Mormon Chick Flick Fairy Tale *starry eyes* *sigh*

Thursday: Hm, I wonder what temple we'll get married in?

(I thought about including a lightning bolt picture here, but I decided to not take sacred things lightly. Instead, I'll just say that the rollercoaster of emotions over the week led to lots of praying and drawing closer to the Lord, and there was a pretty awesome outpouring of the Spirit Thursday night, which basically said,

"Calm down. The Lord has a plan, and it's fine to hope for things to work out with Mason, but there's nothing you can do about it for over two years, so just trust Him even though you don't know how it will work out. And if it doesn't work out, it's because there's something better in store that will make you happier, so that's a good thing, so stop worrying about it. The Lord loves you, so trust Him, because he wants you to be happy.")

If this answer and/or epiphany sound familiar...that's because it is. It's the same thing I've been saying ever since we started dating in January, after we broke up at the end of February, and all throughout March, right down to the blog post before this one. The difference is, before, I knew that was the right way to look at it, intellectually, but I didn't feel it. I trusted the Lord in my head, but I didn't in my heart.

"Wait," you're all thinking, "You said it was the weekend that had all the crying. But you got this answer on Thursday. What gives?"

Well, that's where the Peter story comes in. Because even after an amazing spiritual experience, it's possible to doubt. There were a couple of reasons for this:

1. I don't like the whole "trust without knowing what's going to happen" thing. I can trust when something happens, without knowing why it's happening, but it's really hard for me to go into the next two years not knowing what's going to happen. If I knew it wasn't going to work, this last week wouldn't be that upsetting, because he wasn't going to be a part of my life anymore anyways. If I knew it was going to work, these next two years wouldn't be that hard, because I'd know that I'd have years and years afterwards. But I don't know, and I hate that.
2. Regardless of whether it works out or not, I'm losing my best friend for at least two years, and I hate losing people.
3. A part of me still wonders if we weren't supposed to truly end everything back in February. And if that was the case, wouldn't it just be easier to give up, instead of going through all the uncertainty and trust that comes with still hoping?

So, this weekend included some tears and doubt and confusion. Which feelings come from the Lord, which come from the Adversary, which are my desires and which are my fears?

So I fasted today, feeling thankful that it's the last Sunday in the ward, so I had an excuse to be easily emotional. Then in the combined Priesthood/Relief Society meeting, the Bishop's wife was speaking about Peter, and I suddenly heard, you already know the answer.

Patience is not passive resignation, nor is it failing to act because of our fears. Patience means active waiting and enduring. It means staying with something and doing all that we can—working, hoping, and exercising faith; bearing hardship with fortitude, even when the desires of our hearts are delayed. Patience is not simply enduring; it is enduring well!

There's always been a part of me that believed that the best way to deal with people was to let them go. As much as I hate losing people (and I really do hate it - not just the way most people do, I hate it), there's a part of me that prefers to deal with things by saying, forget it, I'll move on with my life and find somebody else. It made me the only girl at Junior High Grad who didn't dissolve her makeup, it let me leave on the last day of high school with nothing more than a "See ya", it made moving to a completely different country pretty easy, and it's made all of my other ill-fated interactions with boys much easier to get over.

So there's a part of me that wants to do that here. There's a part of me that thinks it would be easier to say, okay, I'll just meet someone else next year, have a nice mission, I give up. No more hoping, no more trial of my ability to trust the Lord. No more risk. And if I felt like my desire to give up on this was from the Lord, and not my own fears, I would.

But it's not. And here's the thing - Mason has always been someone I've been willing to take risks for. From the day we talked outside the dessert party, I knew this was somebody that I would really try for. Besides, at this point, what does giving up do for me? It doesn't change the next few years - either I'll find someone else, or I won't, still. All giving up would do is make it less likely to work between us if I were still single when he gets back. Giving up wouldn't benefit me in any way, it would just eliminate my favorite outcome from the set.

So why is it tempting to give up? Because doubt is a funny thing. Because the winds and the waves are always beating, constantly, surely, steadily. But faith is different. Faith means taking another step, and then another, onto the water, trusting that this step won't be the one where miracles cease and your feet start to sink. And sometimes you get so focused on the wind and the waves and the risk of the next step, you forget that the Master is standing right beside you, ready to stretch out his hand, and you're never in danger of drowning at all.

Hope, it turns out, carries an inherent risk - the risk that our hope is misplaced, that is is vain, that it will not come to pass. What we forget is that our true hope is in Christ, and in the Lord's plan called Happiness, and that no outcome of that plan is something we wouldn't want to hope for.