A struggling friend

I have a good friend who is a new dad, and who recently purchased a home. D's wife and he were both working in order to afford the house they purchased, but D's wife lost her job last week. Now they are lost and confused. They felt that they had been guided by the Lord to help them make the financial decisions they'd made, but now they struggle with feeling abandoned by the Lord as everything is seeming to fall through.

As I've thought about D's situation, I have great empathy for what he is going through. His first concerns is that for the first time, he feels, he is unable to provide for his family. I've talked to my wife extensively about that concern. I work for a great company, and I make enough that we are able to get by, and we do quite well. We're tightening our belt a bit and are purchasing a new home, but we're going to be okay. We won't have the boats and other toys that some of our friends have, but we are okay with that. I'm okay with that. Mostly. And when I'm not, I talk to C about it. I've thought about trying to get a better paying job at a different company, because I don't want C to have to work in order for us to get by financially.

I mean, we believe the Proclamation on the Family that says the father is supposed to be the breadwinner, yet we look around at so many families were the moms have to work in order to meet the family's basic needs. (I won't even address the issue of needs vs. wants. For this discussion, we'll just assume that their perceived needs are, in fact, needs. Perception of need will have to be a different topic for a different day.) You want to be in the group where your income alone is enough, but life is so expensive that it is really hard to do that. I know some fantastic, faithful people who simply can't make it on one income. And I'm afraid that if that happens to me, I'll feel like a failure as a provider for my family.

One face of that failure may come as I'm unable to meet the wants of my children. I think that almost every parent eventually has to face the reality of not being able to give their child everything they would want to or hope to. Someday there will be a Christmas or a birthday where as I parent, I wasn't able to get the gift my child really wanted or I won't be able to provide the number of presents that my child wants, and I'm afraid that I'll feel like a failure as a provider. Why is that? I suppose it is because somehow we equate our showering our children with what they want as a measure of our love for them. Somehow we aren't showing them that we love them if we can't meet their every want.

When we catch ourselves thinking that way, its time to step back and recognize the fallacies in our thinking. Love is not equated with material wealth or possessions, nor the bestowal of wealth or possessions. The ultimate example of this is our Father in Heaven, who desires each of our ultimate happiness, and who is capable of providing us with material wealth, but doesn't give that gift to all of His children. Why? It's not because he doesn't love us. He wants our happiness, and knows what we need to do in order to obtain eternal happiness, and it's not to have material possessions.

But even understanding that principle doesn't make it easier to have to tell your child no, or to see the tear-filled eyes of the child that you'd give your very life for, but whose expectations weren't met. It's just hard to be a parent.

My friend D's other concern was about feeling abandoned by the Lord as everything seemed to fall through. Simply put, he thought that God told him to buy the house. He felt like God supported his decision to purchase a new car. He made these decisions after praying and asking for confirmation that it was the right decision. He felt at peace and felt a spiritual confirmation that he had made the right choices. So why is he going through this financial nightmare only a couple of months later?

Two scriptural examples come to mind. First, remember Abraham? God commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Abraham commanded to kill his son. Can you imagine what that would be like? Why did God give Abraham that commandment? Was it to see if Abraham would comply with the hardest commandment ever given to him? You have to say "no" if you believe God to be omniscient, because God had to have known what Abraham would do. So why give the commandment if (A) God knew Abraham would comply and (B) God never intended Abraham to go through with it? I believe that God was testing Abraham so that Abraham would know how far he was willing to go in the service of his God. Sometimes God has to test us even like Abraham, so that we see how much faith we will have in Him.

The other example is Nephi, who was instructed by the Lord to go get the plates from Laban. Nephi and his brothers, with their heavenly mandate, arrived in Jerusalem and went to do what the Lord commanded. But they failed, even though the Lord had instructed them to go, and they had the mandate of heaven. But did Nephi give up? No. The brothers followed Nephi and they took all the family's worldly possessions to exchange for the plates. Laban stole their goods and had his guards chase them out of the city. Did that change their mandate? No. Do you think they wondered why the Lord would command them to do something that they were apparently failing at? Maybe. Buy they persisted. Finally when it seemed hope was lost, on the third recorded attempt, they were successful. Remember: the whole time they had the mandate of heaven. But the Lord let them learn from the struggle for a while before he provided the way for them to accomplish what he commanded.

So to my friend D and to anybody else who struggles with a similar situation, I'd say: if you've been following the Spirit along the way, then trust that He's leading you in the right direction, even when it may look like the pathway is getting darker and narrower and harder. Struggling to get through life is part of the game. We just have to be like Abraham and Nephi and keep our eye on the goal and trust that God knows what He's doing. Because He does. I promise.

Someday you'll look back and see it too. But for now, we just have to trust Him.

And learn from Him. Because He's the ultimate Good Dad.