Comfort

I'm sure I won't say this as well as I would like to, but here goes anyway.

As I sit here and write this today, my sister and her husband are sitting in the waiting room at Primary Children's Hospital, waiting to hear how the surgery is going on their 5 day-old son, Dylan. He's got an extremely rare heart defect, truncus along with coarctation of the aorta. It's so rare in fact, that many people don't believe that you can have truncus (truncus itself isn't as rare) along with coarctation. Apparently they're wrong. The surgeon told Cindy and Russ that he's only ever seen it in one other patient. The surgery is supposed to last 5-6 hours, but they were told to expect it to go 7-8 hours.

Cindy, Russ, and Dylan have been on my mind a lot since Dylan was born on Friday. I've felt bad that I couldn't go down to be there with them at this time. I keep telling myself that there's really nothing I could do there anyway.

As I've thought about them, a lot of scriptures have come to my mind. A lot have been the usual scriptures of comfort, like "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you...let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." and "be still and know that I am God." Some scriptures have almost seemed to be forced on me as I've been studying and preparing for my Sunday School lessons. In last week's and this week's lessons especially, it seems as though Alma has constantly been reminding me that the Lord will sustain us in our troubles and trials. For example, in this coming Sunday's lesson, Alma speaks to his sons Helaman and Shiblon and gives them advice and counsel. To Helaman he says, "And I have been supported under trials and troubles of every kind, yea, and in all manner of afflictions;..." (Alma 36:27). To Shiblon, he says, "...I would that ye should remember, that as much as ye shall put your trust in God even so much ye shall be delivered out of your trials, and your troubles, and your afflictions, and ye shall be lifted up at the last day" (Alma 38:5). One that particularly stood out to me was when Alma and Amulek were preaching among the Zoramites. Amulek tells them, "But that ye have patience, and bear with those afflictions, with a firm hope that ye shall one day rest from all your afflictions" (Alma 34:41).

We may wish we could never have trials and afflictions, especially as we're going through them, but they're for our good. They help us grow and learn to trust in the Lord. And as we come to realize that God is in charge and knows what He's doing, that he has a plan for us, we can be comforted and supported in our trials. And we can know that the day will come when we can "rest from all (our) afflictions". And won't that be a glorious day?

But today, while I'm waiting to hear news of the surgery, I can realize that even though I can't be there to support Cindy and Russ, the Lord will be. And I will hug my own children a little more often today and hold them longer and feel grateful for my blessings, especially for the knowledge that we have been sealed together for all eternity and will be able to rest from our afflictions.