Feeling Gods Peace In Trying Times

This peace I have felt many times in my life! The last three years have been really hard for my family. We had a beautiful baby boy we named Kolob Angel. I was in the temple contemplating on his name and felt that he would be very close to God. I wanted a name that would tell the world that he was special.A name that would shout his closeness to God. It instantly came to me that Kolob is the closest physical place that we know of to God. The angels are the closest beings to God and so it was at just 29 weeks pregnant he became Kolob Angel. He had a rough start being born early with pneumonia and spent 9 days in the NICU. We had our Kolob for three glorious months the God took him home. There was no warning, he was happy, healthy, playing and then he was gone. I knew that my prayers would not help but I prayed anyway. I stood there on the life flight platform and could feel my son standing by me. I couldn’t see him with my physical eyes but I knew he was there. He was a grown man, taller than myself, he was holding my hand as we watched them load his little body on the helicopter together. I knew though that even God could still fix it. I told God you can fix this just put his spirit back. I knew though even then that he wasn’t going to make it, I was not ready to accept it though. They settled him in the PICU at Primary Children’s Hospital. They did blood work and a brain scan, telling us there was no brain activity and his blood work did not look good. I watched and prayed over my baby. As I sat there I spoke with God in my mind. God reminded me that He to had to watch His son suffer and die and He did it because He loves us and He loved Him. My son started to bleed out of his eyes, mouth and nose because his blood no longer had the ability to clot. It was in this moment that I accepted my son would die. I had already watched the Drs and nurses try endlessly to get that little heart beating, in those moments I sat on a chair looking very calm while on the inside I was screaming, shaking, throwing everything around a room in my mind, screaming endlessly. When I accepted he was going home and I told God it was ok if He took him back, that I could also sacrifice my son to the will of God that I felt at peace. They unhooked my boy and laid him in my arms. Where me and his father said our last goodbyes. He never took a single breath and within minutes his hear stopped. We did not receive the miracle we wanted that day but we did receive peace that surpassed all understanding. I also learned that God had a plan for the life if each of His children. We all have our own life line and sometimes that line is very short and sometimes very long. God told me that Kolob was to be a missionary in the Spirit World and that was his life plan from the beginning. Just a little over a year later God took my mother home. My mother was a walking miracle. She got breast cancer at the young age of 36. They did surgery and thought they got it all. A year later it came back. The Drs gave her a 10% chance to live five years. She had 5 kids, two of which were grown and three, 1,4,5. She fought and she prayed and pled with God to spare her lifelong enough to raise her children. God told her it was her time but she prayed and she pled with Him to live. She lived over 30 years after that cancer. She lived to see that one year old boy with kids of his own. At the age of 70, after many health issues to include a stroke, MS, and other age related issues she was diagnosed with radiation poisoning and then leukemia induced from chemo. After 18 months at the age of 71 she passed into the next life. Again I felt a great peace and I knew she was happy. I saw her running through a great field of flowers with her hair flowing behind her and filled with more happiness than I can even describe. At her funeral with my many children I was very sad, frustrated that my small kiddos could not find it within themselves to behave for Grandmas funeral. My three year old got away from us and ran up on the stage. I was furious and embarrassed and just wanted to experience the funeral in peace. In the moment when my anger was at its worst I saw my mother sitting on the bench beside, laughing. She was intently watching my husband trying to catch my son. She was laughing and so filled with joy and her feelings ran into myself with such potency that I found myself instantly laughing, my anger melted away and for a small moment enjoyed a piece of my mothers joy. It was amazing and indescribable the way it just filled me up and took over my whole being. I was again at peace. Just a few days ago Heavenly Father took another baby home from us, this is our 4th angel baby. I had prayed that baby here with all of my soul. I had done everything physically possible to get pregnant and have a healthy pregnancy but it was not to be. I found myself angry, angry at God for taking yet another baby. Angry at God for taking my Kolob and my mother. It was a moment when I forgot everything I had ever learned or felt. All those precious moments were gone from my mind and I was filled with rage. How could God do this to me again and again, why would He ignore my prayers and my pleading every time I felt it was most important?! Why was He always taking everything from me, where were my miracles when I wanted them the most!? The anger was all consuming and I could think of nothing good, no prayer He had answered, no time I was blessed. For a couple of days I was angry. Then a few nights ago we sat down to scripture study with our 9 surviving children. We talked about kindness and love, how God blesses us for these things. Without realizing it I started talking to my children about blessings. How God blesses us for each righteous choice we make. I said that God blesses us and we never even realize we are being blessed. He may take away an illness before we even get sick, a tumor before it is noticeable, maybe He made us late one day to keep us away from an accident. How many times in our lives has God blessed us and we don’t even realize it to say thank you or to be grateful. I felt ashamed for being angry at God for not giving me what I wanted and for forgetting all the wonderful things He has done for me. For letting one moment of sorrow consume all the blessings and all the happiness a loving Heavenly Father has given me and blessed me with for so many years. We tell our children all the time that life sometimes cannot go the way we want it to. That also applies in our spiritual lives, things cannot always end the way we want. This is a mortal world and we are living a mortal life. Which means living with illness, disease, death and sorrow. All these things cannot be taken away no matter how much we pray for it and want it to be so. I grew even more while sitting with and teaching my children. In that moment all the times that God blessed me and filled my soul with happiness came flooding back into me. I remembered all the answered prayers, the peace and the joy I have been so blessed with. No, God will not make our life perfect, He will not take away the tears or the death. He will however apply the soothing balm of the Holy Ghost and remind us of how wonderful life can be!!! He truly will in all situations speak peace to our soul if we can but let go of our anger and our hurt. In 3 years I lost 4 children, both my parents and my last grandparent. Found out my SIL is fighting stage 4 breast cancer. Life is never going to be perfect, its never going to be without disease and death. God has given us the power and tools, the strength, to carry on and live each day. Not even just to live each day but to truly find happiness, pure joy and to love each day of this mortal experience. God lives and He loves us!!!! Truly we can find His peace everyday in our lives, He will pick us up, dry our tears and give us strength to not just carry on but to carry on with a joyful heart.