Can they?

An interesting question was asked in Sunday School this week.

We were asked, Can people outside the Church and without the ordinances and covenants of baptism and confirmation receive forgiveness and the influence of the Atonement? As I thought about the question, I realized that all too often we as members of the Church think that people outside the Church can't be happy. We think sometimes that they have no access to the Atonement of Jesus Christ, that without baptism that they can't repent or change, that they are sinners. Regardless of the intention of the teacher, I felt like they were looking for a no with the question, that we were supposed to think that those who have not been baptized don't have access to the Atonement. Don't get me wrong, I understand completely the need for ordinances and authority. I just think that there's room to give people the benefit of the doubt even though (or because) they are in different circumstances than we may be. 

The question still stands: Can they receive forgiveness and access to the Atonement?

I say yes.

I say that if "they" don't have access to the Atonement then neither do I.
I say that the Lord is a God of mercy who is happy to forgive and if we reach out to Him, whether we are baptized or not, He will reach back to us.
I say that Saul was a man whose life was entrenched in sin, blasphemy, and he was an accomplice in the murder of Stephen. I dare say that the Atonement of Jesus Christ reached this man before he was baptized.
I say that if the Atonement cannot heal and save those who are currently outside of the covenant of baptism— I dare to say that if I let myself believe that, then I must also believe that the Atonement cannot heal and save me.

The benefit of the doubt is that it is blasted away by the truth. Smithereens. The truth will leave no remnants of doubt, provided we accept that truth.

And yes, whoever you are, Christ's Atonement, His suffering, and His death and resurrection were for you. Whoever you are.

Women's Conference

Really, this is all I wanted to post here. In honor of BYU Women's Conference, I here post some of the tweets I've seen floating around. That is all.

I feel a little woozy already.

Getting to know people

So today I discovered that many couples (at least in Provo or at BYU) don't tend to know one another very well when they get serious/engaged/married. I talked with my neighbor Jane (names have been changed to protect the innocent) about this for a while, and told her that I feel that on a date you can get to know a person much better by asking them if they've ever collected anything than by asking what they are studying. Don't misinterpret what I'm saying; it's still really good to know what career goals your significant other has. However, if you know that, but you don't know them, I think there's some room for improvement. Jane mentioned that "have you ever collected anything?" is an excellent question, and wanted a list of good get-to-know-you questions that will actually help to get to know a person. Here goes:

Disclaimer: I'm not saying that you should prepare a list of these questions and ask them all in order on the first date. Rather, I mean to say that over the course of a relationship or courtship, this type of question can help get to know a person better.

Do you have any collections?
What's your favorite shape cloud?
How many uncles do you have? Tell me about them.
What's your favorite color, and why?
Do you know a foreign language? If you could learn another, what would it be?
What makes you most happy?
What makes you sad?
How do you define a classic?
Do you sing in the shower? Wait a second, everyone does... What songs do you sing in the shower?
If you were Italian, what would you change your name to?
How do you think we can effectively end racism, or at least make greater strides in that direction?
When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Favorite breakfast?
Cats vs. Dogs? Do you have/like/want pets?
What do you like to do to make other people happy?
What's your favorite class you've ever taken?
If you could be the head of a company, what would it be?
What's your favorite get-to-know-you question?
What's your favorite sound/smell?
What's the soundtrack to your life? (not favorite songs, but rather songs that describe your life best or would provide the most appropriate background music)
What would you do if you were invisable for one day???
What are the best weapons in a food fight?
What does trust mean to you?
If you could have a useless and good for nothing super power, what would it be?



I'll add more as they come up. In the relationship I'm in, these kind of questions get asked all the time.

#prayforboston

Everything seems to have hit the fan over the past few months.
I mean for me, but not just for me. I've lost a few good friends and a lot of time. There are a lot of people in Boston today/this week who are mourning the loss of friends or family members. People are panicked, and there's a lot of negativity going around the venues of social media.

It's easy, all too easy to lose faith in humanity, but not when you find stuff like this:

This was just what I needed. It helped me to remember that if we focus on the good, it can drown out the bad.

The benefit of the doubt we may have in humanity is that it's not nearly as powerful as the hope we can have in humanity.
#bethegood

Because you're supposed to.

So the other day I was eating a navajo taco for lunch and I was shooting the breeze with Sam, a 5th-grader.

I asked him what his favorite subject in school was, and he replied, "P.E....Physical Education...or math." I asked him why he liked math (because I sure don't), and he said, "Because you're supposed to!"

I had no reply. All I could do was laugh and accept his answer. I thought about it later and realized that sometimes there doesn't need to be more explanation than that. Sometimes we need to just accept the answers we get. Sometimes when the answer isn't what we expect, we need to just give the benefit of the doubt and trust whoever we're getting answers from.

The benefit of the doubt is that it gets easier and easier to pinpoint. Doubts force us to ask unnecessary questions, and over time that becomes painfully obvious (and annoying). Don't get me wrong, it's perfectly okay to ask questions and wonder and dream.
The benefit of the doubt is that the doubt will get stuck on the little details and get ripped off as we move forward.

"You're pretty hard on yourself"

I had just handled a situation with a neurological disorder, a roommate, and some paramedics as best I thought I could. But, I was reviewing the events in my head and drawing conclusions from what I had perceived: I was pretty impatient with her... I shouldn't have said that... Why did I get upset with her? I'm working on this whole "be humble" thing and it's definitely not working right now... Why can't I get it to work? Why can't I make these changes? Why can't I—

"You're pretty hard on yourself," I heard from the passenger seat. Great friends tend to know the best time to say things like that.


It's hard to forgive yourself. I find that I am my harshest critic. I perceive more of my mistakes than anyone else does. It's pretty easy to be hard on yourself and not give yourself the benefit of the doubt.

I've been studying grace since then, and I've been finding that it's perfectly okay to give yourself the benefit of the doubt. It's good to recognize your weaknesses and great to take them to the Lord (12:23-29). The Lord wants to work with us and walk with us, and that's exactly the point that helped me let go of my own faults and be more concerned with what the Lord thinks of me and what He wants and where He wants to go. Moses had this pretty figured out (Exodus 33):

 13 Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found ^agrace in thy sight,^bshew me now thy ^cway, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight: and consider that this nation is ^dthy ^epeople.

 14 And [God] said, My ^apresence shall go with thee, and I will give thee ^brest.

 15 And [Moses] said unto him, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence.

 16 For wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? is it not in that thou ^agoest with us?

If God's not going to go there, then I shouldn't either. He teaches in Ezekiel that if I repent, that my sins should not be mentioned to me anymore. That includes me; I should not mention my sins to me once I repent. God forgets my sins and challenges me to do the same. He invites me to do the same. He wants me to do the same.

The benefit of the doubt is that we know where it comes from. God forgets my sins, I can forget them, Satan doesn't forget them. Satan will throw doubts at me because he cannot forget that I have sinned and that I have repented. I know that doubts don't come from God. Self-doubt doesn't come from God. If I can't forgive myself, those feelings don't come from God. God forgives me, and I can forgive me too.

New Beginnings

Sometimes good things come to an end. Actually, good things usually come to an end. Like a relationship, a friendship, the life of a friend or family member, a great college class, the Animorphs series, etc. But God won't take anything away from us without giving us something better.

That's where the new beginnings come in. When something ends and we start something new, it's easy for doubts to creep in: that didn't work out last time. Remember how they left? It won't work out this time, because it didn't work out last time.

The benefit of the doubt is that it can be left behind when you start something new. Doubt is heavy, and so is the past. If we've been distrusted or distrustful in a relationship, we can leave that distrust behind when we start over and be completely open, honest, and trusting. If we've lost a friend or family member to death, doubts may come. The next time we make a friend, however, we don't have to keep thoughts in the forefront of our mind like, well, he'll probably die too. All my friends die. See how it doesn't really make sense to apply the doubts of the past when we start over and begin something else?

The benefit of the doubt is that we can leave it behind. We shouldn't carry old problems into new beginnings. The heavy nature of doubt makes it so that if we are willing to put it down completely, we can leave it there. It feels good to start over and leave the past behind us.

Forgiveness

"...a man who during childhood was frequently threatened with abandonment can easily attribute such intentions to his wife. He will then misinterpret things she says and does in terms of such intent, and then take whatever action he thinks would best meet the situation he believes to exist. Misunderstanding and conflict must follow. In all this he is as unaware he is being biased by his past experience as he is that his present beliefs and expectations are mistaken." (Feeney and Monin 2008)

Science says that if something troubling has happened to us in the past—something like divorce, traumatic events, death of a loved one, abuse, addiction, and a plethora of other possible things— we are inescapably affected by it (whether or not we are aware). The research above says that if a boy is abused, he will be forever suspicious of his wife and her behaviors. If she goes out to be with friends and says, "I'm going out with friends while you watch football," that man (according to science) will tend to think She says she's going out with friends, but which friends? Will other men be there? Is she being unfaithful to me? And thus begins the downward spiral of misunderstanding and mistrust.

 So how does that man learn to trust his wife? After all, it's outside of his control, right? Something happened to him that he couldn't avoid, right? It's not that he doesn't trust her, but rather that he was hurt in the past, and he's "being biased by his past experience," right? It's not his fault, right?

Not right.

Judgement, bias, pride, distrust—those are all weakness that we have. Christ teaches that if we come to him, He can show us our weaknesses (Ether 12:27). He can show us where we are being judgmental. He can show us the prideful root of our flawed behavior. He can get to the root of the seed of distrust that we may have planted in ourselves.
He helps us to make the root-changes that we need to make by commanding us to forgive one another. Even if we've been "threatened with abandonment," abused, forgotten, He commands us to forgive. Forgiveness is the ultimate exercise of trust. It's changing the nature of the way you see that person who has offended you. Trading out mistrust for full trust.

The benefit of there even being doubt in the first place is that the Atonement, that sacrifice offered by Jesus Christ, can rip those doubts out of us if we come to Him. The benefit of that opening where doubt used to be is that it can be filled with whatever we choose. If we are truly forgiving, we can fill it with trust, we can fill it with hope, and we can fill it with love.


Christ lives. He is my Savior. He died to make us free. He suffered the pain of sin so that we can forgive and be forgiven without robbing justice.

Orange Flags

It's been an interesting week. Lots of good and bad, and many opportunities to be more trusting and giving (especially when giving the benefit of the doubt).

I was almost run over by a truck on Thursday. No seriously.
Here in Utah, at crosswalks they have NEON orange flags to make it safer for pedestrians to cross the road and be seen. I was walking home from school and grabbed a flag to cross the street. Traffic stopped and many kind drivers let me start crossing. One truck, however, was in a bigger hurry than everyone else. I wish I were exaggerating what happened: He pulled out of his lane, into the oncoming traffic lane, to get around the car in front of him, and he drove straight at me. Thinking he didn't see me, I waved my flag frantically, hoping to be seen. We made eye contact. He didn't stop. I had to hurry myself out of his way to avoid serious injury.
Did the man want to kill me? Are all Utah drivers like this? Was he more concerned with getting somewhere fast than he was with another human life?
I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he has an astigmatism. Maybe his depth perception was off. Maybe he was rushing to help with some emergency and shouldn't have been stopped on his way.

Maybe I needed to learn to cross the street a little faster.

Thursday night/Friday morning, I was startled by a bad dream where the person next to me had an acceptance letter to the Spanish Teaching Major program at BYU and I had a letter telling me that I hadn't gotten into the program and that I would never be good enough to do so, so I should give up.

Prophecy? I sure hoped not. God telling me that Spanish Teaching is not the career I should pursue? Again, I sure hoped not.

I got an email later that day advising me that I had in deed been accepted to the program!
Do they really want me there, or is this some cruel joke? I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.
Maybe I really am good enough for the program. Maybe it's a blessing from God and He's opening doors for me that I didn't believe could be opened (and then I did believe, and then they opened).


Give everyone the benefit of the doubt. See them for the person they can become. Assume the best. It's a little hard at first, but when I start to assume the best and just trust people based on their word, good and wonderful things start happening.

Repentance

repent |riˈpent|
verb [ no obj. ]feel or express sincere regret or remorse about one's wrongdoing or sin: the priest urged his listeners to repent | he repented of his action.• [ with obj. ] view or think of (an action or omission) with deep regret or remorse: Marian came to repent her hasty judgment.


God commands us to repent of our sins and leave them behind. Why is that so hard? Do we like having sins? Do we just not understand the seriousness of sin and its effects? Do we ever think we don't have anything to repent of?God promises us that if we repent, we can be cleansed of all our sins. That's what the Atonement of Jesus Christ did for us. It's hard to repent, though. We're human, we're prideful, we don't like to be wrong, and worst of all, it hurts to change.
This is where that whole benefit of the doubt thing comes in. We spend far too much time thinking that we can fix things on our own without the help of an omnipotent and omniscient God, our Father. We think that it's okay to hide things and just try and get the little pieces back together after we've broken something. We doubt the Lord of all creation who has promised us, "Yea, and as often as my people repent will I forgive them their trespasses against me" (Book of Mormon, Mosiah: 26:30). If He makes a promise, He will keep it. We have to give Him the benefit of the doubt. The benefit this time is that if we are willing to give our doubt to Him, then He will do away with it. If we trust Him and repent, He will forgive us and fill those dark corners with light.

Promises

God makes promises, and He keeps them. There's no arguing that. Sometimes it's a little hard to believe though. Like when He promises you the job you want, but nobody hires you for the job you want. Like when He promises health and prosperity to those who keep the commandments, but a friend suddenly has liver failure at the age of 22 and passes away.

God sees fit to try our faith, doesn't He?
Without the trial, how will we ever learn to really trust Him?

The benefit of the doubt is that when God makes a promise, there is no room for doubt.
Doubts aren't (or shouldn't) be big enough to displace the testimony that comes from an answer directly from the Lord, even when He tries our faith.

The Wall

A friend has felt lately that she's come up against a wall. She has to make a decision, but this proverbial and figurative wall seems to just get in the way of any clarity or helpful information. It makes it hard to know which direction to go. It blocks the view. It's solid. She doesn't know if she should power through it, go around, under, over. Maybe just stay on the side she's already on.

Doubts are like that wall sometimes. They just block out the light and get in the way of our progress.

The benefit of the doubt here is that pushing through that wall will make you stronger and aware of the strength you had the whole time. Searching for a way to get around that wall is a good time to explore yourself and the world around you. Climbing that wall will put you on top and give you a newer broader perspective. The benefit of the doubt is that as we conquer it, it makes us better and stronger than before.

Just as the father of the afflicted child in Mark 9, if we take our doubts to the Lord and ask for His help, He will expand our capabilities and increase our faith.

Carmody and the Egyptians

Happy Sabbath.
Today was a day to learn to trust the Lord and give Him the benefit of the doubt. He knows what He is doing. He's in charge. He knows the way that His plan is supposed to work. 

Moses got all the way up to the Red Sea, and then the Israelites started to complain, saying that they would have rather died in Egypt because at least they would have had a grave. They doubted. They had seen so many miracles and knew the promises the Lord had made to take them to a better land. But they forgot, and they doubted.

13 ¶And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will ^ashew to you to day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever.

 14 The Lord shall ^afight for you, and ye shall hold your ^bpeace. (Exodus 14)

Who are we to doubt the Lord?

The benefit of doubt is that it is not meant to be permanent. Doubt has its small place. It can be replaced by faith. Faith is today and tomorrow. Faith is forever. Faith is eternal. Faith is for the future.

My dear friend Carmody Sagers passed away today. She was bright and strong, a disciple of Christ and one who found the beauty in small things like sunsets and butterflies. She taught me that every sunset is important. She taught me that every person is important. I love her as one of my closest friends; she will be remembered for her kindness and wisdom. She fought a very hard battle and liver failure proved to be too much. She passed peacefully to the other side, and instead of doubting the plan that the Lord has for her, I believe that she is okay now. One of my professors actually said that if she's only 22, and God says that it's time for her to go back to Him, then she learned everything she needed to learn in mortality. It means that she's ready to live in the presence of God. She will never have to fight those battles against pain and sickness again. She "shall see them again no more for ever." Thanks to the Atonement of Jesus Christ, Carmody will live again. 

Even as Job so boldly declared, "yet in [her] flesh shall [she] see God."

Let us not doubt the Lord, but forever be faithful and full of faith.

Little things

Sometimes we doubt whether or not the things we do or say to help others are really worthwhile. It's too easy to get sucked into the trap of feeling like nobody notices the things you do. This whole blogging experience has changed that perspective for me substantially.

Babies can't really go into the ICU as visitors. When a mom with a baby needs to go in and visit, somebody has to take care of that baby. Fortunately for everyone (especially one friend here in the hospital who gets uncomfortable holding or taking care of babies), I rather enjoy looking after children; it was no big deal to hold the little one and try to get her to sleep. It was also fortunate that I was too distracted taking care of her to have any time or energy that could be directed toward doubting that what I was doing was worth anyone's while.

I hadn't thought about how what I did affected others until that mom was heading out for the night. She gave me a big hug, and I could just tell that it meant a lot to her.

The benefit of the doubt is that we get to choose how much weight that doubt has. If we want to let it weigh enough that we'll never be able to move it, that's really our choice. However, should we decide that the doubt we feel has little weight, it can easily be displaced by love, hope, faith, and any of the positive feelings that fight to push doubts aside.

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith.... If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit." (Galatians 5:22,25)

College

It's easy enough to believe that your college professors are only passionate about their subject matter. When they pile on the homework, papers, research, readings, assignments, evaluations, etc. it's easy to think they only want you to focus on what they have for you to do or what's important to them. I should give more professors the benefit of the doubt.

I talked to my professors about Carmody and how I want to be able to spend time at the hospital. The expected responses were: "Well, don't forget about your classes", "Make sure you can do your readings while you're there", "Are you going to be able to get your homework in on time?", etc.

The responses I got were: "How's your friend doing?", "Don't even worry about your work right now; I'll work with you", "It's not about whether or not I'm okay with you missing my class; you're an adult, and you know where you need to be", "I don't want you to miss your test and fall behind. I understand that things happen though. You do what you've got to do."

Faith in God has been carrying me for quite a while. Faith in humanity gets bolstered day by day. The benefit of the doubt is when that doubt is proved wrong. When I just try to believe in someone else, sometimes doubts will come, but knowing that they can be proven wrong is pretty comforting.

Letter

It's a strange sensation, reading to someone who doesn't respond. My friend is still here in the hospital, and it's hard to tell if she's sleeping or unconscious.
I just got finished reading her a letter from another friend.
Here's the letter that Carli (the other friend) wrote. Go ahead and read it if you want.

Firstly I want to tell you how beautiful I think you are. You are exceptionally beautiful because you’re so happy all the time. Your bright face coming out of Wyview dorms always makes me so happy. Even when you got upset when other girls were flirting with Mike, I was laughing at how beautifully you were handling the situation (ripping all the pages out of an entire textbook in less than a half hour, I would guess). You bring a lot of beauty in my life. Oh, and you’re naturally beautiful on the outside too, but I’m guessing you hear that from Mike all the time, so I’ll keep that comment short.

Secondly, I wanted to tell you my theory on flowers. Flowers are a plant’s device to lure butterflies, bees, and other sorts of creatures into areas where they can get pollen stuck to themselves. Then, when they fly away, the plant’s pollen flies with them, and the pollen can then be used to make new baby trees. If you don’t understand how that works, ask your parents, or just know that when a mommy tree and a daddy tree love each other very much, they choose to love and care for baby trees too. Back to the theory. Flowers are meant to attract. They are there for beauty and for functionality. That’s what nature says. For God, I think that flowers are given to us as testimonies of God.

My dad gives my mom a bouquet of flowers every year for my mom’s birthday. It’s always an arrangement of the Birds of Paradise flower. This is one of the most dominant images in my mind when I think of love. Love between husband and wife, love in a family, and love between friends. Flowers, to me, are closely associated with love. “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. . . . he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect” (1 John 4:8, 16-17). Just like my father gives my mom flowers to show her he loves her, I believe that our Heavenly Father gives us (individually and collectively) flowers to show us he loves us. That is part of His testimony to us of his love for us.

Here at the London Study Abroad, we had our own Valentine’s Day last Saturday. Since there are about 35 girls, 3 boys, and three couples (professors and wives), female students were asking boys and girls on “dates.” It was a way for everyone to share their love and friendship with each other and have a fun time planning and doing special things for each other. I was designated to be an “asker,” or the one who asks on a date. I got to ask Lyssa on a date, and lucky for me I had had a class with her last semester. This is important because this is where I learned that Lyssa loves Wordsworth. Well, when I picked her up for the “date,” I brought with me a small bouquet of yellow daffodils. Wordsworth wrote the poem “I wandered lonely as a cloud,” which goes on to describe, “a host, of golden daffodils; / beside the lake, beneath the trees, / fluttering and dancing in the breeze.” Pretty, right? So I put these daffodils in a giant water bottle (instead of a vase . . . McGyver incarnate right here), and Lyssa left them on the mantle by the front door of the BYU London Centre. Every time I walk by the front door, I see those bright yellow daffodils and I’m happier. They are a source of sunshine in this terribly overcast country. It’s surprising how beautiful flowers can make the inside of buildings look, regardless of the outside conditions . . .or even the inside ones. I believe that God gave us flowers to give us hope regardless of whatever is going on around them. Flowers are God’s example to us of optimism. President Gordon B. Hinckley counseled us to “cultivate an attitude of happiness. Cultivate a spirit of optimism. Walk with faith, rejoicing in the beauties of nature, in the goodness of those you love, in the testimony which you carry in your heart concerning things divine” (Standing for Something). One of my favorite quotations, actually, comes from President Heber C. Kimball. He said, “I am perfectly satisfied that my Father and my God is a cheerful, pleasant, lively, and good-natured Being. Why? Because I am cheerful, pleasant, lively, and good-natured when I have His Spirit” (Journal of Discourses vol. 4, p. 222). Jesus Christ Himself is echoed in this quotation, for he stated (as recorded in John 16:33), “Be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world.” Those yellow daffodils remind me to be optimistic and lively, just like Heavenly Father is.

There are so many kinds of flowers in the world. I don’t know how Heavenly Father created them all, let alone keeps track of them all. But I know He does. I really do. “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these” (Matthew 6:28-29). That’s right, God can spend so much time on each individual lily (and lilies in the collective) so that each flower’s beauty is more beautiful than the manmade temples that were supposed to have the most beautiful materials in them. “Shall he not much more clothe you?” (vs. 30) we are asked. If God desires to make each flower more beautiful than anything we can come up with, then why would he not be so concerned about his children individually in making them beautiful also? That’s why we have spiritual gifts. Carmody, I think you have the spiritual gift of happiness. I do. I think you have many other gifts, but the one that has impacted me the most is your gift for being happy. I know God is watching out for you, oh one more precious than the lilies of the field and the fowl of the air.

Flowers are wonderful things, are they not? I wish I were there to give you flowers myself, but since I’m not, I’m sending you pictures of flower on Facebook. Here’s the deal: you get a flower a day. I’m sending you these flowers to remind you that God is love, and He is all around us wanting us to be optimistic and to hope even in the darkest time. I’m sending you flower pictures because I want you to know that you are individually beautiful and precious to him. Remember that these flowers are for you, Carmody. They are to remind you ultimately of God and your worth in His Kingdom and His sight. I want you to take these flowers, too, as a reminder of how much I love you, how much I hope for you, and how much I care for you as an individual and a friend. You are like a flower in my life, and I want to return the favor.

“For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.”

William Wordsworth, “I wandered Lonely as a cloud”

Carmody, thanks for being my daffodils.

If you've ever read a letter to someone who doesn't respond to anything, you know as well as I do, that it's easy enough to doubt whether or not anything is getting in or being heard. I walked away wondering if she had even heard, let alone comprehended or appreciated what Carli had written and I had read. 

I got back on Skype, and Carli told me "I have faith that Carmody heard the letter". Carli's on the other side of the world. She can't see anything that's going on here. Faith isn't really about seeing though. It's about giving the benefit of the doubt.

The benefit of the doubt is that we don't have to remain in the doubt. The benefit is that when we close our eyes and pray, we have the opportunity to set aside what we have seen and believe. Faith is the other side of doubt, and just like with a coin, we can pick one side. The best thing about the faith-doubt coin is that when we lay it down faith-side up, we completely cover doubt, and it disappears.

The Hospital

I didn't expect to ever start a blog. I didn't expect that I would ever have a reason. I didn't expect to be in the hospital today. Looks like life is full of surprises.

For starters, I have a good friend who's in the Intensive Care Unit with acute liver failure and lung problems. She's comatose and there's about a one in three chance that she makes it with no lasting damage. It's still pretty surreal, the whole situation. It's a very frightening and off-setting thing to see one of your best friends hooked up to machines to keep her breathing. It's a very real possibility that she  can die sometime this week, but that's not what this blog is about. I hope you got that by the title.

A close friend of mine was skyping with her boyfriend recently. They had set up a skype date of sorts. She had had other plans that would keep her occupied until the time they'd set for the skype date, but she was really looking forward to talking to him. While they were talking, she was talking with her roommates about their plans and activities and they asked why she wasn't going to the things they wanted to go to. She said that she just hadn't planned anything and didn't really feel like going. This poor girl, her boyfriend thought she was talking about the time they'd set for their skype date when she said that she hadn't planned anything; he felt like she was self-conscious or ashamed of him or that she didn't care enough to mention to the roommates that she'd set apart time for him. When she mentioned the time when she hadn't planned anything, she was referring to a portion of the time during her "other plans that would keep her occupied" in which she just wouldn't be doing anything with the rest of the group.

I heard her say to him: "Can't you just give me the benefit of the doubt?"

I began to wonder, How often am I that boyfriend? Do I ever do that as a friend? Do I jump to the worst possible conclusion with friends and strangers and neighbors, etc.? Do I do that to God? Do I trust Him and give Him the benefit of the doubt?

So now I'm here in the hospital. The doctors aren't sure that she'll make it. In fact, they're about 65% sure that she won't make it. It's a long shot, but she can make it and recover and come out of all of this perfectly okay.

Since God is the Creator of everything (that includes the Earth, me and my friend, her liver, this hospital and...well, everything), I figure it's a pretty good idea to leave things in His hands and trust that He'll take care of things. He teaches us that "If ye have faith, and doubt not.... all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive" (Matt 21:21-22). Who am I to think that He won't be able to take care of things. It doesn't do me any good to doubt. It doesn't do any good for others if I doubt. 

The benefit of any doubt is that it's just one side of the coin, and we can turn it over whenever we decide to do so. The other side of this coin is life, smiles, friends, happy songs and inside jokes. The other side of that coin is waiting to be looked at.