October 31 - Thoughts on the experience

This month, I would like to testify that I am grateful to God that he trusts me enough to give me the trials that he has given me along with everything else I have been given. I would also like to share a very personal experience along with my testimony.

On Halloween evening, I had the elders from my ward (an Elder Manning and an Elder Fitzner) and a member from my ward named Brother Young come to my house and give me some spiritual food. That spiritual food included a discussion about how God often times things right when they need to happen and when we put trust in God, He puts trust in us. I was told that being given trust from God is a lot of responsibility and that He doesn't trust everyone with responsibilities because many squander what God gives them and so He doesn't want to give them more. God only gives responsibilities/experiences, etc to those who prove in humility that they can be trusted with them.

I asked if that trust from God can include the trials we get and when I was told it can, I realized that God must trust me a lot because He has given me a lot of trials and other intriguing experiences both in past and more recently. I truly believe that God trusts that if He gives me trials, I will respond to them in a way that will keep me close to Him and not in the way that will cause me to lose my connection to Him. 

My life has not been easy and for that, I have always blamed myself and always thought myself as not being capable of making it better, but the discussion with the elders and Brother Young helped me to understand that my assumption was quite false. My life has not been easy because God trusted that I could handle the difficulties well and in ways that would keep me close to Him and within range of the Atonement. 

I admit, I've not always been strong in the gospel, as there was a time when I didn't feel worthy of having God's love or a testimony of God because of my neurodivergency, but God didn't give up on me even though I struggled to learn how to use what God gave me in the right way and become a person He could trust with things. Even in when I was living in an void of ignorance and isolation, which happened more than once, God was there and gave me opportunities of growth alongside the trials because He knew I would learn to use them for my good so I could better connect with Him. He trusted me to use the opportunities in the right way just like I eventually learned to see and use the trials I endured properly. 

I also believe God sends others to help us prepare in advance for trials and helps us see our need to make decisions how to address situations in advance based on the behavior we see from others and their handling of trials. One of the things I spoke about with the elders and Brother Young was the fact that I lost my thyroid and an oversized goiter in September (which was a HUGE cancer scare) and I did not get the official all clear until the end of October 2024. 10 years ago, in October 2014, my biological father passed away from cancer of the adrenal gland (a tumor that had metastisized) and he was only diagnosed in July 2014. 

During the short time he was sick and ultimately unable to be treated, my biological father squandered the opportunity he was given to attend to his spiritual side and further abused his body through drugs and alcohol in response to the physical and mental pain and he was also abusive to family and people in the community. While suffering from my biological father's choices, I outright told God in multiple prayer that if I were to ever deal with the same sort of situation, I would not address it like my father did. 

I truly believe God wanted to put my words to the test and see if I could be trusted to keep my word, as guess what happened to me? I was brought to the absolute edge of everything and went through the very process of intense fear and was told it was better to lose my thyroid because of 'unusual cells' after finding a lump in my neck during a self-exam. I went through a biopsy, bloodwork, and finally had the surgery to remove  my thyroid and the lump and also had the bloodwork after the fact. 

Thankfully, I can now say that everything is fine, which has been medically confirmed, and the lump was a goiter and my bloodwork is normal. I told the elders and Brother Young that I was thinking maybe God trusts me enough to deal with this experience at this point in my life because he knows I won't go away from Him while dealing with this like my biological father did when he was dying of cancer. My biological dad went off the deep end spiritually, mentally, every way, and I promised myself if I ever went through a similar experience, I would not go away from it. I would handle it differently.  

While dealing with this cancer scare, I did not squander the opportunity God gave me to prove that my word could be trusted when He decided to test me 10 years after I dared to say I could be trusted with such a challenge. I do not mean to come across as arrogant, but this was as close to cancer as one can get without actually having it, and I am truly grateful God tested whether or not I could be trusted to keep my word in that instance. Even if it had been cancer, I would still not squander the opportunity God gave me to learn how to be closer to Him, as I had been fully prepared to accept it as the scary C-word in my mind and was already planning to learn how to live with it and keep smiling and being gentle and kind despite the scary mess that such a thing is. Thankfully, I do not have to live with that and I was just on the edge for a while before I learned that I only have to learn to live without a thyroid, which is considerably less scary. Despite having this scary experience and the lingering effects, I am truly blessed that God trusted me to have it and to learn from it and I am so grateful for His trust and His love and for the love and strength I recieve daily from the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

I testify that God believes in all of us and our ability to see and use what He gives us, whether it be trials or opportunities, properly. If we utilize the Atonement to gain our spiritual eyes and capabilities that we might glean what we are supposed to from them, we will be successful in doing His will. I also testify that as long as we do not squander what we are given, God will trust us with more according to His timing and will for us.

I say these things humbly in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

p.s.: The elders and Brother Young also challenged me to write about my experiences and I did in a blog I called 'A Storm of Life.' If anyone wants the link, let me know and I will share it.