Testimony Tuesday: Wendy

Little Wendy is our guest writer today.  Like me, she grew up on Apache Avenue.  And as a bonus to joining the blogging world, I've been able to keep tabs on her once again.  Wendy was the only girl in her family amidst an army of boys.  And somehow, she was neither a tomboy or a princess.  She's cool like that.

Like me, Wendy grew up in a disturbingly normal family.  What we lacked in sibling rivalry and family dysfunction, we made up in neighborly trauma.

Here's Wendy showing her fashion prowess back on Apache Avenue.  Niki is my little sister, and we shared a room.  Niki and Wendy shared a brain back on Apache Avenue.  So let's hear it for a fellow Idahoan, mommy of four, and believer of Christ.  Take it away Wendy:

I once read a description of faith in an old Family Home Evening manual. It talked about how, even though we can't see it, we know we have a heart. How do we know this? Well, for one thing, we can feel it beating in our chests. We know from scientific discoveries over the ages it is needed to sustain life, and since we are alive we must have a heart. I have not seen my own heart. But I know it's there.

My faith in God is similar to this: I have never seen Him. But on every side there is evidence of His existence. Just as I know my heart beats inside me to keep me alive, I know my Heavenly Father lives and is aware of me. Not only that, but He loves me. I have done nothing to earn this love; it is simply because I am, just as my own children simply had to be for me to love them. However, I know He is pleased when I make good decisions, just as I am pleased when my own children do.
 
When trials come into the life of a person of faith, it seems that person either blames God and turns away from Him, searching for answers, or submits to God and turns toward Him, again searching for answers. One of my favorite parts of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the doctrine of continuing revelation, not only through prophets and apostles, but through the gift of the Holy Ghost to every individual member. As we seek answers (not just during trials, although for me trials provide the expediency sometimes necessary to ask fervently), our Father in Heaven answers in often unexpected ways. Sometimes I don't like the answers, but when I remind myself that His ways are higher than my ways, submission becomes less painful.
 
Just as I put my children through their own trials, knowing they won't be much use as human beings if they never have to do anything for themselves, Heavenly Father provides me with opportunities to become better. I've had to do things I never thought I'd have to do. The older I get, though, the more I realize the plans I had for myself (which I had thought so grand) are a mere trifle compared to what God wants me to become. It reminds me of the scripture in Proverbs: "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths." I know this is true.
 
Now I just have to try my best to do it, despite what may come.