Questions and Answers
Why Does Heavenly Father Let Us Wait for Answers?
I had struggled for years to understand my value as a woman in the Church. Understanding didn’t come until after a trial of faith.
My oldest brother left the Church many years ago. Years later, my second-oldest brother and his wife also decided to leave. After hearing the news, I went into the backyard alone to think. I felt immense sorrow, but I also felt a new resolve. Sitting on the garden bed, I told the Lord, “I’m not going anywhere.”
As I said those words, I noticed the tree on the other side of the fence, which I had never really noticed before that day. It was huge, towering above the surrounding trees. At that moment, a voice entered my mind, saying, “I will make you as tall as that tree.” In my heart, I knew that the Lord had affirmed my declaration with a promise to help strengthen my faith.
In the peaceful assurance of that moment, I did not fully grasp that the Lord was promising to strengthen me through trials and opposition. As Elder Jeffrey R. Holland recently taught, “Untested faith isn’t much faith at all.”1 True to the prompting I received, the Lord has blessed me with faith-building experiences and allowed me to wrestle with a difficult question over the course of several years.
Grappling with Uncertainty
From my youth, I have wondered and had questions about the value of women in the gospel. Despite this, I believed that the Church was true. At times, I felt doubt and resentment, but in moments of humility, I could be comforted and even forget my fears for a time.
One day, my brother and his wife grilled me with some troubling questions. This time, I could not be comforted. For days, I could hardly sleep, often waking in the middle of the night with a feeling of despair over what I perceived as radio silence from Heavenly Father. I realized that my question was more than just a question about the truthfulness of the Church—it was a fundamental question about the character of God. I spent hours on my knees, venting my frustrations and pleading for understanding about how Heavenly Father feels about His daughters.
One night, when I had finally exhausted my frustration, I said one of the most earnest prayers of my life. Without realizing it, I began my prayer with the same declaration I’d made years before: “Heavenly Father, I’m not going anywhere. I just want to know what you think. I just want to know if you love your daughters as much as you love your sons.” And then I cried myself to sleep.
The next morning, I went to the temple as I had planned, hoping for answers. While waiting in the chapel, I looked at a painting of Mary Magdalene and the Savior. “Woman, why weepest thou?” (John 20:15.) These were the first recorded words of the glorified, resurrected Savior, who came to comfort this woman, even before ascending to His Father.
With this thought in mind, I sat in the endowment session. Suddenly, an unmistakable voice entered my mind, saying, “If you want to know what I think, look no farther than my Son.” In that moment, I was flooded with the love of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. In my mind’s eye, I could picture the love and tenderness with which the Savior treated all of the women in His earthly life, and I knew that He loved me too. His love was a perfect reflection of His Father’s love. This was the answer I had yearned for, the miracle to my trial of faith.
Taking Another Step in Faith
The Lord did not reveal the secrets of the universe to me that day, and He didn’t need to. The love I felt in that sublime moment was the antidote to my fears. It did not mean that I would never again have questions, but it did mean that I could face them with newfound hope and confidence. Some fears simply vanished. I have never again doubted God’s love for His daughters or our worth in His restored Church.
I sometimes wonder why the Lord allows us to experience trials of faith and why He lets us struggle so long before providing relief or granting desired blessings. Perhaps He is trying to teach us humility and spiritual endurance. Maybe He wants us to recognize His tender mercies along the way. And perhaps, through the depth of our own suffering, we learn just how far the Savior is willing to go to rescue us. As Elder Holland taught, “It is not possible for you to sink lower than the infinite light of Christ’s Atonement shines.”2
Moroni teaches us that “faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith” (Ether 12:6). When our trials of faith seem to drag on too long, the scriptures remind us that we are in good company. Like the woman with an issue of blood, we may spend 12 years or a lifetime clinging to hope that we can be healed (see Luke 8:43–48). And, like Peter, we may feel like we’ve been fishing all night before the Lord asks us to let down our nets just one more time (see Luke 5:1–9).
Our trials of faith sometimes seem to push us toward the edge of a cliff. But no matter how far our faith has been pushed—even if it’s so close to the end that we feel like we are staring into the abyss—the Savior’s invitation is the same: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Our trial of faith is not just that final step but all of the steps and all of the suffering that brought us to that point.
This step into the unknown—trusting the Lord despite our doubts—is where the miracle happens. We find ourselves on solid ground: the firm foundation of Jesus Christ and His unfailing love. He has been there all along, and He isn’t going anywhere.