We are always fiercest with others when it is ourselves with whom we are really upset.
This occurred to me just yesterday in one of those moments where the truth of some aspect of human nature just pops up to give you a quick slap in the face, where a pattern is finally evident and you crack just a little bit more of the code. (Is there anything so encrypted as human behaviors and motivations??!?)
Having been converted and baptized just after President Hinckley became the prophet, he is the only head of the church whom I have known. Over the years, his leadership and counsel have built in me a strong testimony of his calling and office. In my mind, Gordon Bitner Hinckley was the prophet, and I feared for the day when he would pass away, for neither my mind nor my heart could imagine another in his stead.
That day came yesterday. Yes, the tears spilled forth from my eyes almost immediately, and I was selfishly sorry never to get to hear him speak again. In the midst of my quiet tears, though, I was reminded that he was an old, old man, who had given so many years of service, many of them after the passing of his beloved wife. It was his time to pass through the veil, and so my sorrow melted into a quiet happiness for him.
I also felt something unexpected, I felt a great level of comfort knowing that the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles was there, was sound, was at the helm and leading the church. I did not feel the uncertainty that I had feared once upon a time. With President Hinckley’s passing, I felt evermore that this is the Lord’s church, and that He can and does bestow its stewardship on all whom He has called and chosen in their time.
In the comments to my last entry, a couple of people mentioned that their various trials and pains did not compare with mine, and I replied that I once learned that you can’t compare suffering. This is how:
About 5 years ago, there I was, three days into an ICU stay at Children’s Hospital for my daughter who had an asthma attack that just wouldn’t break.
Having spent all but a few hours at her bedside, I had finally hit the wall. I just couldn’t look at her with all those tubes and lines anymore.
It’s time.
My experiences in the hospital have at long last stopped stirring and settled into their place in my mind. In the end, like most of life, all the pain and anguish and ludicrosity have become little more to me than a handful of anecdotes ranging from the embarassing-yet-hilarious encounter in which I, being dosed beyond belief on morphine, vehemently argued with someone that the woodgrain on my hospital room doors was actually an intricately crafted painting in which there were pictures inside pictures (such as a tiger curled up in the nose of the dragon which itself was contained within the arm of the princess’s dress, and so forth) to the more sobering, desperately frightening recollection of just what it felt like to fight for breath as my own blood began to flood my lungs while I was lying in a CT scan machine before they knew what was wrong. Yes, it’s quite a range.
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