I’ve had a couple of mighty challenges lately and have struggled to find words while waiting on the Lord. My sister, Desirée Johnson, recently shared a powerful witness that quiet and loud waiting on the Lord produces. Her words are compelling, and I’m grateful she let me share them here.
Desirée Johnson’s Waiting on the Lord
When Asher was an energetic toddler, it was very surprising how still and quiet he became when buckled into the car. We could drive all over, and there was only peace and quiet. Sometimes he would fall asleep, and Kurt and I could continue in sweet, uninterrupted conversation.
Ethan joined the Johnson family ranks, and our commutes changed from silence to a montage of questions and “look or der!” to which we’d hastily have to figure out what he was pointing at before we passed it.
When Cliffie climbed into the car, it became a game. She loved figuring out rhymes or math problems and still loves to play “would you rather?”
And then there was Piper.
Sweet, snuggly Piper. All was well in the drive as we rhymed off “see, bee, tree” until the evilest thing I could do as a mother was stop at a red light. “Why aren’t we going? Mom, Go! I don’t want to wait for the light to turn green! I can’t wait!!” It got to the point that I began carefully sliding through stop signs and praying for green lights just to avoid the shrill objection from my youngest child, because I felt like I could handle anything until we had to stop and wait.
Why aren’t we going?
In today’s fast-paced world, have we forgotten how to be patient? We are taught immediate gratification. Delays prove bad service or quality. Internet that reminds us of dial-up will be canceled. A restaurant that takes too long to serve your food will receive an angry customer and a low review. The DMV gets a bad rap for making us wait our turn in line. My kids see a new electric ride only weeks after receiving a new scooter, and they immediately want the upgrade.
What about our personal lives? How long must we wait for relief from hardships that come upon us? We have all had them or have seen family members or neighbors go through them.
“What about enduring personal trials while we wait and wait and help seems so slow in coming? Why the delay when burdens seem more than we can bear?” (Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, “Waiting on the Lord”)
These same questions were asked from the depths of Liberty Jail. “O God, where art thou? And where is the pavilion that covereth thy hiding place? How long shall thy hand be stayed?” (Doctrine and Covenants 121:1)
So why then must we ‘wait upon the Lord?’ Why do I have to wait for the light to turn green?
Mormon warned us, “The Lord seeth fit to chasten his people; yea, he trieth their patience and their faith.” (Mosiah 23:21)
And Peter also said, “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you.” (1 Peter 4:12)
But WHY? We have been warned that the trials and wait will happen, but WHY?
Isaiah, who coined the phrase “Wait upon the Lord,” beautifully prophesied, “they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:31)
Waiting One Day at a Time
Kurt lost his dad when he was only 10 years old, and I asked his mom how she’s managed to move forward for almost 40 years now as a single parent. She said she had to take one day at a time. That’s all she could manage. I imagine her walking step by step until, as is promised, her strength could be renewed.
Wilford Woodruff said, “The chastisements [or struggles] we have had from time to time have been for our good, and are essential to learn wisdom, and carry us through a school of experience we never could have passed through without.” (Wilford Woodruff, Journal of Discourses 2:198)
Real faith is required to endure this necessary but painful developmental process.
“Faith means trusting God in good times and bad, even if that includes some suffering until we see his arm revealed in our behalf. That can be difficult in our modern world when many have come to believe that the highest good in life is to avoid all suffering, that no one should ever anguish over anything. But that belief will never lead us to ‘the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ’” (Holland, “Waiting on the Lord”)
Elder Maxwell taught, “Life cannot be both faith-filled and stress-free. Yet, some of us have trouble when God’s tutoring is applied to us! We plead for exemption more than we do for sanctification.” (Elder Neal A. Maxwell, Lest Ye Be Wearied and Faint in Your Minds)
Pleading for a Good Desire
I am very guilty of this. Pleading on my knees for years for what I knew was a good desire. I mean, multiply and replenish the earth was the first commandment, and coming from a family of 10, I felt happy to comply. Having at least five kids was my plan, but for some unknown reason, it wasn’t happening. I’m sure my shrill cries reached Heavenly Father’s ears, but for some reason, we were stopped at a red light, and I had to wait. Praying with thanksgiving for all the lessons learned during my suffering wasn’t happening. I prayed for my suffering to end.
Four years into our marriage, I was packing up for a trip to visit my parents in Chile, where they were serving as missionaries. My youngest sister was going through the temple before entering the MTC to serve in Argentina, and my parents asked me to accompany her to Chile so they could be with her as she received her endowments. My oldest sister was also going. Everyone was over at my home loading up so we could get to the airport the next morning. I made a comment that I was sorer that day than I remember feeling in the past, and my oldest sister asked if I was pregnant. It dawned on me that I was actually late.
When there was a moment, I slipped away and took a pregnancy test just like I’d done what seemed a thousand other times in false hope, and…
then for the first and only time in my life, I watched as the lines formed the resounding YES!
I had been hoping and praying and waiting for this moment for over four years; it felt surreal. When I could finally move from the shock, I showed Kurt, and he got really excited. We decided to keep it quiet until after I was able to see the doctor.
It was so hard to leave after that because I longed to talk to Kurt about everything, to daydream with him about this next chapter we were reaching. Finally, the Lord had heard our prayers and was giving us the answer we had pleaded for.
After 10 days of adventuring in Chile, the evening we were to leave, I started spotting. I was filling with panic but didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if I should tell anyone.
This was not how my answer to prayer was supposed to go! Why would God do this? What had I done wrong?
Before heading to the airport, I tried calling Kurt one last time, with no answer. My sister wrote him an email trying to be funny, that I was bawling my eyes out and desperately needed him to call. But I wasn’t able to talk to him before boarding the airplane home.
After taking off, the pain became so intense that I got out of my seat and headed to the back of the plane.
As I was just nearing the bathroom line, a male flight attendant asked if I needed to use the bathroom. I nodded, and he said for me to follow him. He guided me around to the other side of the plane, and just as that bathroom freed up, he cut me in line and let me in. I don’t know how bad I must have looked for such kindness, but the pain was becoming unbearable.
I came out of the bathroom and found a flight attendant. She only spoke Spanish, and I didn’t know the word for miscarriage. I told her my tummy hurt very bad. She eyed me for a second and went and grabbed some hidden box out of the wall. She poured something into a cup and handed it to me (I have no idea what I took, but I was desperate). And I drank it and then was handed a glass of water to wash away the aftertaste. After thanking her, I went back to my seat.
I could no longer hold back the emotion. I started weeping. How on earth could I break the news to Kurt?
It felt like all hope was being ripped from me.
My sister, who had been sleeping, woke up, and of all the people to talk to (if I can’t have Kurt), she was perfect. She had already experienced several miscarriages and still had no children herself. She comforted me, and I was able to sleep.
On the next flight, I couldn’t stop running through the reunion with Kurt in my mind. I still didn’t know how to tell him. The thought brought tears to my eyes.
When I made it out to him, Kurt picked me up and squeezed me tight. When we got home, he pulled me close and said, “I already know.”
God Was Waiting with Me
My prayers weren’t answered in the way I had hoped, but as I turned to the Lord, I realized He had been there all along.
“For ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.” (Ether 12:6)
I had received a witness from God that he was waiting with me. As I looked back in my darkness, I found His hands of mercy—the flight attendant who escorted me to the front of the bathroom line, getting unidentified sleeping juice that put me to sleep the entire flight from Chile to Dallas, Texas, the perfect older sister who could empathize with me because she had been through it herself, not having to actually tell Kurt because the email from my sister made him assume I was crying because of a miscarriage.
I realize, like Eve said, were it not for our transgression, we never should have known the JOY of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient. (Moses 5:11) That same sentiment can apply to the trials we go through individually. As we suffer through them, looking to Christ, we can also come to feel Joy at our redemption.
This added appendage to an already difficult trial felt gut-wrenching at first, but actually strengthened my faith that God was aware of me, that He was hearing my shrill screams from the back seat. I realized I needed to give this to Him and trust that He would guide me safely home.
The comfort in knowing He walks with me got me through three more years of waiting until our adoption journey began.
When other struggles arose in my marriage, Kurt and I were already so tightly linked that we could work through them together with Christ. Looking back, I can see God’s hands guiding me to where He needed me to be all along, but it took me that long to finally walk that path.
I LOVE the parable of the Prodigal Son. I can picture his father going on about his work day in and day out. One step at a time. Waiting for the stoplight of his broken heart to turn green. Each day, he looked down the road where he hoped his son would appear. How long did he wait? In time, after recognizing his sin and feeling repentant, the son does return, and the good father runs to him and brings him home.
Sometimes I think “we naively expect Christ to come to us—instead of our going to Him.
Truly He waits “all the daylong” with open arms to receive [us]. (2 Nephi 28:32; Mormon 6:17) There are no restrictive Office Hours, but it is we who must arise and go to Him! (Maxwell, “Lest Ye Be Wearied…”)
I imagine the son’s newfound strength because of his rollercoaster experience, but even more impactful was the love shown to the son in his darkest hour as he humbly walked back into the arms of his loving and waiting father.
“They that wait upon the Lord…”
Doctrine and Covenants 64:32 says, “All things must come to pass in their time.”
As we all take our turn, stopped and waiting at our own red lights, may we turn to our loving Savior also waiting for us with outstretched arms—willing to help us understand the growth and meaning behind the process. For “they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:31)
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