Simply Sauer | Chasing Hope

April 10, 2020

H O P E. Probably the most difficult part of our infertility journey for me is hope. Sometimes I think hope is my enemy. If I just didn’t hope then each month it wouldn’t hurt so bad when I am reminded once more that my body won’t conceive. Hope gives me the highest of highs and lowest of lows. It drives to me to give myself painful injections, to spend thousands of dollars on maybe’s, and to dare to dream that we can beat our 10% chances. Each month what hope tried building me up for 20 days comes crashing down.

I am left considering if hope is the enemy. Why are we instructed to hope? In the scriptures we are instructed, “ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope…” (2 Nephi 31) Hope is clearly an essential part of the plan so why has it been a constant struggle for me the past year? I sat in my pj’s pondering this deep in my heart and mind last Sunday when Elder Holland came on our TV to relay a message on Hope that I could have sworn was written for me.

His message started with a question.

“What do we hope God will provide in response to our spiritual longing?”

So friends that is my question to you… what do you hope for from God? For me it has been a child. Not even multiple children, just one would make my spiritual longing subside. But I think if I dig deeper in my heart there is more… I hope for a time of understanding. That one day I might understand my earthly life and trials. I hope to see my husband a father and to give that to him. I hope to understand my role as a childless daughter of God. I hope for peace and a day when then peace in my heart is completed and no longer wounded.

Are my hopes in vain? Am I hoping for too much? Am I hoping for the wrong things? Elder Holland reminded me that there were times of great hope in history that have since come to pass years later. He said that, “such hopes would not have been in vain…What was once only hoped for has now become history.” I remember a time where my greatest hope was to have a husband that loved me more than anything or to finish college when I thought that might never happen. So many things that I have hoped for over the years I am now living. We all have desires within out heart: over coming addiction, to be married, for COVID-19 to be over, for a steady job, for illness to pass, and many other physical, mental or temporal challenges to be overcome.

Having hope is not the problem I think it is my expectations of my hope that needs to be adjusted. I think hope would be easier for me if I didn’t put a timetable on it. If I heeded the warning found in Alma when he cautions, “ye that are bound down under a foolish and vain hope, why do ye yoke yourselves with such foolish things?… For no man can know of anything which is to come.” Imagine the possibilities when we humble ourselves to God’s timing, plan and purposes. Holland explained that, “we can hope, we should hope, even when facing the most insurmountable odds. That is what the scripture meant when Abraham was able to hope against hope12—that is, he was able to believe in spite of every reason not to believe—that he and Sarah could conceive a child when that seemed utterly impossible.”

I think I am finally understanding what H O P E really is and what it gives me. I don’t want to imagine a life without the hope that, “what we desire in righteousness can someday, someway, somehow yet be ours.” I truly believe that my hopes will be answered in this life or the next. Someday my heart will be full, questions answered, and dreams fulfilled. Let’s not rush. Let’s live in joy and marvel as he reveals his plan for our hopes and dreams.

xx

Kylee Olivia

p.s. For Elder Hollands full General Conference talk click HERE

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