Doing My Time in the Belly of a Whale

You all know the story of Jonah.  He was a prophet.  The head honcho.  You know.  And the Lord called him to go do a really hard thing.  Go call the people of Ninevah to repentance.  Jonah thought to himself, "But Lord, this is HARD! I can't do this! Why do I have to do this?" And then Jonah did a very un-prophet-like thing.

He ran away.

That's right.  The prophet of the Lord ran away from a hard trial.

Doesn't it make you feel a little better knowing that even prophets feel that way sometimes? When times get really hard, when they are asked to do something that seems just too hard to do, even they want to run away sometimes.

But back to the story.  Jonah ran away, and he boarded a ship.  Remember this? All these horrible things started happening, and the shipmates started asking, "Who is the idiot that brought all this crap with them? Seriously, who's making all this stuff happen?" OK, so maybe they sounded much more biblical than that, but for the sake of applying things to your own life, let's just pretend.  Jonah knew it was his actions that had brought the trials to the innocent people on the boat.  This is when Jonah had a change of heart.  He knew what he had to do.  He asked his shipmates to throw him overboard.  So they did.

But the Lord had a plan.  You see, the Lord knows everything.  Isn't that great? What a comforting thought.  He knows everything! He knew Jonah would make these decisions, but because he loved Jonah so much, and wanted him to grow and learn and yet still accomplish what the Lord had intended for him, he prepared a way for both of those things to happen.

After Jonah was pitched into the sea, the scriptures say that "the Lord prepared a big fish" to swallow Jonah up. Jonah did his time in the belly of the whale, and I'm sure while he was there he did a whole lot of thinking, praying, repenting, just generally evaluating his life.

Well, dear readers, I believe I'm doing my time in the belly of a whale right now.  I know I have been through a lot of life for my young age.  I know I have learned a lot of things.  But I also know that the Lord has a big plan for me that I have yet to understand or even comprehend.  Now, I do know some parts of this plan for me, but I read a talk the other day that said the way that the Lord won't give you the whole picture.  Instead he gives you each little puzzle piece a time, and once you figure that one out, he will give you the next one, until the beautiful picture forms.  Very rarely does that change.  Sometimes we get glimpses of the next puzzle piece, but we fail to see enough to make sense of where it fits in.

I can attest to this fact of life: Trials don't stop coming.  I don't believe they ever will.  However, we need to trust in the Lord enough to know that HE knows what He's doing, and we do not.  Back to the comforting fact that He knows everything.

Another thing I know? I needed a little kick in the tooshie from Heavenly Father to get me to do certain things and fix certain things in my life that weren't right.  And for that I'm thankful.  But, now I have to do my time in the belly of a whale, and I'm not sure how long that is going to be.  I'm in the process of fixing them, but there are so many things to that need attention in my life, and it's going to take time.  I'm willing to take that time though, but I will need so much help.  I'm so grateful for the Atonement for that reason.

And just like the Lord prepared a way for Jonah to still reach his destination and still accomplish the plan that the Lord has set forth, I know the Lord works the same way for me.  I know that He still has the same plan for me, but He knew what would happen, and He prepared a way for me to get there, and I get the wonderful opportunities to grow and become the person He wants me to be and learn and fix all the things I need to, to get to know my very best friend even better, and to build and even better and stronger relationship with my family.