Let Patience Have Her Perfect Work

           I was in my last year of graduate school when I became pregnant. When we found out we were having twins I couldn’t have been more excited, I even started to cry right there on the table. My husband on the other hand was freaked out and almost punched the ultra sound tech in the face. 

            My last year of grad school consisted of one semester of pure research and then one semester of the theory of sociology and writing my thesis. I would often get so distracted by school, I would forget that I was having twins, until my last semester when it was too obvious to miss. I couldn’t walk up a flight of stairs without feeling like I had just run a marathon, there was a large, round belly that protruded from my front, there were two babies that were living on my bladder and in my ribs, and I couldn’t sit in a school desk anymore because I couldn’t fit…..

            Due to an amazing professor and committee, I was able to defend my thesis a month before my boys arrived, but not so luckily, I still had a final to take two weeks after the boys were born.

            During my pregnancy I did not feel as attached to my babies as I had heard some women were. I was not prepping a baby room or buying lots of stuff. When they were born I did not cry for joy when I saw my little boys, and did not feel an over whelming love for them as I thought I would feel. I did not feel that mantel of motherhood fall upon me like I thought it would.

            Don’t get me wrong, I did cry when I held my boys for the first time, but I didn’t feel like I expected to feel, like I had seen on TV. I felt lacking somehow….

            When we got home I struggled. I knew I loved my babies, but I didn’t feel attached to them. I didn’t feel like a mother, I just felt like the bearer of babies and a dairy cow.  I was so depressed. I knew that some of my depression came from prepping for my final and editing my thesis, but there was something else that wouldn’t allow me to be happy.

            I had post-partum depression bad, and I didn’t know what to do. There were days when I thought I would go crazy. Days when I thought about taking one of my babies and running away so I didn’t have to deal with two.  Days when I just wanted to run away and start a new life without babies.

            It was so hard to enjoy the sweet moments that I had with my boys. I would try to treasure holding them or seeing their sweet smiles, but it was so hard to be happy with my life. I felt so low and miserable and just when I thought I was getting better something would happen to bring me down again.

            One day I called a dear friend of mine that is a trained psychiatrist. We talked for a bit about how I was feeling and then he suggested that I read James 1. James 1:5 is a pretty well known scripture, but the verses he wanted me to read were 2-4. I felt doubt as I opened my scriptures. Doubt that there was anything that could help me, doubt that simple words could cure me of what I was feeling, but I gave it a try.

            After a quick prayer, I opened my scriptures and read.

“2 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;

 3 Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.

 4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and      

    entire, wanting nothing.”

           

             I was facing diverse temptations. I was dealing with things so hard that it seemed they would engulf me, but this scripture was telling me that I should find joy in them. I didn’t know if this time I could find joy in my situation, but I read on hoping find out how I could achieve such an end.

            It was verse 4 where I found the answer. It said,” the trying of my faith works patience and that patience should have its perfect work.” Patients was the key to the joy I was missing. I had been so impatient with myself. The entire time, I had been thinking of what a failure I was as a wife, mother, sister, daughter, student, and human being. I thought I should have been able to do it all, that I needed to do it all, and I couldn’t. I was impatient with my boys for not being better babies or learning what I thought they should be learning. I was impatient with the world and that was causing me to stress and be depressed because I was not meeting my own unrealistic expectations.

            As I pondered on the word patience words like peace, calm, and love sprung to my mind and I realized that those emotions were the exact opposite to what I was feeling. I felt angry, rushed, and anxious. It was then that I realized that if I was going to find joy in my life again I needed to learn patience. I need to learn to be patient with my children, my husband, the world, and myself. I needed to calm my soul and just enjoy each moment as it came. I needed to laugh things off and not let the little things drag me down.

            I realized that I needed to let patience have her perfect work, so that I could be perfect through her.  When I allowed myself to relax and let myself be patient, I felt like I could breath for the first time. I began to laugh at the small little things that went wrong, instead of letting it get me down, and I began to enjoy each moment as it came. My mind slowly cleared over the next few weeks and I began to find joy, true joy, in my life once more.

            I know there are still going to be days when it seems like we are just asked to do more than I have strength, and it is those moments I like to remember what Nephi said when faced with tasks to large. “For the Lord giveth no commandment unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them (1 Nephi 3:7).”  When Heavenly Father gives us a task or twins or any other kind of duty, He will always prepare a way for us to do what we have to, He will strengthen us to complete the task.

            We will never be left without a way to achieve what we need to do. We will never be left without help as long as we seek to do our best, be patient, and allow God to work His perfect work.