Getting What You Need, Not What You Want

Today's Relief Society lesson was about prayer. Remembering that it's important to ask, to have purpose, to listen for the answer. I bore my testimony about how God often answers our prayers with what we need, not what we want.

Last year Iz and I discussed and came up with our top 3 choices for vacation times that would coincide with the boys' school breaks. He also chose which electives he wanted for which months. Later we discovered that we didn't get any of our choices. We were upset at first because that meant no going to Hawaii or anywhere else. But in retrospect I'm so grateful that we weren't given what we wanted.

If we had gotten the vacation schedule we'd wanted Iz wouldn't have had a week off in January to be there for Mie's birth. If he'd gotten the elective he'd wanted for January he would have had Dr Nakamura for an attending who allowed him to miss an extra week to be with his family. He was so accommodating after Iz's paternity leave had been denied through official channels.Because of him I got to have Iz with me for two weeks.

Then when Iz's moped broke down again and we learned that his motor was on backorder, Iz's schedule allowed us to survive two months with one car. His Community Medicine rotation in March worked perfectly for mom and Tam to visit us and for Keahi's bday and baptism. And then his Night Float rotation in April let me have the car during the day. And now that his motor finally arrived on Friday afternoon, Iz has his vacation week starting Monday and will be able to fix it so that next week I won't have to figure out how to take him to work and take care of the kids' schedules at the same time.

A friend at church is leaving this week because her husband starts his dental residency in Connecticut and she was worried about how hard it will be to basically be a single mom of two. But I can honestly say that it hasn't been nearly as hard as I'd imagined it'd be. And mostly because I'm not in it alone. I've got Iz as often as possible and Heavenly Father always.