I Know You
I had been disappointed by answers from the Lord before but this felt the most confusing.
In 2013, I’m at BYU. This was my first senior year. So I turned 21 the year before. And I’d always intended on serving a mission if I was still single, and I was, and that had been a big deal for me. I had taken mission prep. I had always been preparing for this thing.
And then when it finally came time for me to start actually working on my papers, I finally realized you’re supposed to pray about this decision. So I did, and received a very clear impression that the answer was no, you are not to serve a mission, which was surprising and disappointing and frustrating by then because I had to go to the rest of the semester of mission prep, knowing that I wasn’t going to be doing this and it was really hard.
I didn’t know why the answer was no. There’s no obvious reason here. And a lot of people now asking me even more often will you be serving a mission? And why not? And that was the thing that I was now having to talk about with a lot of people often.
When you tell people you prayed about and the answer is no, they go, “Oh, well, you know what that means.” With the hints of well you’re getting married in the next 18 months.
Six years later, still unmarried.
It made it really hard for me to want to come to God with questions or desires. And it was just it was really hard to, to look at that and see a purpose in what was going on.
And I was feeling distant from the Lord and really alone.
Most of my friends were currently serving missions.
At that point, I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing. I didn’t know really what I wanted to be doing. Because I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to be on a mission.
And I had just bought this necklace that I liked. And within a few weeks of me getting it, it had broken and it kept breaking. I kept losing it. And finally, one day, it was just it was gone. And I was annoyed and upset because I really liked it. And I’d only had it for a few weeks.
And you always hear the stories of children, they lose things and they pray about it, and then they find it. And I again was kind of mad at God for not letting me serve a mission. So I said, “Please, help me find my necklace. And I’m gonna I’m putting this on you, Lord, please. I want this. This is the thing that I want. I want that necklace. It’s not a big deal, but I want it.”
It felt so dumb. And like a week and a half went by, and one day, I got out of my car and I looked down and the necklace was on the ground. I think it had fallen out of my backpack. But I don’t know how or when or where. But there it was and it was the strangest little miracle. And it was so dumb, but it just felt like God saying, “Alexandra, I know you. And sure, if this is the thing that really really matters to you, here you go. Thank you for trusting me.” Like, you know, “I’ve got you.” Like, “Don’t give up on me. I’m here. I do care even for your dumb necklace.”
I had felt like maybe my desires were not important to the Lord, that He really just needed me to do what He needed me to do. And it didn’t matter how I felt or what I needed and what I wanted in my life.
And this little experience kind of showed to me that no, He does. He really does care about the desires of our hearts, big or small. And He can work these miracles in our lives. And I, I’m grateful that I’ve gotten to witness a few tiny ones in my own, even when it’s been hard to see past bigger disappointments. Maybe He can see deeper desires than I can, and He can fulfill those away that I don’t even understand yet.
