Okay,
So
I have had a few friends recently ask me about Jake and I’s experience with receiving
revelation for to have Stella. I preface this with stating this was OUR
personal revelation through Heavenly Father. I am not trying to tell you all to
have kids by any means. God revealed to us when the right time was to have
Stella through the spirit, and that is what you should seek after. He will let
YOU know when it is time for you to start a family. I thought by maybe sharing
these quotes though it may guide you in your study to seek after your own personal
revelation!
Our
revelation came while we were preparing a Sunday School lesson about Eternal Families.
I cannot remember the exact lesson. But I have kept the quotes that I shared in
that lesson. It wasn’t until after the lesson, while we were testifying about
the truths of these words, that the sprit testified to us in that moment that
these sacred words from the prophet DID apply to us at that time. Some of these
words cut like a knife, burned into my very soul, and testified to me that the
spirit was telling me—THIS IS YOU RIGHT NOW. I had heard/read some of these
quotes before, but they finally actually applied, thus “the guilty took the
truth to be hard”. I was guilty of these things and the spirit sure let me and
Jake know that. I was going to bring it
up in the car ride home from church, and I was surprised when Jake said “I
think we need to start having kids.” That was the same revelation I had received,
and I laughed telling Jake, “I was about to say the same thing!”
A
little background. Before this, (around October of 2013) we were applying to
Medical Schools. I asked Jake when he thought would be a good time to start to
have kids. He said that we should wait until we get accepted and our life looks
more stable. Also, if we waited to have kids until we got into a medical
school, then I could have finished my bachelor’s degree before having our first
child. It made sense. We would know where we were living, our financial
situation, my educational situation, and we would have a means to provide our
future children medical care through the medical school we would be attending.
So that is what we decided. Logically, that was our best decision. So we didn’t
even really think to mention it again until we got accepted somewhere.
Then
we had that lesson (January 2014). Jake had applied to 10 medical schools, and
had only interviewed at one (The U of U). Most of his friends were getting
their ACCEPTANCE letters to medical schools at this point, and we had only been
offered one interview. We thought we had no chance of getting into the U, so we
were thinking we would have to wait another year to reapply for all the medical
schools, making starting a family even more illogical at that point in time seemingly
how unpredictable and unstable our life was at that point.
But,
we both felt the spirit tell us we needed to try having children. So we did.
On
March 3 of 2014, I took a pregnancy test that came out positive.
We
discussed what we were going to do that night. We still have not received one
more interview for any of the other 9 medical schools, and people had been
receiving acceptance calls from the U for a few weeks at that point. It was
looking pretty grim. We had NO idea what we were going to do or how we would
take care of this child. So we just said,” God told us to do this, so he will
take care of us.” And we left it at that. So happy to have been blessed with a
little daughter, but so helpless to know what to do!
On March 6, Thursday morning. Jake went up to campus to work out. He came back and said that he had received a voicemail from the U of U School of Medicine. He asked me “do you want to listen to it with me?” So I did, my heart was racing. The voicemail was from the dean, and simply said to call the dean’s office back at the earliest convenience.” I started jumping up and down and screaming. Only acceptances got calls, people who got rejected got letters. I had to go to work before Jake was able to get ahold of the dean’s office again. But it was good news. He had been accepted.
The
first thing Jake and I said after he got accepted was, “This was a DIRECT
blessing from Heavenly Father for having the faith to have Stella, not knowing
the outcome, even when the future looked grim.” We both agreed on that, and
thanked Heavenly Father for blessing us so abundantly, not just with a precious
daughter, but with our temporal needs too! We learned that if you have faith in
Christ, YOU CAN HAVE IT ALL. God knows all, sometimes we can’t see how things
will work, but he knows oh so much more than we do. He wants to bless us for
having faith, and for Jake and I, that was a huge leap of faith we had to take.
We receive the greatest blessing in life when we take the LARGEST and seemingly
HARDEST and most DIFFICULT leaps of faith. The more weight that you allow
Heavenly father to place on you, when it comes time to lift, he helps you to
lift it, and you gain SO much more spiritual muscle by letting him help you,
because without his help, we can barely lift anything. 
I
make the mistake too of getting more “spiritual muscle” and then feeling like I
can lift the weight myself. I don’t want to bother Heavenly Father with my
problems. He has already helped me to lift it once, I shouldn’t have to ask him
again and again to lift the same weight! But the truth is, everything is too
heavy to lift without his help, EVERY time. Then when that full weight come
crashing down on me I realize that again. When that weight I tried to lift
alone is suffocating me as I lay on the ground beneath it all, he lifts it ALL
for me at that point. He will lift 100% when he needs to in order to save me.
He did it in Gethsemane, and he does it over and over again when I ask him,
because he knows I am imperfect, and he loves me. That is why the sacrament prayers
starts with us promising to keep all the commandments by taking the bread, and
then mercifully, with the water, Christ says, “I know you won’t be able to do
what you just promised, and as you take the water, remember the blood I shed out of love for you that makes it okay that you
will fall short sometimes, and just please try your best to remember my sacrifice
for you.” I would much rather not
have to make my Savior lift it all alone because I was too prideful to ask for
his help in the first place, so I try to put in my meager percent, and by doing
that, he increases my strength through his grace and the blood of his
atonement!
So
to get back on track, our blessings haven’t ended with getting into medical
school. It would have been prudent of me to stay at my full time job throughout
medical school to help offset some of the debt, but because of Stella I haven’t
been able to do that. On the contrary. Jake and I FULLY accepted the fact we
would be going into more debt by having kids. We were okay with that, and knew
that in time, we would pay off that debt, and Heavenly Father would bless us
for keeping the commandments. I just didn’t think it would happen so soon! I
was able to find a stay- at – home mom job that not only allows me free reign
to spend time with Stella as she needs, I am making MORE than what I would have
if I would have stayed on as a full-time worker. I was OK with waiting, but
Heavenly Father wanted to show us how much our sacrifice meant to him, and we
are continuing to see the blessings because of it.
I still have
not been able to receive my Bachelor’s degree, but I have NO doubt that Heavenly
Father will make it seamless when my time comes, because in all the other ways
we have been blessed. I write this for my posterity, just as in the book of Mormon
“to show unto the remnant of the house of Israel what great things the Lord
hath done for their fathers.” The lord has indeed done great things for Jake
and I, and I want our posterity to know that. When you have faith, you will be
blessed. Period. The end.
Now here
are some excerpts of some of the talks/ quotes that we prepared in that lesson!
“Motherhood
is not a hobby, it is a calling. You do not collect children because you find
them cuter than stamps. It is not something to do if you can squeeze the time
in. It is what God gave you time for.”
Would
the Lord want you to break one of his important commandments in order for you
to become a doctor? With the help of the Lord, you can have your family and
still become a doctor. Where is your faith?’”
These are all from Spencer
W. Kimball:
There will be many excuses, of course: "I could not
support a wife and go to college." "I could not have children and
maintain myself in school." "I thought it would be proper to wait a
few years for my marriage and my children." What the Lord will say to
these excuses we can only imagine. We are sure he will at least say, "You
have not placed first things first."
- After
marriage young wives should be occupied in bearing and rearing children. I
know of no scriptures or authorities which authorize young wives to delay
their families or to go to work to put their husbands through college.
Young married couples can make their way and reach their educational
heights, if they are determined.
- Supreme
happiness in marriage is governed considerably by a primary factor -- that
of the bearing and rearing of children. Too many young people set their
minds, determining they will not marry or have children until they are
more secure, until the military service period is over; until the college
degree is secured; until the occupation is more well-defined; until the
debts are paid; or until it is more convenient. They have forgotten that
the first commandment is to "be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish
the earth, and subdue it." (Genesis 1:28.) And so brides continue
their employment and husbands encourage it, and contraceptives are used to
prevent conception. Relatives and friends and even mothers sometimes
encourage birth control for their young newlyweds. But the excuses are
many, mostly weak. The wife is not robust; the family budget will not feed
extra mouths; or the expense of the doctor, hospital, and other
incidentals is too great; it will disturb social life; it would prevent
two salaries; and so abnormal living prevents the birth of children. The
Church cannot approve nor condone the measures which so greatly limit the
family.
How do you feel the Lord looks upon those who would trade
flesh-and-blood children for pianos or television or furniture or an
automobile, and is this not actually the case when people will buy these
luxuries and yet cannot afford to have their children? Are there not numerous
people who first buy the luxury article and then find they cannot pay the
doctor or a hospital bill incident to childbirth? How do you think the Lord
feels about women who forego the pleasures and glories of motherhood that they
might retain their figures, that their social life might not be affected, that
they might avoid the deprivations, pains, and agonies of childbearing and
birthing? How do you think the Lord feels as he views healthy parents who could
have children but who deliberately close the doors, close the doors upon
spirits eager to enter into mortal bodies?
Once again, I want to end this with saying I AM NOT TELLING YOU TO
HAVE KIDS RIGHT NOW. This is the counsel I found in researching this matter. I
think the most important quote out of these was this one by Neil L Anderson
“When to have a child and how many children to have are private
decisions to be made between a husband and wife and the Lord. These are sacred
decisions—decisions that should be made with sincere prayer and acted on with
great faith.”
Jake and I acted with
faith, and received our answer. Yours may be completely different, as Heavenly
Father has separate paths for each of us to become more like him. Jake and I
needed a child at that point in life, but you may not. All I know is that when
we act on promptings with faith, the “windows of heaven” are open, and we have
been overflown with blessings.
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