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Claire called me this morning on her way home from her
12-hour, three-day, night shift in the burn center.
Sometimes those night shifts are brutal, and she's exhausted
and talking keeps her alert as she drives home to her apartment.
Today she told me about a little infant who was burned
when his crib caught fire.
She could barely talk; she was overcome with emotion.
He was brought to the hospital with severe burns covering his tiny body.
She told me that she'll never forget the sounds of his cries.
I know that sound- but I was the one making them.
Claire spent time in the hospital family room coloring
with the baby's 8-year-old sister, who asked Claire questions
about what was happening to her little brother,
and why it was happening, and if he'd be OK.
Claire knows those feelings; she, too, once was that little
girl coloring at a table with her three smaller siblings
listening to a nurse try to comfort them and answer unanswerable questions.
This is what makes Claire so good at this job.
She knows.
God knows that feeling when He sent His Son, Jesus Christ,
to the earth to endure pain, suffering, and, ultimately, death.
But God also knows what is best.
He knows the plan; he IS the plan
for me, you, and that family in the burn center.
I've been thinking a lot about faith and its meaning.
Sometimes I've felt that faith means if we hope hard enough,
it will come true, and if it doesn't come true, then we didn't pray or
hope hard enough for the answer we wanted.
But that's not how it works.
Faith is hoping and praying that we'll be able to trust in God's plan,
whatever that plan may be.
Sometimes we have faith, but what we want isn't the outcome
and sometimes it is.
Faith is trusting that God has everything in control.
And He does.
"...because of the Atonement and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
For all who have laid a child in a grave or wept over
the casket of a spouse or grieved over
the death of a parent or someone they loved,
the Resurrection is a source of great hope.
What a powerful experience it will be to see them
again—not just as spirits but with resurrected bodies."
