Yesterday, I woke up still in a dark place. Temptations and trials of faith are far more pernicious and hard than I ever would have thought. They are often combined it with at times lousy mental health, creating times of turmoil.

I prayed for God. I wanted him to pull me out…I needed Him to do so. But I had no moment of heavenly visitation, and I began to doubt my faith. And at one point, my mind was drawn to a quote that I had heard at church several times: that maybe if I don’t feel the Lord’s help, He trusts me to be able to decide and persevere without strong divine influence. Maybe the Lord trusted me to get through this on my own. Right after I thought this, and decided to have more Faith and go forward without doubting God’s Divineness, I received simple inspiration I needed.

The first part was a simple prompting to solve a very small but frustrating problem: my computer wasn’t working at all, I felt like I should remove the battery and power cord, let it sit, and then restart it. It worked, and I think the whole time my battery pack was just loose.

The second prompting was to call my Mom. I had been resistant to that: I wasn’t sure how she could help, and I didn’t want to bother her. But I did it. We talked. She told me many things I already knew but wasn’t necessarily doing: to embrace my feelings and not fight them, that life is hard and that’s okay: joy comes from suffering. To Trust in God above all else, for without Him life cannot have the highest joy.
In addition, we discussed the personal problems I had that I needed solutions to. Sometimes we do have to fight and change and improve: I was having a hard time identifying what was bugging me, and talking to my Mom helped me identify them.

Just pushing forward was ineffective: I needed to identify and work towards correcting several problems in my life. I prayed for an angel. I didn’t get a heavenly visitation. I got my mother who had time to talk to me, with understanding. Who knew just what to say and the questions to ask. She was my angel.

The gospel does work! It is small and simple sometimes, and it can try every fiber of your being. But it does work!