Have you ever done something well-intentioned and later regretted it? Brooke may have wondered if she was alone in her way of approaching things when she wrote this post in September 2007, but I’m pretty sure we’ve all been there. I’m sure you’ll enjoy and be inspired by her beautiful thoughts.

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Not too long ago I wrote a letter.

It was a long letter, pages (and pages) hand-written in blue ink, all scratched out and messy. And when I folded it up to send, the envelope was at least a half-inch thick. I plopped it into the mailbox with a surge of hope in my heart at the possibility of what the contents and words might produce.

But I should back up.

There is someone I love who struggles spiritually. And because I love them, their trial is my trial too. And if emotions could be called a “tour de force,” this particular trial would be my UlyssesAND my Odyssey, put together. A journey. Anyway, one day I wrote this person a letter because being a writer makes me a very ineffective communicator at spewing words out of my mouth into actual sentences. I do better with my fingertips and a clicking mouse, a simple pen.

So I took my ballpoint fine-tip and a sheath of white paper and started to write. After a while I realized I was just writing down my testimony. There was a fierce urgency about me as I wrote (I believe I had a baby perched on one knee); there was also a sweetness about the moment that I could only attribute to the Holy Ghost. Oh, I felt it. And it was grand. I would reread a paragraph and cry. I would say a prayer and write another sentence. I finally finished and I was spent. It was long (and possibly quite long-winded). If letters could be classics, this would be my Moby Dick.

Because now I think I may have gotten a little “Ahab” in my relentless attempt at getting what I wanted and on my own terms. I wanted to change a heart! I wanted a testimony to be borne! I wanted a soul back on the Lord’s side! I know that I didfeel the Spirit as I wrote it, but I look back now and question a teeny tiny little tinge of Ahab-violence that may have been about it somewhere—between the lines maybe? And I couldn’t help but wonder, later, after the mailman came and my letter was somewhere floating out over the Rocky Mountains, if I wasn’t forcing something that shouldn’t be forced?

Free agency withstanding, I can’t will my testimony onto someone else. And I can’t will my design onto my Heavenly Father’s. I know this in my heart. But do I know this in my head? Because all I keep wondering is this:

What about the person who waits? What about the person who watches another amidst their trial? What about the person who writes a letter in attempts to change a heart, but only finds a heart closed and deaf to the pleas?

Is my only recourse patience?

Neal A. Maxwell said, “Patience is tied very closely to faith in our Heavenly Father. Actually, when we are unduly impatient, we are suggesting that we know what is best—better than does God. Or, at least, we are asserting that our timetable is better than His” (“Patience,” Ensign, Oct. 1980, 28).

I have never been patient. Or let me rephrase that. My head has never been patient, not when it comes to a nagging worry in need of quelling. My heart recognizes my Savior’s sufficient grace—a grace that will someday be in the eternities—even as my head wonders over the seemingly questionable timeline. Because you see, my head can’t fathom an eternity. My head wants things right, right now.

It’s funny, but even as I write this with a small migraine starting to bloom, my brain starts thinking of poetry (or is it my heart?). And it thinks this, by James Stephens: “I have learned that the head does not hear anything until the heart has listened, and what the heart knows today the head will understand tomorrow.”

And so.

I will wait. Because I do trust, and I know.

And see now, that while my letter may not have changed a heart, it certainly changed a mind. Mine.


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