The "What If's" Potholes

OK so I was driving down the highway entertaining random thoughts that filled my head as they often do when I don’t have anything particular to think about, and out of nowhere I started meandering down a mental path pockmarked with all of the potholes of “What If’s!”  What if I had done this, what if I hadn’t done that? What if Dale had gone to another Doctor? What if we had made different choices? What if…What if….what if….would Dale be here with me now?? 

The anger surged and hot tears started to flow.  I stopped at a red light and let the tears fall and pounded my hand on the steering wheel. A quick glance to the left and I caught the eye of a child in the car next to me staring wide eyed with a concerned and puzzled look on his sweet little face.  I quickly got my act together and wiped away my tears and tried to give him an "I’m Okay" kind of a smile and the light turned green.  He was gone and I wondered how many decisions he would be making in his life and hoped they would all be good ones!

So where did it get me…going down that path that still exists even after over 2 ½ years alone? That path strewn with What If’s…What did it get me? As always it got me Nothing! Nothing changed, nothing could, just more tears and sadness which is nonproductive and even harmful!  So I rallied and thought OK what I need to do is to get off this road filled with the potholes of What If’s and get back on the path with the stepping stones of “What Now’s?”

Home now I continue to ponder. What decisions do I want to make now to be certain that 10 years from now I don’t find myself on the “Oh What If?” path looking back at these years or worse hitting  the “Oh if I’d only!” potholes?

I’ve worked so hard trying to accept, understand and survive my circumstances and emotions that have followed with me since Dale died. Is it any easier now? Not really.  It’s different but it’s still not easy.  I used many of those “What Now” stepping stones to get me where I am.  It has been a long journey and I have experienced so much but the pain and the loneliness are still intense.  Pres. Thomas S. Monson described it best as this:

“After the funeral flowers fade, the well wishes of friends become memories, the prayers offered and words spoken dim in the corridors of the mind. Those who grieve frequently join that vast throng I shall entitle “The Long Line of the Lonely.” Missed is the laughter of children, the commotion of teenagers, and the tender, loving concern of a departed companion. The clock ticks more loudly, time passes more slowly, and four walls do indeed a prison make.”

He gets it.  That’s exactly how it is. And once again I ask myself… What now? But no answers come this time.  I feel discouraged and afraid and I start to face the reality of what I am trying to do and begin to make a quick mental list of all the potential failures and disappointments and hard work…. and then….I pray…and then…. I think of Peter.  

Peter walking on the water towards Christ, he is walking on the water!  But then he looks around him, he must be thinking that this cannot be possible, he must be thinking of all of the reasons why he can’t possibly be doing this! And he starts to sink into the water and I too feel myself sink but into despair and I feel broken.

And Jesus said to Peter,  “O ye of little faith. wherefore didst thou doubt?

I pause in my self-pity. After all that has happened these last 2+ years, all of the miracles ~ all of the help, am I suddenly lacking in faith? Am I looking around at all of the potential reasons why this is impossible and doubting that I can succeed…alone?

I remember a talk given by Jeffrey Holland and look it up.  He said:

“If you are lonely, please know you can find comfort. If you are discouraged, please know you can find hope. If you are poor in spirit, please know you can be strengthened. If you feel you are broken, please know you can be mended.”

And then he quoted this poem by George Blair:

The Carpenter of Nazareth

In Nazareth, the narrow road,

That tires the feet and steals the breath,

Passes the place where once abode

The Carpenter of Nazareth.

And up and down the dusty way

The village folk would often wend;

And on the bench, beside Him, lay

Their broken things for Him to mend.

The maiden with the doll she broke,

The woman with the broken chair,

The man with broken plough, or yoke,

Said, “Can you mend it, Carpenter?”

And each received the thing he sought,

In yoke, or plough, or chair, or doll;

The broken thing which each had brought

Returned again a perfect whole.

So, up the hill the long years through,

With heavy step and wistful eye,

The burdened souls their way pursue,

Uttering each the plaintive cry:

“O Carpenter of Nazareth,

This heart, that’s broken past repair,

This life, that’s shattered nigh to death,

Oh, can You mend them, Carpenter?”

And by His kind and ready hand,

His own sweet life is woven through

Our broken lives, until they stand

A New Creation—“all things new.”

“The shattered [substance] of [the] heart,

Desire, ambition, hope, and faith,

Mould Thou into the perfect part,

O, Carpenter of Nazareth!”

So I step back onto the path of What Now’s and suddenly I’m coming up with "What Now?" answers.