Ladies in Waiting: Adjusting Our Grip
Copyright Jan Shelton Hunsaker
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Part
One - Waiting
Chapter 1 - A Tradition of the
Unexpected
Chapter 2 - God Will Not be Pushed
From Behind
Chapter 3 - Waiting for Happy
Part
2 - Four Tribes of Waiters
Chapter 4 - Tribe 1: Waiting for a
Companion
Chapter 5 - Tribe 2: Waiting for
Children
Chapter 6 - Tribe 3: Waiting for
Further Light and Knowledge
Chapter 7 - Tribe 4: Waiting for
Jesus Christ to Come Again
Part
3 - Satan’s Weapons of Choice
Chapter 8 - Loneliness
Chapter 9 - Bitterness
Chapter 10 - Coveting
Part
4 - Adjusting our Grip on the Iron Rod
Chapter 11 - Loving Yourself First
Chapter 12 - Crying Out - Accessing
the Power of Heaven
Chapter 13 - Living in the Spirit
Chapter 14 - Surviving the Holidays
Part
5 - What We Know For Sure
Chapter 15- The Promises
Chapter 16 - Trusting in the Bigger
Picture
Revelations 21: 4-5
And
God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
Part
One - Waiting
Ladies in Waiting/Patience and Promises
I've promised a very important person to write about what happens
to a Latter-Day Saint girl that waits until she’s over 40 to get married in a
culture that puts marriage on the pedestal just short of "endure to the
end." In a modern gospel, with a membership of women growing faster than men...not all the kernels of corn will fulfill the
measure of their creation, if you know what I'm
saying. (I just can't bring myself to use the cliché "old maids.")
But the stigma is still there. I felt/feel it. I cried, alone in my bed for
years while I watched my siblings and students marry, get pregnant and start their
families right in front of me. I wanted that life so much! Though I appreciated their love, I hated anyone feeling sorry
for me...bless their hearts, I was tired of
their encouragement and attempts to protect my feelings. I wanted to punch the
next person who told the 23, then 27, then 34, then 40 year-old me that if I
stayed righteous, I would be able “to be married in the next life,” and that I
was such an awesome woman that surely “God was saving one of the Stripling Warriors” just
for me.
That may have worked on the faithful mid-century saints.
But I was neither mid-century nor a saint.
I had access to the internet sometime around my 27th
year. I was one of the original six members of LDSSingles.com. Just kidding.
But I was so lonely and considered myself a modern Latter-day pioneer in my own mind.
I was in those chat rooms and dating people that I met “online” when you
said “I met him online” with a sheepish lowering of the head and a dark smile.
That was just not an acceptable way to meet someone at the time. Didn’t the
church provide you with all those singles wards, dances and firesides? I must
not have stayed for the “…Mix and Mingle. You’ll never be married if you don’t
stay for the Mix and Mingle.” I can still hear it in my head.
Those days are gone. Today, we don’t even blink when using the internet to connect us – even continents apart. I
don’t think I’ve ordered something from Amazon.com unless I can get it in two
days or less. Don’t I wish I could check the
“Prime” box when I pray? Wow! That would be great!
Unfortunately, God isn’t on “prime” time. We are a society of N.O.W. and that isn’t bad, but as the modern,
single, LDS population is tested on God’s time, we are seeing more and more of
them give up and succumb to loneliness without
finishing their ordinances. Many of them are walking away from their covenants
altogether - and that’s just in my circle of friends and family.
This world is a tough place to live in. Life is hard. Loneliness
wears you down and down…and down. Having a partner in battle seems wise, after
all my dad always said, “safety in numbers.” It would be so much easier to go
through this life with someone else.
But
that might not be God’s plan for us. He might need our skills somewhere else,
despite the constant promises from the pulpits saying: “...there is nothing
more important in this world than participating so directly in the work and
glory of God, in bringing to pass the mortality and earthly life of His
daughters and sons, so that immortality and eternal life can come in those
celestial realms on high...”[1] With
that said - over and over it seems, there is nothing that makes me feel more
worthless than my empty dining table.
This book is called "Ladies in Waiting" in reference to
my deepest desire –to be a mother – and my background in Shakespearean studies.
It is a book for everyone that has felt at one point or
another, the vast emptiness of the universe that seems to give and give to some
and ignore…you…I know because it happened to me. It still happens to me.
I’m
no expert on mental health. I’m an expert on adjusting my grip on the Iron Rod.
I have a rock solid testimony that no one knows me better than God and I am His
child.[2] How
easily we forget this. How easily we forget that there are three other members
of our team – God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost, and we are their “work and
their glory![3] Our
worth is intrinsically Godlike and they are working as fast as mankind’s free will allows but... that’s not what we
Saturday’s Warriors like to hear. So then there’s the cliché, that old “don’t
give up what you want most for what you want now” that we used to hear in
Sunday school.
Wish
it wasn’t…
…true.
And
yet, God has given all of us the opportunity to veer away from Him. Some of you
will watch others take that opportunity and be smart enough to learn life’s
lessons vicariously through those of us that recklessly, joyously tested our
agency at warp speed. Mercifully, it is through the Atonement of Jesus Christ
that every single one of us will live eternally and we will have a chance to
understand the mysteries of Heaven long after we have passed through this life.[4] And
that, my friends, is a long, long time to live, and yet, for some of us, living
until tomorrow might be a long, long time to live. I had that time too.
Well
- I finally did get married and then after nine failed pregnancies, I had had
enough. It was in 2012 that I had to stop waiting for my joy to arrive and
rescue me. I
took the initiative to start taking all the heavy metaphorical rocks out of my
pockets so that I could rise above my darkness. When that happened, and I will
talk about that extensively in the book, my day became a week, my week a decade
and my decade became a book about the hardest thing of all - waiting.
Let’s
endure another day, together and with a sense of humor. Let’s endure the
singularity, the infertility, the divorce, the trials. For “As man now is, God once was: “As God now is, man may
be.”[5] and He is there… waiting …just like us.
“Because of our traditions, everyone
knows who he is and what God expects him to do.”[6]
Fiddler on the Roof was the first
musical I was ever in. 1978. I played Yente the Matchmaker. Hilarious. Ironic
in so many ways. It was also the first play I ever directed as a young teacher
at Mountain Ridge Junior High School. I had a 14 year-old skinny-as-a-rail,
red-headed Tevye that we padded, bearded, and sprayed. He looked a little like
an orange with toothpicks for hands sticking out. He was fantastic. My heart!
Just thinking about that cast of 100 junior high kids each holding a candle and
singing “Sabbath Prayer” in all those harmonies…
May the Lord protect and defend you.
May He always shield you from shame.
May you come to be
In Israel a shining name.
May you be like Ruth and like Esther. (Tevye has 5 daughters in the musical)
May you be deserving of praise.
Strengthen them, Oh Lord,
And keep them from the strangers' ways.
May God bless you and grant you long lives.
(May the Lord fulfill our Sabbath prayer for
you.)
May God make you good mothers and wives.
(May He send you husbands who will care for
you.)
May the Lord protect and defend you.
May the Lord preserve you from pain.
Favor them, Oh Lord, with happiness and peace.
Oh, hear our Sabbath prayer.
Though it was written by Joseph
Stein and sung in a Broadway musical, I have carried this prayer with me all my
life. You wouldn’t think there was much “protecting and defending” that needed
to be done of a girl that grew up in the shadow of Mount Timpanogos, Utah
County - the very heart of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I
can truly say myself, that “because of our traditions, everyone knows who he is
and what God expects him to do.” Well, I can say that about myself.
My grandmother was a member of the
Daughters of the Utah Pioneers. I was baptized when I was eight and so were all
six of my siblings. Because my dad was a school teacher, we didn’t have much,
but we had him. He had our same vacations and we used them well. My mom stayed
home and raised the brood on a teacher’s salary (and several other jobs). We
were taught that God didn’t want us to smoke or drink alcohol. We didn’t own a
coffee maker. We were admonished to get an education because knowledge is the
only thing we will take with us in the next life.[8] But
perhaps the commission that the Latter-day Saints are known for most of all, is
that we save the God-created act of sex for marriage. It’s only after that big
fat reception in the Cultural Hall, that we create big families because we
believe that we have the proper authority to seal families together for the
eternities - create families of children who will create families who create
families… It was Elder D. Todd Christofferson that truly enlightened me about
families as a “link in the chain of the
generations,” and as a “post of responsibility toward the world and
mankind.”[9]
My LDS family was so LDS-typical it
is our picture on Wikipedia next to the “Classic Latter-day Saint Culture”
entry. I believed every word of it growing up, and I not only looked forward to
the time I would create my own celestial family, I had it all planned out.
After high school I would pursue a
degree in teaching drama while secretly pursuing someone (rich!) that would sit
at the head of my dining table for eternity. Ambitious husbands were found in
college. Because my dad was raised by a single mom, my parents are keenly aware
of the pressures of the modern world, they believed that a college degree would
be a great backup plan for a woman in case her husband died in a terrible crash
on the way to supervising Girl’s Camp, leaving you and your five kids behind.
You would then dust off your degree, get a job teaching school and endure to
the end gracefully… independently.
Thus, “get the sheep skin, just get
that sheep skin,” was the mantra we heard from my dad starting the day we
entered public school. Still not sure what a sheep skin is, but I imagine it’s
what BYU diplomas were engraved on back in the pioneer days. Just kidding dad!
(Yep! Turns out diploma’s used to printed on sheepskin, thanks Google!)
Notice that the degree was the
“backup plan.” The first and most noble calling for my dad’s four daughters was
to find an ambitious, worthy priesthood holder that would take care of us
through the eternities. Those kinds of men were found at the university.
Finishing your degree was the backup plan. It was never intended to be used for
full-time employment. Your FT employment would be your five kids.
It was always the plan that after
you raised those five kids, and they were all in school themselves, you would
go back to college, finally finish your degree,
and then get your career going… right after you keel over dead from the
exhaustion of your life as a wife and mother of five.
(Hopefully, wearing a backpack again
would invigorate you and not cause you to need back surgery at that point in
your life. Even if you did, your husband’s insurance would cover it fully. No
problem.)
I digress.
Although I’m wrong to say all
Latter-day Saint families encourage their daughters to walk the path their
mothers trod. I would be a hypocrite to speak for the Saints in general because
that certainly isn't everyone's truth and that drives me nuts when people group
us together like we're mindless bleating sheep. N.U.T.S I tell you. Even in my
ultra-traditional family, I am that deep auburn sheep that created her own path
by dancing to the beat of a snappy Broadway pit band. So I went to college
saying (out loud) "I'm going to have a career on Broadway!" BUT, my
inner monologue fully expected that I would only be at the university a couple
of semesters before I was picking out wedding colors, I hoped. (Which, by the
way, in 1985, were going to be dark green and maroon at the time FOR
SURE.)
Three years and thousands of dollars
of student loans into the theatre degree, I was sick of school. I was also
confused. I thought I'd be married. I was raised to be married...NOT to be a
college graduate, just a college student. What would I do with an actual
degree?
I had trekked through a rocky bunch
of choices in my late teens and early 20’s while I was away from home. I also
studied some anti-religion material that was vehemently opposed to the
existence of a God for a while, but it lacked an emotional verification system.
I couldn’t ask anyone of any authority if it was true and anytime I asked God
if He was there, He sure was.
Naturally, when you come into the
mists of darkness, you search for light eventually. I had seen missionaries
come back with their feet firmly planted in gospel sod and covered in spiritual
armor. They seemed so happy - happiness seemed to ooze from their pores. I
wanted what they had. I felt, for questioning His existence and doing a few
things that were outside the realm of true discipleship, that I should serve an
LDS mission. I also wanted an experience that would turn me inside out every
day! And Heavenly Father, did not disappoint. He sent me to the Buddhists; it
was a hard sell. Jesus Christ is like an ancient, crazy fable there. I learned
a language that sounds like popcorn popping, we rode bikes in skirts. We
endured hundreds of mosquito bites, chicken foot soup and 100% humidity. Did I
say humidity? I meant H.U.M.I.L.I.T.Y. It was exactly what I needed.
Sister missionaries had terrible
reputations in the 80's. You were, er... you felt like...the leftovers. The
girls that failed at their first mission: find a husband in college. You were
what we termed "a special spirit." You wore sensible shoes, prayed
entirely too much, cried WAY too much, always got put in charge of the food at
Zone Conference. I however, had a "National Geographic" kind of
mission. The Lord protected me and taught me things that I could never learn
sitting in a college classroom. I had set out to pay a debt to my Heavenly
Father.
I only ended up in more debt.
Secretly, I also looked at a mission
as an opportunity to find my future mate in one of the Elders that I served
with. They were super smart (they had to be) and had great survival skills
including a powerful sense of humor (it was required in Hell.) I thought it
would be fun to be married to someone that spoke my language so that we could
talk about our children in front of them in Thai. How romantic. ?!?! I was so
young then. The important thing was, by the end of my mission my wedding colors
had changed to hot pink and dark green. FOR SURE.
I got back. I came away from the
experience ready for whatever the Lord would throw at me next. Truthfully, I
expected that the Lord would honor my service with some big blessings. I wanted
to find my eternal companion right away. It was my deepest desire. I was 23
years-old when I stepped off the plane from Thailand and I probably scanned the
crowd for an eligible man on the tarmac. The
short-term common denominators I had with the young men in my mission did not
last at home. So I went back to school even more confused than when I left. I
finished the degree, got the obligatory teaching certificate for my dad but I
was terrified inside that I might actually need it sooner than I thought. I
taught in Japan for a year, because I could. I started earning a living because
I had to, etc... I was (embarrassingly) O.N. M.Y. O.W.N.
I decided to see what the Japanese
education system had that we didn’t, so after graduation I took a job teaching
in a regular high school in Mori, Japan. I was able to go to church each week,
though it was 2 trains and a mile walk each way to get there. I didn’t
understand much of what was being said but the Spirit was ever present and I
knew it. I made great friends with the young American elders and a group of
single Saints that were doing the same thing I was doing. But the week between
seeing them was long. I was making great money and I was watching sumo
wrestling on TV just to fill my tiny Japanese apartment with noise.
I thought I would lose my mind.
So I started writing about the
experience and it wasn’t long before I started realizing that even though I
felt like the modern LDS woman, all career-minded and independent, I was a
miserable modern LDS woman. I was excruciatingly lonely and I feared I was in a
deep depression that despite my own modern sensibility, I had failed my first
and real mission: I had not fulfilled the grand ordinance that seals (marries)
you to a companion … forever. And that little task eluded me for another
t.w.e.n.t.y. years.
In retrospect what I didn’t realize
at the time was that God was handing me an astonishing and complete education,
a mind-blowing mission experience, true love for mankind, leadership
opportunities, world travel, confidence in independence, and total TRUST in
Him, imagine that! Because down the path....W.A.Y. down the path....he knew
what was being prepared and that I would need ultimate trust in Him when bigger
trials were to be put in front of me. In addition to blessings I cannot fully
comprehend, He gave me someone that was also sugar-popping to a Broadway pit
band and the rest is…well, I’ll tell you the rest as we go along. Turns out God
was just buying me some time!
So, whenever people (that loved and
respected me) would say, “you are an incredible example of the modern LDS woman!
You are so independent! You go girl!” I would cringe inside because the real me
just wanted to be raising babies.
The truth is I get depressed that I
didn’t get the traditional life I wanted and I work it out with baking,
gardening and creating stories on stage or paper. I’ve been a high school
drama, debate and English teacher since 1990. I’ve had to figure out that it
lifts me to make things grow - other people’s kids, bread, tomatoes, flower
seeds…I get a huge kick out of seeing that little seed germinate and poke it’s
head up out of the dirt. I see it every day in my classroom too and that’s what
keeps me going back.
I have identified that waiting for
things that are out of my control is the actual cause of my depression at its
worst. Waiting is so hard for me. Waiting is painful. Waiting can be
detrimental to my mental and spiritual health if I let it. It has made me do
dumb things at times. It has worn me down to bitterness and anger. They say
patience is a virtue and we are blessed “after the trial of our faith?”[10]
But...what does ‘after” mean? How long is that wait?
Anyway - after decades of desperately crying to my
Heavenly Father to resolve my physical loneliness, in 2006 I was blessed to be
sealed to an incredible partner in the Timpanogos LDS Temple. My heart’s
desire! Problem solved. Right?! So close. That was just step two in the
tradition of the unexpected.
****************************
Two things here: because I was the
first child born of eight, I learned to cook at a very early age. I am obsessed
with cooking/baking and, professionally, I am a teacher. So I’m going to do two
non-traditional things here. I’m going to give you a recipe at the end of each
chapter and a homework assignment. I make up homework assignments (and recipes)
for myself all the time– you can do them with me.
Recipe
for Chapter 1 -
Chocolate
Chip Cookie Dough for One
I always advocate self-care while
waiting for anything. It helps me stay calm and focused. But self-care doesn’t
mean indulgence. Indulgence often leads to guilt and shame and we don’t need to
be adding that to our list of things we hate about ourselves today. So I’m
giving you my favorite recipe:
Cookie
Dough for ONE
2 T flour
1 T sugar
1 T brown sugar
A pinch of salt
2 T butter
Mix together with chocolate chips or
raisins, butterscotch chips, nuts, coconut, just a litlttle of whatever else you
want to add to taste. Do not share. Not for sharing.
Homework
for Chapter 1 -
In this column make a list of the
traditional blessings that exist in your life. For example...I grew up with strong parental leadership,
I have siblings, I have a dog, etc...
|
In this column make a list of the
non- traditional blessings that exist in your life. For example...I am still living with my parents, I have
more money than I know what to do with, I have 7 toes on my left foot, etc...
|
[1] “Because She is
a Mother,” Jeffery R. Holland, 1997
[2] Romans 8:16-17
[3] Moses 1:39
[7] Ibid.
[8] Doctrine and Covenants Section 130:18-19
[9] “Why Marriage,
Why Family,” Ensign, April 2015
[10] Book of Mormon, Ether 12:6
