That's a saying I write in a lot of my notebooks and it's definitely something I've needed this past week, but didn't remember until the devotional last night.
Hermana Lund's heart problems have been getting worse. We went to the cardiologist last week and they gave her another heart monitor to wear for a week and she's getting an ultrasound on her heart tomorrow to see if there's something structurally wrong. On Monday she was having heart palpitations during our in-field orientation class which left her feeling exhausted and kind of out of it. I decided we should go back to the room and let her lay down for a bit, but I had to get my stuff from the classroom first, so we walked all the way to the classroom and then back to our room. By the time we got back, I was feeling kind of irritated with her because she wouldn't tell me what she needed and she would shoot down my ideas when all I wanted to do was help her. I flopped on my bed when we got back, ready to pull out my scriptures and ignore her for a bit until she was feeling better, when all of a sudden I heard a thud! I looked down and she was laying on the ground. I called her name once, thinking she was just messing around, but when she didn't respond I jumped down and called her name again. She didn't respond again. Thankfully all of our other hermanas were in the room with us, and thankfully I remembered Hermana Lund had the STL phone in her pocket, so while one of us held her as she came to and started crying, I grabbed the phone from her pocket and called for help.
Only two of us were allowed to go with her as security wheeled her across campus to the clinic and I was shaking as we waited while they took her back to check up on her. I didn't start crying though until about 20 minutes later when the door to the clinic flew open and our elders rushed in, out of breath from sprinting from the complete opposite side of the campus as soon as they heard what had happened. We all gathered together and knelt in the corner of the clinic to say a prayer for Hermana Lund.
We still don't know what's wrong, but she was fine and hasn't had any bad episodes since then. The MTC doctors are sure it's anxiety and are sending her home this weekend after her doctor's appointment for her heart. We've both been sad and frustrated about it, and of course we don't understand why this is happening, but that's where my little saying comes in:
"Sometimes God has to burn your house down to bring you back to Him."
We watched a video in our devotional last night about the Provo Tabernacle burning down, and then being rebuilt as the Provo City Center Temple. It made me remember this saying that I adopted in Alabama after seeing some of the crazy ways God encourages us to reevaluate our lives and come back to Him. I've been thinking about that in relation to Hermana Lund's situation since then. Maybe what we see as God burning her down while she's at her finest is actually His way of realigning her plan to match His, preparing her to be rebuilt as something better than she was before. It makes me feel better to think about it that way.
I've been praying this week, not to understand what's going on with her heart, but to have a change of my own heart and perspective, to be able to come a little closer to God's point of view of the situation. Whatever is going on, whatever the reason, I know that God has a plan for all of His children. I know He has my needs in mind and my companion's needs in mind and that He knows what He's doing. I just have to keep holding onto that as we go through this.
This probably seems like a depressing email, but it's not. It is sad that my companion has to go home, but we're both hopeful and trusting in God.
Just for a happy/interesting thought to end with:
As of this week we had about 800-900 missionaries in the MTC, one of the lowest numbers of the year for obvious reasons. The week that I came in I was in a group of over 400 incoming missionaries which was one of their biggest incoming groups of the year, making the total number of missionaries in the MTC about 1700. It's cool to be part of one of the biggest groups and one of the smallest groups in my six weeks at the MTC. Today we're getting 530 new missionaries so our numbers are about to be up again 📣 It's definitely been one of the most interesting times to be at the MTC.
-Hermana Thunell
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