Running Away From Your Problems Redux

So one time, I was thinking about going on a mission.

I knew a couple of people who were very dear to me but were really struggling. There wasn't much I could do to help, but both Older Sister and Best Friend Boy were on missions, and I could see how through their missions, they were able to help others with similar struggles. I'd never wanted to serve a mission, but I was suddenly overcome with a desire to go so that I could help people.

I wanted to finish school before looking into going on a mission (because I was pretty sure that if I quit school, I would never find it in me to go back). So I had a few years to think about whether to go. I did mention it in passing in a letter to Best Friend Boy, who responded some weeks later by saying that I should pray about it to see if that's what Heavenly Father wanted for me.

I was really annoyed by this. I was planning to pray about it, just not yet. It was a few years away!

However, being so annoyed, I decided I would pray right then and there, just so that I could write back to Best Friend Boy and let him know that I had. I was the only one home, so I knelt right down in the living room, and—

It was one of the most unmistakable prayers I've prayed in my life. I asked if I should go on a mission after graduation. I felt sickish and headache-ish. Well, what about right now? Still sickish and headache-ish.

Lovely. I asked a couple other questions, and I immediately felt pushed in a direction that didn't entirely make sense to me but that felt right. So be it.

A couple of years passed, and I found myself deeply entrenched in the path that had felt right. Only everything was going terribly. I was so frustrated and wondered if I'd interpreted what I'd felt correctly. Maybe I just wanted to walk down this path so badly that I'd manufactured feelings of confirmation. Madam President seemed to think so. Shortly before we were called to the Relief Society presidency, her serious boyfriend broke up with her. She hadn't been able to get over how badly she wanted to get back together with him until getting a blessing from a General Authority that she knew. The blessing laid out a different path for her life than she'd hoped. Then, ta-da, she got a job and got married and everything worked for her, and she was happy! She gave me the General Authority's number and recommended that I get a blessing from him, too. I knew she was hoping that my blessing, too, would tell me that I'd been wrong about the direction that my life was going to go and that I should do something else. I sat on the number for a year and then I decided to find out for myself.

The blessing was lovely, but it was also frustrating. It basically said that I could do what I want. It cast no aspersions on the path I'd been walking, which meant I was free to keep walking it if I so chose. Before the blessing, the General Authority also told me that I wouldn't get an answer before making a decision but that I should choose and then start moving forward with the choice. Then I'd get my answer.

Once again, lovely, but how to choose? I went straight from his home to a semi-solo trip where I pondered my options. I wrote a list of pros and cons and I studied and I thought.

In the end, I decided that whatever had (or hadn't) happened since then, there was a reason why I stayed, and it would be better not to throw that away. Once again, I choose to stay, and I'm glad I did. The following year was incredible. So many of the things that frustrated me righted themselves. Things were really looking up. In fact, the reason I felt I should stay seemed to be finally coming to fruition.

In December of that incredible year, I was stepping into the shower when I suddenly had a thought: "If you wanted to go on a mission, this thing will wait for you."

A third time: lovely. But I was honest: I didn't want to go on a mission now. Things were finally going well for me. Once again, I chose to stay.

I never felt like it was a mistake to stay. The thought was fleeting, anyway—not persistent the way important thoughts tend to be. However, over the next six months, my life got wild. So many things went wrong, and my reason for staying eluded me yet again. My eyes turned toward a mission once more, but it didn't feel right. I told my bishop as much shortly before he extended the calling of Relief Society president to me.

Everything was hunky-dory for a few months. Then came an Interpersonal Crisis that was literally one of my worst nightmares.

The great thing about the Interpersonal Crisis was that it eliminated one of the things I would have felt I was missing out on by going on a mission. Ah-ha! Almost immediately I began to wonder if now, at last, this was the time to go. Almost everything else in my life was going wrong, too, so it seemed like it was all screaming that I had nothing to lose by leaving. I thought about it, then talked to my bishop, then set a date to make a decision.

The date rolled around, and...found me recovering from appendicitis. Whoops. Obviously not a good time to make life-changing decisions, so I forewent it, but even after I recovered, I didn't know what I was feeling. At work, at home, in the temple, in San Diego—no real answer seemed forthcoming.

My stake conference came around, and with it forced interaction with the person with whom I was having an Interpersonal Crisis. Some time had passed, so—well, I don't know what I was thinking except that I knew this person was a good person and didn't believe they would double down on the way they'd treated me. But they did double down on it. I felt like I'd been slapped, and I left the building in a daze. All of a sudden, it became clear that if more of this treatment was in store each time I saw this person, I couldn't stay here. I remembered about what the General Authority said about making a decision and getting confirmation after moving forward. So be it. Every time I'd chosen not to go on a mission, things hadn't really worked out. What is it they say: that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results? Time to do something different. I rushed to speak with my bishop the next day.

My bishop, a wise man whom I very much look up to, thought I would make a great missionary. We agreed to officially start the mission papers. However, he also said: "Don't go on a mission to run away from your problems."

Easier said than done. No matter the other reasons, the sole thing that allowed me to feel free to pursue a mission was how terribly my life was going. Those problems would be a catalyst regardless of anything else. I worked to resolve them as much as I could to make the decision-making process clearer, but they refused to resolve.

Meanwhile, as I filled out my mission papers, I felt terrible. I felt a sick feeling similar to the one I felt the first time I prayed about it. I didn't like talking or thinking about the mission even as I prepared in earnest. I knew in my heart that this wasn't right, but I was so tired of choosing to stay yet being so unsuccessful.

Things came to a head, and blessedly I was able to take a step back and say, "What am I doing? This doesn't make sense." I was just a few steps away from completing my mission papers, but I decided not to do so. The sick feeling went away. I knew I'd made the right decision. I wish I could say that things got better, but they're still pretty up in the air. I'm hoping for a couple of miracles, but in the meantime, I at least feel stronger and more able to deal with some things.

And that's how I almost ran away from all my problems.