Musings and Currant Bushes

Last August, I had begun working at a plant here in town as their nurse. Monday through Friday, 6 am to 2:30 pm--awesome hours--full time though, but the pay was more than I have ever had with the promise of great benefits. It was right here in town; less than 3 miles away and I would no longer have to work nights. With teenage daughters, working nights just was not wise.

Things had been rather tight, and so, with Kathryn needing to have me support her on her mission and gathering all her needed supplies, this job was an answer to prayers! It was, however, very stressful and my supervisor was very unkind and demeaning. Yet, I was happy to endure it because I thought, finally, we can start being financially secure! Right? Wrong! I have had Heavenly Father remind me numerous times that I need to be home taking care of my family, but, the financial demands are so overwhelming at times, I guess I just do not have sufficient faith and so, I go out and get a job, which lasts----not very long----and then I am back where I started!

I am sure none of you are as dense and as slow to figure things out. I keep hitting my head against the wall, only to ask in bewilderment and frustration, "Why does my head hurt so badly!?!" Well, I lost that perfect job early in October of 2007, after a brief two months! I have been able to muddle through, and yet, I have been so depressed and worried. I have not lost faith, because I do know and accept the fact that most of my struggles are self-inflicted or just part of being a single mom with so many depending upon me! But, as I prayed, I was reminded of an article I had read in my (long-ago) youth. I looked it up on the church site and found that it was in the January 1973 New Era! So, immediately, I knew that it had to be the spirit that was bringing it back to my remembrance! It was an article by Elder Hugh B. Brown, called the Currant Bush. It was perfect! It gave me such comfort and peace!

THE CURRANT BUSH---by Elder Hugh B. Brown:

You sometimes wonder whether the Lord really knows what he ought to do with you. You sometimes wonder if you know better than he does about what you ought to do and ought to become. I am wondering if I may tell you a story that I have told quite often in the Church. It is a story that is older than you are. It’s a piece out of my own life, and I’ve told it in many stakes and missions. It has to do with an incident in my life when God showed me that he knew best.
I was living up in Canada. I had purchased a farm. It was run-down. I went out one morning and saw a currant bush. It had grown up over six feet high. It was going all to wood. There were no blossoms and no currants. I was raised on a fruit farm in Salt Lake before we went to Canada, and I knew what ought to happen to that currant bush. So I got some pruning shears and went after it, and I cut it down, and pruned it, and clipped it back until there was nothing left but a little clump of stumps. It was just coming daylight, and I thought I saw on top of each of these little stumps what appeared to be a tear, and I thought the currant bush was crying. I was kind of simpleminded (and I haven’t entirely gotten over it), and I looked at it, and smiled, and said, “What are you crying about?” You know, I thought I heard that currant bush talk. And I thought I heard it say this: “How could you do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth. I was almost as big as the shade tree and the fruit tree that are inside the fence, and now you have cut me down. Every plant in the garden will look down on me, because I didn’t make what I should have made. How could you do this to me? I thought you were the gardener here.” That’s what I thought I heard the currant bush say, and I thought it so much that I answered. I said, “Look, little currant bush, I am the gardener here, and I know what I want you to be. I didn’t intend you to be a fruit tree or a shade tree. I want you to be a currant bush, and some day, little currant bush, when you are laden with fruit, you are going to say, ‘Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for loving me enough to cut me down, for caring enough about me to hurt me. Thank you, Mr. Gardener.’ ”
Time passed. Years passed, and I found myself in England. I was in command of a cavalry unit in the Canadian Army. I had made rather rapid progress as far as promotions are concerned, and I held the rank of field officer in the British Canadian Army. And I was proud of my position. And there was an opportunity for me to become a general. I had taken all the examinations. I had the seniority. There was just one man between me and that which for ten years I had hoped to get, the office of general in the British Army. I swelled up with pride. And this one man became a casualty, and I received a telegram from London. It said: “Be in my office tomorrow morning at 10:00,” signed by General Turner in charge of all Canadian forces. I called in my valet, my personal servant. I told him to polish my buttons, to brush my hat and my boots, and to make me look like a general because that is what I was going to be. He did the best he could with what he had to work on, and I went up to London. I walked smartly into the office of the General, and I saluted him smartly, and he gave me the same kind of a salute a senior officer usually gives—a sort of “Get out of the way, worm!” He said, “Sit down, Brown.” Then he said, “I’m sorry I cannot make the appointment. You are entitled to it. You have passed all the examinations. You have the seniority. You’ve been a good officer, but I can’t make the appointment. You are to return to Canada and become a training officer and a transport officer. Someone else will be made a general.” That for which I had been hoping and praying for ten years suddenly slipped out of my fingers.
Then he went into the other room to answer the telephone, and I took a soldier’s privilege of looking on his desk. I saw my personal history sheet. Right across the bottom of it in bold, block-type letters was written, “THIS MAN IS A MORMON.” We were not very well liked in those days. When I saw that, I knew why I had not been appointed. I already held the highest rank of any Mormon in the British Army. He came back and said, “That’s all, Brown.” I saluted him again, but not quite as smartly. I saluted out of duty and went out. I got on the train and started back to my town, 120 miles away, with a broken heart, with bitterness in my soul. And every click of the wheels on the rails seemed to say, “You are a failure. You will be called a coward when you get home. You raised all those Mormon boys to join the army, then you sneak off home.” I knew what I was going to get, and when I got to my tent, I was so bitter that I threw my cap and my saddle brown belt on the cot. I clinched my fists and I shook them at heaven. I said, “How could you do this to me, God? I have done everything I could do to measure up. There is nothing that I could have done—that I should have done—that I haven’t done. How could you do this to me?” I was as bitter as gall.
And then I heard a voice, and I recognized the tone of this voice. It was my own voice, and the voice said, “I am the gardener here. I know what I want you to do.” The bitterness went out of my soul, and I fell on my knees by the cot to ask forgiveness for my ungratefulness and my bitterness. While kneeling there I heard a song being sung in an adjoining tent. A number of Mormon boys met regularly every Tuesday night. I usually met with them. We would sit on the floor and have a Mutual Improvement Association. As I was kneeling there, praying for forgiveness, I heard their voices singing:
“It may not be on the mountain height Or over the stormy sea;It may not be at the battle’s front My Lord will have need of me;But if, by a still, small voice he calls To paths that I do not know,I’ll answer, dear Lord, with my hand in thine:I’ll go where you want me to go.”(Hymns, no. 75.)
I arose from my knees a humble man. And now, almost fifty years later, I look up to him and say, “Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for cutting me down, for loving me enough to hurt me.” I see now that it was wise that I should not become a general at that time, because if I had I would have been senior officer of all western Canada, with a lifelong, handsome salary, a place to live, and a pension when I’m no good any longer, but I would have raised my six daughters and two sons in army barracks. They would no doubt have married out of the Church, and I think I would not have amounted to anything. I haven’t amounted to very much as it is, but I have done better than I would have done if the Lord had let me go the way I wanted to go.
I wanted to tell you that oft-repeated story because there are many of you who are going to have some very difficult experiences: disappointment, heartbreak, bereavement, defeat. You are going to be tested and tried to prove what you are made of. I just want you to know that if you don’t get what you think you ought to get, remember, “God is the gardener here. He knows what he wants you to be.” Submit yourselves to his will. Be worthy of his blessings, and you will get his blessings. "

I then read all I could about Elder Brown and his life. He was an amazing man and had endured many, many disappointments and had witnessed that it was the hand of the Lord directing his life----not always in the ways he had hoped or wished for! Boy, did that sound familiar. BUT, he handled it with such grace and dignity! So, I decided I should at least TRY to handle my disappointments with some faint hint of that same kind of grace! I wish with all my heart that I was not living the life of a single mother of so many, that I had not lost my marriage that started out with the expectation it would last forever! It has been and still is such a bitter part of my life, but, that does not have to be the only facet of my life that defines who I am---right? I can be grateful I have the blessings I do and stop mourning for the losses I have suffered! It is, after all, a choice, right!?! I just wish I could always remember that~!

Well, in November of 2007, I received a call from a young woman that has had a really tough time lately. In July of 2007, I told her that my kids and I needed the blessings of serving and would be happy to help watch her three children---ages 8 months, 2 and 4 years. We did not always have all three, and initially we had them more than once a week. In September, we were only watching them on Saturdays, for about 12 hours. I wanted my children to have younger ones to care for and to learn the joy of service, so babysitting for them was totally self-centered on my part. Anyway, she called and said that the ones providing her child care during the rest of the week had cancelled. She was getting the child care funds from vocational rehab in order to go to school and she has to be gone 5 days a week for 11-12 hours and asked if she could have me do that and she would have vocational rehab pay me not only for the additional 4 days of care, but for the Saturdays we were already watching the kids. I was overwhelmed! I was in shock. It was quite a bit less than what I was making at the plant as a nurse, obviously, it did not have the promise of benefits and the hours were longer. But, I was able to be HOME! Also, it was more than enough to take care of Kathryn's mission and even have some additional funds for food and clothing! It was a miracle to me! I had decided that I would just sit back and wait for the Lord to reveal what HE wanted. I was sure, if I did what I wanted, which was to rush head long into any type of employment just for the sake of being employed, it would work out as well as ever---which is not at all! (or not for long!) I have finally figured out that HE does not wish me to ever have to deal with the temptation of riches! And, I am at peace with that. But, the night previous to her call, when I did not have but one vehicle that would work, and I thought, this relying on the Lord is rather a wild ride at times, ( Please do not misunderstand, I do know it is the very best way to go, because when I try to rely on myself or the arm of flesh---well, it truly only leads me to greater heartache and pain!) anyway, as I am thinking, OK, I am trying to do whatever I can to obey; then out of the blue comes an opportunity to work at home!

I have been thinking a lot about Elder Eyring's conference address of October 2007 and have realized that I do not take the time to write out all that the Lord does indeed do for me and my family. And, because I do not do that, I am so easily pressed down with the cares of this world and I am so easily discouraged. Well, for today, I am grateful and I just wanted to share my testimony of the Lord's awesome patience and love for us all, even children like me who are constantly walking into walls and wondering why I have a headache! I do finally get a clue, even if it is only for a few short weeks & I am back to my bewilderment stage (far too quickly~!---if my history repeats itself---as it usually does! )

I know Jesus is the Christ, I know we have His prophet upon this earth, and He does direct our paths through him and through personal revelation---if we will just take advantage of it. I also know HIS ways are far above mine and I can not conceive of how HE will make something of me, but, I am trying to be patient as HE does prune my branches, so to speak!

I have been so very blessed and know that whatever we as a family have needed, it has been provided by a loving Heavenly Father and often, by inspired family and friends!

Well, please know that if Heavenly Father is so very good and kind and patient with me, think of all HE will do for YOU!