STINGS

Recently I read a memoir about a woman who wrote that she had been bitten by a Stingray while she was wading in the ocean in Southern California. On advice from the lifeguard, she was able to treat the sting and neutralize the venom. A poisonous result was averted. 

She said that not long after that encounter, however, she started to notice strange symptoms in her body. Pounding heart. Shortness of breath. Rapid weight loss. And loss of hair. The author was afraid it was an infection from the sting and went to the doctor who did a battery of tests—all of which came back negative. She went to another doctor, and another. Finally, she was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism which wasn’t related to the sting at all! 

After beginning treatment, her thyroid’s function returned to normal. The doctors had caught it early, treated it well, and the condition has rarely bothered her since. But she was clear to point out that if it hadn’t been for the stingray’s sting, which she had attributed for her strange symptoms, she probably wouldn’t have gone to the doctor, and the hyperthyroidism could have had serious consequences. 

She also went on to recount a couple of other experiences that would have turned out differently if her life had gone the way she had planned. So, the author concluded that she was grateful for those experiences because the Lord has a way of blessing us even with the “stings” of life. 

Over the years, I thought a lot about how sometimes the things I wanted and didn’t get were just paving the way to something better, just as this woman’s memoir recorded.

Probably the most dramatic example of that in my life happened over 40 years ago. My first husband Ross had finally finished his engineering degree after attending the University of Colorado for five and a half years while working full-time and traveling outside the country with his job. It had been a long haul for him and for the family. (We went from two kids when he began to four kids by the time he graduated!)

The next question was “what was he going to do now that he had completed his goal?” 

He applied for a job with FMC Corporation and accepted a position with them in southern Wyoming. But I wasn’t sure I wanted him to do that. I had grown up in Wyoming and didn’t necessarily want to move back. It had been ten years since I had graduated from college and gone to Denver to work. It was there I had met him and got married and where our kids were born. It was home. I loved everything about Denver and my life there. I was reluctant to give it up. 

Some weeks later after Ross met with the company officials in Wyoming who introduced him to their operations, and after I had explored to find a new home, good schools, and thought about being only two hours away from my parents, I saw the opportunity as a positive one. Then I was really excited to anticipate this change in our life. Just as we were getting ready to make that move, however, Ross decided that it wasn’t the right thing to do. Even though he had already given notice at his former employer (Ball Corporation), they readily took him back. He was relieved. 

Me? I was sorely disappointed and felt like an opportunity to move forward in a different direction had been cast aside. In addition, I was sad that I wouldn’t be living near enough to my parents for a day trip now and then to visit them. I was unhappy for a long time. Several months later, Ball Corporation tagged Ross to be part of the taskforce in Williamsburg, Virginia, where they were constructing a can manufacturing facility for Anheuser-Busch. That Virginia experience was the beginning of four wonderful temporary duty assignments Ross had in which the whole family participated…Virginia, Sweden, Upstate New York, and Berlin, West Germany. 

Now, I think what a blessing that “sting” of not moving to Wyoming was. We would never have had had the opportunities to experience the things we did during the next few years if Ross had taken that job with FMC in Wyoming. Not every “sting” can be put into the blessing slot, but I know most people can also identify times in their life when the expected didn’t happen, and the resultant outcome was far better than the original plan. 

“Stings” don’t have to keep stinging. Remember the Lord didn’t send those specific disappointments to you, but He will use them for your greater happiness and growth. The Presiding Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints, Gerald Causse, said recently, “When we keep our covenants, the Lord will bring to pass His plan for us—not necessarily our plan, but His plan.” 

“After much tribulation come the blessings….” Doctrine and Covenants 58:4