Figs, Meaninglessness, etc.

I had a brush with meaninglessness this weekend… like “If I couldn’t save Hyrum, can I do anything worthwhile?” And “If things of such value (like a child’s life) are subject to the whims of mortality, is agency and human effort even a real force at all?” I cried at night. I sat outside at sunrise, praying and hurting and more. I asked Michael for a blessing, and I went to the temple. I baked cookies and followed through with my plans with friends. Eventually, the cloud of meaninglessness subsided. 

In the temple, that blessedly solid, granite building that felt eternal enough to quell existential doubts, I had the same prompting that I felt there right after Hyrum’s death. “Just keep going. You have more to do and more to be. You are not done yet.” It’s encouraging, but also… I’m tired? Lol And often unsure how to use my broken pieces to do good. I think the message from God is half “Your brokenness is needed. Please go share.” and partly “It doesn’t matter what you achieve- just don’t hold still too long and get stuck in the sink hole of new grief.” 

It's a decent plan: just keep baking and cleaning and hosting and trying and crying and asking help from God. On a related note, Jesus’s curse of the fig tree really struck me this week, especially since Mark points out that it wasn’t even fig season yet. That didn’t seem very fair! I needed to know more. The event probably happened in March (based on Passover timing.) Fig trees usually fruit in May. Some even bear fruit before they grow leaves, though most species are not that way. Based on Israel’s mild winters, however, there is a chance the fig tree could have produced fruit in March, but it would have been unusual timing. 

As I studied, the spirit impressed me that God knows when to expect early fruit- from me and from fig trees. I am in a season of life where all that’s really expected of me is grief (which I don’t mind! I’d rather exceed gentle expectations than labor under unrealistic demands.) God still expects me to produce, however, in and through my grief. I go to Him frequently for direction on who and how and when to serve, because He knows me and the people I love, and He knows how to balance it all. 

Sometimes, He tells me to go visit those young friends on my most busy, big-feeling day, and serving them lifts me beyond my familiar grief. Sometimes, He tells me that He still cries too, and that it is okay if I do, and that I always will. Often, He sends a tiny, glowing “Yes”, that tells me I am making progress, that He sees me flex and grow. I'm not the person that I planned... and as per metaphor, it's March- too soon, too wet, too cold. 

But I am making pie crusts. I am laughing. Singing songs. I cry and then host dinner. I take walks when trauma calls. I ask God, once again, "How can I do this while in pain?" And cosmic currents carry me around the river's bend. 

I think we’re growing figs.