Turning to God in the Mess of Our Lives

By Michelle Cox

"Mortality will always include difficulty. We cannot simply avoid the pain, but we get credit for trying."

Do you ever wonder if your life is a mess because you don't have enough faith or you haven't completely mastered the law of obedience? It's time to consider other possibilities. What if negative moments are a normal part of life? What if God doesn't demand perfection during our mortal journey? What if all He asks of us is that we show up, turn to Him, and keep trying? Life can be difficult, especially for the driven perfectionist who follows his or her own perception of glory rather than the path God intended.

In this outstanding book, author Michelle Cox challenges our old belief systems and shows us how to rebuild principles to calm our minds, offer hope, and restore our connection with our Heavenly Parents. Walk with Michelle and discover how to
embrace the mess of your life and see God's presence in every chaotic moment.
battle unhealthy messages and negative thoughts with truthful statements.
accept that it's okay to not be okay 100 percent of the time.
As you commit to trying-not perfecting-these principles, you will learn to trust in God and yourself. Stop just surviving and instead empower yourself to find the freedom, peace, and joy in the messy pieces of you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cedar Fort Publishing & Media
• Release date: Apr 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9781462145003

Michelle Cox

Michelle Cox is the author of the Henrietta and Inspector Howard series, a mystery/romance saga set in 1930s Chicago often described as “Downton Abbey meets Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries.” To date, the series has won over sixty international awards and has received positive reviews from Library Journal (starred), Booklist (starred), Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, and various media outlets, such as Popsugar, Buzzfeed, Redbook, Elle, Brit&Co., Bustle, Culturalist, Working Mother, and many others. Cox also pens the wildly popular Novel Notes of Local Lore, a weekly blog that chronicles the lives of Chicago’s forgotten residents. She lives in the northern suburbs of Chicago with her husband and three children and is hard at work on her next novel.

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© 2023 Michelle Cox

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form whatsoever, whether by graphic, visual, electronic, film, microfilm, tape recording, or any other means, without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief passages embodied in critical reviews and articles.

This is not an official publication of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The opinions and views expressed herein belong solely to the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions or views of Cedar Fort, Inc. Permission for the use of sources, graphics, and photos is also solely the responsibility of the author.

ISBN 13: 978-1-4621-4499-0

Published by CFI, an imprint of Cedar Fort, Inc.

2373 W. 700 S., Suite 100, Springville, UT 84663

Distributed by Cedar Fort, Inc., www.cedarfort.com

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022950485

Cover design by Courtney Proby

Cover design © 2023 Cedar Fort, Inc.

Edited and typeset by Liz Kazandzhy

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed on acid-free paper

To my people. You cheer me on, push me forward,

and keep me humble all in one breath.

We’ve been on this journey together.

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: Vision

Chapter 2: Embracing the Mess

Chapter 3: Battling Negative Thoughts

Chapter 4: Feelings

Chapter 5: Choosing to Be

Chapter 6: Choosing to Act

One Moment at a Time

Chapter 7: Lift Your Head to the Light

Chapter 8: It’s Okay to Not Be Okay

Chapter 9: Thank You for Being You

Final Thoughts

About the Author

Introduction

Can you relate to the feeling of needing to do things right? Like me, maybe you’ve heard messages your entire life about being better, doing better, and working harder to fix all of your flaws. Get it right and you’ll feel better. Somewhere in the mix, you may have picked up the idea that if you just had more faith and tried harder, the pieces of your life would fall into place. You feel an ache deep inside as you continue to push forward, but you wonder, Why does this seem to be so hard for me? Will I ever stop hurting? You keep trying to become better, but every failed attempt adds to the growing fear that maybe there’s something wrong—not just with the formula for life, but with you. You are not alone in these feelings, and you don’t have to hide.

When I began to write about finding God’s love in the mistakes and limitations of our humanity, I sat paralyzed, staring at the screen. Imperfections flooded my mind and I wondered, Who am I to write this book? The truth is, I’m really not much different than you, and we probably have a lot in common. It’s likely both you and I have a desire to feel closer to Heavenly Father and soak in His love and approval. We have people we care about deeply. We want to feel peace, but at times our minds swirl and our souls feel weighed down with sorrow. We battle against overwhelming thoughts that fill our minds but rarely enter our conversations. We fear that if we reveal our struggles, we will be judged or misunderstood. We choose to put on a smile, get to work, and unintentionally compensate in a million different ways as we try to keep ourselves and our families pulled together. We strive every day to trust God’s plan more fully, but we want the struggle to stop. We want the pain to go away, and we long to sit in the ease of our own storybook endings. We are deeply flawed beings who mess things up all the time, despite our exhausting efforts not to.

Take a breath with me and let me offer some reassurance. Nothing is wrong with you. You are not broken or beyond repair. You are an incredible human who is worth loving, even with every flaw.

My heart hurts when I think of our rigorous efforts to get it right in contrast to where we frequently end up—feeling further away from the very things we desire: close family relationships, personal trust in ourselves, and a more meaningful relationship with our Father in Heaven.

So what are we left with? Ours is the work of sifting through personal thoughts and patterns to find truth. The truth I have found is that Heavenly Father already knows our struggle. We do not have to hide from Him or prove to Him that we are worthy. We are His children. Jesus Christ came to this earth because our imperfect nature was part of Heavenly Father’s original plan. God’s plan wasn’t created because Adam and Eve messed things up in the Garden of Eden—it was created because He already knew that would happen.

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland affirmed this principle when he taught, With the gift of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the strength of heaven to help us, we can improve, and the great thing about the gospel is we get credit for trying, even if we don’t always succeed.¹

The fact that we won’t always succeed is okay! Mortality will always include difficulty. We cannot simply avoid the pain, but we get credit for trying. We may know this on an intellectual level, but we often forget. We end up feeling frustrated and discombobulated when life gets messy. We wonder what we’re doing wrong. We spin our wheels trying to fix and restore what was broken, forgetting that we were never meant to travel these experiences alone.

Elder Holland continued to remind us of heaven’s watchful care when he quoted George Q. Cannon:

No matter how serious the trial, how deep the distress, how great the affliction, [God] will never desert us. He never has, and He never will. He cannot do it. It is not His character [to do so]. . . . He will [always] stand by us. We may pass through the fiery furnace; we may pass through deep waters; but we shall not be consumed nor overwhelmed. We shall emerge from all these trials and difficulties the better and purer for them.²

While this is and always will be true, the love of God will never be forced upon us. We have to turn to Him and ask for help, then listen for the guidance that comes. We get to choose. Every day. We get to choose whether or not we will listen and act. Turning our hearts, minds, and will to our Father in Heaven is the great work of our mortal existence.

I wish I could look into your eyes right now and tell you exactly how things are going to work out for you. I wish that for myself too sometimes, but none of us has those answers. I am learning to trust that even though I want to know exactly how this life will go, those aren’t the answers I actually need in order to make it through.

If we were sitting together, I would tell you that you have nothing to prove. I see you and promise to treat your heart with care. If you will, place your hand on your heart, take a few deep breaths, and for one small moment, let in the possibility that maybe you are right where you are meant to be. There is room for the messy version of you and me in this world. Better yet, consider that God loves you and would welcome you into His arms as you are today. No matter how scarred, wounded, or broken you feel, I believe He would embrace you.

I also believe He doesn’t want us to stay where we are, and He will ask us to take some courageous steps along the way. As we go through this book together, I promise to show up imperfectly so that we can grow together. I’m out here taking chances and challenging old belief systems right alongside you. We all struggle. You’re not alone on this journey. Our experiences are unique to us, but doubt and difficulty are common threads in life. They are the only way to deepen our relationship with Christ. My personal belief is that Heavenly Father doesn’t need for us to get it right. Most scripture stories illustrate the opposite as we see men and women forsake the path they once walked and turn their hearts to God. Turning to God is different than getting it right. Turning is the path to peace found only through our Savior Jesus Christ.

I am not going to give you three easy steps to happiness because we all know that doesn’t work long term. The principles I share are not about control and rigidity. We have an entire industry built on quick fixes and guaranteed steps for a better life. Let me tell you—there are no quick fixes. I will push against these messages that we’ve absorbed over time that keep us from turning to heaven.

So walk with me, a recovering hustler and perfectionist, as I share principles that have calmed my mind, offered my heart hope, and allowed me to feel my heavenly parents’ love in a more complete way. As you commit to trying (not perfecting) the principles I share, expect to experience greater peace and acceptance of the messy pieces of you. Your mind will become calmer, you will make decisions with greater clarity, and your soul will feel greater freedom. Join me and feel Christ’s healing touch as you turn to God and take one step at a time.

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1.Jeffrey R. Holland, Tomorrow the Lord Will Do Wonders among You, Ensign or Liahona, May 2016, 125–26.

2.Freedom of the Saints, in Brian H. Stuy, comp., Collected Discourses, 5 vols. (1987–92), 2:185.

1

Vision

Without warning, I found myself kneeling in the courtyard outside our friend’s hotel room in Mexico holding my little girl as she lay in a gathering pool of her own blood. A moment before, I had let my guard down to relax. Everyone wanted to head out and explore the tide pools, so the kids ran to see who would claim the one set of snorkeling gear we brought.

I was soaking in the warm rays of the sun by the pool while reading a book when I heard a loud pop and a crashing sound. My first instinct was, What did my kids break? I whipped around to see what had happened and saw my son Dallin’s shocked face. Ruthie’s scream was just barely reaching my ears.

In a single moment, our world turned upside down. When I look back on this day—and many others throughout my life—I am always humbled and left in awe as I recognize evidences of Heavenly Father’s love. He has both prepared me for what would come and supported me when I have stumbled to find my way. These experiences have taught me the importance of having clear vision—a heavenly perspective that encourages us to remember we are children of loving heavenly parents, and it is to them we must turn as our source of strength and direction.

On this particular day with Ruthie, the power of having clear vision came to life and acted as a brilliant light on an otherwise dark path.

In her race to grab the snorkeling gear, ten-year-old Ruthie did not register her surroundings and ran straight through the clear glass wall of the condo. I scooped her out of the glass and saw her arm. It was gashed . . . deep. I turned and saw more gashes. Each time I shifted my gaze, there was a new wound to try to comprehend. Austin and Dallin, her brothers, grabbed towels, and we began to apply pressure to her extremities. I can’t call 911, I kept thinking. Certainty was gone, and life as we knew it became unclear.

People were yelling and running to help. My friend is a firefighter. I’m a nurse. We have a doctor in our group. Do you need him? One by one, trained medical professionals came on the scene to comfort my boys and begin saving my daughter.

As I turned to look at her face, I was struck by her beauty. Her face was untouched by the falling glass.

Fear was coursing through every part of me, and all I could think was, I am sitting on a patio in Mexico. My little girl is bleeding out. She might not come home with us. How are we going to make it out of this?

Instantly, the weight of this reality settled on my heart. The world around me became a blur, but a feeling of clarity came over me. I had a choice to make. If this was my last chance to express my love to Ru in this earthly life, what did I want her to know? I placed my face close to hers and poured every bit of love into her that I could. We sang together a song from her toddler years. Over and over again, we sang those words until she began to fade a little. She was close to losing consciousness. I clung to my faith and vision that if Heavenly Father was aware of us, we would find our way through this experience regardless of the outcome.

It was then that I saw my husband Jared for the first time. When we saw each other, we knew we needed a miracle. He came over to us and placed his hands on Ruthie’s head to give her a priesthood blessing. He blessed Ru that her blood would clot. That’s the only thing I remember him saying.

Ruthie and I focused in on one another again. We sang I Am a Child of God.³ She was afraid and kept lifting her head to see what had happened to her body. I tried to calm her heart and fill it with strength by repeating affirmations familiar to her: I am strong. My body is strong. It’s doing exactly what it needs to do. I am beautiful. I am loved. She began to stabilize, and we continued repeating these words and singing together, our eyes fixed on one another. Holding on to the hopeful vision created by these affirmations gave us comfort and strength in these scary and uncertain moments.

Two doctors were on the scene caring for her. A nurse brought bandages. Another nurse and firefighter were also helping. Ruthie’s brothers and a friend gathered off to the side of the crowd to pray. The Red Cross arrived with more supplies, and with the collective vision and efforts of everyone involved, we had a miracle in the works. Ruthie was bandaged for transport, and we followed our police escort out of town.

Our drive to the border was quiet. We felt a calming spirit, and I watched Ru grow up before my eyes as she processed what was happening. Her faith was simple. She knew she needed the prayers of those who loved her. Mom, Michael doesn’t know. He’s at Lake Powell. He loves me. He needs to know because I need him to pray for me. We called her oldest brother, Michael, and a few other family members who began to spread the word. Ruthie was asking for their prayers. An awareness and unseen but tangible strength had settled into her. Her vision was clear, and she knew she wasn’t alone. We did our best to help create a blanket of comfort and assurance for our darling little girl.

After meeting an ambulance at the border, we arrived safely at the hospital where Ruthie endured six and a half hours of reparative surgery. Her body and soul were on the path to recovery. The following moments, days, and months were full of heartache and triumph. She endured excruciating pain as she learned to walk and use her left hand again. We were never alone, but we hurt, and each of us needed to heal in our own way.

We are given a promise in 2 Nephi 28:30: I will give unto the children of men line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little; and blessed are those who hearken unto my precepts, and lend an ear unto my counsel, for they shall learn wisdom; for unto him that receiveth I will give more. We have been promised that answers will come, but they come slower than we’d like and many times not in the way we expect. All of us will experience moments when life feels unclear and it’s hard to remember to trust God’s plan. We might know the answers in our head, but getting our hearts