In the middle

I spent the morning with Cara, Aly, Ashley, Megan and Lindsay exploring the BYU Museum of Art's Carl Bloch exhibit. Wow, he was a talented man! I feel like I'm glimpsing into the Savior's life from the sidelines, and it's so vibrant and emotion and real. So, so beautiful. I cried a few times. I'm ok admitting that.

This painting of Jairus' daughter is my new favorite Bloch painting. Most artists depict the moment when Jesus raises the girl from the dead - he's taking her hand and lifting her up, her cheeks are rosy and bright, and everyone is smiling. Bloch paints a very different scene. The girl is waxy and pale, possibly already dead. Her mother is crying and her father is falling at the Savior's feet, pleading with him to work a miracle. Jesus is in the background, at the door waiting to be invited in. Jesus knows the end from the beginning; he knows this girl will not be dead for long and in just a few moments her family will rejoice. But right now, they are mourning. They are in the middle of things and can't clearly see the ending. They know what they hope it will be - they must have had faith in Jesus since they invited him in the first place - but they can't say for sure, and it would be so easy to give in to despair, send the Savior away as their neighbors suggested, and bury their daughter.

Instead, seconds after the painting depicts, the Savior enters the room. He takes the girl by the hand and restores her life. The miracle happened, but it did not stop the grief from coming beforehand. I realized that grief, anxiety, sorrow and uncertainty happen both to this family and to me, but those feelings are not the end of the story. Those feelings come in the middle, as long as the family (or I) keep moving past them and allow the Savior to work a miracle. It's their choice - my choice - whether to let him work in my life and replace the grief with rejoicing. Because as the painting shows, Jesus is there, in the background, waiting for me to let him in. He won't barge in uninvited; even though he knows that the pain is temporary and he can take it away, he waits for me to ask him. If I give up when it's hard by not letting him in, the middle becomes the end, because I don't allow the end to happen. What a beautiful lesson...if things are not ok, that means it's not the end, because I can choose the end - I can choose whether to stop or keep going, whether to do it alone or ask the Savior to join me.