Do you ever know? I mean, really know?
I kinda feel like I do. Sometimes, at least. I know what’s coming. I know how things are going to turn out. I (not admitting to seeing into the future here) feel the trajectory of events in my life.
Once I even knew when someone was going to show up at our house. Boy was it weird when they actually did it. We were trying to find renters for our first home so we could move into a bigger place (we thought we’d try being landlords — another story).
We had found the right house — you know — the one where two feet inside the front door you know this is the place you’re supposed to live. Now all we needed were some people to rent our first house so we could actually afford to have two mortgages.
Me, making plans on the phone with my sister about coming to visit me. I got the very distinct feeling that we would have renters by the time she got to my house next Tuesday. From the moment I hung up that phone, stress and anxiety plauged my life. So many problems arose surrounding the sale of our new home, the condition of our existing home, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah — I could go on and on.
I fretted and worried about so many things during that week. It was, frankly, horrid.
Then next Tuesday comes. Someone calls first thing in the morning about the house. They come. They love it. They want it. They sign papers. They give me money. And then, just as they hand me the cash, my sister pulls up in the driveway.
Woah.
It actually happened just like I knew it would. I knew how it was going to play out, but I hadn’t trusted it. I hadn’t trusted that initial feeling. I fretted and worried. I ate a lot of Tums.
Melonie Jex wrote about the Lord showing us. She knew what was coming, but didn’t recognize it until after. I have often wondered how much I really could know if I would just notice more. I’ve started trying it out — trusting the Lord, that is. It works! Silly thing for a middle aged woman to finally be discovering, but then, I’ve always been a bit slow on the uptake.
Have you had experiences where you knew?
How do you hold on to that trust you gain through those experiences?
Have you read Elder Bednar’s talk on Tender Mercies? This feels like that to me. Does it to you?
Yes, I really knew a couple of times. I just asked, and I knew what was going to happen. Both times, I saw it not so much as a tender mercy, but as a “gift of the spirit” which I had sought and been given. Often, I ask and I still dont know. I feel like if I asked more, it would happen more.
When I got married, the reception place we had planned to use was under construction. There were many delays, but they kept on promising that it would be done in time. And I believed them and felt really at peace with it.
I watched them hold other brides’ receptions at different places. I still felt at peace with it. And ours was the first reception they had–everyone else before me had to go someplace else, but mine was held there. I had felt at peace with it the whole time, and it just worked out well.
That’s a small example, but it kind of seems like what you’re talking about.
I also knew that my daughter would be a girl, and that my second son would be a boy.
Yes. Sometimes I know. I have a very good “gut feeling.” I can tell what my struggles will be with an activity from almost the moment I engage in it. I know whom I will not “mesh” with personality-wise and who will be my closer friends from a first meeting. There are times when I have been wrong. There are times when I wonder if I pre-destined myself to struggle with those things or to not get along with a person. But, most of the time, the “reasons” or proof for my gut feeling only present themselves more clearly as I go-along.
This is what always baffles me, what is that? The spirit? Evolutionary responses? my unique (and messed up) hormonal chemistry?
Most of the time, I just chalk it up to the weirdness that is ME. And I guess that’s a good enough reason for now…
Days before I miscarried, I had a dream about it and woke up convinced I had miscarried. I was strangely peaceful about it. I guess I hoped it wasn’t true, but as things developed I came to be grateful for “knowing” before it happened. There were so many tender mercies during that time. I, too, believe that God gave me gifts to cope and grow towards an eternal goal through that trial.
Mara, I really, really believe it to be a gift from the Lord. It has just happened too many times in my life to discount it.
I’ve been wrong, too, and just like Melonie Jex said, she often dismissed it as just being paranoid or silly. Whenever my Don travels, I always conjure up the worst scenarios, all involving him dying in a fiery plane crash or being kidnapped by terrorists. Those don’t feel the same as that peaceful, usually small and quiet “knowing”.
It’s weird.
I have also had really powerful experiences with people. I have had the Spirit “shout” to me to stay away from a person before. It was actually kind of scary. I wonder if those experiences are the Spirit speaking to me, or me picking up on what that person is putting out there. Or maybe it’s the same. Who knows.
Inexperiended mom — did you find yourself better prepared to deal with the experience because of the knowledge you had?
I “knew” I would have a child with Down syndrome. But I didn’t really know that I knew until it happened.
One of the hardest things about Thomas being born with DS is that I knew it was “right” and that it was “okay,” but I still had to go through the whole process of grieving and adjustment, and that surprised me. Having the spiritual knowledge that he was a beautiful gift to our family actually made it harder, in some ways, to deal with the difficult/negative feelings I had. I wouldn’t accept those feelings, I pretended they weren’t there…and you all know what happens when we don’t let ourselves feel what we feel. I was afraid that if they were real, then my spiritual assurance was not real. I didn’t understand how both could be true, valid responses, that don’t cancel each other out–they were both very strong.
I now believe that it’s a myth that spiritual knowledge precludes mortal responses to a situation. I once read a wonderful article on grieving death in ExII in which the author said something like, “there’s a misconception that if you’re a faithful mormon, you can avoid feeling intense grief.” So I guess what I’m trying to say is that the spiritual foreknowledge can be an incredible blessing for me IF I understand how it functions in my life. It doesn’t mean I necessarily get a shortcut through pain. It means I get hopeful glimpses of an alternate reality, and that eventually that alternate reality will be the one I’m most present in.
I do.
I did feel better prepared. I should say that the dream was not the only prompting I experienced that led me to be prepared; there were other things that happened to me at that time–the dream is just the biggest and clearest example.
I’m not sure I can articulate, though, how being prepared in that way made it easier. I agree with Kathryn that it did not preclude the grief. But I questioned less, I could see the hand of God through my grief, and I was able to put my questions away in favor of faith that this was neither unexpected nor even undesirable insofar as the eternities were concerned. And eventually, that lead to a healing that sustained me.
I can’t think of an example like the ones shared here. And most of the time for me, the kinds of feelings you are sharing are connected with decisions I’ve had to make. More of deciding, then knowing and as everything unfolds seeing that it was right or good or part of the Lord’s plan for me. I’m not sure that is the same kind of thing. But a friend of mine was just saying today from an outsider’s perspective some of the decisions she’s made in her life would seem to be made with reckless abandon, but she “felt good”, meaning she had a spiritual confirmation and went ahead doing what seemed to be a bit “crazy” to others and things have always worked out. Not always the way we plan of course, but in a good and peaceful way.
I have the spiritual gift of communicating with animals, I’ve stopped cringing when it comes up and I know I can help another person with a sick or lost animal with my gift. I don’t share it unless I feel prompted to do so and it amazes me each time I get affirmations from physical proof or owner’s sharing their facts against mine–that I’m right on the mark of the spirit of the animal I’m communicating with is always an exhilirating moment.
Yes I have definitely “known” before.
In college I was living in a house for the summer, and I really wanted to stay for the fall and winter but all the contracts were already taken. But somehow I just knew that the girl who was going to take my place would end up not wanting to move in. (I had never met her or anything, but I just felt really strongly that I needed to stay there). I didn’t move my stuff, I didn’t even start to pack up and I certainly didn’t have another place to move to . . . I really didn’t even stress about it–meanwhile my roommates were getting a little nervous for me. About 2 days before the new girl was supposed to come she called the landlady and to see if she could get out of her contract. . . she had found another place to live. I just remember being like “See, I just KNEW I was supposed to stay here.”
Also, about a year before I actually got married I really felt like I KNEW it was going to happen this year. I didn’t know my husband yet and even though I had no reason to believe that year would be different than any other year I can really say I just knew it was going to happen. In fact, one night I drove about an hour to go buy a new journal I had fallen in love with, (but it had seemed a bit pricy at the time) and in the first page of this journal I said that I wanted to buy a special journal because I felt that big things were on the horizon and I wanted a special place to record them.
In both those cases I can say I had a certain optomistic confidence–the kind of confidence that could be dangerous in a different situation.
I have had the experience when house shopping. “This is the place”. Many people I know have had the same thing.
I have also had the privilege of buying a house without that definite guidance, even though I prayed for it. We concluded that Lord wanted us to go forward and make our own decision, which we did, and things have worked out fine so far.
I am also one of those many people who absolutely knew for sure without a doubt whatsoever that they were marrying “the one”. But of course I know lots of great couples who say they were going on faith alone. I guess it happens both ways.
I want to hear more about communicating with animals. Intriguing.
texasgal, what would you like to know? I’m happy to discuss it
Can you tell them do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do? Do you know what they are thinking? Do animals have “feelings”? Any animals or just certain ones? Is it useful? Are there other people that can do this? Is it hard? What exactly do you do? Do you do this often? How do you know if its working? Can you teach other people? These are some of my many questions. I have had all kinds of animals and livestock in my life, so its not as if I know nothing of their ways, but this is something new to me.
I am sorry to stray from Justine’s great discussion topic, please, carry on everyone. Just consider this a little extra embedded within the real discussion, which has been very interesting.
Animals have their agency as you well know and can’t really be told what to do but some listen and owners will usually come to me with a request of behavior change such as not using the house for a litter box, or biting, etc. They have feelings and they really have a sense of their purpose, ie. companionship, comfort, bring joy, etc. I can communicate with all animals and have helped farmers with their livestock and domesticated pets as well. I find it very useful and turned to it when I had a rabbit that was chronically ill and requiring costly surgeries. It helped me to know what to do when I felt helpless. It was also a very spiritual experience for me and I knew I had very intuitive ways about me and so I was taught by a woman who was my animal communicator for my pets. This is a profession and so, yes, there are other people with this gift. I set up an appointment with the owner to get the questions they would like me to ask the animal, then I do the reading with the animal, writing down things that were communicated, last, I call back and discuss what the animal revealed to me with the owner. That is where I get a confirmation of facts and matches to the information I’ve gotten from the animal. The animals communicate in pictures. Ive been doing this voluntarily for about 2 years and it has been a wonderful thing to share. I volunteer at a shelter and can find the sick or ailing animals in a walk through as well as the depressed animals that need a little extra tlc or some activity. I also have charged for personal readings but I mostly volunteer my services, however it could be a full time profession. Thanks for asking. Someone in the bloggernacle was really worried about her new baby bunny cuz he was sick so I did a reading for her and she was amazed at the accuracy and was very comforted. I don’t need to see the animal at all, just a location and a brief description so I can pick up on that animals energy.
I knew I would not miscarry my first born, knew he was a boy, and knew what I would name him the moment I found out I was pregnant. It is a rare feeling to be that certain.
DSR– Wow.
I remembered another time I “knew”. When I was expecting my first they did a lot of tests and sent me to specialists because of a possible abnormality in the baby’s brain. They monitored me for several months. I knew it would turn out to be nothing. I was grateful for this because it allowed me to stay calm. I didn’t even give it a thought.
I also knew it was the last time I’d see my grandmother alive, and it was.
But besides these anecdotal type experiences, I can honestly say the most powerful of these “knowings” I have experienced is just knowing the scriptures are true when I read them, and it happens almost every time I read. I guess that’s the knowledge I need the most.
Enjoyed your post, Justine. It’s interesting that even though I have “known” something I can still struggle and have doubts. I’m not sure that makes sense, but I think I just decided the topic for my next post!
Thanks for your thoughts!