Thank you Mr. Gardener

Since I didn't have the opportunity to bear my testimony in my YSA ward this Sunday, I wanted to express what I have felt prompted to share and what is in my heart.

"Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for loving me enough to cut me down" 

Quotes from The Current Bush by Elder Hugh B. Brown 

"You sometimes wonder whether the Lord really knows what He ought to do with you. You sometimes wonder if you know better than He does about what you ought to do and ought to become."

It was the end of Fall Semester 2012. I had recently been hired as an RA in Wyview for Winter Semester 2013. I had also been hired as a Peer Mentor for Freshman Mentoring. I wanted to be an RA again. I didn't want to stay in Glenwood. I wasn't happy. Or, better yet, I wasn't letting myself be happy. I felt alone amongst a ward of people, an apartment full of roommates, and classes full of friends. 

I wanted my will, my way. I wanted to go back to a world that was familiar, that once was happy. I had felt like I had been making such wonderful growth over the summer working as an RA. And then I had been "forced" to move off-campus to a ward of people who I didn't think were friendly and who I didn't want to be around. 

I felt like I had been cut down. After all, Winter semester I was really supposed to be in China. Those plans hadn't worked out. Was I really going to be stuck in Glenwood, working where I didn't want to be? 

“How could you do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth. I was almost as big as the shade tree and the fruit tree that are inside the fence, and now you have cut me down. Every plant in the garden will look down on me because I didn’t make what I should have made. How could you do this to me? I thought you were the gardener here.”

So, with no hope in sight of selling my contract, with many tears and fears, I accepted a job at Freshman Mentoring. I turned down a job as an RA. And I resigned myself to live at Glenwood for Winter semester, utterly despondent with my decision that I felt forced to make.

"That’s what I thought I heard the currant bush say, and I thought it so much that I answered. I said, “Look, little currant bush, I am the gardener here, and I know what I want you to be. I didn’t intend you to be a fruit tree or a shade tree. I want you to be a currant bush, and someday, little currant bush, when you are laden with fruit, you are going to say, ‘Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for loving me enough to cut me down. Thank you, Mr. Gardener.’”

I started off the semester trying to make the most of things. I decided that being upset and depressed about being where I was wasn't going to do any good. And, very quickly, I realized just how happy I could be in Glenwood, and as a peer mentor. 

Four months later, I could not be more grateful for the place that I am in. I couldn't imagine a life where I didn't have the wonderful group of friends that I do, a life that didn't involve meeting with students and helping them, a life that didn't have me leaving in just one month to serve a full-time mission in the beautiful state of Washington.

I am overcome with how much the Lord loves me. I am overcome by the wonderful friendships I have had the privilege to make this semester. I cannot imagine my life without the association and friendship of these wonderful people. I have had the opportunity to make so many wonderful memories and learn so many wonderful lessons. 

Tonight, I can truly say, with my whole heart, full of gratitude and love that the Lord's ways are higher than mans', and that He knows what we need far better than we could ever could, "Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for loving me enough to cut me down. Thank you, Mr. Gardener.’”