A decade ago, we were living in Layton and had three small children. Marsh had just gotten his first "real job" and we bought a house and thought we were settling down for the rest of our lives. It was then that I decided we probably needed to start getting serious about food storage.
However, our income was low enough that there wasn't a penny to set aside for any food other than that which we would eat on a weekly basis. I spent three months complaining about how impossible it all seemed...I was supposed to stay home and raise the children instead of working, we were to pay tithing and fast offerings and he was working in the job we knew the Lord had blessed us with but not making enough money to spend on food storage. How in the world were we supposed to do this??
Then, after my months of a bad attitude, 1 Nephi 3:7 suddenly popped into my head. (Perhaps I was soft-hearted enough in that moment for the Spirit to finally get through to me!) The message was clear...the Lord had commanded our family to build a food storage and He had promised that He would prepare the way for us to keep ALL of His commandments.
In my lack of experience with miracles, I didn't know that what things look like "on paper" means absolutely nothing to the omniscient Lord of Hosts. In my inexperience with His ways, I hadn't yet learned that He is not bound by anything except His own word...no lack of funds, no lack of resources, no lack of ability. And that word, by which He is bound when we do what He says (D&C 82:10), was promising me that He would make my impossible food storage...possible.
So, I faithlessly challenged Him to do this impossible thing. I sat back in my chair, folded my arms and puffed out a "well, we'll see what He can do about THIS!"...and waited.
However, knowing that faith without works is dead (James 2:14) I got up from that chair and prepared a room in the basement for the food storage to come flooding in...then I sat back down in my chair...and waited.
Little did I know, I had just opened the door to a journey of miracles and learning and an intimacy with God that can only be experienced when we put our lives in His hands and let Him guide our way. If I had been able to see where those experiences would take me and what they would teach me and who I would be ten years later, I wouldn't have believed it. In retrospect, I am in awe of what the Lord can do with such an unbelieving, prideful person who has just a glimmer of hope...enough hope to challenge the Lord in a prayer and wait for the results.
I won't bother you with all the personal details (miracles will happen for you differently, anyway), but I can tell you that within a few days of my "prayer", things started to happen. Within two weeks, there was food on the bare shelves in my "food storage room". Two weeks. And we hadn't paid for that food.
Also during that time, my parents called me to tell me that an apple orchard owner in Payson (1 1/2 hours away) had a whole crop of apples he wasn't going to pick. He was offering them for free to anyone who wanted to come take them and felt moved to call my parents and let them know.
I attached our trailer to our mini-van, packed up the three little kids and off we went. We came home with buckets and buckets full of apples. It was during my second week of processing all these apples, in jars that had been given to us, that I was suddenly surprised by my situation. I had been thinking about how long it was taking me to get through all these apples and how much work all that was when I could suddenly see things as they really were. The Lord had provided. He had required my work, my sacrifice, my effort, my time...but He hadn't required the money we didn't have. He had provided everything we couldn't temporally provide, but He had required what I did have to give. He had prepared the way.
I was humbled by the reality of the situation, stunned to realize that just a month earlier I had challenged my loving Savior to do something I didn't think He could do and He did it anyway. At that point, my food storage room was half full.
Over the last decade, though our income has never exceeded our need, our food storage has expanded into storage of all other necessities and knowledge in other areas of preparedness as well. When we had to build a second food storage area and started having it all spill out into other areas of our living space because there wasn't room, I stood all amazed again. The promise that "there shall not be room enough to receive it" (Malachi 3:10) had been realized.
As I write all of this out, Matthew 17:20 is running through my mind. In this chapter, the disciples had wondered aloud to the Lord why they couldn't cast out evil spirits like He could. His response was, "Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you."
Maybe my "glimmer of hope" in the midst of my pride and unbelief was actually faith...faith as tiny and incomprehensible as a mustard seed. And yet, over time, that tiny bit of faith was enough to move mountains. Something that was, in the world's view and "on paper", impossible...was possible. I just had to open the door to allow the Lord the opportunity to work the miracles I was hoping for. It taught me that I am in control of the blessings. My lack of obedience, my lack of faith, holds the windows of Heaven closed. It is taking the first step in the direction of keeping His commandments that opens them. For, I have seen with my own eyes, that He is anxiously waiting for us to make the choices that will unleash the power and blessings of Heaven into our lives.
The keeping of this commandment to obtain food storage is no different than any other. It's up to us.
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