"Aunt Cora" by Claire C

 

*Name changed for privacy Reasons*

This is my personal story of growing up as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and one of the largest trials I have gone through. Most of my family are members of the church also. One of the main things I have always been taught is to pray. To pray for blessings, forgiveness, and for faith. Every night before bed I’m always encouraged to say a prayer. I would pray to have a good dream that night or to have a good day the next morning, but most importantly I would pray for my Aunt Cora. Every prayer I ever said I made sure to ask God to heal my Aunt, and if I forgot to, I would say another prayer because I knew it was important to me. Cora was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2012 and given a year left to live. At the time I didn’t know how serious cancer was, or what it did to someone. I just knew she was sick and needed to be healed. Everyone in my family always prayed for her, and so would I every night. A year passed and she was still with us. It was a miracle, my prayers had been working, so I kept doing it. Six years later she was still fighting her battle with breast cancer, and I was still praying for her every night. She was the happiest person to be around, she was always so positive and was just happy to be there.  The year was 2019 and I still remember the day I came home from school. My parents sat me and my four siblings down in the living room and told us that Cora had Passed away. We all started crying, I thought to myself “But I prayed, what about my prayers?” We couldn’t believe that she actually passed away. But I mean we knew it was coming, and it still broke my heart. She had been in a coma for a week at that point and peacefully died in her sleep. For a while, I was mad, mad at God for not healing her, but mainly I was mad at myself. Thinking that I could have done more, the doctors could have done more. I was questioning everything, whether or not God was actually listening to my prayers and why she had to leave. Why did she live for six more years if he was just going to take her away? It took some time, but I eventually accepted her death, I accepted that she was gone. After all, she is in a better place in Heaven. She is not in pain anymore. For a while I strayed away from praying, I was sad, and having a hard time believing. It wasn’t for a couple of months after she had passed that I came to the realization that my prayers did work. She physically was not supposed to live for six more years, but she did. The real miracle is that she lived six more years, that was the answer to all of our prayers. Not that she was fully healed, but she was given time. She got to watch her daughter grow up and create memories with her. She got to have time to make memories with all of us. My last memory of Cora is her giving me a tour of their camper Van, I thought it was so cool. It is something that I will always Cherish. From this experience, I learned that God does listen to us. It may not be in ways that you want or plan, but in the end, it's all about Faith. Faith that He is there listening, and watching over you, that he knows you personally and has a plan for you. Dealing with the death of a family member is no easy feat for anyone, it comes with pain and struggles, but with faith, you can overcome anything. To share a great scripture, Matthew 22:21 “And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.” This is my personal testimony of Growing up In The Chruch Of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It is what I love and believe to be true. Thank you for reading.