Stand in the Creek and Let the Water Fill Your Boots

I looked back at the creek behind me. The last thing I wanted to do was go stand in it. But the thickets and thorns before me were impossible to pass through. The scratches on my arms and face bore proof. So, I gathered my backpack, my cell phone, my ukulele, and I gingerly stepped off the bank, into the water.

This is a photograph of me from last May, standing in a creek. The water is just high enough to seep in over the top of my rubber boots. I knew God was trying to teach me something -- something I didn't want to understand.

A few weeks before, I'd had a strong feeling to go visit my friend, Shayla, in Washington, and look for a house. Tim agreed. He felt it too. I booked a flight that night and was on a plane the next day.

I thought I would go see a specific house. I had a listing. I'd even called a perplexed realtor, who said I really should be pre-approved before touring a house. My dear Shayla drove me around the eastern Washington countryside, toward this house. Then, we saw a sign. It read: "Gingerbread Realty".

Years before, Shayla and I were college students ready to move out of our apartment complex and into a house together. We went house shopping together. I thought I knew just how the house should look. Shayla taught me a lesson about personal revelation I'll never forget: "Pay attention to how you feel, not what you think."

We did find a house -- an unassuming little gray box. It looked nothing like what I imagined. But it felt right. Shayla's parents purchased it and lovingly nicknamed it the gingerbread house. Before I could move in with Shayla, I got engaged to Tim. But, a year or two later, Tim and I actually rented that little gingerbread house from Shayla's parents. It was Graham's first home.

And now it's years later, and here I am again with Shayla, and there is a random sign in the Washington countryside that says "Gingerbread Realty". It's not the way to the house in the listing, but you better believe I listened to Shayla when she suggested we turn around.

It was a winding country road, trees on the left, fields on the right. I stared down each sporadically appearing house, sizing it up, just like my younger college self. Not it. Not it. No ... That one's close. Then I turn my attention to the left side of the road. There's a realty sign in front of some trees. I ask Shayla to stop.

I get out of the car. It's raining.

The forest on the side of the road.

Trees. A forest stretches before me. I smell the earth, the plants. I'm filled with a rush of joy. I knew, with a certainty I dare not deny, this was home. God wanted me here.

I went home, expecting that the search was over. I'd found the place where my house should be.

Oh sweet Crystal. How little you knew.

I went home and taught a youth Sunday School about Moses leading the Israelites through the wilderness. I taught them about the brass serpent. How if they would only look to Christ, as the Israelites looked up at the brass serpent, they would be healed. I testified of my experience with God in Washington. I was certain we'd buy that land and build a house.

Well, I'm sure the Israelites thought they wouldn't wander in the same desert for 40 years when the Promise Land was only 11 days travel from Egypt.

The hard work began. Tim and I learned about buying land. We found a realtor and a bank. It took a month of fighting through thorns and thickets, until finally the land owners rejected our extremely low offer. It was over. We failed. The promise God made to me when I stood in front of that forest, that promise seemed broken.

It would be eight months, and so many failed offers, so much doubting myself, and doubting God. I wanted to start a makerspace: a crafting classroom where I could teach others to learn bravely and to learn of God. God was supposed to tell me how to do that.

I found lots of thorny thicket to fight through. This house. No, that house. Offers that keep being rejected. This house has no internet. That one is next to an airport. I even stood in what I thought was my dream house. After a few prolonged months of hope, as I was exhausted from packing up our entire house by myself in a week, I got the call that my dream home had sold to someone else. It was gone.

This wasn't how the journey was supposed to go. I was supposed to walk right into the Promise Land, but Tim and I were journeying through a wilderness. How could I trust God? How could I trust I was even hearing him correctly? I'd been wrong so many times, and my ego had sustained a lot of cuts and scratches from all the disappointments.

We sold our house in August without any place to go. We moved in with in-laws who lived in a small apartment above their business. I began asking different questions. Not when the house would come, but what did God need me to learn. I prayed that he would change me into the person he needed to be. Someone who would serve him with all her heart. He answered. I began to change.

October becomes November. I read an Elder Bednar devotional, "Is It the Holy Ghost or Me?" Elder Bednar said, stop worrying about it! Stop worrying about what God is telling you to do. Get out there and act. Be a good girl, do good things. I was shocked. That's not -- God was supposed to tell me what to do. I don't know what to do! I don't know what I want! But when I thought about it, I realized, He wanted me to learn to use my agency. To make decisions. So I learned how, one house listing at a time.

November becomes December. I read Mosiah 3:19 with new eyes. "Becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon [her], even as a child doth submit to [her] father." I realized that when God gave me revelation, I kept putting words in His mouth. He never said, "build a house on this spot." No, what He said to me was that I was home. Couldn't home just be eastern Washington? What if God hadn't broken His promise?

December becomes January. I read Neal A. Maxwell's 1985 talk, "Willing to Submit". He said that submitting to the Lord means I won't demand an explanation from Him before submitting to Him. "[T]he willingness to wait for deferred explanation is a sign of real faith and of trust spread over time. If faithful, we end up acknowledging that we are in the Lord’s hands and should surrender to the Lord on His terms—not ours. It is total surrender, no negotiating; it is yielding with no preconditions."

Total surrender.

I remembered what it felt like to stand in the creek, all those months ago.

It was May, just a few weeks after coming home from that first trip to Washington. Nothing was working, and I couldn't hear God. Going out to nature had worked before, so I packed up my laptop, my ukulele, put on my rubber boots, and drove to a nature trail in the mountains. I was going to get my answer. Demand an explanation.

I found a creek. I thought I'd sit next to it, strum my ukulele, and receive easy answers.

But the creek bed stank and the ground was soggy.

So I thought, fine, I'll find a nicer spot by the creek. The right spot, where God will speak to me. I see a sunny spot, but I have to cross the creek to get to it.

Let me be clear: I am not adventurous. If there's a steep hill, rather than run down in a few big strides, I'll sit on my butt and scoot my way down. My childhood of abuse had schooled me well in timidity.

But I wanted my answer. So I got down on my butt, and poked my rubber booted foot into the creek, searching for the bottom. As soon as I was on two feet, I got through that creek water in as fast as possible. I did it, and my socks were still dry. I'd arrived at the sunny spot.

But this spot was wet too. This wasn't right. I wouldn't get any answers here. Okay, that's fine. I look across, and I see a new spot. It's not as sunny, but it could be dry. I knew there was a spot further down the creek that I'd visited the year before. Maybe I could go on a big adventure and find it.

But the creek was wider here. I looked behind me. No, I'd have to cross the creek again to go back the way I came. I might as well go forward. Oh, but what if I fell? My laptop was in the backpack on my back. I couldn't risk it.

I stood, frozen. Then I took off my backpack, heart beating fast. Was I really going to do this? I threw it over the creek and to the ground on the other side. Okay, that was dumb, I thought. Then, I threw my ukulele over. Finally, I threw my cell phone. No calling for help. I was committed.

I stepped into the water, and the water rushed over the top of my boots. I scrambled to the other side and arrived on the bank in wide-eyed terror.

Collecting my belongings, I faced the thicket before me. I could go through that, I thought. Why not? I can do anything. I began gingerly lifting branches, ducking under. But thorns grabbed my hair and scratched my arms. I reached a branch I couldn't lift, and the thorns were starting to dig deeper into my skin. As I looked ahead, all I saw was more impassable thicket and more creek. I was crestfallen. I needed a quiet spot to get my answers from God. Why couldn't I get through? Didn't He want to talk to me?

I untangle myself and turn back to the deep part of the creek behind me. I poke my toe in the water, testing the edge. That's when a thought comes: "Stand in the creek."

What? No! I didn't know what was in this water. What if I fell? What if there were bugs or leeches in there?

I stood at the edge of the creek for so long, backpack on my back, cell phone in my pocket. Finally, not scooting on my butt, but with one big step, I got in the water. I wobbled, almost fell, then waded over to where the sun shone. At first I thought my boots would keep the water out. No. As I stood still in the creek, the water flooded in, soaking my socks. And there I stood, doing the very last thing I'd wanted to do. Standing in the creek.

I took a little video of myself, and when I watch it, I can see how terrified I was. And yet, as I felt the water, I started to smile a little. This wasn't so bad. It was actually kind of fun. I laughed tensely. Yeah, this was okay. This was okay. I felt the same kind of joy I'd felt in the forest.

That was the answer. He didn't tell me what to do or what house to buy. He asked me to stand in the creek and let my boots fill with creek water.

He asked me for total surrender.

Eight months later, I read Elder Maxwell's talk, and I finally had a name for the lesson God was teaching me in the creek. God wants me. He wants all of me. All of my trust. All of my love. He will not be satisfied with me rushing by Him on my way to fulfill my own desires. He wants me to stand still with him. Because the answers are not the point. The house was not the point. He was the answer. My relationship with Him is the point. When I stood in that forest, what I felt was His love. Because of the abuse I'd experienced, His love was the one thing I couldn't feel . To yield completely after the betrayal I'd faced . . . That's what He asked me to do.

And somehow, despite all the pain that's in me, He has found me. And He has invited me home.

He is my brass serpent in the wilderness. He is my joy standing in the roadside forest. He is the way.

And guess what? We did find a house. We're under contract (congratulations for reading far enough -- now you know.) It just happened last week. It's a house in Mead, just north of Spokane. It's home, and I knew it as soon as I stepped inside.

But I know the house wasn't the point.

I'm writing this because I never want to forget what it felt like to stand in the creek. What it feels like to totally surrender to God.

I trust Him. He never left me. He never ignored me. He patiently taught me exactly what I needed

to learn. He is real. He is good. And He invites you to stand in the creek along with me. Know that revelation never comes sitting in a safe spot on the side of the creek. It comes when you're on your feet and moving. Let the water fill your boots, let your feet get wet. Give the Savior your entire heart.