God Will Pause to Save You

by Autumn Dickson

I got a little lost as I was reading in Abraham at 6:00 am after staying up too late reading a book. Abraham had received a vision that showed him the workmanship of the Lord’s hands. He discerned a whole lot, and then the Lord started explaining some deeper things to him. I was pretty tired, and my mind drifted until I came across this verse.

Abraham 3:20 The Lord thy God sent his angel to deliver thee from the hands of the priest of Elkenah.

Everything was feeling a tad confusing to my tired mind until I read that verse. Interestingly enough, as I backed up and read previous verses and when I continued reading forward, verse 20 felt like an interruption. The Lord is speaking of intelligences, including His own. He is speaking of how He dwelt in the midst of them and so on and so forth. The chapter is showing His absolute majesty.

But He pauses and recalls how He saved Abraham’s mortal life from a priest who was trying to sacrifice him.

It felt like one of the most relevant interruptions I had ever read. It felt perfectly inserted into a sermon of how Christ rules over all of His creations.

Christ is powerful and wise and loving. He is the Creator and King. He has many important works that He is juggling, but He pauses long enough to save you.

Saving you from a mere mortal trial is nothing and everything to Him. It is nothing in relation to His power, and it is everything in relation to His love.

I want to share a story about how the Lord saved my family. Honestly, I’m not even sure the extent to which it has saved my family yet, but I feel strongly that one day I will understand just what the Lord did for us in moving us across the country. Despite all the other works that the Lord was juggling, I watched Him masterfully manipulate detail after detail after detail to put Conner on track for his life’s work. I will share some details, but I don’t even think I’m fully aware of all the details and timelines that the Lord set in motion to take care of us. I probably don’t remember all of the details, but I will tell you of a few.

Conner had told me for years that we would never leave Utah, but there had always been a nagging feeling in my heart that we would leave. I had prayed about it, and the Lord kept telling me not to worry about it. The time would come when it came, so I left it alone. Though it was likely one of the more traumatic eras of my husband’s life, I felt the Lord’s hand hovering over us the entire time.

Moving to Virginia the first time around was wild. My husband’s job had been taken away from him through a series of lies told by another person. Looking back, I am 99% certain my husband would have never left. It had to be taken away from him in order to propel him in the correct direction for his life. I praise the Lord for taking it away. That’s detail number one.

Conner was meant to end up out in Virginia, and so the Lord sent a friend to ask for his help. That was detail number two. The only reason I was able to get Conner out of our house and into the car was because it was a friend who had asked him to come.

We lived in a hotel for three months with three kids before moving to an apartment of a friend who had moved out west. We stayed in that apartment for two months before we received a big enough miracle that even my husband couldn’t ignore (he still wanted to go back to Utah).

We were staying in that apartment and the contract was running out soon. We could renew it, but the price would go up to more than we could really afford (especially since the job we had moved out for wasn’t working out as we hoped). I was at church one day when that lady I ministered to asked me if we had found a place to stay yet. I answered no.

Now let me tell you this portion of the timeline backwards. Monday, the very next day, was when we really decided that this job was not working out with our friend. I know Conner, and I know that the moment we realized it wasn’t working out, we were headed back to Utah. It was much cheaper to go back, and we had just spent inordinate amounts of money to go and stay in Virginia and it just wasn’t doable anymore especially since we were leaving the job. I wouldn’t have been surprised at all if we had packed up that day and drove back immediately.

However, the night before this final decision about the job was made, we received a message from a lady who had been sitting next to my ministering assignment when my ministering assignment had asked me if we had somewhere to live. This lady was a stranger at the time, and I’m going to name her Jill so that we can follow the story more easily. It turns out that Jill and her family had just bought a house even though they were headed overseas for ten months. She had a friend who was supposed to live in her house while they were gone, but that fell through.

So Jill looked me up since they needed someone to come and stay in their house. As it turns out, we were related distantly through marriage. After asking some questions to our mutual relatives, she messaged us the night before we would have made the decision to head back to Utah. She sent us messages about the house and immediately, Conner and I realized we wouldn’t be able to afford it. We asked how much she would charge us, and it was miraculously lower than what we would spend living in Utah. That was the very first time that Conner was like, “Maybe we are supposed to be in Virginia.”

We moved in almost immediately. Conner was led to a couple of other jobs that were so healthy for him and have enabled us to be exactly where we need. When we needed to come back to Utah temporarily, we found a flight pass that enabled Conner to go back and forth across the country for $25.

Detail after detail after detail after detail has lined up perfectly for us to be exactly where we need. I have no idea how He set things in motion a long time ago to set these things up for us.

But I do know this. In the midst of all His incredible works, He paused long enough to save my family. I know that it was both nothing and everything to Him; it was nothing in relation to His power, and it was everything in relation to His love.

I was not saved from a priest who was trying to kill me like Abraham was. I don’t know how many of us will face situations like that. However, the Lord can save us. Whatever you’re going through, it’s nothing in relation to His power, and it was everything in relation to His love. I promise you that whatever you’re facing, you are safe. When placed in the context of eternity, you are safe and everything will turn out better than you can imagine. He has handled much larger things than this, and they were likewise easy for Him to handle.

I testify of the power of our Lord. I testify of the love of our Lord. I testify that whatever you’re going through is just a blip on the spectrum of eternity. Reading Moses and Abraham gives us a glimpse into the eternal and can help us recognize that what we’re going through doesn’t have to take us down completely. I testify that it’s okay for things to be hard, but I also testify that nothing can defeat us if we keep close to the Lord.

 

Autumn Dickson was born and raised in a small town in Texas. She served a mission in the Indianapolis Indiana mission. She studied elementary education but has found a particular passion in teaching the gospel. Her desire for her content is to inspire people to feel confident, peaceful, and joyful about their relationship with Jesus Christ and to allow that relationship to touch every aspect of their lives. Autumn was the recipient of FAIR’s 2024 John Taylor Defender of the Faith Award.

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