Question Girl

When I was a little girl, I had the nickname "Question Girl." There was even a song that went something like "She's question girl, question girl, QUESTION girl." And so, you can imagine when that song was sung to me I was asking questions... many of them. Most of my questions seemed to start with the word, "Why." "Why does it work that way," was especially popular.

I have always been very interested in why things are they way they, how they work, and why they work that way. I remember a specific story that will illustrate my curious self well. When I was about elementary school age, I got really frustrated with pi, and by that I mean 3.14.. The number you multiply by the circumference, radius, etc. I so curiously asked my mom, "Why is it 3.14 and how did they get that number?" She replied, "It is just the number that a very smart mathematician came up with in a way that it probably too difficult for you to understand. You just have to trust that it works and plug it into your equation." I answered, "But it just bugs me to use a formula that I don't even know how they got? It's like I'm just plugging numbers in, not knowing what I actually am doing?" My patient mom replied, "But you just have to. Someday you can learn how they got pi, but at this point in time you don't have to worry about it and you just have to use it." And so, I grudgingly would, though it irritated me. Similar conversations were had throughout my years of math, and my mom would always respond patiently, I might add, the same.

The desire to know the HOW and WHY benefitted me greatly in my education, especially in nursing school and in my prerequisites leading up to nursing school. I never wanted to just memorize structures in the body. I wanted to know HOW they worked and WHY they did what they did. I wanted to know HOW the retrovirus HIV causes so much destruction, despite fact that it isn't even considered a living thing. I wanted to know WHY metoprolol (a medication) lowers blood pressure, all the way down to the minutely small receptors that it binds to. I didn't just want memorize that metoprolol is prescribed for high blood pressure.

As you can see... This HOW and WHY desire has benefitted me throughout my life and education. However, our greatest strengths are often our greatest weaknesses. It does not come without it's downsides, and that's because we can't always know the how and the why. My young brain was too small to comprehend how pi was determined. I'm also now unable to comprehend some of the complexities of life, and it can be really hard on me at times.

I don't know why some prayers aren't answered the way I think they should be. I don't know why some people are given trials that seem too difficult for anyone to have to bear. I don't understand how God can hear the prayers of billions of people at a time, or how Christ took upon Him the sins of the world. I wish there was a textbook that explained it all. Of course we have the scriptures and the prophets who have helped us understand more about these things, but no where can I read the molecular structure of how God can her billions of prayers at once.

Sometimes I find this really frustrating. However, I have found that I have to set my analytical mind aside and TRUST... as I once had to do with pi. I have to have faith that God hears and answers every prayer, because I know He has answered mine. I just have to let go and believe, because the feelings I have in my heart tell me that these things are true. I don't have to know why they are. I just have to know they are.