There is an End

This week has been so different from anything I've experienced in a long time.

It's weird to think that I no longer live in Arkansas. I miss my friends and family.
It's also weird to think I'm back in Texas, very close to where I grew up, but things are so different than they used to be. I'm different than I used to be.

It's weird that I'm not working. I've actually been shaming myself in that area. I won't go into detail, but I've made myself feel very guilty and shamed for not working. I feel like I'm wasting my life away. I'm not. But seriously. So I'm working on that.

It's weird that I have all this time to focus on me. It's really good for me. I've had time to think and feel. I've actually had to face my emotions and my life as it is, something that I haven't actually done because I was busy with taking classes, then I was busy with student-teaching, then I was busy with moving to Arkansas, and then I was super busy as a first year teacher. Not that I haven't ever dealt with my life before, but I haven't made dealing and healing my number one priority until now. And it feels weird.

I've faced a lot of tough emotional battles this week. I'm still struggling in a lot of ways, and I'm also realizing I'm not as secure with myself as I pretend to be. I even admitted to a friend (something I don't think I've ever admitted out loud--not even to Ben) that I was riding the line with an eating disorder a few years ago right after my car accident, through the time that I learned of Ben's addiction. I never let it get too far, but lots of people noticed that I was way too skinny and not eating enough. I have disordered eating tendencies, and I've worked really hard to handle it in healthy ways.

I'm realizing I have issues and insecurities that run deep. I've warded them off and pretended they don't exist for so long, that it's really good (but really hard) for me to finally feel everything and sort through the muck so I can learn to feel whole. Feeling whole is hard. I'm wading through so much just as the wife of a sex-addict. But then I think about insecurities and fears I've had since my teen years, and that gives me even more to work on and feel depressed about.

But I'm on a quest for wholeness. I want to feel beautiful and secure as a daughter of God. I want to find joy in my life and especially in my marriage. I want my soul to be filled with love, light, and energy. So I'm wading through this mess that is my life so I can find that, so my soul can be complete. And that's why I'm not working right now. I'm allowing myself time to feel. I'm allowing myself time to heal. I have plans and ideas of what I can do to be made whole, and I'm doing this prayerfully. I'm seeking out God's direction, and He is guiding me on my search for wholeness. I'm finding my shame and dealing with it. I'm learning and growing (okay, right now I'm mostly eating and sleeping, slowly gaining motivation to face life. But baby steps, right?). I'm facing things, though, and that is my first step.

Everything feels harder because of the state of my marriage and the addiction. Sometimes it's hard to have faith, and I'll admit, I've wondered what it would be like to just live without all of this. I've wondered if turning on God in anger would make me feel better (I know it won't. No worries there.).

Today, as I studied my scriptures, I read the first chapter of King Benjamin's speech (Mosiah 2). The very last verse reads:

"...if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness."

This verse really hit me today because of the worries and fears I've been having. I've been wading through some serious trauma, and having faith and hope is just so hard sometimes.

Sometimes in life it's hard to see the end. We are going through it hard and fast now, and there seems to be no end in sight. Today, I was given the grace of seeing the end. The end is living with God in a state of NEVER. ENDING. HAPPINESS. Isn't that what I want? Isn't that what we all want? To just be happy forever?

Sometimes life hurts. Sometimes it's full of pain and heartache, and we feel like we can't go on. Sometimes we can't see the end, and we wonder what all of this is for.

There is an end. The end is happiness with God. But that's if we are faithful.

I can hold on a little bit longer. I can exercise faith. I can. I know I can. And knowing if I do it this way, that I will end up with NEVER-ENDING HAPPINESS brings me so much hope and peace.

We can do it. Just hold on a little bit longer.

Understanding the Plan

I just got a new visiting teaching route. My old route wasn't working very well, and the Relief Society president put me with a new companion. I apologized to the Relief Society president today for being a horrible visiting teacher. I have been in a Relief Society presidency. I know, I understand, how important visiting teaching is, and I have beaten myself up about not being a very good visiting teacher since I moved into this ward. I told her this, and she said, "I don't think God would want  you to beat yourself up. You're being way harder on yourself than He would be on you right now. I think He understands your situation, and you are doing your best to serve in the ways you can." I love her.

I've been beating myself up about a lot of things lately. I started taking step 7 to an extreme, and I got really depressed about not being able to overcome my character weaknesses. It caused me to almost (not quite) hate step 7. When I went through the 12 steps for the first time, I didn't do that. I did my best and moved on. At that point in the game, I think I was struggling a little bit, but I was so excited. I was so excited to be making so much progress and seeing my progress. I don't know why I have beaten myself up about it this time through. I think it might be because I'm much more sensitive. And maybe I'm holding myself to a high standard because I think that I can at least control myself...? I'm not entirely sure.

 It's okay to have weaknesses. We're supposed to have weaknesses. Without our weaknesses, what would be the point of this life? What would we need to overcome to get back to Heavenly Father?

Our weaknesses allow us a choice: we can choose to humble ourselves before our Father and try to do His will, or we can choose to be swallowed up in the world. We can choose to sanctify ourselves and try to live as He wants us to, or we can choose to stray from Him.

I've gone back and forth on that. I want to choose Him, but choosing Him is hard. It's hard to put off our will and do His. It's hard to have a constant prayer. Sometimes it's hard to forget myself and serve, especially when my life feels so hard. It's hard to forgive. It's hard to apologize when I am hurting. It's hard to look outside myself when all I can think about are the things tearing me up inside.

I want to choose Him. But sometimes it just feels so hard.

It's even harder when I don't fully understand the Plan of Salvation or the Atonement. It's harder when I don't understand why I am here or why I need to rely on Christ. It's hard to want to turn to the Lord when I don't understand what He has given me or the eternal laws He abides by.

Today I started studying Enos.

Enos wrestled before God.

As he was out hunting, his thoughts were on words he had heard his father speak about about eternal life and the joy of the saints. His soul hungered for that, and he decided to kneel down and pray. He prayed for hours for the redemption of his soul.

After some time, God told him that his sins were forgiven, and he would be blessed.

"And I, Enos, knew that God could not lie; wherefore, my guilt was swept away.

"And I said: Lord, how is it done?

"And he said unto me: Because of thy faith in Christ, whom thou has never before heard nor seen...wherefore, go to, thy faith hath made thee whole."

Because of his faith in Christ, his sins were forgiven and he was made whole.

Sometimes, I don't fully understand the Atonement. My understanding comes and goes. Sometimes, I feel like I totally get it, at least enough of it, to help me through what is going on. And sometimes, I get so clouded in darkness that I forget or just don't understand why I need the Atonement. The past couple of weeks have been kind of like that. I am independent. I like being independent. Independent is safe. I only have to rely on me and no one else.

I know that is dangerous territory. So, I have been stuck in this little hole of wanting independence, but knowing I need to be dependent on God, and basically going in weird little circles. My desire for dependence gets pushed out by my desire for independence...and so on.

After reading that about Enos, I decided I wanted to study the Plan of Salvation and the Atonement. I'm finally being a little more proactive about understanding these things that are giving me a hard time right now. I need to arm myself so I can fight Satan! He has been viciously attacking me since my last post. Urghhhhh. Seriously. I thought I had banished him, but he just laughed and said, "Okay, take this!" By the way, you should read about how my husband and I like to flip Satan off (his blog).

Alma 42 is a great reference for the Plan and Atonement. I read it during the sacrament and made a note to study it in more depth after church.

In this chapter, he talks about what happened after Adam and Eve partook of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. They became as God, knowing good and evil. Because they ate that fruit, God had to protect the tree of life so they wouldn't eat its fruit and live forever.

Why? Why would it be a bad thing for Adam and Eve to be like God, knowing good and evil, and live forever? It sounds to me like that is what we want, right? Don't we want to know good and evil, and aren't we trying to gain eternal life?

That's something I have always struggled with. I have never fully understood why Adam and Eve were not supposed to live forever. Why would that make it so they couldn't repent? Why would that cause the plan to be "frustrated"?

What I am about to say is not necessarily doctrine. It's just what I came up with through my searching of the scriptures and prayers for understanding while I pondered this question today.

Here is what I came up with to answer those questions:

*If Adam and Eve partook of the fruit and lived forever, would they have need of the resurrection? No. If they didn't need the resurrection, that would mess up the Atonement. Part of the Atonement is overcoming temporal death and being resurrected. The Atonement and resurrection go hand-in-hand. Neither would apply to them if they were already able to live forever. It would frustrate the need for Atonement and the Plan.

*We need the resurrection. Without the resurrection (if there was no death to overcome), there would be no purpose of this life. We wouldn't have anything to prove. But we do need this life. We need death. And we need the Atonement. And repentance.

*If Adam and Eve were already able to live forever, where would be the motivation to repent? It could be continually procrastinated because they think they have forever. 

**If they partook of the fruit, there would really be no purpose to this life. We would no longer have this mortal state to be a probationary period. Agency wouldn't matter. We wouldn't be able to "perform (our) labors" or improve ourselves or prepare to meet God. We wouldn't even be able to leave this world because we wouldn't die. We would be forever separated from God.  

So, God, in His wisdom, and as what He knew to be the only way we could possibly live with Him, protected the tree of life from Adam and Eve. He protected it so we wouldn't be forever separated from Him.

Because Adam and Eve partook of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, man became "carnal, sensual, and devilish." Our natural state became an enemy to God, and they only way we could return to Him would be through His infinite mercy. Mercy was brought forth through the Atonement. The Atonement could only work if there were certain conditions of repentance set, so mercy wouldn't destroy the law of justice.

"And thus he shall bring salvation to all those who shall believe on his name; this being the intent of this last sacrifice, to bring about the bowels of mercy, which overpowereth justice, and bringeth about means unto men that they may have faith unto repentance.

"And thus mercy can satisfy the demands of justice, and encircles them in the arms of safety, while he that exercises no faith unto repentance is exposed to the whole law of the demands of justice; therefore only unto him that has faith unto repentance is brought about the great and eternal plan of redemption.

 "Therefore may God grant unto you, my brethren, that ye may begin to exercise your faith unto repentance, that ye begin to call upon his holy name, that he would have mercy upon you."

     -Alma 34: 15-17

Finally, after much prayer and study, I got it! I understand why things are the way they are. I understand the significance of the protection God put around the tree of life so Adam and Eve would not partake. I better understand my path to eternal life. 

It's not any easier.

But I understand.

My husband has a sexual addiction. He is addicted to pornography and masturbation. He has considered leaving me and filling his life with this addiction. He has considered leaving me to live this addiction up to the fullest extent. He has considered suicide. I have experienced a lot of hurt. The thoughts of what he could do are painful.

I have forgiven. 

I have forgiven. 

I have forgiven.

I have been weak. I have been mean. I have been rude. I have acted out in anger. I have manipulated him so I can get my way and my anger across. I have hurt him because he has hurt me.

And I have come a long way. I have seen the healing power of the Atonement in both of our lives. My sins and acting out in pain or anger are not as bad as they have been in the past. But I still struggle with them. I still have progress to make. I still have to depend on the Lord. My healing is about me. It's not about him. It's not about comparing me to anyone else or rationalizing. My healing is about my coming to Christ.  As I draw nearer to Christ, I will become more perfect. I will learn and grow. I will receive revelation for my life. The Spirit will dwell in my home.

So I need to repent. I need to change my attitude and seek out the power of the Atonement.

I need to seek forgiveness. And I need to keep forgiving.

I will mess up. Of course. But it's expected because it's part of the plan. 

I have weaknesses. Of course. But it's expected because it's part of the plan. 

You know what else is part of the plan? Repentance. Forgiveness. Redemption.

I feel like I can finally get over the negativity I have been experiencing because I understand the plan better. I was reminded today of things I already knew, and my knowledge was expanded upon.

 

Today, in Relief Society, someone posed the question, "Why would God trust me with His eternal blessings if I won't submit to His will?"

Good question. 

Credit