Breaking Summer Break

 

This may be an odd time for new beginnings, but summer ending is a new beginning for me.

I think I took summer break literally. My last post was in April! Well, it's been busy. Lots of summer trips and family reunions, but I decided I better post something today and try to get back into a better habit of thinking of the Lord more.

After having a baby, and as I am nursing, I have fallen off the wagon with my media addiction. Facebook has seemed to take over a lot of my time lately because when I sit down to nurse it's idle time that has become filled with waste. Well, now at the end of the summer with school starting it's time to break my summer break habits and renew my goals.

For a while I did well reading scriptures during my idle time. If you can believe it, I managed to read the Book of Mormon in the time it was translated, responding to this challenge I saw around General Conference in April. It was a different experience to just read it straight through without stopping. It felt like reading a story and I followed the characters and happenings a lot better than I ever have before. It was easier to pick up on the history of the book and identify the places where Mormon cuts in to paraphrase or make a statement before going on. In my mind's eye I was able to watch events as he described them, and then visualize him writing at the places where he broke in. It was a different way of viewing the book than I ever have.

But I haven't been reading much since I finished in June. I need to come up with another studying technique to get me involved in the book again in another new way.

Over the month of July, I was too incredibly busy either traveling or getting ready to travel or recovering from traveling. It was a busy month! But I am happy to report my progress in my own self gratification addiction is going well and I haven't slipped since my last report on slipping. Which means it's been almost another year. Yes, shy a month or so. But it's been about two years since I began my recovery for that addiction in particular and I'm doing so much better! I feel freed from it, which is a beautiful thing. My husband has been having many slips lately, though, and we haven't been able to figure it out. What's strange for him is that it always seems to just catch him off guard. He's removed features on his phone again to safeguard things. I'm just hoping he can get on top of things again.

My media addiction has evolved from something where I was completely absorbed, into simply a waste of time and a laziness trap. So I am not sure if it's the same kind of addiction as before. I'm not completely losing myself in movies or fantasies as I did before, getting a high as I've called it. To me, it was a high because I would have crashes after coming out of my fantasies and I would want to re-enter another fantasy as a way to escape life. That was very unhealthy and I'm glad I have come out of that. I've missed it a little, however. Movies don't hold me in the way they used to. I have to remind myself that this is a good thing.

Now I think it's more a case of laziness and waste of time. I remember hearing Elder Scott say something about that in one of his conference talks because it struck me so much hearing him say those words. His voice echoes in my mind about a waste of time.

Here's to new beginnings at the end of the summer!

Ask, and Receive

Of course.

I felt I was doing well last night but my heartburn kept me up in the night, my mind wandered into indulgence and I slipped. I failed to stop when I could have. I should have.

This morning I waited for the guilt to crush me. It didn't. I confessed to my husband. I don't know what I wanted from his reaction but I didn't get it. From his reaction I couldn't even be sure he heard me as he left for work.

I sat to read the scriptures this morning. Only yesterday I re-committed myself to this daily study during breakfast. Don't stop now. As I pondered and journaled, I realized I was waiting for shame to crush me, not guilt. Shame is what hurts. I was already feeling guilty because I was disappointed in myself. I'm better then this! Why did I allow this?

I turned to 2 Nephi 4. This is the chapter when Nephi says he delights in the scriptures but is harrowed up by his own sins. "O, wretched man that I am!" I especially identified with verses 27-31. Why do I give in to these sins which destroy my peace? But then I can follow his example in beginning again. "Awake, my soul! No longer droop in sin...give place no more for the enemy of my soul." Then he asks for help.

In my studies yesterday, I read about Prayer in the Bible Dictionary and was reminded that God gives to those who ask while submitting to His will and uniting with Christ by praying in His name. Matt. 7:7-11 reminded me that I'm praying to my father. He is forever willing to bless me with gifts. (This felt appropriate at Christmas time.) If an earthly father, being wicked, is so willing to provide gifts to his children, how much more willing is our Heavenly Father to bless us when we ask?

Well this morning this concept was repeated to me again from 2 Nephi 4:35. "I know that God will give liberally to him that asketh."

I need to ask Him. I need to pray in that moment of temptation. He will help if only I ask. It's all in my desire to ask His help. I think sometimes in those moments it's hardest because I am wrestling with my desires. A part of me, that human corrupt part, doesn't want Him to help me because that part of me desires indulgence. I must continue to strengthen the other part of me- that spiritual part of me that desires righteousness- because it must be stronger to win the fight.

So more then ever after a slip I must return to scriptures and prayer.

Every Day, Every Moment

 
As I try to take daily inventory with step 10, I am living in the now, which is the only thing in my control.  I cannot change the past, I can only do what I can now to take accountability for it.  Then, I can only hope for a future I want.  I cannot control what the future brings either, but what I am doing now can have an impact on it.

Repentance is for everyone all the time, no exceptions.  Those who are righteously following the Lord are not perfectly following every commandment all the time, because we are imperfect.  But followers of Christ are constantly repenting.  That is the only difference between a follower of Christ and others in the world.

Others in the world may do just as much good as a follower of Christ, because they are usually doing their best to do what they think is right.  But they are not using the atonement to account for the mistakes they make.  No one is exempt from making mistakes.  We all do it whether we mean to or not.  But the Savior paid for every single one.

He paid not only for those mistakes, but all the negative effects of those mistakes.  All the pain, all the sadness, all the darkness, every fear, every form of suffering has been paid for by the Savior.  All it takes is trust in His ability to take it all away and He does.  Wouldn't we want to have that peace all the time as a constant thing?

No...I'll just feel sad right now.  I'll just feel this pain now because I can repent later.

What is wrong with us?

If we truly understood the power of the Lord's Atonement, we would use it every day and in every moment of every day!  Because it's better!  Because it works!

Suddenly that phrase from the scriptures about how we shouldn't procrastinate our repentance has a new meaning to me.

Right now, as I am trying to work step 10 in my daily life, I am committing myself to make Christ the center of my life.  I do this by reading and pondering the scriptures every day.  Every morning I need to read while I eat my breakfast.  I have to sit down and eat sometime, what better time to study then at that time?  Then I must pray and write in my journal a daily plan.  These are my goals today.  And in the evening I can look at those goals and account for whether I failed or succeeded, and try again tomorrow.

Step 3 Continued: Humbling and Strengthening

Fast and Pray often

to be

STRONGER in Humility & FIRMER in Faith,

Filled with Joy & Consolation,

purifying & sanctifying,

as my HEART yields to God.

Fasting is exercising my ability to put off the natural man.  As I practice control over my bodily appetite, I practice control over natural desires.  I then can realize if I have the strength to fight physical hunger then I have the strength to fight off other natural desires that don't align with God's will.

Fasting also humbles me as I think about the Lord's sacrifices for me.  I also ponder about the need in the world for me to serve others as I contribute to fast offerings.  Prayer during a fast is vitally important.  Without it, I am just starving myself.  The hardest time to pray is of course when being faced with temptation because it's a choice between submitting my will to the Lord or fulfilling that carnal desire.  When temptation gets heavy, I must fight off the carnal desire just enough to pray and I know just in praying...just in that small effort, He would lift my burden.  But the more I pray and follow the Lord's will, the more I will be strengthened in Christ to continue.  I am humbled because of my weakness without Him.  I am strengthened through my faith in him, and as I submit and show that faith, I become stronger.

I need to trust in God to help me not only in the mistakes I am making that I am aware of, but in the mistakes that I am unaware of.  I need to trust that God will give me the awareness I need to fix the mistakes I am making.  I feel like my eyes are opened more and more every day I am working the steps.  Because I am noticing and remembering the mistakes I have made in the past, even the ones I didn't realize were mistakes because I did them in ignorance.  I am making progress, though.  That is what really matters.

I must become more humble.
More submissive.
More gentle and easily entreated.  More patient.
More long-suffering.  Temporate. Diligent. Thankful.

These are choices.
Step 3 is a decision step.  It's where I choose to be better.  It's where I choose to let God help me.  Because it is in acknowledging the help outside of myself that I am both humbled and strengthened.

I should not only show gratitude to the Lord, but to my husband.  Because he really does help me every day.

If I were to choose just one to focus on right now, though, I think it would be to be more gentle.  I need to be more soft-spoken.  I think in turn this would also effect patience and help me to be more easily entreated.  I need to keep my temper in check and stay calm and positive.  Perhaps if I pause and keep tabs on any negativity going on I could curb myself from being harsh and stay in a more gentle state.  Being more spiritually minded will definitely help a lot with this.  So that's what I am going to do now.

I am going to be more spiritually minded and gentle.