Jesus Knows

 
Sorry about the break. I was out of commission a while with a new baby.

Having a new baby made me realize how much hormones play into our lives as women and this effects recovery.  It also doesn't help that so much of the day is taken by sitting there doing nothing while the baby is eating. So I found myself turning to media a lot more and got caught up again in my media addiction, be it movies or Facebook.  I got really down and lazy. I don't how much of that was from my media addiction and how much was just from sleep deprivation or post-partum depression, though. Because all of those are factors right now.

I've had days when I feel like crying all day for no reason.
I've had days when I've escaped into the oblivion of other worlds through a tv screen (or my kindle).
I've had days when I feel productive because I get some laundry done, but then left the kitchen a mess.
I've made dinner one day (which is saying a lot because my husband is the usual cook).

But the thing that I've learned is that I'm not alone, and that I am cared about, and that the Lord knows.

One particular day I was feeling worse then usual. I went to the park with my neighbor and we had a good conversation about testimonies and how there are things we may not ever understand but that is ok.  Then after she left, I had a call from another friend in my ward randomly offering to bring me dinner. Then a phone call from the Relief Society presidency asking if they could come visit me in a couple days.

And that visit in a couple days came on another day when I was more tearful then usual.

But something one of them said resonated with me.  We were talking about how I feel so emotional all the time and how I've had some scary moments because of it. I'm just not myself.

One of them then told me that although she didn't know exactly how I felt she knew that Jesus did.

I knew Jesus suffered all the pains of the world, and suffered for my sins as well as all my heart-aches. But somehow it has always escaped me that Jesus also completely and perfectly understands the pains of being female and going through things like childbirth, miscarriage, and post-partum. He knows how I feel when my hormones are crazy and I'm frazzled. He knows how I feel when I'm up at 2 am with my eyes crossing involuntarily as I feed my baby.

Jesus knows.

That was huge for me. I've been feeling so alone. But I think many of the ladies in my neighborhood feel the same way. In almost every home on my street and the street next to it, there is a woman with small children trying her best to keep things going and feeling so alone.

In my house right at this moment as I am typing at my computer desk, a binkie and a stack of books are next to my keyboard, a large pile of unfolded clean children's clothing on the couch next to me (at least it's clean), scattered burp rags, children's books, and little-boy shoes on the floor, a swaddled baby in a swinging infant seat, and two little boys shouting "no" to each other....and Jesus knows what this is like.
And I imagine many other women in the same or similar position, He knows about them too. He doesn't just know about them, though. He knows how it is to be them.  He knows what it feels like to be where I am right now.

And I imagine He'd be telling me it's ok.

It's ok for me to cry for no reason right now. My body is tired. It's ok to leave the laundry for an extra hour so I can write on my blog. It's ok.  But the best thing for me to do, the thing that will help me most to feel better, is not another episode of Downton Abbey or American Idol or the Bachelor, or a random movie that looks good on Amazon Prime. It's Him.

All I need to do is take a time-out for Him in my day and I will have the extra push I need to get through the day and maybe not feel like crying so much.

Because unlike Lady Mary or Chris the Farmer, He knows. And He can take it away.

To My Children When the Time Is Right

The following letter was prompted into my mind in the wee hours of the morning and I couldn't sleep until I wrote it down. I decided to share it here for others to gain from in whatever way you find helpful to your own family.

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Dear Young Ones

First of all I want you to know that the way your body feels is not an evil thing. Your body's natural reaction is a beautiful and sacred gift of God. He's given us these powerful feelings as a gift to recognize the sacredness in our gift and ability to create life here on earth. Your body's sensations are beautiful and perfect, when it's the right time, place, and with the right thoughts and methods. The spirit helps you to know if it is right.

After your body has these feelings, the spirit can either fill you with light, joy, and goodness that is uplifting or you may feel darkness, sadness, and heaviness. This is the spirit's way of communicating to you if you are exercising this gift at the right time and place or not. The heaviness and darkness is a warning. It does not mean your body is bad for feeling these feelings. It means you must put off the natural man and wait for the appropriate time and place. Every gift from God is wonderful and special, but also Satan's target. he wants to corrupt, degrade, or ruin our gifts and blessings. When we use this special gift when it is not right, Satan wins control over our feelings.

The right time and place to feel these powerful feelings are only with a spouse who you have married and are committed to for life or eternity. When we use this gift at this correct time and place, with good thoughts and methods, we can experience great joy that is light and uplifting because our spirits can celebrate in this great gift God has given us to create life on earth.

Outside of this time and place, our body's natural feelings are still pleasurable, but the feelings of joy are not present. Instead it is lust, greed, and selfishness. These feelings are dark and Satan uses them to make us feel ashamed and lead us away from God's plan of happiness. Satan even has chains of addiction related with this path that can catch us in his sorrowful snare.

However, our Savior is infinitely more powerful. If we are ever led away by Satan's half-truths and caught in his dark plans of shame, we must remember our Savior's wonderful and perfect atonement. We never need to feel ashamed. We can give those mistakes to the Savior and He will cleanse us. This road is difficult, however. I truly desire for you to follow and head the warnings of the Spirit immediately to avoid Satan's traps.

You are a glorious child of God with infinite potential and you have a spirit inside you that feeds upon the light. Give your spirit light every day through scripture study and prayer and your spirit will be strong when temptations come. Follow the promptings from the Holy Ghost every time and it will become a habit that gets easier every time you face it. As you do this, you will be led down the path Heavenly Father has given for you in His plan of happiness.

I love you and want you to know you can always trust and rely on me to be there for you and listen to you. but I also want you to know that even more than me, your Father in Heaven loves you, understands you, and wants the best for you. Your Savior is also your friend that will always be there to listen and uplift you.

Love Mom

Godly Sorrow: Guilt vs. Shame

I had a conversation with my husband the other night when he had slipped in his own addiction again. He was hitting a low on it, and I tried to tell him not to let it get him down so much but he thought he needed to feel bad, otherwise he felt like he wasn't taking it as seriously as it needed to be taken. I understood what he meant. We don't want to make light of serious things or shrug things off as "no big deal" because that is a tool of denial used in the past before recovery. In recovery we must take responsibility for our wrongs.

But I don't think we need to drag ourselves in the dust either.

Finally the idea came into my mind as an example that I could explain more clearly to my husband. We mustn't allow ourselves to get healthy feelings of guilt for sin mixed up with being ashamed of ourselves. There is a big difference in these two feelings after committing a wrong. One of them is another of Satan's tools to drag us further into our mistakes. The other is Godly sorrow. Can you guess which is which?

I described these examples:
When we feel guilty for our sin, feeling healthy Godly sorrow, we are separate from the sin. Our inner dialog would sound something like this: "I feel bad for doing what I have done because I know it is wrong. I shouldn't have done it because I am better than that. I am worth more than that. I don't want to do it again."

When we cross the line into shame, suddenly our inner dialog is much darker and Satan can use it against us to drive us further into our sins and problems. It sounds something like this: "I feel terrible for doing what I have done because I wanted to do it. But it is who I am and I loath myself because I did this terrible thing and feel like I want to do it again." We drive ourselves into self-loathing so much, while also enabling ourselves and excusing our behavior by saying it is who we are. Satan can take this and drive us further into doing terrible deeds until we hate ourselves even more, hate the world, and do even worse things that we hate.  It's a vicious cycle that I believe has driven people to all kinds of horrible acts in this world, even murder. I honestly think that at one point in a murderer's life they began innocently, but turned to this self loathing or self "acceptance" as some in the world may put it, and drive themselves deeper and deeper into the pit of sin.

I believe my examples hit home to my husband and helped him pull himself out of the despair of shame and into the more healthy light of feeling guilt for sin, or Godly sorrow, which is much more healthy and productive for recovery.

I hope as we all recover we can be careful about distinguishing between these feelings and so we can be kept free from Satan's shackles and remember our value as children of God with great purpose.

I am not my addiction.

Step 11: Personal Revelation

 
Seek through prayer and meditation to know the Lord's will and to have the power to carry it out.

Step 11 Reading

Notice that it says, "Our greatest desire was to improve our abilities to receive guidance...".  It doesn't talk about being exactly anywhere in our progress, but that we should be focused on going in the right direction and improving at whatever rate.  As long as we are getting better and drawing closer to the Lord.

"When others tried to love you, perhaps you couldn't feel it.  Their love was never enough."
This makes me think about how often people don't feel loved by others no matter what others do or say because first we must love ourselves.  If we are constantly ashamed it is hard to feel loveable and that's where it starts.  We must believe we are loveable first.  Before we feel loveable we must let go of shame and in order to let go of shame we must rely on Christ and repent.  Once we are free of sin and shame we are at peace and can then be free to love ourselves, feel God's love for us, and feel loveable.  Then we can feel love from other people, as well as show love to others.


It all starts with repentance and Christ's atoning sacrifice.  Of course studying the scriptures and daily prayer are essential in feeling the peace and happiness from the spirit all the time.  It's when I am always remembering Christ that I always have his spirit with me.  It's how the baptismal covenant works.  All I have to do is think of Him and He is there.  Always remember Him and I will always have His spirit with me.

One way for me to remember Christ always is to be grateful every day and in every moment for my blessings.  If I acknowledge His hand in my life at all times, I am recognizing Him and remembering Him.  Then He is always with me.  It's a humbling thing, as well as an uplifting and comforting feeling.

I have been going to recovery classes for almost three years now.  I have been "clean" or "sober" from self-grad since August, and have gotten through Step 11 for the third time now.  I keep wondering what the next round will be like for me because each time has been different.  It's a beautiful learning experience to be involved in. There is so much spiritual growth awaiting anyone who begins the program whether they feel like they have an addiction or not.

After dealing with my more prominent addiction, I still have other things like my gravitation to media for coping, or getting away from reality.  I, of course, never recognized the detrimental spiritual, emotional, and social affects of my addiction until working the 12 steps.  And then it took reworking the steps repeatedly before I recognized the depths of my own problems and could deal with them.  The Lord knows each one of us perfectly and helps us learn and grow at a perfect individual pace.  No one else will progress in the same way or at the same speed.

I can't tell another person how to progress or where they are in their recovery because only God can know that.  I don't even know what else lies ahead for me to uncover in my own recovery.  All we have to do is work the steps to personally trust in the Lord's plan, repent of our mistakes, rely on Christ, and do our best to follow His will.  That is what the steps do for me.  They are a wonderful study tool in partnership with scriptures study.

I now desire to have some kind of prayer and meditation every morning to get me on track spiritually for my day.  If I get thrown off by missing that or getting priorities mixed up, my day goes down the drain because I have been getting more and more busy with three jobs at home while I'm being a mom.  It's getting hectic!  But I have to make that time for the Lord every day or it's unbearable because I simply cannot do it all alone.  I have to have His guidance and spirit with me at all times or things fall apart...or I fall apart!

"Prayer and meditation are powerful antidotes to fear and depression."  Very comforting.  "By nature, we all tend to be undisciplined, yet by looking to Jesus Christ and the example He has set, you will find the humility to continue submitting to the Father."  I must rely on Him, even though I naturally try to do it myself.  It is so much better when I let Him have the burden.  He's already taken all my burdens away.  He already has felt it all.  So for me to feel it all too is silly and unnecessary and...well...sorta stupid on my part.  I must let Him take it and move forward.

I love my Savior for that so much.  I would never get through this life without Him.

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.