Sorry for the lack of art posts or any other work
on this blog lately. I have been escalating from one sickness to the next the
entire month and although I won’t gross you out with the details, suffice it to
say I’ve not been well enough to paint or do much of anything. So, for now,
here’s another LDS and testimony tagged entry. If that’s one thing I am not
short on, it is spiritual experiences.
I think I might have mentioned in a previous
entry how it feels like Heavenly Father has ongoing conversations with me
through my interactions with other people or reading books and the scriptures.
It’s one of the things I have been so surprised and overjoyed about how much
spiritual attention it feels like I’m getting this time around! For instance,
as you may have noticed from my “Forum Search” entry, I’ve kind of become
frustrated with trying to fill my personal/relaxation time and replace it with things
that are good and spiritually uplifting to me.
So, just last week, I finally admitted defeat
searching for online social avenues and I also gave up on movies and TV shows,
which generally cost money I’m not making right now(these funds are growing
slimmer). Well, the very next day after posting that entry and praying about
it, I’m sitting with grandpa at grandma’s birthday bash and I ask him about
going to the branch temple trip February 18th and what we’d be doing
there. He brings up indexing and family genealogy as possible things. As he’s
describing indexing and what it is, I felt a tickle in my heart that this
actually sounded like something I could do and would be interested in doing. As
grandpa explained the way it helps other members search for their family names
and hunt down their own genealogy, it sounded an awful lot like service work to
me. Something kind of bookish(I’m good at that), attention to detail oriented(I’m
good at that), and…time consuming. Something serviceable that could occupy my
time which were both things I was looking for!
It doesn’t stop there. Come Sunday and I planned
to stay over at the Hansens again, just for fun and to spend time with my aunt
and my cousins. As soon as I get there, since I had bugged aunt Wendy in
previous weeks about some church oriented novels she might have, I’m there at
the Hansens for not more than an hour and uncle Dave brings out 3 medium-sized Tupperware
containers FULL of books. Novels, Glenn Beck political books, and some church
oriented books. And they offer them to me like a library that I can check out
whenever I want. No late fees!
I’ll be reading for a long while…which will also
fill the rest of my time. I expressed to them and bore my testimony with how
heavy handed Heavenly Father has been with me, sometimes I feel dizzied by the
rag doll treatment He seems to be giving me, directing me here, guiding me this
way, giving me these searched for answers. The next morning as I spoke with
aunt Wendy, she hit the nail on the head with the description of Him: He’s not
directing me forcefully; He’s a loving Father who’s been estranged from His
daughter for so long and He’s excited to have her back, talking to Him, asking
Him for answers. As soon as she said that, I felt in my heart that I knew this
was true. How encouraging He's been during my journey, how much His joy bursts
in my heart when I find the things I’ve been looking for and longing for, how
patient He has been with me. I even said in one of my very first entries how my
problem before when I left the church was that I forgot what the term “daughter”
meant and that I am one. Seems I briefly forgot again.
So, repentance can be tough. Discussing my
process with grandpa about a month or two ago, he told me that I am a
perfectionist and the big part of my process would be in forgiving myself for
what I’ve done. I ignored him and I’ve been troubled with this search ever
since. I thought if I could make my life open to the spirit, then I’d truly get
confirmation, like a bell ringing inside, and I could move past it knowing it
was official: that sin had been wiped clean. I’ve gotten some answers in the quiet
of my room but was reluctant to accept them because they weren’t as loud as I
wished/expected they would be.
Fast forward to tonight. I only borrowed two
books from the Hansens so far, one by Glenn Beck and one tiny one called Believing Christ by Stephen Robinson. I
figured along with Fishers of Men by
Lund, I’d have my palette full with Christian novel, doctrine, and political. I
put it aside because my cold mutated into an ugly groggy monster this week,
deciding its last Pokemon evolution would be the stomach bug to end all stomach
bugs today. So, not much reading or doing anything except coughing and sneezing
and this bug ruining my weekend plans. I’ve been asleep most of the evening so,
I’m up now and on a whim decided Lund was too fantasy for me right now; I
wanted to dig into this thin book, Believing
Christ. When uncle Dave had the books laid out on their dining table and I
selected that one, my cousin Mead, who’s a returned missionary, suggested that
would be a great choice, “especially for me.” So, I’ve had this nudging curiosity
in the back of my mind all week, with a note on it, “I’ll get to it as soon as
I feel better.”
So, not even past the first chapter and already
this thing has got me crying but into the second chapter, “The Good News”
Robinson delves into the Atonement and what exactly the difference is “believing in Christ” and “believing Christ.” Because doesn’t it feel like, when you finally acknowledge
the impact you’ve had upon Heavenly Father and your own soul with something you’ve
done, a sin, it doesn’t seem like He could possibly possess enough bleach to
make that red white again. I got the impact part and it finally hit me how much
I have lost, time-wise, purity-wise, with what I did while away. But that
acceptance part…that the Atonement could be for me too…that was the struggle.
Just something about the way Robinson phrased
things in this chapter, about the acceptance
of this gift I have been given, struck me like a light switch flicked on.
Suddenly my stomach ache is gone and I felt the Spirit testify to me that
Heavenly Father truly does love me and He does not want me to hang onto this
and punish myself needlessly. That is not a part of this journey He wants me to
take. I want to bear my testimony that I know that we can all make it to live
with our Heavenly Father again by partaking in the Atonement. All your sins can
truly be made as white as snow. That always, He wants nothing but the best for
each of us and for our ultimate happiness. I also bear to you that I know He
answers prayers and like any Father missing His children, He gets excited and
filled with joy when we reach out to Him. I say these things in the name of
Jesus Christ, Amen.
If I may sweet Panda-Panda, what you've described in your discovery in Believing Christ's early chapters, is in a Word, literally, functionally, by definition in description, . . . Grace. Theologically summarized, it's accepted as a tome and basis of The Nature of God, that Grace 'is the unmerited favor of God'. That (like SO MUCH [if not all] of Scripture and it's principles) is SO simple 'sounding', but SO profound and 'deep' as well. It is the literal aftermath, the very 'state of man' in his relationship to God, after the advent of Jesus. I've heard it described like this - when Adam and Eve fell, it was like a certain but discernible 'light' over all of creation, was clicked 'off' - the very nature of things, EVERYTHING, changed, in fact, probably morphed in real-time if you will, . . . in essence, corruption 'darkened' all. Similarly, after Jesus' completed mission on earth, a 'light' was shown, was 'lit', in the darkness, that previously would only visit and occasionally be visible, to the faithful indeed, but also terribly to the unfaithful. The tenor of Grace changed the very premise of man's expulsion, and 'The Way', the 'path', was lit. Which is also as it happens, I believe, and Scripture testifies to, that the experience of its' embrace is so reviving, so fulfilling, so rejuvenating, . . . . like being in a cave, and someone outside, on our behalf, dislodges a rock, and a sliver in the distance of opening, casts a beam of 'hope', . . . all the way back to where we are, . . . that indeed is invigorating. My prayers to you for your suffering, and my joy to you for your healing, spiritually focused that it may be in the moment, but that it might spread throughout 'the rest of you', . . . . Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in good health, even as your soul prospers. 3 John 2:1
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