Let Us Love

I had lunch today with my ex-wife. She's a wonderful person and my goal was to become better friends with her and to help her see how much I've healed from the heartache of losing her. I have long believed she's felt terrible ever since asking me for a divorce and I wanted for her to be able to let go of any guilt she may have been feeling. 

To respect her privacy, I'll just say that our visit went very well, and we both took joy in each other's growth and progress.

Yet for some reason afterward, I felt troubled and was unsure why.

After returning home, I knelt in prayer and asked God if there was anything He wanted me to do. I received an immediate answer to take a walk down to one of my favorite spots--the local dam behind my house.

The sun was shining, the sky bright blue, and my mind was quiet. My heart grew heavy and I began to pray.

As I walked along the highway, then turned into the neighborhood, down toward the lake and its dam, the wind picked up and the water rippled. It wasn't cold, but as I looked out over the water I began to shiver. 

I sat down atop one of the many stones which dotted the lakeside and sought clarity. I wondered why I was sad. I prayed for understanding. But the beating wind and chill distracted me. 

I looked around and realized the back side of the dam was more protected from the wind. So I stood up, took a few steps into the deep green grass and stepped down into the buffering slope and sat down. I found a comfortable spot and some much needed solace. 

I sat a long time seeking understanding, at times nodding off, then awaking. I received understanding as I pondered how I've chosen to live for the last year and a half--with eyes wide open facing the wind.

Just like standing atop the dam looking out over the rippling waves, my face against the wind, I have opened myself time after time to new experiences of learning and growth. In so doing I have chosen a path of vulnerability. From sharing experiences with others through this blog, to creating a fledgling Facebook group with fear and trembling, and above all else to seeking the spirit and striving to follow wherever it leads come what may, I have left the reservation of restraint and charted a course of trusting God.

And He has given me so very much for my very imperfect efforts. 

Most recently, as I wrote about in my last post, I've learned what it means to have best friends. He has given me the gift of friendship in a profound way, something I did not expect nor could have imagined bringing me such great joy as it has.

But alas, if there's one thing this journey has taught me, it is that, like the Book of Mormon prophet Lehi taught, there is an opposition in all things. 

As I hunkered down the other side--the safe side--of the dam, where the long soft green grass held me sheltered from the wind, it reminded me of God's matchless love and protection from all things harmful. 

Indeed, He has sheltered me from all things that would do me harm. He has encircled me in the arms of His love, blessed me with courage, comfort, determination, understanding, spiritual gifts, and every good thing that I have so far sought. 

My Savior has been my shelter, my protector, my daily deliverer from things great and small, reminding me time and again that I can change, that I can overcome. He has proven that if I but trust Him by striving my best to obediently follow His will, He will heal me. 

Yet He has done so not by having me turn away from the wind and the waves. He has delivered me by standing with me, and facing them right alongside me.

So then why so sad? 

Let me not then be sad, but resolute in receiving this good thing my God is trying to give me! Let me not fear what the wind and the waves will do! Let it blow and let them come! Let me not fear the pain and the heartache that comes with all relationships. 

But let me trust in Him who is mighty to save. He has saved me every time. Healed every hurt. Dried every tear, even brought me to the great gratitude I feel for every single loss.

As with all hard things, I know there is a path to deliverance and I need only to keep trusting that the path will open before me. I know that He will open it.

So I will face the wind and the waves and whatever pain and hurt they bring. I will bear the burden of friendship and all that comes with it. The sorrow, the suffering, the grief, and the tears, and everything else that comes along with it, whether good or bad. And I will be blessed immeasurably more for having done so.

I do not know why my lunch with my friend, who happens to be my former wife, triggered the sadness I felt today. For I am healed--and so, it seems, is she. 

But then the why doesn't really matter, does it? It doesn't really matter why bad things or sad things happen to me or to you. It doesn't really matter why we must hurt or feel pain and heartbreak and loss. None of that matters. 

Because all that really matters is that we keep on loving each other, our friends and even those we don't know, in spite of the fears we face. Because in the end, if we keep going, moving forward with faith in a loving God who heals through the blood of His son, we all will be healed. And that will be enough!

 







                    

The Blessing of Friendship

It has been about three months now since this latest blessing flood has been turned on full blast. It concerns me somewhat because in my new life in the Spirit the ebb and flow of blessings then hard trials seem to alternate every three months (in fact, I just now discovered that if you look at the pattern of my posts since I've begun this blog, you can see when I'm seeing the blessings and when the mists of darkness have surrounded me). Others I know who walk the same path I am on have confirmed a similar pattern as well.

But however long my current high shall last, I only want to testify. I want to testify that God's love is real. It heals. It turns everything--even every past hurt--into the tenderest of mercies. Just a couple days ago I awoke wailing with joy. I had never done this before. This came about because of the blessing of friendship. I wrote briefly about how this came about in my journal a couple days ago:

"Have you ever been asked to do something by the Lord so very hard that it required all the courage you had? Something that you had never done before, something that you had no idea you could do, but you did it anyway because you knew it was the right thing to do? And then you received great joy at having done the thing because the accomplishment of having done it forced you to see yourself in a whole new wonderful way? And it blew your mind?

I have just arrived home from a large Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints singles event in Nauvoo, Illinois. I had the time of my life as I followed the voice of the Lord to me when, prior to the event in one of His temples, He directed me to boldly follow the Spirit and to be a friend to everyone near me. I was blessed with being able to follow His instructions and feel that I have made deep friendships quickly with a handful of very good people whom I now love dearly.

As I neared my home after the five+ hour car ride I began to become sad at the sudden “friend withdrawal” I was feeling. As I further reflected upon the miracle God worked through me to the obtaining of these new friendships, I began to feel a new burden settle in. It has to do with commitment. Now that I have new friendships with people who are very dear to me, I feel tremendously vulnerable and at risk and the natural man in me wants to run into a corner, hide, and never come out and play again. I believe I have just realized that maintaining true friendships require a whole lot more than a single weekend of risking vulnerability. And the terrifying thing for me is that rejection is a very real possibility at any time in the future of these new friendships.

I graduated from high school 27 years ago. I have maintained not one of the friends I made during those school years. I returned from my mission 24 years ago. Again, not one of the special friendships I developed on my mission--whether with companion or convert--has carried forward to the present. I have also lived in some six or seven different locations around the country and world during the last 23 years of my life. I can recall again not one single person who I’ve maintained regular contact with.

Why is this? It is because I have always been ashamed of who I am.

Now, however, because I have accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior and follow Him daily, I have no more shame. Indeed, I glory in His ability to erase such evil from my life. I believe that with His name I can overcome all.

Nevertheless, despite the wiping away of all my shame, the structure it built remains. These are the fears, doubts, and false beliefs I have surrounded myself with in order to create false senses of security and safety.

One of these is the fear of rejection. And while I am very fearful of being rejected, I know that by continuing to follow my Savior’s footsteps as He brings me closer to facing that fear, I will be freed of it.

So I will not retreat into the corner and hide. I will come out and play again with my new dear friends. For above all else, I love them and want them to know they are worth it. It is the desire to keep this, the second commandment, and especially the great first one (Matthew 22: 37-40) that will set me free at last of this fear of rejection."

(end of journal entry)

I cannot remember ever really knowing the blessing of friendship. It is no one's fault. It has simply been my path, caused by my shame. That shame is gone now and as I seek to please God every day in my walk of faith, He has blessed me with friends. It is not easy to convey my gratitude for this. 

I have been a loner all my life. An outcast. A wallflower. A silent insecure observer who never fit in. Oh how I have wanted to fit in!

I fit in now. I fit in now because my personal Savior has believed in me. How one so great can believe in one so lowly as me I cannot explain. To explain it would be to explain the atonement and who can do this? 

I am 45 years old. I have been a nobody all my life. Born the middle child to good but struggling parents. Not a day went by when I did not feel alone, isolated, confused about who I was. Mental illnesses. Three hospital stays in three different hospitals for those mental illness. Lost relationships with my first two beautiful children who still remain distant. I could go on and on.

This is not to say others have not had it worse than me. My Lord has been so merciful to me, even from the beginning. As I look back upon every hard thing I have ever endured I am truly grateful for every cross I have carried, every load I have lifted, every tear I have cried, every confused thought thought. These hard things in my life have become the tenderest of mercies and I would not give one of them back. I so love every loss. I so love every heartbreak. My heart is full from the deep suffering I have endured because of what my Lord has given me in return. He has filled my cup to overflowing that I cannot contain the joy. 

My prayer now is that I may tie the blessings I am receiving to which laws of Heaven I have kept so that I may help all my friends--even every brother and every sister of mine--in their journey back to their Savior. I hope in coming days, months, and years to not just share my story of deliverance, but to share what I did to unlock these blessings. God grant me the light I seek that I may help in His glorious work. 

Joyful Wailing

Two days ago I woke up crying. Not weeping. Not softly shuddering. But full on full blown crying. You could call it wailing. You know, the kind with ugly noises coming from somewhere down below deep inside. Gosh, this is personal stuff. But yeah, I want to write about it. 

I want to write about it so that others may know that it exists. This is called joyful, cup running over wailing. 

So my cup has been running over with blessings since sometime last year. I've cried many tears because of the blessings I've been receiving. Many, many tears, many many times. 

The tears of gratitude have been catching up, slowly, to the tears of grief I've cried over the years. Though really it's not like that. All the good happening to me now has already made all the bad so worth it. 

Just like C.S. Lewis said:

“[Mortals] say of some temporal suffering, ‘No future bliss can make up for it,’ not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. … The Blessed will say, ‘We have never lived anywhere except in Heaven.’”

I know what he means. And I want every other person in this world to know the truth of this, too. The joy is really real. I have waited so long. But it is worth it. 

As I was heading into work yesterday Heavenly Father revealed to me that certain other blessings related to my mission were coming. There are some specific things that I want--no need--in order for me to do His work. I know they are coming. I see them, barely, out in the distant horizon. They are coming. And I know it because it is His work. And I only want to do His work. To share this great joy that I have in my heart with others is all I want to do. 

And I know that the same joy I feel can be felt by the lowliest of people. I am one of these. Have been for all my life. 

He is turning my path into gold. Has been doing it for over a year now. It is gold where I stand. And as I turn and look behind me, at the path from where I have come, my personal trail of tears, all I see is gold. For those hard times--those very hard times--I now see as the tenderest of mercies. He loved me enough to refine me with the severest of trials. How merciful He was to let me sink so low, so that now He could lift so high. 

I know hard times are coming. Perhaps more severe than I have ever experienced. I say this because we all must be tried in all things. 

But as I was headed into work yesterday He revealed to me one more thing. The blessings I feel now are but a scratch on the surface of all that awaits. And I know this is true. I know it. 

My Heavenly Father loves me. And He loves you. And He is doing all He can to shower each of us with His divine healing love at all times. Even right now. Will you receive it? 

Ask Him what you need to do in order to receive it. It is worth every sacrifice. Oh so worth it!