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!

An Empty Chair

My house sits at the end of a long driveway and every night well after dark, except for an occasional passing car and the hum of the garage spotlight, all is quiet. I like to come out here, wander up the driveway toward the dark road and back a few times or more in contemplation and prayer.

Tonight was such a night. Moments before stepping outside something had happened that caused me to think about the level of vulnerability my children face every day and I was afraid for my daughter. It was weighing me down and I sought comfort. So I did my usual thing up and down the driveway. At one point, because I thought it would be more comfortable, I grabbed my comfy porch chair, moved it to the driveway, and sat down.

But not for long. With a mosquito buzzing in my ear and a bat or two darting nearby, I was unsettled, so got up and began to walk again.

At some point I was midway up the driveway and turned around and saw the silhouette of the chair in front of the bright spotlight. It struck me as profound in some way that I could not understand, so I took a picture.

Empty chair

I thought about how I try to assign a meaning to everything that happens in life. How there is really nothing that happens to me that I don’t try to make sense of. And then it occurred to me that everything really does have meaning. That there are no accidents or coincidences in life.

I received comfort regarding my daughter as I remembered that God loves my children and wants them to return Home far more than I want them to. Then I gave thanks for the guidance I’d been receiving since I’d submitted to His will over a year ago.

Then I said, "But you really have allowed me to suffer a lot, haven’t you?" It was not a complaint, just an observation.

He said, “It’s taken you a long time to let my love in.”

I tearfully expressed to Him how long I had been trying, reaching for Him, before the crisis had forced me to turn completely to Him.

But in my lack of faith, I stopped just short of putting it in question form as I realized maybe I wasn’t ready for that truth yet--the truth of whether or not I had, in fact, been trying my best to reach for Him prior to the crisis.

At this point I had made it all the way back to the chair and placed my hand on it. I looked up the driveway, then back to where I stood behind the chair.

Then I saw with His eyes.

The empty chair represented for Him my absence from His presence. Just as I longed for my daughter to always remain clean and worthy to receive God’s love, He too had suffered every day because I had separated myself from His love. And He too had longed for when I would be ready to receive more of that love, and suffers still to the degree that I shut Him out daily.

I looked back up the driveway from where I had walked. Though I had seen earlier some dead leaves, twigs, and stones that littered the driveway, when I looked again, standing in the light, I saw for the first time how brightly lit all the debris was.

I then walked away from the chair, toward the road and all the debris and realized that I was now looking away from the light. It was a challenge not to focus on the debris that was scattered all over. I then placed a few more stones on the pavement and stepped back, my back still against the light. Those stones were lit by the light and it was impossible to not see them, even when looking up toward the road.

I then walked beyond the stones and turned around, looking back into the light and at the empty chair. I looked down at the stones and other debris, but could barely see them. They were drowned out by the light. If I focused, it was there. But as I looked toward the light, it was as though much of the twigs and stones vanished.

I have found this to be analogous to my life. When I turn away from Jesus Christ, stepping stones turn into stumbling blocks and they are all I see. But when I return my gaze back to my Savior, those same stumbling blocks become stepping stones, inching me forward, closer to His presence.

Just as I placed the stones in the driveway, sometimes I place stones in my own path through disobedience. And sometimes the debris I must pass through has been placed there by others or is the result of the fallen world I live in and is part of God’s divinely orchestrated plan for me.

But the way through all the debris is the same. Only by following the Light of the world--which is Jesus Christ--can we return to His presence and receive a fullness of His love. 

His plan for you and for me is perfect. Every part of the plan is driven by love. That's what amazes me the most about Him. All that He does is because of His love. When we turn from Him, in His divine mercy, He allows us to be humbled by the twigs, stones, and other debris on our path that loom large. And when we turn back to Him those same stumbling blocks become stepping stones we pass through with more ease that bless us with opportunities to grow so we can become more like Him, so we can return to Him.

More than we can possibly know He wants us to return to the empty chair we left behind when we left His presence. He wants us back far more than we want to go back. May our hearts ever be broken for Him so that He can heal us with His pure love as He so infinitely yearns to do.

Where'd My Blessings Go?

So what do you do when your blog is titled "Bursting With Blessings" but you're just not seeing many blessings?

Sure I know I have blessings. I spent time with each of my girls today after not seeing them for a week and a half. That's a big blessing.

I had lunch today with both girls, my ex-wife--thank gosh the title is now official--and her boyfriend, and it actually went well. Blessing. Check.

I have friends who check in with me on occasion at just the time when I need them to. Check.

I receive guidance from God in the form of answers to my prayers. What's the percentage of people in all the world who can confidently say this? (And I'm not bragging here. Just recognizing a huge reason for gratitude that's impossible to overstate.)

I could go on. I have blessings. I do see them. Some of them amaze me, really. To the point that I think--Wow, really? What have I done to deserve this?

So yeah, I have them. They keep coming. Some are just amazing. Many are miracles. And I believe I do acknowledge them and give thanks. I believe I try to.

But I see so much more than blessings. I see what I don't have. Things I want that seem perfectly reasonable, yet are incompatible with me :

• A stable, intact family for my daughters. Nope. They have to have two homes. In this case, two is not better than one. And I'll not even mention my first set of kids--or did I just?
• A steady income. Nope. Mine is a job that is not paying enough to pay the bills. Gonna have to rectify that before long.
• Doubts. I darn sure don't want them. But how many answers to my prayers are from me, not God? I have evidence enough to know that my voice has supplanted His in some of those answers to prior prayers.
• Self confidence. What's that? Yeah, uh-uh. Move along. Nothing to see here. Do you have extra? I'll pay you. Do you take credit?
• Lack of depression. In other words, I have depression. Again. It's like the evil twin brother of no self-confidence. Executive function? Heard of that once a long, long, time ago--for eight great weeks. Then poof! Yeah, no.

I remember walking into my new home in Evansville, IN some 15 months ago, freshly separated from my wife. Here were my thoughts:

"This is bottom. I am up $#!^ creek without a paddle. I. Have. No. Clue."

Over the next several months miracles worked their way into my life and I found more than a clue. I found God who became my rock and who lifted me up from rock bottom. He helped me hit reset and lifted me up into a new orbit with new eyes and new habits and helped me begin to build a new life.

Some of those new habits have turned pale and sloughed off like a pair of work pants fallen to the floor after a hard day's work. Two steps forward, now back one.

And yesterday's bright clear eyes have begun to film over, scales forming anew. A little less sunshine, sometimes a lot.

Today on the phone I told my 2nd rock--my mom--I was gonna have to change the title of my story from "How God Saved Me From the Wreckage of Divorce," to "God's Dragging His Feet And Needs to Hurry the Hell Up and Help!"

We both got a good laugh because there is some truth there. Though spoken with tongue in cheek, in my human frailty I really do wish He would hurry up and get my painful lessons over with. I do not enjoy these deprivations. I long for when this time in my life ends. And it may also be that this present level of ingratitude prolongs the trial.

For it is ingratitude, is it not?

Maybe this is the point at which, like the woman who reached out and touched the hem of the Savior's robe, all I can do is to reach. And hope. And pray that my reaching is enough to activate His grace.

For if I ask of myself the question--would I rather have my will or His prevail, assuming they are different, I can still answer "His". I am gratefully too fearful to go my own way.

Yet do I not go my own way still when I am unwilling to reach, unwilling to go a step further and sincerely ask Him what more would He have me change or give up?

In other words, I can reach up toward Him, whose grace is always sufficient, or begin to descend again, to a new rock bottom.

That's perspective.

The Gift of Grief

I just took a walk down to the local beach – 10 minutes away from my house. While there, a woman who is a long-distance friend of mine, messaged me and I messaged her back. I got to thinking how I usually only respond to her texts. I have only rarely initiated. And I never provide her any details of my life. This is unusual for me. I have historically been prone to share with others the details of my life. But I have not shared with her even the fact that I’ve been divorced now for a week. And I have no inkling to share that with her, nor really any other detail about my life.

As I walked up the road toward home I wondered why this has been so with this particular friend. The answer came quickly. After all, this isn't something I haven't pondered before. I have known the answer to this question. But it seemed to sink in to me more deeply than ever before. The reason I don’t share intimate details of my life with the opposite sex is because my heart has been demolished.

This sounds hyperbolic and maybe it is. But I wonder if the reason I am unwilling to share the inmost parts of my heart, or what remains of it, is because there seems to be nothing left of it. I think there has been so much devastation and shock to my heart that there is nothing that would make me want to expose it to the elements again. I cannot even imagine when it may be ready again.

Someday I believe it will be. But I believe it will be years – maybe many years. For I am still reeling in shock. The blow I took was mighty. I think that I am unable to comprehend the greatness of it. It feels surreal.

The only evidence I can see arises from my behaviors. Such is my complete and utter lack of interest in establishing relationships with the opposite sex. There is simply zero – maybe even negative – interest in giving my heart away.

For where Is my heart? I'm not even sure.

I try to understand what happened. I try to put my arms--the arms of my understanding--around the idea that I am no longer with her. I am no longer with my wife--who is not now my wife. All I get back is an error message. There is no computation. It's well beyond me. I think I have only once before been at such a complete loss from my world heaving and hoing. It was when I denied God and actually doubted His literal existence.


Bad move.

That rocked my world so much that I admitted myself into the psychiatric unit of the local hospital. I was 12 years into working my way back from that devastation when my wife who is not my wife handed me this one. I still had not recovered fully from the tumult and upheaval denying God had caused my inner world. I was changed in a profound and unfriendly way from the loss of that reality back in 2005.

Ironically, this new devastation got me right with God real quick and He and I have never been better. That’s why I believe this was all according to His plan for me.

Because He’s a healer.

And because He’s a healer I know there will come a day when I will be healed. Even a day when I will rejoice at what I now see only as devastation. And in that day I will have a pure heart of gold.

But for now all I see is fool’s gold. And I am the fool.

I never knew foolishness could hurt so bad.

A Walk Around the Temple

I went for a walk today on the temple grounds. I was led to the flowers. Father wanted me to see the perfection of the flowers, yet how they were mottled and imperfect because of this fallen world. He said, “You are like these flowers. Except you are far more beautiful. But you are perfect like these flowers, and mottled, too.“

I expressed my sadness and being so weak and having to carry this mortal frame within the walls of the temple. I expressed dismay because of my weakness and not feeling as close to him as I would like. He expressed to me that I have endured much. That I have been through it and am doing far better than I realize.

I expressed sadness and sorrow that I am so easily overwhelmed by the cares of the world and by all the things I must do every day that are just a part of my activities and chores that I must accomplish. And how they overwhelm me and cause my focus to be taken off Him.

He reassured me that He is still the only way. He has overcome everything. He reminded me to look to the past year and all that I have overcome through Him. And that if I continue to look to him in every thought, I will find joy and feel of His love.

It was then that he said to me, "let me show you something," and that was when he led me to the beautiful array of flowers and gave me a glimpse of myself.

I laid out to him my grief, sorrow, and sadness during my short stroll around the temple. He gave me encouragement, love, good cheer and a mirror for me to look into and reflect back at me a glimpse of the perfection he sees in me.

Seeing Through My Depression

It is 7 PM, Monday evening. I am home alone. The girls are with their mother tonight. After arriving home a half hour ago and preparing some rice for dinner I knelt beside my bed and prayed. I asked God if there was anything he would have me do right now. I do this frequently after returning home from work. I ask him all the time what He would have me do. I do this because I have very little self-confidence. I do this because if I didn't do it I would feel overwhelmed at all the things I need to do, not knowing where to begin. His response this evening was that I was to write about yesterday’s miracle. So here is yesterday’s miracle:

Yesterday was Sunday. As usual I had my girls and took them with me to church.

Because I have depression again, each morning when I wake the day ahead looks like a mountain, imposing and daunting. If I don’t bring my focus to the immediate task at hand I begin to struggle. Yesterday morning as I stole a glimpse of the day ahead I envisioned the anxiety attending church would likely cause me.

At some point in a morning prayer, a thought came into my mind. The thought was “stop thinking about yourself and focus on serving others.”

I took that thought to heart and willed myself to obey. The result taught me a great lesson—albeit the same lesson that I’ve been learning over and over during the past several months.

It is this:

Every prompting from the Holy Ghost obeyed results in blessings greater than the effort spent—oftentimes far greater.

What was the result of following the prompting? I was able to notice and address some needs of people I cared about. In responding to each need I was able to feel God’s love for each of them and in turn feel His love for me.

This is no small thing. Especially when compared to how the day would have likely gone had I disregarded the instruction.

Had I not followed the initial prompting (and each subsequent prompting) my experience would have been far different. Chances are it would have been like the countless other times I’ve gone to church and remained stuck on myself, feeling inferior, sucking the air out of every room I was in, faking a smile to every person I met, hoping my unhappy joyless self wasn’t too obvious, but thinking deep down that everyone knew I was a fraud. And this would be just the beginning of the string of negative thoughts that would take hold of my mind, leading me further into darkness, delusion, and confusion.

But not yesterday.

While leaving church yesterday it occurred to me that there was a good chance no one had known I was depressed. It was there for sure. It was there lurking just beneath the surface the whole time. It may have been watching me. But I was not watching it. 

The Blessing of Exercise

A couple weeks ago while praying I felt impressed to share my burdens with Heavenly Father. I asked Him what he would have me do with each of them. One of those burdens is a rather minor one, but something that I have wanted to implement into my life, while feeling I hadn't the time to do so. 

It was to receive guidance regarding establishing an exercise regimen. 

His response was, “Do not concern yourself with this right now."

OK, I thought. No problem. I can keep ignoring it for a little while. It’s not like I really wanted to do it, anyway.

The next day while at work I felt prompted to text a friend of mine to see if he wanted to do dinner that evening. He texted back that yeah that sounded like a good idea. He then asked me do I take cash or check?

Then I remembered how he had mentioned to me recently about some stiffness or pain he'd been having and did I still perform massage?

I then realized he had probably thought I was asking regarding giving him a massage. I then felt prompted to offer him a free massage. So I texted him that I could bring my massage table and a frozen pizza over that evening if he was available.

"Tonight would be great," he said.

And it was.

After the massage and dinner and good conversation the evening was coming to a close.

As we were winding down I told my friend, chuckling, “I prayed yesterday about a variety of challenges and burdens that I needed to get resolved. One of those was implementing an exercise program. Heavenly Father’s response to me was “Don’t worry about it. You don’t have to do anything about it right now.”
 

I then said, “wouldn’t it be funny if the reason He told me not to worry about it was because he knew I’d be visiting you and you were going to tell me about your exercise program?”

See, I knew this friend followed an exercise regimen because he had told me about it previously.

As soon as I told him that he got a kick out of it and we had a good laugh. 

But then he went on to talk to me about his exercise routine. He told me how simple it can be as he began to demonstrate the various exercises he did every day while holding two-pound cans in his hands.

Then he told me about his running routine, how far he ran, and how often. 

In short, he provided all the details I needed in order for me to be convinced that I, too, could begin right away.

The next morning when I woke up I was prompted to go for a run and to do those same exercises. What a blessing to be provided an answer to a prayer in a manner which the Lord knew I would actually follow through with. And it came as a result of my desire to provide some small simple service.

Two weeks later as I edit and post this, I am still exercising daily, having missed just one day of intended exercise.