It is a gift to feel

 I watched a man tonight, a man who had been blown up in an IED explosion in Iraq fighting a war others had started, sing God Bless America. This man* who had lost a limb, suffered two heart attacks, two strokes and was in a coma for months and years later is still fighting to speak, sang God Bless America and you could hear in his voice and see in his face that he meant it. He whose life and whose family's lives had turned upside down sang God Bless America. He understood what he had given his "normalcy" for, what his comrades had given their lives for. He understood the sacrifice and the sacrifice required of many, yet he fought the good fight and continues to fight it everyday. I am so thankful for his sacrifice, for his family's sacrifice and for the sacrifice of millions through the years, for their love of country, their sense of duty and patriotism and for their willingness to go to the end in service. "For the families of those who have fallen everyday is memorial day." (General Dunford)

   I am also so thankful for those who have gone before us, for their legacy of faith, love and hope for a better future. I am thankful for ancestors who fought the good fight and continue to fight it on the other side of the veil. For their love and work for themselves and future generations.

   And I find myself tonight wondering how they did it. We live in a world that seems to focus on the negative. And let's face it we do live in a world of gathering darkness, the adversary is on the loose and he loves to wreak havoc. He already knows how his story ends, ps he loses, his only consolation is taking as many of us with him and if he can't do that then he would like to see us as miserable as possible. Many ask if God loves us how can there be war, how can there be pain, how can there be so much misery, if He is God why does He allow this for His children. As someone who does her best not to ask those questions myself (but sometimes they do come to mind) I know that sometimes even having the "eternal perspective" answers aren't a comfort. Seeing those you love in pain and being in pain yourself can sometimes give a crust of bitterness to perspective. But as I watched that man sing tonight I wondered how do you move past that crust and find joy in the moment. At first I was going to ask how to not be bitter period, but I think that does our humanity a disservice and can break a heart that doesn't want to be bitter, but doesn't know how to get past it. A heart that sits alone at church because they don't know if they can answer "good" the next time someone else asks "how are you?" assuming things are good, a heart that doesn't want pity, but doesn't know how long the facade will last, a heart that realizes things could be worse, but still hurts with things the way they are, a heart that wants to be grateful and sees things to be grateful for, but just doesn't feel it. A heart that knows Christ can heal the wounds, but no matter how many times that heart goes to the Garden doesn't know how to leave things there.

  So what do you say to that heart? I don't know, because not every answer works every time or for every person, because sometimes it isn't about solutions it isn't about conclusions, it is about saying it hurts and having someone else say I know. Our Savior Jesus Christ meets us where we are. I used to think that meant He offered balm of Gilead where we are and healing and help. Now I am beginning to realize He does meet us where we are, even when that means we have walls the size of Texas around our hearts and all He can do is stand outside and wait, that means He walks by our sides and listens as we rail and worry, question and weep and just waits. He understands that sometimes there isn't anything you can do, sometimes healing takes time and coming to ourselves is the longest part. How do we move past the crust of bitterness that will come to us? We realize that sometimes it's just part of the healing process, but light will come again. Remember that because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ every tear will be made up ten fold and that pain won't last for forever. Find joy in the good moments, even when you know they will only last for a moment. Remember that this life is just a step to a bigger future and that your natural ability to bounce back is a gift, not a lack of caring. Embrace the smiles because they are a glimpse of better to come. Embrace the tears because they show you care. Embrace the pain, embrace the numbness, embrace each day because this is life, sometimes it is good, sometimes it is bad, but it is life and it is a gift to feel and to live.  As Pres Hinckley said, "the trick is to thank the Lord for the ride."



*Louie Avila

Good things will still come

After the wonderful feedback I've received this morning, I just want to add one or two thoughts. First is that I think one part of trials and adversity is that they isolate you and I think to a certain extent they are engineered that way. Not because Heavenly Father doesn't want us to learn to bear one another's burdens, but because sometimes in order to build a relationship with Christ we are placed in situations where there isn't anyone else. Where He is the only one that understands and He only one can offer balm in Gilead. I'm so thankful for the many who do offer their love and support and give Christlike love. Second, sometimes it is just easier to say "I'm fine" than it is to explain the inner workings of the heart and I think that is true for most of us. 

I have been sitting slash laying on my couch for the last hour and a half trying to figure out what to say, how to say it and what should really be said. I'm about to speak some contradictions and really the only way to see our way clear to correct action is through the spirit.

There is nothing more painful than to feel all alone in a trial, to feel in a deep dark pit with no light at the end of the tunnel, with no knowledge how to cope, no idea what will come next and having no idea what to do even if you did know what is coming next and to feel forsaken and alone, not only by Heavenly Father (even though you know He hasn't left you alone and you know He loves you, you just can't feel it) but by pretty much everyone else in your life. It isn't because they don't care, but because you have no idea how to share with them what you are going through because you have no idea how to face the conversations that will follow and even though you so want the help and support you can't face the pity, I told you so's or any other number of things that have come your way or you fear will come your way.

You wish so much you had someone to confide in, but in doing so in the past you have never gotten the response you really desired. You got lots of people telling you game plans that no amount of pondering and praying you felt good about or that you did feel good about, but saw no way to implement them. And so you lose people to confide in because they always follow up (using the good old commitment pattern) and you can't give them the answers they want. So you strike another potential listener off the list and soon there isn't very many people on that list and you don't want to bug them because you know they have their own trials and your trial seems so much the same and you can't figure out why it still hurts so much because surely you should have gotten immune to the ouch by now. And in some ways you have gotten immune to the ouch, it doesn't hurt the way it used to, the sharp surprise is gone and now it is a dull ache that sinks to your bones and slowly steals away confidence in things you've always taken for granted. You know that trial and adversity are a part of life and you've heard Elder Maxwell say that we shouldn't pray for the very things that are helping us to grow as the Lord would have us grow go away.

So you pray for peace, you pray for hope, you pray you know what to do, you pray that somehow you can make it through one more day and you pray to not be angry at the people around you who seem like life is going so smoothly (even though your know at this point in life that no one's lives are easy, trial just comes in different forms for everyone and some is more visible than others), and you don't want to be angry because you know that you don't want to coast and the previous set of trials you were facing had become second nature, so of course in order to level up things get harder. And you don't want to be angry because you know Satan is the father of contention and the father of lies and he is the one telling you that you are alone and there is no hope.

I have a feeling that there is a world full of people who have felt, are feeling or will feel this way at some point in their lives. That feel forsaken, alone and unsure. Who know all the right answers that should bring comfort, but are finding that those answers don't bring the comfort they used to. I wonder how Abraham felt when after decades of waiting for posterity that the Lord had promised him, he was asked by that same God to sacrifice that one son that had been given to him. I wonder how long he wrestled before he dutifully loaded his mules and took his son and servants to that sacrificial mountain. I wonder if he wondered what he would tell those servants who so dutifully came with why his son wouldn't be coming back with him. I wonder if he felt the bitter irony crowding into his heart and how he didn't shake his fist at the Lord who he knew had placed his place which now felt so painful and bitter. And I wonder sometimes if he didn't just want to run away. I think he did for we know even Christ our perfect examplar asked if he could be removed from the task at hand when the pain became so intense, when He felt overwhelmed by the sheer humanness of life and when he felt the pain of Abraham in being asked to give up his son, with Christ knowing it was He that asked that of Abraham (I have never thought that thought before, but it is profound). Our Savior Jesus Christ knows what it is for us to hurt even when we are following His direction because in the garden He felt it, He knows the pain, but still He asks it of us because He understands the triumph that comes. He knows the good and so sometimes we are placed somewhere and feel the evil. I don't know the relief Abraham felt when he climbed back down that mountain with Isaac by his side or the joy in his heart when Christ offered a ram to be sacrificed in Isaac's stead.

In the temple devotional today Elder Kim Clark gave a talk which talked about waiting on the Lord. We are promised strength as we run and face life's trials with urgency and pain and energy to face the daily walk with the Lord as we work to change our very nature to be like His. He knows what it is to run and feel weary and to walk and feel faint and want to wander from the course. But He knows the course is the only way and so Christ offers strength.

Sometimes in the vicissitudes of life perspective is enough other times no amount of perspective makes the ouch go away. But perspective and sword bearing angels can be enough. In this life where so many of us will be called upon to grow through pain and circumstances we never thought possible and have no idea of the outcome, know that the heavens ache to help you, that everything has a reason, that there are loved ones surrounding you and that even when life doesn't get easier there is peace and strength in the temple, the fortress of the Lord, and that when you can't go a step farther the Savior of the world, our redeemer Jesus Christ is equal to the task of carrying us because He knows the pain and He knows the outcome. Even if all you can do is trust Him for a moment, trust Him with your whole heart in that moment, perhaps the miracles you want still won't come, but you will be different after that moment and good things will still come.
 

Grace for Grace, we are loved at our darkest

This week has been a bit of a bumpy ride, not really because it was a bad week or that anything bad happened, but because there has been so many highs and lows, just by nature of being life and because I am seeking to receive more light and knowledge and with that desire comes a testing ground. A ground where Satan seeks to see how determined we really are to receive all our Father has for us. This battle ground gave me opportunity to see so many blessings from Heavenly Father and to see how necessary the grace our Savior offers us is for our progression.

I used to think that I was a pretty good person, that with the talents I had and the desires for good I had that I was doing pretty good. Lately I've come to see how many different ways I fall short, how many times I allow myself to coast instead of seeking the bigger and greater things before me and before each of us. I see that I can be a pretty selfish being, I like to have my own way, my own stuff and do the things I want to do, but this life isn't about selfishness, it is about love, kindness, and caring. I used to think that grace was for the sins of commission, you know those sins we actively set out to do, but now I realize grace is for mortality, sometimes we just fall short, sometimes we just don't reach our goals and sometimes we just don't live up to being the people we feel we should be. this week I set out to do a temple marathon. I found a name last Sunday who needed all of her work done. Heavenly Father said take her to the temple each day, so I did. Tuesday was baptism and confirmation (a miraculous experience, I got to the baptistry when it was empty so I ended up getting home about the time I usually would have). Then Wednesday I had the day off and spent the morning at the temple, even though I felt a cold coming. We did initiatory, a session and I ended up doing sealings just when someone else on the third floor needed to leave so the flow of work wasn't slowed or disrupted. Heavenly Father blessed me richly for those efforts, even though the rest of the week I felt I did nothing on my end to warrant it. In fact I fell back into some not good habits I've been trying to break. Yet still I was blessed. Even in my human weakness I have been given many blessings.
 I think if we really understood how much grace we are given daily we would fall at the feet of our Savior and do whatever He asks of us daily. It isn't about what we can do, for He has already purchased us with a price. But we can help Him bless His children, and we can extend the grace He has extended so richly to us to others. In this way we can feel His love and we can do His work, not only to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man, but to love His children, for He truly loves us and no matter where we are on the path of discipleship He hopes we can feel that love.

Faith, Hope and Charity

For most of my life whenever I read Moroni or heard a talk or lesson about the trio Faith, Hope and Charity I always figured that if I had faith, that lead me to hope for eternal life and charity for others that I could then have eternal life. But recently I heard it in a new light, then as I digested the information and was checking to see if it was accurate I heard it a second time from the member of the Seventy, so I think I dare run with it.

In Stake Conference last night David T Warner taught us about charity. Now many times we think about charity in the sense of the Relief Society motto "Charity Never Faileth" or just keep serving. Now service is part of charity, but not because we serve because of guilt. True service and true charity comes because of the love we feel from our Father in Heaven. Because we feel His love for us and His love for all of His children we then want to share that love with others. When Nephi asked about the tree his father saw the Holy Spirit taught him that the tree represented the love of God. This most precious fruit is knowing that our Heavenly Father knows us and loves us, this knowledge then strengthens our faith to follow our Father's will and hope that because He loves us good things will come to us. When we see charity as a gift our Heavenly Father gives to us, that changes faith and hope from something we need to have to progress to something that comes as a result of feeling Christ's love for us.

Throughout my life there has been few times when I didn't feel the love of my Father in my life. But lately I haven't felt that love, there are still moments like in the temple when I can feel that love, but for the most part I feel like I am wandering through a waste land alone, wishing for some sign, for some something to help me feel loved. I know in my head that Heavenly Father loves me or should love me, but I'm starting to realize there is a very big difference between knowing something should be true and actually feeling something as fact. It is a painful thing to sit through a meeting and wait the whole time to hear something that affirms to you that you are known, you are cared for and you are loved. And this in my mind is where faith and hope fit with charity. If in some moments we don't feel the love of the Savior, if we feel cut off, confused or hopeless we must have hope that there really is a being out there who does love us, who is connected to us and hurts for us. We then need faith that that hope is not vain and that there will come a time when we feel it and can feel it deep within us. Having felt the love of my Father many times in my life it is a painful thing to be without it now, but it has shown me how those with depression can feel so cut off, alone and without worth. It is painful to feel you have to work to be loved, to feel you will never measure up, that you don't hold a special place in someone's heart. Sometimes in those moments we just have to keep moving, it would be wonderful to feel loved before moving forward, but sometimes we do what we've been encouraged to do, sometimes that love we seek will come and other times we find meaning and purpose in obedience and distraction, which is still a better place to be then where we were.

Faith is an action word, as we act and as we hope we can find purpose and meaning and one day faith and hope really will bring charity as well. The charity to know God loves us as one of His children, as a being that holds a special place in His heart.