"... surely the thing God enjoys most about being God is the thrill of being merciful, especially to those who don’t expect it and often feel they don’t deserve it."
I wish sometimes that I wasn't so human, that I could fearlessly share my thoughts and feelings without worry about others might think, but I guess that is the thing about being human, we're afraid to be vulnerable because it opens us up to hurt. But I also think it comes from realizing we are all interconnected and that thoughtless words or deep down true words can both hurt the ones we love or cause others to act when that is not our intent. Sometimes though words just need to be said so that they don't go on poisoning us.
In "My Country 'Tis of Thee" we learn that God is a God of liberty. Now in the context of the song it is saying that God authored liberty for America, which I whole-heartedly agree. Yet as I sang the song this morning I was reminded that Heavenly Father is also an author of our own individual liberty, He doesn't want us to be trapped in sin, He doesn't want us to be trapped in fear and He most definitely doesn't want us trapped in the wiles of Satan's whisperings. But sometimes life happens and we can get stuck in those wiles without realizing it. And it can happen so easily. A few weeks ago I asked my friend "how can it be that I am praying more than ever, yet I feel farther from Heavenly Father than before?" Yesterday morning I found out the answer to my question. As I prepared for my early morning temple shift, feeling rather overwhelmed by life and feeling very far away from my Father I finally prayed a prayer I realized I haven't prayed in a very long time, I said "Father please help ____________ and I to figure things out". And then I finished getting ready and headed out for my day. As I sang the hymn "I stand all amazed" I wasn't feeling all that amazed, I was feeling hurt and angry because I wasn't feeling the love the song said I should be feeling. The Spirit spoke to me in that moment and I realized, because I haven't been feeling love from some in my life, I haven't been feeling love from my Savior and my Father. Somewhere along the line I had gotten caught in lie that if Heavenly Father really loved me that He wouldn't have put me in the situation I'm in, if He really loved me my life would look different right now. I let that thought take root in my heart and overtime it didn't matter how much I was praying to Heavenly Father, because I wasn't praying to Him about the things I really needed to. I was feeling so betrayed, lied to and frustrated that I had forgotten Heavenly Father was really the only one who could fix it. Satan lied to me by clouding the real circumstances, just because something looks like something for a week, a month, six months, a year, two years, two and a half years, doesn't mean it will always be that way. He had me forgetting that this moment right now isn't how it has always been nor how it will always be. Sure there are some things right now this moment that I feel keenly aren't here, there are somethings that I wish were different. But there are good things to.
If I truly believe that Heavenly Father is the author of Liberty, that He truly wants what is best for my eternal growth and welfare, that means I don't buy into Satan's lies and think that Heavenly Father doesn't love me because things haven't gone according to my plan. Sometimes I just feel so overwhelmed by what feels like the demands of family, work responsibilities, church callings, ministering duties, and just being a kind human being. Sometimes I feel buried by my own negativity and incorrect thinking. Sometimes I loath myself for judging others when I see so clearly all the places I feel I am failing. That's another lie from Satan, we begin thinking we'll feel better if we can just think poorly of someone else, this truly is a lie. We all have struggles, some face cancer, some face a wandering child, some face questions of faith, some face unfair judgement from others, some face barrenness, some face child loss, some face physical pain, some face emotional pain that causes them to doubt themselves. We all have our trials, we all have things that cause our souls to mourn. The thing about mortality is we all have different stuff, yet whatever the stuff might be it can still hurt us, even if to someone else it would be so faceable. I am so thankful Heavenly Father extends mercy even when we believe Satan's lie and are angry at our Father in Heaven. I am so thankful for His infinite patience, because right now I am struggling to feel His love. It is so easy to extend love to others when we feel centered in His love. Perhaps that is why tests come that seem to disconnect us from His love. Can we still be kind, can we still reach out in love when we feel so very unloved? Can we still do what is right when really all we want to do is run far away?
I am so thankful for a merciful Father who does extend His mercy even when we don't want it, who extends His kindness in brief glimpses when He knows we still aren't ready to embrace all that it means. I am thankful for a Father who hasn't given up on me, even when in this moment I don't feel it (I may know it in my mind, but knowing something and feeling something are very different things). Even now I look forward to the hope of the 2nd Coming, even now I hope for peace feeling like I don't have the ability to do what I need to do to feel it. Letting go of feelings of betrayal, letting go in general.
Jeffrey R Holland said "We consume such precious emotional and spiritual capital clinging tenaciously to the memory of a discordant note we struck in a childhood piano recital, or something a spouse said or did 20 years ago that we are determined to hold over his or her head for another 20, or an incident in Church history that proved no more or less than that mortals will always struggle to measure up to the immortal hopes placed before them. Even if one of those grievances did not originate with you, it can end with you." Right now I am struggling to face that sometimes mortals struggle to measure up to the immortal hopes place before them. But at the end of the day, if God delights so much in being merciful, perhaps that is what I am to learn, to be like my Savior, to be like my Father is to accept we are all human and we are all trying in a fallen world and doing better today than yesterday is a win and that sometimes just breathing is also a win.
We all have dark patches in life, some of them cycle through more often than we would like, but in the eternal scheme of things learning to love and learning to be merciful is truly the greatest thing we can learn because that is the essence of who God is, a being who delights in mercy because He knows the pain and He knows the effort and He just keeps loving us anyway and maybe that is what it is to be God, loving anyway. I am so thankful for a God, a Father in Heaven who loves me anyway.
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