Come Unto Him

A number of years ago I was taking a math class in preparation for teaching that subject the coming school year. We were studying vectors and I just could not grasp how they worked. I had studied and studied, worked problems over and over. I had obtained tutoring but still I did not understand. The night before the test I was becoming frustrated as I tried problem after problem to no avail. Suddenly it occurred to me that Heavenly Father and our Savior know everything. Even vectors! I realized that there could be no greater tutor than them. So I got on my knees and poured out my heart about how hard I had tried to understand. I had done all that I could think to do and I just wasn’t getting it. I told Heavenly Father that I knew He knew how vectors work and asked him to teach me. I finished my prayer and tried a few more problems, but still couldn’t do them. I decided to take a break so I went downstairs to do some laundry. I remember precisely the moment that my mind comprehended vectors…it was on the second to the last stair on my way back up! Suddenly I just knew how to do them. I ran to the table where I had been studying, anxious to try a problem. Sure enough I did it right. I worked problem after problem and they were all correct. I Thanked my Heavenly Father.

The next day when I opened the test I didn’t recognize a thing on it. I prayed again saying that I had studied and that I had the best possible tutor and would He please help my mind to recall what I knew. I started in the middle of the test with a problem I felt I could do and then proceeded to complete the test. When I was done I looked it over to see if I needed to rework any problems but they all looked right to me.

Before the professor handed back the graded tests he explained that he was going to have to greatly lower the grading scale since only 1 or 2 in the class had scored above the low 80’s and the majority in the 70’s or less. For a moment I panicked! However, when I got my test back I had received 100%.

You see, Heavenly Father does know everything…even vectors!

If he knows how to do vectors, He knows how to help us with all our needs and concerns.

Do you want to know how to cope with a devastating illness or overcome an addiction? Come unto Him

Do you want to know how to deal with struggling children or strengthen a faltering marriage? Come unto Him

Do you ache for relief from loneliness and long for peace and joy? Come unto Him

Do you want to know how to comfort a friend in need or repair a troubled relationship, to forgive someone who has betrayed or abused you? Come unto Him

Do you want to feel loved, to know that you measure up, that your offering is acceptable? Come unto Him

Do you yearn for forgiveness and mercy; for solace and healing? Come unto Him!!

Perhaps you feel over-scheduled, overwhelmed but don’t know what to change. Come unto him.

Is there someone in your life causing you grief and pain? Do you feel powerless? Come unto Him!

Whatever it is that you yearn for, come unto the fountain of all love, all knowledge, all joy, all peace, all hope. Come unto Him!

He knows what experiences of life we need. He knows what commandments and covenants will help us remember Him and bring us home. If we know that he is there, if we have developed a closeness to Him we will face all the events of our lives much better.

Right now you may be in a very comfortable, safe place but just as most devastating hurricanes, tornados, and tsunamis strike quickly, we may not see the storms of our lives coming. While they are likely to ravage us for a time they need not destroy us or take us off our course. If we are prepared to trust and access our Savior’s help we can weather them well.

You may already be in the midst of a devastating ordeal. We all have them and cannot be expected to be spared on our path of discipleship. But He can ease our burden and help us through.

What he requires is our heart and a willing mind.

Elder Neal Maxwell said of this “I testify that he is utterly incomparable in what he is, what he knows, what he has accomplished, and what he has experienced. Yet, movingly, he calls us his friends. (See John 15:15; D&C 84:77.)

“We can trust, worship, and even adore him without any reservation! He is the only perfect person to sojourn on this planet; there is, as Isaiah declared, none like him! (See Isa. 46:9.)

“In intelligence and performance, Christ far surpasses the individual and the composite capacities and achievements of all who have lived, live now, and will yet live!” (See Abr. 3:19.)

Yet again...With God NOTHING shall be impossible!

The next few years all seem to flow one into the next. It was challenging because of the difficulty I felt in loving him.
"The moment a partner fears that he or she may have fallen out of love with the other partner is the moment when the opportunity for genuine love begins. It is perhaps the moment when a readiness for a step up in spiritual maturation has arrived. it is the moment when we realize what great power we have to bless the person to whom we are married, and how much power we have to cause unnecessary pain. Shall we commit the ultimate selfish act and abandon spouse and children in the search fro another partner, shattering trust and breaking the hearts of many in the hopes of some greater fulfillment in love? This is a phantom desire, born of deception. What a tragedy such a decision is, since the only fulfillment one can ever have is that arising out of righteousness! The restless partner must look, then, at the ways in which he could restore and enrich the original love, nurture his spouse, and unlock the blessings of heaven on the marriage....My witness is that there are special blessings reserved for those who devote themselves to making marriage work, blessings that are realized in this life and in the life to come: hidden treasures of the Spirit, reserved for those who would be gods" (Spiritual Lightening, M. Catherine Thomas).
I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to become like my Father in Heaven and my Savior. I wanted to be filled with the love they have. I wanted to bless a life not destroy it. I knew that if I would continue to walk His path He would bless and strengthen me. I knew that it was more important for me to forgive and love than to punish. It was difficult not to react or blame or correct. There were ample opportunities to do so, but that is not who I wanted to be. I had come to know my Savior well enough to know that I wanted to become like Him however slow the process or how long it would take. I would "act as if" until I could become. So I acted like I loved him.
"Perhaps one of the most important views of life to embrace is that this life is a series of tutorials designed to give us experience, to develop the divine nature, and to send us to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Master Teacher and Keeper of Grace" (Spiritual Lightening, M. Catherine Thomas).

Forgiveness

"Is there someone in your life who perhaps needs forgiveness? Is there someone in your home, someone in your family, someone in your neighborhood who has done an unjust or an unkind or an unchristian thing? All of us are guilty of such transgressions, so there surely must be someone who yet needs your forgiveness.

"And please don’t ask if that’s fair—that the injured should have to bear the burden of forgiveness for the offender. Don’t ask if “justice” doesn’t demand that it be the other way around. No, whatever you do, don’t ask for justice. You and I know that what we plead for is mercy—and that is what we must be willing to give.

"Can we see the tragic and ultimate irony of not granting to others what we need so badly ourselves? Perhaps the highest and holiest and purest act of cleansing—inasmuch as we speak from first to last in the temple of cleansing and purification—would be to say in the face of unkindness and injustice that you do yet more truly “love your enemies and bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you, and persecute you.” That is the demanding pathway of perfection.

"A marvelous Scottish minister once wrote:

'No man who will not forgive his neighbor, can believe that God is willing, yea wanting, to forgive him. … If God said, ‘I forgive you’ to a man who hated his brother, and if (as impossible) that voice of forgiveness should reach the man, what would it mean to him? How would the man interpret it? Would it not mean to him, ‘You may go on hating. I do not mind it. You have had great provocation and are justified in your hate’?

'No doubt God takes what wrong there is, and what provocation there is, into the account: but the more provocation, the more excuse that can be urged for the hate, the more reason … that the hater should [forgive, and] be delivered from the hell of his [anger].' (George MacDonald, An Anthology, ed. C. S. Lewis, New York: Macmillan, 1947, pp. 6–7.)" Jeffrey Holland I Stand All Amazed Ensign August 1986.

A new twist

 I noticed something happening that I never expected.  But then hadn't I learned to expect the unexpected?  I really thought once he stopped the relationship with her he would also come back to the church.  I thought if he ended the fantasy it would be because he loved me.  Neither were true.  Yes, we lived just fine together....most of the time.  He was easily angered when he returned from his trips.  The traveling was difficult on him and if I tried to have a conversation with him upon his return he just wasn't up to it.  It took me some time to figure out that I just couldn't talk to him until the next day.  It was hard and frustrating.  But even more troubling to me was that I was finding it difficult to love him.  I didn't want him to touch me.  I was troubled by this.  After all we had been through, after all the guidance and inspiration, after all the healing and strength I received, after coming to know my Savior, I didn't want to be with him.  I was certain of  all the revelation I had received about our relationship so why was this happening?  

One day as I was attending the temple the thought came to me that just as Satan had attempted to destroy Adam and Eve's eternal relationship by tempting Adam, he had tried to destroy our relationship by tempting my husband. Though it was different because Adam hadn't succumbed to the temptation and my husband had succumbed, still our marriage had not been destroyed as Satan desired. Just as Satan then tempted Eve he was now working on me to destroy the marriage.  I knew that I had been guided and taught from on high so I believed that I needed to make our marriage work. Why else would we have gone through all we had?  

I began to pray to love him.

And now what????

We lived from day to day in relative peace.   I felt like I was living with a friend more than a spouse.  But that wasn't so bad after the heartache of the past 3 years.

For Christmas I was completely caught off guard when he gave me the picture "Oh, Jerusalem" by Greg Olson.  It was huge and was a print on canvas.  I really didn't know what to think.  He made not attempt to come back in to the church.  I was perplexed but I kept practicing all I had learned about love and patience, forgiveness and walking hand in had with my Savior.  There was never any mention of forgiveness.  Never any talk about what we had been through.  No indication that he was sorry and loved me.  Yet the gift seemed to speak.  I had learned not to read any message into anything he did because I was usually wrong. 

I was now an ordinance worker, teaching Institute and Relief Society so I was continuing to study and learn.  As with most spiritual experiences the wonder was fading a bit.  I tried to hold on tight to  the amazing feelings I had experienced during those incredible days.  I missed the intensity of it all.  I was drained.  I wanted him to love me and the gospel.  But, then, that is what I had always wanted.  Our relationship was completely new and different.  We never faught.  We allowed each other freedom to be who we were.  We stopped requiring each other to fill our cups.  We learned to help each other but to find happiness from within.  

I ponder on those days often.  On all I learned and all that was yet to transpire between us that has brought us to where we are today.  

I think back to when I first learned that he "loved" someone else.  How my world as I knew it crumbled.  I recall wondering how this could happen when I was trying to live the gospel.  Why weren't we blessed.  Little did I understand the blessings this trial would bring.  I remember thinking that life was not what I had thought it was supposed to be.  You live a good life you get blessed.  Something bad happens you try harder.  I put the burden on myself.  I needed to be perfect to be blessed.  But perfect people wouldn't need a Savior.  We are hear to learn through our own experiences.  That means transgressions will happen, hearts will break, we (I) will be weak at times, but we can repent and be new again because our Savior and our Father love us and provided the way.  Thus the first lesson learned from my list "Adversity is not a punishment, it is an opportunity for growth."

What My Pain Taught Me...

In September another miracle. He was able to transfer back home. Our son was in Japan and our daughter was leaving on her mission September 20th. Interesting that it had been 3 years to the day that our ordeal began.

I had been going to my therapist for nearly 3 years at this point but the insurance was cutting me off. I did not want to stop seeing him but had no choice. When I left he asked me to write down what my pain had taught me. Here is the list I made.
1. Adversity is not a punishment. It is an opportunity for growth.
2. The Savior actually felt my pain in the Garden and on the cross and He alone can understand the magnitude of it.  Thus He alone can truly comfort me.

3.  It is possible to be physically comforted by the Lord though He is not physically present.  Therefore, we are never alone unless we fail to solicit His comfort.  He is always near offering it but we must seek it.  His love is not forced on us.

4.  Because Our Father in Heaven and Our Savior Jesus Christ are the only ones who absolutely know us we cannot allow ourselves to get our identity from the actions of others toward us.  We must define ourselves through careful self-examination and prayer.  Input from others may act as a source for self examination but only God and I can define for me who I am.

5.  Some miracles take time.  Sometimes the miracle is the personal growth toward our Savior that comes from seeking, stretching, pleading for the Lord's help (and trusting Him) when you want something bad enough to work for the desired solution.

6.  When there is nothing you can do about a situation, put all your faith in the fact that Father loves you and knows the beginning to the end.  This is what is meant by handing your burden to Him.  Increase your obedience and service, your love and devotion to Him and be at peace knowing he is going to bless you in ways that are best and in keeping with His plan for you.  It is a law He must obey.

7.  We do not have the power to change other people.  Loving others just the way they are is Christ-like love.  That is the power that can change people.

8.  The Holy Ghost teaches us as we search for answers which come as pure knowledge flowing into our hearts and minds after much prayer and seeking, fasting and meditation to show the sincerity of our desire to learn and to obey.  When these insights come it is as if we have always known them because, in fact, we always have...we have just forgotten.  The greatest learning seems to come in the temple.

9.  I have power in my life.  No one can take it from me unless I surrender it.  Though I sometimes feel powerless I have power over my attitudes and reaction to the actions of others towards me.

10.  It doesn't matter what messages (intentional or unintentional) my parents may have given me in the way they raised me.  I can love them, forgive them and decide for myself the kind of person I am and will be.

11.  Forgiving myself allows me to be able to forgive others.

12.  Since Christ loves each of His children and since He takes the sins of everyone on himself upon condition that they turn to Him, I cannot judge another (only He knows their heart) including my husband and, yes, even his girlfriend.  My only form of reimbursement to Him is my love for and service to my fellowman.  Heavenly Father loves those who hurt and cross me just as much as He loves me.  

13.  The trial of our faith is that we do not give up on Him when it seems we have been deserted but that we realize He is there and He is aware of and working to help remedy our situation.

14.  Enduring doesn't mean waiting for a trial to end.  It means achieving a "mighty change of heart" from the trial. Neal Maxwell says it is the passage of our soul all the way from A to Z.

15.  The suffering we face in this life is minuscule in comparison to the eons of our existence, yet the Christ-like qualities we learn will last forever often making the experiences we dread the most the most valuable and meaningful.

16.  To be humble is to be teachable which means I can learn something from everyone. It is not necessary nor advantageous to always be right.  Understanding this allows me to turn negative experiences and relationships in to positive outcomes.

17.  The most difficult lessons we learn seem to be within our family.  Thar is why we have families.  Otherwise we would withdraw ourselves  from the people our pain is associated with (some do this anyway through divorce). We are all actually brothers and sisters who lived together in a previous life and promised to help each other through this earth life.  Someone who hurts us by their words and actions is actually providing us with an opportunity to learn something of eternal value such as unconditional love, patience or forgiveness.  Imagine how we will feel when we meet again in the next life and the reality of who our parents, spouse, children and friends really are becomes clear if we give up on helping and learning from them in this life.

18.  I am a child of God.  He is my Father, my Abba, my papa, my daddy.  I love Him.  He knows me.  He loves me.  The Savior offered to pay for my sins and carry my burdens because He loves me.  I cannot be perfect in this life.  Perfection comes from a partnership with Christ.  What I can do is to enter into a covenant to turn my life to Him. To imitate His life by loving as He loves and forgiving as He forgives and to repent when I make choices that take me from that course.

19.  With God NOTHING is impossible.

His love

I have to correct myself. I said that I received an impression that marriage isn't so much about him making me happy or me making him happy. That is not exactly what I meant to say. President Hinckley once said that marriage isn't so much about romance as the anxious caring and concern for the well being of one's mate.
Surely we should want to help our spouse to find happiness. We want to bring joy into their life. But for us to expect our spouse to "make me happy" is not the purpose of marriage. Happiness has to come from within and when we love and serve our spouse we are happy. Even during those horrid, painful days I could find happiness by serving him and forgetting myself.
So marriage isn't really about whether or not he makes me happy, but how much I can help him home. Like I said before, I learned that if I want a marriage in which each of us gives equally and I keep track of that it will end up being more like 25-15 or some other equally destructive ratio. But if I can give 150% even when he won't there's a chance, with my Savior as my advocate, he will start to give more.
finding happiness from within is the hardest lesson of life. It is found in our Savior's love.
Imagine that as you are sitting here right now our Savior enters the room and walks directly to you. He puts His hand on your shoulder and you look up into His warm, kind, patient, compassionate, loving eyes. “I love you” He says. You reply “Me? How can you love me?” As you start a steady flow of all the reasons why you don’t deserve His love, He puts His hand to your mouth to stop you “I love you.” He emphatically replies.
Imagine Him taking you into his arms and saying “Walk with me. Feel my love and strength. Let me be your teacher. Let me be your guide. Let me love you.” Can you feel the strength and joy and peace that would bring?
He does love you. He knows you personally. He is always available to you. Trust that. Trust Him. Love Him. Let Him love you.
I know my Savior lives. I know it! I love him and thank him for his unwavering love and incredible patience with me as I try to trust that he could really love me. I thank him for the power His love gives me when I feel powerless. I know that with Him nothing is impossible! I thank him for actually experiencing my pains, my sorrows, all the experiences of my life and most of all for taking my sins on him in His Gethsemane so that I can be redeemed and be comforted and strengthened by His incomparable love in mine. I love Him for always running to me even when I fail to notice. He is always there.

Limbo

I had been praying to know my Father's will for me and for him. Did He want me to patiently love him forever? I would do so. Did He want me to realize there was no hope for us to be together for all eternity and leave him and get on with my life? I would. I just wanted to KNOW. Even if there is no hope for us eternally is there much I could learn by loving him unconditionally and never giving up? Perhaps I could help him along the way. It was just so frustrating to be stuck in an unproductive pattern.
I blamed myself for his lack of interest in the church.
At one of our stake conferences Elder John E. Fowler spoke about choosing a stake president. He had asked those involved "who is the most spiritual sister in the stake?" It was her husband who was then chosen as the Stake President. He said that spiritually strong women have spiritually strong husbands. I was distraught thinking "where does that put me?" I began to wonder whether Father would want me to leave my husband to find a righteous Priesthood holder to spend my life with. I was pondering all this in the temple one day when I received an amazing impression as to what marriage is really all about. It's not so much about him making me happy or me making him happy. It's about helping him to be the best he can be and helping him home to our Father. For years I had been knit picky because I felt unloved. I tried to influence by "force feeding the veggies" because they were good for him instead of influencing by quiet, loving example. Why would he be interested in the Gospel when I made it a matter of "have to" rather than a matter of choice. But I didn't know any different.  I did the same with my children.  I feared for them if they did not conform to Father's will.  As I came to know my Savior more and more I realized that what He taught us was to love and serve in order to influence. Force, control, coercion never works. Agency is Father's greatest gift to us. When we just love someone while setting a righteous example...then we have influence. But it has to be sincere. It can't be done with the idea of changing the other person. In order to pull that off one needs to know our Savior. Said President Hunter:
“The world is full of people who are willing to tell us, “Do as I say.” Surely we have no lack of advice givers on about every subject. But we have so few who are prepared to say, “Do as I do.” And, of course, only One in human history could rightfully and properly make that declaration. History provides many examples of good men and women, but even the best of mortals are flawed in some way or another. None could serve as a perfect model nor as an infallible pattern to follow, however well-intentioned they might be.
Only Christ can be our ideal, our “bright and morning star” (Rev. 22:16). Only he can say without any reservation, “Follow me; learn of me; do the things you have seen me do. Drink of my water and eat of my bread. I am the way, the truth, and the life. I am the law and the light. Look unto me and ye shall live. Love one another as I have loved you”
My, what a clear and resonant call! What certainty and example in a day of uncertainty and absence of example.
The great standard! The only sure way! The light and the life of the world!
We must know Christ better than we know him; we must remember him more often than we remember him; we must serve him more valiantly than we serve him. Then we will drink water springing up unto eternal life and will eat the bread of life”.
When we know Him we then want to emulate Him for true worship is emulation. When we emulate Him we influence others.
When he left for FA training I panicked. What if this was Father's answer? Maybe this was the end.
I had a longing, a hope, a dream. He would receive a sure testimony that God lives and loves him. That Jesus Christ, our Savior and redeemer, took our burdens upon Him because He loves us. That the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is His church and that he would be baptized and then dedicate his life in quiet, loving service. That he would love me and treat me like his most prized possession. All I could do is to do my best to be deserving of such a blessing yet understand that he has his agency regardless of my worthiness. Maybe one day it would happen...maybe not.
Oh how I wanted him to know how amazing it is to feel our Heavenly Father's and our Savior's love. I wished he could understand how much he is loved by Them. That would change everything.

A change...

So he was gone. I didn't know what to do or think or how to act. To my surprise and relief he called me quite often. He actually seemed to miss me. During his 5 week training I flew to Atlanta to visit him. When I got to my departure gate she was working the counter. What could I do? I really didn't want to have to go talk to her face to face. I kind of wandered up and down the hallway hoping she would go down the jet way or something. Somehow I managed to check in without dealing with her. Remember that at this point I had lost 75 pounds. I am pretty sure she didn't like that one bit. I got in line and got on the the plane without having to talk to her. When I got to Atlanta he told me that she had called him. She left him a message that she had seen me "parading up and down the hallways looking all cute and darling." That made me smile. He told me that she said she had considered walking up to me and handing me his pager number so I would know she had it but had decided not to.
"Why does she have your pager number?" I asked. He told me he had seen her in the parking lot and she asked him for it so he gave it to her. I wasn't comforted by this news.
I don't think I ever saw her again. But I did find emails that they were sharing. Mostly him telling her not to contact him via his home email address. So they were still in communication.
I often felt conspicuous when I was at the airport. I knew everyone there knew about their affair. I felt like they all looked at me as the bad person who had ruined their relationship. It always felt awkward.
I noticed that when he and I were together at the airport that he kept his distance from me.
When he graduated from his training the family was invited to the ceremony. Our daughter and I went. Again, awkward. However, the woman in charge of his class told me "he really missed you." I wondered if she really knew that or if she just said it to everyone.
He left for NY. He was always on call so had to stay there except on his days off when he would fly home. I visited him several times in NY and stayed in the "flight attendant" apartment he lived in with 15 other flight attendants...male and female. AWKWARD!!!
But he did seem to actually care about me. Could I trust him? Could I trust he was really over her? Could I trust it wouldn't happen again? After all, he flew with many women and stayed at hotels with rooms right next to each other. It was a very difficult time.
Our son left for Japan for 6 months to do an internship and our daughter put in her mission papers. We began to have a number of miracles in our lives. Mostly small things but miracles none the less. One happened on a Sunday morning. Our daughter had not yet received her mission call and our stake president told her she could not go to the temple until she received her call. I was saddened by that because it would mean she would not be able to go to the temple before her brother left for Japan. With her dad not able to go to the temple I really wanted our son to be there. I resigned myself to the fact that it would just be my daughter and me. On this particular Sunday morning her branch President woke up early with the thought in his mind "[she] needs to go to the temple before her brother leaves for Japan." He called her in, conducted the recommend interview and sent her to the Stake President. The Stake President said "no, you can't go until your mission call comes." She told him that her branch President felt otherwise. The Stake President sent her home and said he would call the branch President and explain to him. This was all very time sensitive as the Stake President was leaving town that evening and wouldn't be back until after our son left for Japan. I spent the day in prayer.
A few hours later the Stake President called her and asked her to come back to his office. There he told her that, after conferring with the branch president, he had determined that this was indeed inspiration and he would give her the recommend.
I knew our Father was aware of our situation, that He love her and each of us and had given this inspiration to her Branch President.
That week, just before our son left, we were able to go to the temple with my daughter. It was heartbreaking not to have her dad there. The first of many such experiences that we would not be able to share with him.
But I lived in hope.

Great is Thy Faithfulness

"Great is thy faithfulness, o God, my Father.
There is no shadow of turning with thee;
Thou changest not, thy compassions they fail not.
As thou has been thou forever wilt be.
Pardon for sin and a peace that's enduring.
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide.
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.
Blessings all mine with ten thousand beside.
Great is thy faithfulness, great is thy faithfulness.
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed thy hand hath provided.
Great is thy faithfulness Lord unto me."