His love

Okay~  so I have pondered this a bit more this week.  Why do some of us really know Him and some of us merely know of Him?  They are not the same thing.  All my life I have known of Him, loved Him, followed him but as I came to find out it is NOT the same as knowing Him.  And why did I come to know Him in my grief?   How does that all work? I am no one special.  What He has done for me He will do for all His children.And I am certain there are many, many people who have an even deeper personal relationship to Him than I.  

 Maybe we really don't understand that we can actually have a personal relationship with Him.  I remember feeling Him near in my teenage years.  But did I really get the kind of relationship that was possible?  I mean you have to admit it seems impossible that He could know us all.  Yet He can and does.

At the time I was coming to know Him I devoted a great deal of time to the effort.  As I have mentioned I did not want to continue to live in such horrific pain.  I also realized that life is a series of "tutorials" as Neal Maxwell calls them and I really wanted to learn this lesson now and only once.  I did not ever want to feel this kind of pain again!!!!!  I was determined to learn the lesson this adversity was to teach me and then get on with my life. I did not want to ever have to repeat such a painful learning experience.  I think that if we don't learn the lesson we will (eeekkk) continue to suffer or  have other adversities that will teach us.  We are here to learn through our experiences.

I know the saying is trite but truly we are not human beings here to have a spiritual experience!  We are His beloved sons and daughters, divine, loved, nobel.  We are spiritual beings here to have human experiences.  Yet so often we live in the humaness rather than the spirit.  It's so easy to be distracted from our purpose!  Especially when we hurt.

It's not that I haven't have severe trials since this huge one....I have.  I have cried myself to sleep many a night over other challenges but through it all I have clung to the one major lesson I learned...that I can ALWAYS trust in my Father in Heaven and His plan for me.  He is there... I do not walk alone.  I have learned that I will not always understand the whys but I can trust that He is there and loves me and will teach me the hows.  He is not as harsh and demanding that we sometimes think He is.

So in reflecting on what was different about my relationship with Him pre this "tutorial" and then during and post here's what I have come to understand.

You really have to focus on Him.  You have to believe that you can literally, I mean literally feel His arms around you.  You have to trust that He would really, really do that for you and then allow Him to.  I would actually take time each day to imagine He could really love me.  ME.  Not us, as in all of us,  His children, jointly but ME.  All by myself.  Did I explain the scriptural validation I found to support that this is possible?  I will have to go back and see.  Anyway, when the scriptures say to "ask, seek and knock" it is not a casual, superficial thing.  It is real effort with real longing over time.

It doesn't require huge amounts of time, but I have to admit at the time I was really devoting a lot of time to this effort.  I didn't have a calling and I was teaching school part-time.  I couldn't really function in life so I did have the time to devote to this effort.  And i found that when I was immersed in trying to understand and feel His love I actually felt better...for a moment at first and then for longer and longer periods of time.

Imagine that every day you spent 5 minutes telling yourself all of the reasons you are not worthy or loveable.  Would that have an impact after a year?   Pretty sure you would feel unloveable!

Suppose each day you spent 5 minutes imagining the Savior's arms around you. What kind of impact might that have on your life?  I had spent time on this exercise.  I had spent time practicing feeling happy.  Sometimes I could only pull it off for only a few  seconds but I kept at it.  

Every time I had an impression that I thought might have come from Heavenly Father I chose to believe it did.  I did not dismiss the feelings of love He sent me.  I prayed as though He was in the room.  I imagined He was with me everywhere I went.  I looked at His children through the lens of His love.  I came to know He was there...right by me.  It makes all the difference to allow Him to love you.  It makes all the difference to allow him to fill you with the love He feels for your spouse and others.  It made all the difference in my life...and in my husband's life.  He actually has a relationship with the Savior, but he doesn't always listen.  He doesn't want to hear what he doesn't want to hear.  Still, it's a start.

Service.  When we serve and bless others we feel our Savior's love for us and for them because we are emulating Him. 

Catherine Thomas said " It's a powerful act of faith to give something to someone else when we feel empty.  Truly, giving when we are longing to have someone give to us seems to defy reason.  But in spiritual  terms it makes perfect sense.  Giving out of what one feels are meager resources is like reaching into Elijah's nearly empty cornmeal barrel during a famine and coming up with a full cup every time.  Giving to others the things we are most longing for ourselves follows the principles of godliness and results in an unexpected sense of fulness."

Why are we reluctant to give and bless those who hurt us?  Are we afraid of what that would say about us?  Are we afraid of what they might think we are saying about them?  Perhaps if someone is choosing unrighteousness we fear that if we love them we are condoning their unrighteous behavior. Or at least they will take it as such.   But we can give and serve and bless without condoning the unrighteous acts.  Everyday I would tell my husband something good about himself.  He had a hard time believing I was sincere since he knew what he was doing and I certainly had to look deep but I did look past the humaness into his soul.  I told Him what I felt that Father saw there and what I hoped he might believe of himself someday so that he might be healed.  I figured if he felt so bad about himself that he would do something so distructive to his life someone had to help him see in himself what he could not.  But I never condoned his behavior.  

None of this was possible without His love.

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Romans 8:35-39

Valentines day

I got a card from him for Valentines Day.
"to the sweetest heart...from the one who holds it close."
:)
Our son was in town this week. We all went to dinner and it was wonderful. I worry about our boy. I know he understands the pain of all we went through, but I worry that he doesn't understand how Satan can get a foothold if we are not vigilant. He and his wife have both voiced the question "How do two people who loved each other once end up in divorce." There are so many reasons. We can simplify it to selfishness but still there is so much more. I told my son that the number one thing he can do to make sure his marriage survives is to "come unto Him" every single day. And not just (as Jeffrey Holland says) "obliquely" but with a true desire to know Him and know his will. As I wrote in a recent post He knows EVERYTHING. He will guide you. protect you, warn you, strengthen you and even help you trust and forget.
I am preparing to teach an institute lesson on true love. I came across this:
"If a person's attitudes and feelings have grown out of a commitment to Christ and faith in his teachings, then the influence those attitudes and feelings will have on marital adjustment are profound.  If the power of the gospel motivates a person, he will approach the adjustments of marriage with inner strength that will help to smooth out adjustments and build a happy marriage.  The gospel foundation will not eliminate the problems and conflicts, but it will profoundly influence how they will be handled."  Joe J. Christensen

The thing is that if one is trying to live by the spirit and is really coming unto Christ with a deeply sincere heart I really believe he/she will be led when moments of doubt, confusion, despair come to his/her life.  I also know that when I really needed strength and guidance I made some minor course corrections that  had a huge impact on my ability to receive the divine guidance and healing I so desperately needed.  Truly it is by small and simple things that great things are brought to pass.

A few weeks ago we had our Stake Women's Conference.  Having been released a year ago  it was the first I would attend in 10 years that I had not been a member of the Stake RS presidency.  I was surprised that as I was preparing to attend I was rather emotional.  When I arrived I saw on the program a section entitled "Testimonies of Sisters"

I was overcome.  I knew I had to share mine!  I tried to talk myself out of it but felt strongly that I must do so.  They had mics in the audience so sisters wouldn't have to go to the stand.  When I stood up a sister approached me with a mic.  I waved her off and whispered "I have to go up there" indicating the stand.  I looked out over the sisters I so dearly love and reminded them that I had, for 8 years, hounded them with the same thing.  It seems too simple to some and seems to defy all logic that such a seemingly simple thing could heal  deep wounds but I know the answer is always the same "Come Unto Him!"  That is the answer.  He is the answer.  Oh, how I love Him.

"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."Matthew 11:28-30

And so it goes...

I struggle, now days, with how best to assist my husband in his progression in the Gospel. This year he signed us up for tithing settlement. He doesn't pay tithing of course but I do and we pay other offerings in my name. Still, it surprised me that he would sign us up. We have a new Bishop who is very kind, soft spoken, caring. My husband explained to our Bishop, and it was new to me as well, that he decided that he is a "Mormon" but not a "Latter-day Saint." I think the Bishop and I looked stumped by that. "What I mean" he explained, "is that I believe the precepts of Mormonism but I am not a member, nor do I want to be, of The Church." OOOKKKAAAYYY!
It really boggles my mind.
Recently we had a conversation, initiated by him, about his excommunication. Perhaps a little background. It was February of 1994 when our Stake President knocked on our door and handed an envelope to my husband. The letter stated that they were convening a church disciplinary court the next day for him for actions unbecoming a member of the church. He was welcome to attend if he wanted to. Since he had not initiated the process I doubt they thought he would actually attend. Prior to this he had not talked to our Stake President since about a year and a half before when my husband had basically confessed and made some commitments to repent. He did not keep those commitments at the time. When he finally did end the affair he did not go to the Stake President or Bishop to repent. I think in his mind he had repented by quitting the behavior. I don’t know why the President didn’t meet with him prior to the court to see where he really was in terms of behavior and the repentance process and to see how he could help him. Anyway, the church court was held and he did attend. As I have written before he wrote down what he wanted to say at the court. He never said it because when the court began the Stake President repeated to the room of High Councilmen his confession of a year and a half before. My husband was stunned and hurt. He felt betrayed that the President would relate to a room full of men he did not know things that he had told the President in confidence.
The other day when he brought up this experience …which I can’t really recall him ever bringing up on his own before…he added “I feel pretty confident that had I confessed to a Catholic Priest he would have kept my confession confidential.” OUCH! I had no idea how to respond to that.

I am certain that my husband's problem with coming back into the church is a result of the extreme pain, embarrassment and betrayal he felt when he was excommunicated. He sat in the outer office as they discussed his fate for about ½ hour praying that he would not be excommunicated. I know him well enough to know that when he was excommunicated after all, he made a promise to himself that he would never return to a church that would cause him such pain. He is perfectly happy and content with believing the gospel without being a member.
I know our Stake President wanted to help enable my husband to fully repent and be baptized pure and clean. My husband did not understand church disciplinary counsels and did not feel the love and concern. I have no idea what it will take for him to come back!

"But if he repent not he shall not be numbered among my people, that he may not destroy my people, for behold I know my sheep, and they are numbered.
"Nevertheless, ye shall not cast him out of your synagogues, or your places of worship, for unto such shall ye continue to minister; for ye know not but what they will return and repent, and come unto me with full purpose of heart, and I shall heal them; and ye shall be the means of bringing salvation unto them. " 3 Nephi 18:31,32.

Just Cause

Came across this quote by Elder Faust
"Marriage between mand and woman is a natural state and is ordained of God. It is a moral imperative. Those marriages performed in our temples, meant to be eternal relationships, then, become the most sacred covenants we can make. The sealing power given by God through Elijah is thus invoked, and God becomes a party to the promises...
"In my opinion, 'just cause' should be nothing less serious than a prolonged and apparently irredeemable relationship which is destructive of a person's dignity as a human being.
"At the same time, I have strong feelings about what is not provocation for breaking the sacred covenants of marriage. Surely it is not simply 'mental distress,' nor 'personality differences,' nor 'having grown apart,' nor having 'fallen out of love." Ensign May 1993

If Not For You

I don't really know when it happened but one day I realized the pain, the frustration, the feeling that I didn't love him were gone. How long had it been like that? I didn't know. But I loved him and he loved me. It had taken close to 10 years but this ordeal was finally behind us....well, mostly. Still he was not back in the church. It has now been nearly 17 years since that morning in September and he is still not a member of the church. That's a whole different discussion for another day.
Thirty eight years ago I stood at the door of the LA temple and made a vow that I would be sealed to my husband there within a year. If you've read this from the beginning you know that we did make it to the temple for which I am very grateful. My children and I are sealed and one day when he returns he will be sealed to us again. Still, here I am 38 years later with no temple sealing to him...again. It boggles my mind. I know one day he will come back. Father didn't save this marriage just to end it in the eternities.
Life is good. We are so different from those two people who started this journey together, yet apart. We have learned and grown, struggled and worked. We are here now. Together.
Last September he came home from a trip and he told me that when he talks to people about me he cries. I was stunned. That does not sound even a little bit like the man I married. One day he said to me "do you know that song that Olivia Newton John sang (Huh???? since when did he know an Olivia Newton John song?) that's entitled "If Not For You'? "Yes, I know it" I responded. "I can't hear it without crying because it reminds me of you." Wow. If you would have told me on that September morning that someday life would be not just good but better than I had ever experienced I would not have believed you! I am so grateful that Father guided us through this experience in such a way that our marriage was preserved. It could have so easily ended. He (my husband) wanted it over. I felt powerless to stop it, but....With God Nothing Shall Be Impossible (Luke 1:37).
My journey is far from over and there is much I want to post, but I bear witness that if we come unto Him with all our heart; learn of Him; walk with Him; love Him; serve Him; let Him love us He will guide and heal our lives. "And I will also be your light in the wilderness; and I will prepare the way before you, if it so be that ye shall keep my commandments; wherefore, inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments ye shall be led toward the promised land; and ye shall know that it is by me that ye are led." 1 Nephi 17:13.
One thing I can tell you is that the way was not easy. It was, and at times still is, very difficult to put aside my own needs and fears and place the safety of our union first trusting all the while in my Father's help. Without Him and without the atoning sacrifice of my Savior I would not have been able to endure. But had we ended our marriage because of seemingly insurmountable obstacles we would have never known the joy we have now.
I recognize that there are marriages that cannot endure, but there are many that would not have to end if handed over to the Savior to heal. Everyone says it takes two people to save a marriage. I believe that...yourself and Heavenly Father. If the 3rd member of your marriage should desire to contribute it is even better. But if not...don't give up until Father tells you it is done.

If not for you,

I couldn't find the door
Couldn't even see the floor
I'd be sad and blue if not for you.

If not for you, 

I'd lay awake all night
Wait for the morning light
To shine in through
But it will not be new if not for you.

If not for you, my sky would fall,

rain would gather too
Without your love I'd be nowhere at all
I'd be lost if not for you.


If not for you, winter would have no spring
I couldn't hear the robins sing
I just wouldn't have a clue
If not for you, if not for you.

There is hope. There is love and light at the end of the darkness.

By small and simple things...

So I continued to pray to love him. It was made more difficult by my desire to emulate our Savior's love for him when I didn't feel it. Or did I? I was very confused. I wanted to love him for I was certain our marriage had not been preserved just to end at some later time. I pondered what might be causing me such difficulty in loving him. Was it the betrayal? The deceit? The excommunication? The unwillingness and lack of desire to be back in the Church? Perhaps it was that he never really said he was sorry and how grateful he was that I didn't give up on us. Maybe it was all of these.
When you are struggling to love someone it is very difficult to refrain from lashing out, from criticizing, from withholding love. I wanted to make him see, to correct him...but isn't that just the kind of behavior that had contributed to this whole ordeal. I had learned that each of us needs to choose to love, to forgive, to overlook the little things that just don't really matter, to chose happiness from within. I needed to learn to love him no matter how he acted. I could choose happiness from within. I wanted, at times, to inflict pain on him so he would see the pain he put me through. But I knew that was wasted energy. It never heals a relationship...only makes it more dysfunctional. No one can ever really feel what we feel.
I started to think that at least in heaven he would see and then he'd be sad for my pain. Until I realized that once I am There, I won't even care about such matters. I won't need him to be contrite and beg for my forgiveness. I will love more perfectly There and I will see things in their proper and eternal perspective. It just won't matter. All that will matter Then is what I learned from my experiences...And that I helped him home. I don't think our Savior will spend all eternity getting satisfaction from our realization of how wrong we were and how right He was. And how much He suffered. He is grateful to have served and saved us.
I would cling to this view of heaven for sometime to see me through the difficult days ahead.
I would choose love. I would act "as if" until I could "be" in love with him again.
"For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more." 1 Corinthians 9:19
It is a choice to love, to serve, to forgive.

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.