Even as I say this, I am afraid and don't want this to go away. I never really know.
But for a week now, I have felt the Spirit the same way I used to. And it feels so good to be home.
Lately I have been remembering a saying from the WB show, Felicity, that I used to watch with my mom. Felicity's academic advisor, at the end of one show, in her wise and personally credible voice, remarked:
"Maybe what happened to you, actually happened for you."
Today in sacrament meeting, the speaker pointed out, "After a trial, after seeing how you grew through that trial, would you want to go back and be the person you were before the trial? If Heavenly Father said to you, 'I could have taken that trial away. I could go back and take that trial away but then you would have remained the same person you were before the trial, would you want me to take the trial away?'"
She remarked that looking back, we would never want to go back to who we were before the trial. We would want the growth that came, and we would accept that trial as having been worth the growth we received.
It's just so hard to see that when we're in the middle of the trial, cause we don't yet have proof we are going to "survive" it, and everything is going to be okay.
How many times do we wish we could go back and tell ourselves, while in the middle of the trial, "It will be okay. It will all work out. Have faith. Cut yourself some slack. Go easy on yourself. You just had a baby. Or you just lost your mom. Or you have never been in this territory before. Take it easy, don't expect perfection, and have faith. It will always workout." So can I convince myself to do that during the trials that come? Rather than looking back?
I do have a clinical problem with perfectionism. It is inescapable when my mind is in control. I break down. I cannot function. That is different than being too hard on yourself and I have journaled about that before. But still, I think I still make a good point, that we wish we would try harder to believe it will be okay and to take it easy.
Today in Sunday School, I was so touched by my Grandma Calder look-alike holding my little girl. She is the grandma I have adopted for my children here.
Then as the instructor bore his testimony, I pictured in my mind the spirits that must have been present. I felt I was standing on holy ground.
Again the feeling of Holy Ground was evident to me in third hour during Young Womens. Only five people were in the room today, for that moment, and perhaps the teacher could have felt disappointed more would not hear her lesson. But usually that is when the special things happen.
First we watched this. And the Spirit poured onto me like a brick wall.
I wish I was stronger and could say that I have not wondered "why" in my trials. Watching this girl, I imagined I would have been saying, "Why? Why can I not have a stomach that functions like all these thousands people I see walking circles around me throughout my day. Why can't I just be "normal"?"
So many times in this trial, as I've felt out of control, like I couldn't feel the Spirit, like I couldn't decide how I wanted to act or react, how I was going to respond emotionally, how I was going to remember or forget things. Like someone else was controlling me. I have wondered, "Why? Why can't I just be in control of my mind? Why can't I just be 'whole' like these other people I see in the world around me? Why?! I just want to have a normal brain!"
I'm not really sure the lesson in that, but I guess it is to say, we all have trials, huge trials, and we rejoiced and cheered in the pre mortal life when God presented His plan for us to come here and have trials. He knew this girl would have a paralyzed digestive system. He knew I would have x, y, and z. He knew you would have a, b, and c. And we cheered. We rejoiced. Because we wanted to return to Him different than when we left Him. And we look around rooms and we think, "Why does she not have any hard trials? Her hardest trial is if she doesn't curl her hair that day."
Why do we do that?
Everyone, every single person we see, is dealing with something or somethings, big things, big things for them. And I'm serious when I say, that someone not curling their hard that day might be a humungous trial for them. Maybe they weren't built with the ability to accept less than perfection, clinically, and chemically, and it destroys them.
Everyone has trials. Everyone has pain. Everyone has stuff.
After watching this Mormon Message video, the special moment came. A young women, one that might not always share, shared a personal experience of how she asked for help in a trial. Again, I felt there must have been many spirits with us today in that class and we were standing on holy ground.
And I felt I was back. Not that I always feel I'm on holy ground, for then I would never appreciate being there. But the opportunity and ability to feel there again that has been gone for so long. To receive insight and revelation and feel my soul is a sponge again. It felt so good to be home.
