Conflicting Doctrine

I typically don’t really care if anyone reads this blog. It is for my own sanity. But this topic is one that I wish I could get answers to. I think the church teaches conflicting doctrine. We say we are Christian and that Christ’s message is the most important part of the church. However, here is my point:

Christ teaches that if we believe in him, our sins will be forgiven.
          “Though your sins be as scarlet, they will be white as snow.”

vs.

The church teaches that there are 3 different kingdoms that we will be assigned to according to our works. To go farther, there are even different levels within each kingdom.

So how do we make sense of it all. Either we stand before Christ at Judgement Day and Christ says, “You believed in me, your sins are forgiven, enter my kingdom.” or he says, “Sorry, you didn’t have faith in me, you will go to hell.”

But the church is saying he will say, “You had faith in me, your sins are forgiven 80%, please go to level 3 of the Celestial Kingdom.” 

So how are there differing levels of forgiveness? Either our sins will be forgiven or they will not, is this not true?

Sleepwalking

I am not happy with myself lately. I haven’t been doing anything to improve myself lately and I have even slipped back on a few things that I used to have overcome. It is discouraging. I know why it happened.  My state of not being able to care or it would hurt too bad has made me complacent. I have not been on guard and I feel more tired.

I haven’t been exercising or eating right plus a few other things. I have made a new committment. This is the second day. My diet has been good and I exercised a little but short of my goal. It feels like such a long road ahead. I am determined to lose some weight. I want to firm up. I just cant find the energy to fullfill what I see myself doing as far as exercise. I am soooo tired. It feels like it did when my thyroid was hypo. I wake up and want a nap within the next two hours and when I do take a nap, I cant wake up and want to sleep all day.

I hate not having real goals though. I feel like I am just sleepwalking through my life. My life is speeding by and I feel like such a loser. It is going to be over and it will just be wasted. I have not purpose. I have nothing I can think of to look forward to…I don’t even know what I want. I am so numb so I dkont know how to improve. I dont know who I am or what I want and how do you get where you dont know where you are going? It is just a waste. I am such a waste of life.

I want to find a goal I can get excited about so I have something to look forward to and work toward. This stagnation is killing me from the inside out. But, how do I change it?

A New Hope

I was in a spiritual meeting and doing the same old, trying not to care thing I do to protect myself. Too often, when I actually try and get something out of a speaker at church or fireside, etc, it just ends up reminding me of what I have lost.

I wasn’t paying attention very well but the speaker said something about being God-like. I’ve heard it before but for some reason, a whole vision passed before my eyes. Those little words evoked a huge emotional response from me and suddenly, I was filled with hope and more desire than I have felt for years, to try and be more God-like.

I have been begging God for so long to give me this kind of vision, something to hang on to. It happened so quickly, so simply, & so strongly. It happened when I was feeling more un-God-like than ever and more damned.  But it was the sweetest feeling I’ve felt in years.

I still hang on to that moment. I have hope. I actually, once again, care about what happens to me because I have hope that some good can come of all this.

Alone

My daughter is getting married in a couple of weeks. None of my first family is coming. My dad wont come, my brother who lives the closest wont come. My dad has traveled to Washington state and Californina to visit my sister and my brother. My other brother lives near him and he visits him occasionally. He has never seen my new house though even though he drives right by at least twice a year.

I dont know why he thinks he needs to shun me. I was his most loyal child all along. I was the one there no matter what he did. I continued to visit and call no matter how onery he was or hard to deal with. My siblings have all had fall outs with him. I never have. I always just loved him unconditionally and sometimes the conditions were horrendous.

Now to be shunned for some reason makes me feel hurt. I dont need this right now. I am just being abandoned on all sides.

Getting by

This last week had been really weird. I feel dead inside but I don’t really feel like I want to cease to exist. I have been pondering the state of things, the meaning of life, God, happiness.

I have so much to be happy about. I should be happy. I spoil it with too many “what ifs.”

I am so worried about being happy in the next life that I am missing out on the happiness I should be enjoying in this life. Why do I let that get me so down. The bottom line is, if I let myself be happy, what if I forget to do something that I need to do to be happy in the next life too. But I dont know anymore what I am supposed to do in preparation for the next life so why worry about it?  It is a dilema that I cant let go easily enough. I wish I could. I am working on it.

I have much to be happy for and I am going to find a way to enjoy what I have. I wish I could follow the concept, “Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.”  My problem is the “tomorrow we die” part. Then what.

A Good Talk

Hubby and I had a talk today. I was finally able to make him understand how I am feeling. I think.

I was describing it and he said, “I changed the contract.”
Yes! That is it. We got married and lived 20 years “OUR” way then he changed the contract and took off “His” way. I have struggled with his decision ever since. He said if he didn’t, he would be crazy or suicidal now. I told him that his change left me crazy and suicidal now. I dont think we changed anything but I feel like he at least understands what I am going through.

The church is either true, or there is no God. I cant see a middle ground. Right now, I am feeling like the church is not true. That leaves me feeling scared. I dont want to give up on God but I think he has already done it for me. I think his silence over the years is evidence that he does not exist or he doesnt care about me anymore. All the stuff about not pushing us past our ability to withstand is bull. I broke long ago and the crap still gets deeper. Believing in God is supposed to lighten our burdens. It piles more on to me. I think believing in God is a way for us to explain or control what we have no control over or explanations for.

I have been here before. I decided long ago that there was no God and before I knew it, I was saying private prayers without even realizing it. I probably always will. I cant help but feel though, that God would not let me agonize the way he has. Not the God Iknew. If he were there and if he was the God I always believed in, the one the church teaches about, he would not leave me in this hour of greatest need.

I fear now that I will successfully kill myself. Believing that life goes on keeps me from doing it. If life goes on, dying wont make me feel better. If there is no God, then dying will be a release. I can cease to exist. I have been begging God to destroy my soul. Punish me for my wickedness by destroying me completely and/or reward whatever goodness I have with mercy to let me go and end this agony.

Time

I’ve had ups and downs. the constant is that I can’t bring myself to believe that I will be exalted anymore. I think maybe it is getting easier as time goes by to accept it.

I still notice the Lord tempering my agony. When things start to feel the darkest, I forget all about or I wake up and feel unable to evoke any emotion. I am in an almost catatonic state. It lasts for days up to months. I wonder how long this can go on. It is nice when it works but when I crash, it seems to get worse each time. I am afraid that it will someday crash so bad that I will kill myself. I wont let that happen. I do still find myself begging God to destroy me though. I would still rather cease to exist than not be exalted. If I understood what the alternatives were, I might be able to get over this desire to just end, but my understanding is that it either exaltation or bust. I cant bear what I imagine the alternatives to be. I also pray that God will show me a more uplifting image of what my end product will be so I wont feel so much dread. That is not happening. I get nothing from Him but catatonic moods. I guess that is better than nothing.

Rewards or Consequences

God has not given us enough answers.  We know what will happen to the most righteous.  They will be eternal companions, they will be exalted.  We know that the sons of perdition will be cast into outer darkness for eternity.   We know there are three kingdoms and varying degrees within those kingdoms.  What we dont know is what you have to do to qualify for each of those levels.  We know that murderers will be in the lowest level of the lowest kindgom.

My biggest problem is that I think I wont be able to be exalted with my companion so the options, based upon the knowledge we have been given is that I might be allowed to exalted, but with someone else, someone I don’t know, not the one I love and have been sealed to, as other righteous couples, OR I will be assigned to some varying “lesser” level/degree.  Not because of anything I have done, but, because my husband made a wrong choice.  That is what is driving me insane.

Another Nail

I have finally had to come to realize that the reason God has not made any attempts to help me through this is because I am a lost cause.  All my fears and concerns are meaningless because they all asssume that I am worth saving.   I bought into the idea that the church teaches that we are all “Children of God” and that he loves us.  I believed it.  I actually thought that he cared about me and would eventually show me some light or help me out. 

Instead, yestderday, he called a new Bishop.  Of all the worthy men in the ward to call, he called the one who drove the final nail in the coffin of my husbands apostacy.  I was looking hopefully for the change to mean something to me…and maybe my husband.  Instead, I feel llike God just gave me the finger.  I don’t know where to go with this.   I just finally accept that God does not care about me.  I don’t know how I am going to get through the rest of my life.  I am nothing more than the empty shell of a damned soul.

Great Rewards

My visiting teachers just left. I think the lesson should have given me hope but I just felt scared by it.

Divine Nature. I am a daughter of God. Ok, Then they went on to talk about how as a daughter of God, I am entitled to great blessings of honor and glory and exaltation. I just can’t find the way to believe that it applies to me anymore. I just don’t fit the mold anymore.

A friend was trying to encourage me a while ago and said something like “because of my greater struggles, I will have even greater blessings. I got really upset at that. If the greatest blessing is to have our companion for eternity, then how does losing mine entitle me for something better? What is better? If that is the greatest reward the Lord has to offer us, where do I fit in? I was so angry with this friend for saying something so utterly stupid.. I know he did not mean to sound so stupid but it really was.

If there are quantifying options, then why aren’t we told what they are? All we have been given is that there are different levels in different kingdoms and only the exalted, only the most righteous, married people will be exalted. The rest will be alone. There will be some that make it to the Celestial Kingdom but will not be exalted. They will be ministering angels to the exalted. I believe that is the best I can hope for but why? Through no fault of my own, I am disqualified for exaltation. I have no hope of being with my companion for eternity because of his choices, not mine. How is that fair? How is that just? How am I supposed to look forward to anything enough to motivate me to carry on? How does being some exalted person’s servant supposed to enspire me to go above and beyond my carnal nature?

I was feeling pretty good the past few months. I have been able to get this off my mind and have more hope and faith in the atonement for a long time. How does a lesson end up designed to put me back in my dark place?