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?

Christ is the Way?

I have asked God if the church is true.  I cannot deny that I have been told that it is as an answer to my prayers.  So, now I  asked if it were the “ONLY” true church and I never got an answer.  I started to qualify my questions.  When I finally asked if all things that bring us to have faith in Christ is true, I got an overwhelming sense of peace sweep over me that I have been missing for years through all my crisis. 

I still mourn my old life.   Whether the church is right or wrong, I still wished I had no doubts like I was before.  Things were easier then.  I KNEW the answers.  Whether I really did or not, I believed I did and it simplified life.  Now, I do not know what is true, what is right.   I dont know anything.  I feel more peacefull now, finally and for the moment, but occasionally the fear and doubt sweep me up and I panic.  I dont know anything anymore.  I feel like I have gone blind and now I am groping my way, sloppily.  I am grateful that the lost, painful feelings have finally subsided, for now. 

I do have hope again.  I dont know what my hope is in anymore.  Only Christ.  I can only hope that Christ loves me and his atonement will suffice for my meager efforts at trying to be a good person.  I think the church complicates things by adding all the degrees of glory, all the “stuff”.   If all that were true and important to us for our salvation and exaltation, then why did not Jesus himself tell us?  There are two accounts of his visit to the earth.  While he was alive and when he visited the Americas.  Not once did he preach temple marriage, exaltation, and degrees of glory.   Why would He not preach his own gospel?  In fact, he taught that  “nothing entereth into his rest save it be those who have washed their garments in my blookd, because of hteir faith, and the repeontace of all their sins. and their faithfulness utno the end…Verily, verily, I say unto you, this is my gospel.”

Prayer

Sundays theme was Prayer. Sacrament meeting, Sunday School, and Relief Society, all about prayer. Pray often, pray about every thing, pray in your closets, God knows what you want/need but wants you to ask for it first.
I have spent years trying to stop praying for everything. God gave Nephi…(the 3rd or 4th???), great blessings because He said He knew that Nephi would not ask for anything contrary to God’s will. That impressed me. I started saying “if it be thy will” on everything I asked for. It was hard at first. Sometimes you want things so badly. Life crashed and I still kept it up. It was hard. Eventually though, I felt like a record with a skip in it. Every prayer was the same. I had also tried to stop doing the repeat prayers that sound so trite. I started kneeling and just saying, “You know what I want/need”. Then I would just kneel for a while and try to imagine I was in God’s presence for a while. Sometimes it was very rewarding and other times, just so so. Then about a yearago, maybe longer, I started feeling that prayers were a waste of time. They were always the same, things did not change so they weren’t being answered. I started to just cry everytime I prayed because it felt more hopeless to pray and be faced with the knowledge that it did not do any good. It just seemed stupid too to ask for stupid daily things like ” please help me on my test today” when something as important as eternal salvation did not seem to matter to God enough to help so in the scheme of things, getting an A on a test did not seem worth asking for.
After the lessons on Sunday, I thought maybe I had gotten off track. Maybe I needed to start praying again. Maybe I wasn’t getting help because I had stopped asking for it. I ended up laying awkake all night praying/asking for what I need/what I want. I really believed that I would get something now after all this time. By morning, I felt even more alone and abandoned by God than ever. NOTHING!
I’ve felt a little self- destructive since then.

It will all work out

Before all this happened, I never felt like I was good enough.  I went to church and heard the things that I was doing wrong or all the things that I was not doing.  That was my worst problem.  I did nothing that was bad pr sinful.  It was all the sins of omission that were keeping me out of the Celestial Kingdom.  I never felt like I could do enough.  When you interview with the bishop, he tells you things you should work on.  When all this happened, in the beginning  I would try to express my feelings and my fears. At this point, the bishop’s answer was, “Dont worry, it will all work out.” 

So trying your best, both your spouse and you means that you have a slim chance but when your spouse stops trying, suddenly, I have an automatic in?  How is that? 

I want to go to heaven

I am confused.  Believing in the gospel is the root of my pain.  It would be easier to believe that there is only heaven and hell.  I think I could make it into heaven, no problem.  I am not a bad person.  The church teaches that there are different degrees of glory so it is not clear cut…good goes to heaven, bad goes to hell.  Instead, we have to worry about how good we are, are we good enough?  There is never a good enough, no matter how hard we try, is it good enough for the best?  It is all confusing and discouraging. 

Then, add to that a husband that suddenly turns his back on what you believe, what he used to believe, what you have always wanted and worked for.  That is so unfair.  The greatest blessing God can give us for lives well lived is to have an eternal marriage.  It would be easier to come right out and say eternal marriage may not mean eternal with the mate you have in this life.  They teach us that though.  We can be together forever.  One bishopric member, on his turn to conduct testimony meeting each time would say that he could not imagine not being with his wife for eternity.  That heaven would be hell without his wife and kids and how great the gospel was to provide us the way to obtain that blessing.  What about those of us who, through no control of our own, suddenly end up with a spouse that no longer believes.  They no longer do ALL the things we were taught we need to do to hope that it is good enough; but alway wondering if it is not enough.  The church has no place for us.  We do not fit in and there is no explanation for what happens to us.  I think we go to hell.  I think that living, knowing that we are not “making it” is hell.   I wish I did not care.  I think there are plenty of people that do not care or give any thought, ever, about what is going to happen to them.  I have always cared.  I have always worried about it and made choice after choice based upon my hopes of being exalted even if it meant discomfort now or great sacrifice now of the things I wanted now.  I saw a saying in my teens that said, “Think Eternally!”  That made such an impression on me.  I worked and worked to learn to always make choices that would mean more in the next life than now. 

I have always wanted to go to heaven.  I dont want to go to hell.  If there are degress of heaven, then I want to go to the best degee.  How do you decide that it is ok to settle for less?  I wish I could. I wish I could disregard all thought of eternity and just live this life.  It would be so easy.  I am a good person.  Even if I did take no thought for the “future”, I would never knowingly harm anyone, be dishonest, etc.  But, I have been concerned for my eternal salvation since I was about 12.  I don’t know how not to think about it.  I wish I could turn it off.  That is why I want to “cease to exist”.  I want God to turn me off.  I am tired of worrying.  I am tired of hurting, crying, hoping, losing hope, feeling helpless.  I wish life was not eternal.  I envy those that do not believe in life after death.  That would be such a relief.  Lights go out. 

Is it all just a lie?

I have had a bad day today. I’ve actually been doing well since I found a scripture in D & C 74:1 which says that the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife.

Today on Dr. Laura though, an LDS woman called in about her husband of 7 years has been hiding that he doesn’t really believe all this time and has been drinking when he is out of town. He is a pilot so he is out of town a lot. I felt so bad for this woman.  She has been living a lie her whole marriage.

I am left wondering if anyone is really who they say they are? There are so few members of the LDS church compared to the world’s population. How can the only true gospel, the only way back to God, be so exclusive? Even those that are members are struggling as evidenced by my husband and this woman’s. I know others too. Why is it so hard? Why doesn’t God help us out a little more? Doesn’t He want us back?

I don’t know why it is so hard for Him to just let us know what we are really supposed to do.  All we have is the scriptures.  They are apparently not enough though as evidenced by the many many different churches o the earth.  Everyone has a different interpretation of them.  We have prophets.  I have always believed they were prophets.  Yet, in my case, it would be easier to believe that Joseph Smith was wrong and the things we are taught in the Mormon church are wrong.  It is actually the source of my pain, knowing that there are degrees of glory in heaven instead of just heaven and hell.  I pretty much know that I will never be able to be admittted into the highest glory now and I did nothing to disqualify myself except marry the wrong man.  I thought I had it right.  I tried very hard to assure that I married a man that believe what I do and wanted the same goals as I .  I was even careful to marry a man that I believed God himself told me was a good match.  I had prayed about several other guys before my husband and had received a “no” answer.  I always believed that God had told me “yes” on my husband.  So, if I married the guy that God told me was a good risk, what more could I have done? 

I wish there were only heaven and hell to worry about.  It would be easier to handle now.  You either pass or fail.  All this degrees of glory only makes me sad and hopeless because now I don’t know where I will end up.  I can live a good life and still not get the greatest blessing.  It is confusing and my heart is broke.  There is part of me that wishes that the church were a lie.  It is believing that what it teaches about eternal life that is causing me so much pain. 

Beyond what we can bear

I have been taught my whole life that God will not tempt us or give us trials beyond what we can bear.  I do not believe that is true.  I have had people throw that out to me and I wonder how we ever came up with that one?  Ok, so let’s say that God would let things happen so that we did experience beyond our capabilities.  How do you know you are beyond what you can bear?  Will our head explode?  Will we suddenly melt away?  Will we die from the pressure?  No!  No! No!

Because no one’s head has ever exploded, but instead, we wake up for another day no matter how hard the day before was, we have come to the conclusion that God does not give us more than we can handle.   I think this is a myth that we have all bought into.  I believe that I have been given more than I can bear at times.  I have had times in my life where I could not bear my life.  I think that when a person cannot even finish the walk from the front door to the bedroom day after day  and has no ability to do anything for hours every day for almost a year but cry out in anguish and pain to no avail…, that is the best explanation of a broken person that I can imagine.

No matter how hard life is one day, we still wake up the next day.  it just means we went to sleep and we still woke up because that is what we would do whether our burdens are great or not.   I think that suicide is a pretty good indicator that burdens can be too much to bear.   When that happens, how do we explain it?   That alone may be a sign that this whole idea is false.  Some would say that those people did not have enough faith to wait it out and continue to bear it until God decided that the burden was to be lifted or buffered.  I say that it was too much for them to bear and they exploded, or melted or died from the pressure of their burdens.  If suicide is not an indication that this idea is false, then I get back to the question, “what is”?   How do we know that God will not give us more than we can bear?  What do we imagine is the alternative?   This is just a good thing to believe when we are not experiencing heavy burdens so that we start out stronger when they start. 

Who Am I Married To?

I have been having little panic attacks lately.  Most of the time, I do not even think about this but today, I keep getting this idea in my head that I do not even know my husband.  The man he was, or at least I thought he was, is not who he is at all.  I have spent my life with a total stranger.  That causes me to feel utter panic.  My heart starts to race and I want to break into tears so I change the subject, so to speak, I start to think about something else.    He is exactly the very man that I was scared to death to marry when I was young. 

When I tried to envision my future, I was frightened that I would end up with a man that would not be as strong in the church as I.  This is even worse.  He is not only apathetic toward it or omissive in living the gospel but he is actually “anti”.   He is the kind of man that always kind of scared me. The thought occurs to me he is secretly mocking my very core beliefs.   He is careful not to come out and openly say things but we have had conversations where he brings up points and I cannot help but think he is trying to “convert me”.  

I have had my doubts.  I have had many, many “crises of faith”.  I have even stopped believing in God a few times.  It just keeps coming back that I am who I have become and I am a woman who believes in God.  I think though that he misinterprets my crises as sympathy for his cause. 

How did I end up here?  My heart just aches and aches.  I am scared.  I had a Sunday School lessen a few weeks ago where the teacher commented on how the Atonement not only makes it possible for our sins to be forgiven thus comforting us and giving us peace but it also can allieviate the pain we suffer from the sins of others.  When will my pain be relieved?  I feel no relief.  Oh Jesus, please help me, please take away this suffering.  I feel so afraid and so helpless. 

We don’t have enough information

I wonder why life has to be such a mystery.  I used to think it was part of the test.  We have certain clues along the way from scriptures and a prophet to guide us through on current problems.  We are here to be tested.  Our probation here on this earth for our 70 years or so will determine our eternal consequenses.  Yet, we really aren’t given enough information to be a fair test…I think. 

I know that the basic premise is that we keep at least the 10 commandments and we do all we can to prove that we love God more than sin.  I get that.  It would be simple and understandable if that were it.  But, the LDS church takes it further.  They actually define different degrees within different kingdoms, then they say that only the cream of the crop and very few will qualify for the highest degree which is exaltation.  That is what I always wanted to shoot for.  I want the best that God can give me. 

I don’t want to live, I don’t want to die

I don’t want to die

11 03 2008

I am so distraught.  It is 1:00 in the morning and here I am, reaching out to an ear.  I would be suicidal right now but I am not.  I don’t want to die.  I have figured out that dying is not the answer.  Afterall, my problem stems from the fact that life is eternal.  I believe that I am going to be eternally tortured.  Killing myself will only make things worse. 

I want to cease to exist.  I want to just end.  I want my  lights to just go out.  That way, there is no more misery, fear, guilt, …

Some people fear that there is no life after death.  I do not fear it, I pray for it.  I beg God to turn me off.  That would be such a relief.  I pray that either I can be given a glimpse of something good to look forward to or just end it all because I can’t go on.  I have no strength.  I give up.   Again, I am not suicidal. I am not going to kill myself.   How long will God allow me to be so miserable though. Just a glimpse of something good to look forward to.  Just to feel loved for at least a while.  To feel like someone cares about me.  I am so lonely.  I am so afraid.