Pharaoh

You know how General Conference was like 3 weeks ago? (If you are unfamiliar with what I'm talking about, learn more about the LDS General Conference here). Well as I was listening to the talks, I was inspired on a few occasions to study the story of Moses. Finally, I have begun that.

Pharaoh is my addiction. I think I've decided that it's okay, at least for now, to view my addictions as something apart from myself. I know that ultimately, I have the choice to give in or not. But, addiction is a little different than your regular run-of-the-mill choice. And so, at least for the time being, I'm going to separate it from me. Not in a way that abolishes my responsibility of it, but more in a way that allows me to attack it without attacking myself.

Sadly, if Pharaoh is my addictions, then I'm Moses. I am not so great. But for the sake of the analogy, let's just go with it. I'm not a prophet, but I am someone who is trying to do what God has commanded. Over and over and over again. I have approached my addiction time and again and have failed to convince it to let it release me.

Moses went to Pharaoh time and again and he failed to convince it to let him release his people. Well, I know eventually they are freed, but I'm not that far in my studying yet. :)

Every time Pharaoh refused to listen to Moses, Moses would perform some miracle, which God had told him to perform, and Pharaoh still wouldn't listen. So Moses would go back to God, do you see? He would go immediately back to God, kinda like Okay that didn't work, now what?

Do you see? Every time a method failed, he'd rush back to God for the next method. And God gave it to him, step by step, hour by hour, incident by incident. Every time Moses returned to God, God helped him.

******

Today has been a beautiful day. Sunshiny, even. I returned to God, and He filled me with His love and astonished me with His mercy yet again. I am not doomed. I am not damned. I am an eternal soul who has immeasurable worth.

The weekend was awful. I was stripped of hope. I believed that I had failed, that I could not overcome after all, that I may as well stop trying because I KEEP ON FAILING. But those are all lies, and I always know they're lies but sometimes I let myself believe them because they make more sense than the alternative, at the time. I was so caught up in the moment, caught up in my failure, that I supposed that I was my failure.

Yesterday, I almost didn't go to church. But I made myself go, despite the suffocating shame that swallowed me. I told myself I would just stay for the first hour; I could go home after. But one of the talks affected me, really spoke to me. The brother speaking quoted President Uchtdorf from his Conference talk You Matter to Him, I think the quote was this: "God sees you not only as a mortal being on a small planet who lives for a brief season—He sees you as His child. He sees you as the being you are capable and designed to become. He wants you to know that you matter to Him." and it got me thinking. I am not this moment of failure. I cannot define my entire worth, destiny, etc., based on this one failing moment in eternity. God loves the WHOLE me. He loves the past me, the me I don't remember, before I came to earth. He loves the future me. He loves the Eternal me, and it's just silly to live and dwell in that moment of failure when there is SO MUCH MORE of who I am.

So I came out of it, rather quickly after that. And I attended the rest of church. :)

I'm still upset. I'm still disappointed in my choices. But the shame has been diminished, and now I can think straight without wishing I were dead, and now I can do good works while I try to figure out what's the next step in my recovery. I just can't justify hating myself for one moment in eternity. It's kindof ridiculous. It's like cutting down the banana tree because one banana had one tiny bad spot.

I'm grateful today for loving reminders from God, for His tender mercies. I'm grateful for new coaches in my corner- here's a shout out to a new old friend, and here's to our treadmills that make us stronger!

I'm off to FHE. As always, thank you for reading.

Amen to Donne

It is woven within my being,
This sin.
A parasite, it seems, of sun
And dreams.
It is to me as plant to soil.
I can’t
Expunge my soul, O God, forgive
My fraud
Forgive my fraud! And yet, hold off
(Regret
Is well but cannot stay my hand
A day)
Until the hour Thou wilt banish
My guilt
By taking this my fav’rite sin—
My grave—
And accomplices; thought, desire
I’ve fought
With tireless hope; avails me not.
Assails
Still, this sin, O God! And for what?
So, God,
My Father, take away this plague!
I say,
Unweave my fibers, change my heart!
Derange
My days. O’erthrow and bend, for Thou
Dost mend
As yet, but batter my heart! For I
Will fly
Only as Thou restraineth my wings.
4.29.09

(I have heavily referenced my favorite poem, Holy Sonnet XIV, by John Donne)

See how I wrote this over two years ago? I feel so now. Where is the growth? Where is my growth? WHY HAVE I NOT GROWN sufficiently for healing?

I'm tired. I'm so sick of this. But I always am. I wish something terribly rock-bottomish would happen. What is it that I am failing to see over and over?

I can't sleep. It's 3:23 a.m. and I haven't been able to sleep at all. I have to be up in two hours. Definitely not going to bed.

I wish I had an excuse. I wish there was a good reason that my efforts increase but success stays at bay. I wish the 12 step program worked. I wish therapy worked. Ever since I've been in therapy, I have not improved. I'm not blaming anyone but me. I KNOW this is my fault. I know it's because of something I'm not doing, or not doing right. I'm choosing the sin. I choose it every time. It's not forced on me, ever. I choose it.

I want to take all my insides out of my body because they are filthy. And I am sick.

This is just part of the cycle, isn't it? Soon I will post a post about how great life is and how great God is and how merciful is our Savior and how I can do it and I will do it and I'm not a bad person and it's all about getting up after I fall and moving forward. You know. Just like always. But the truth is, I am no better than I was when I wrote this poem. I am the same. Despicable.

Yet I know I have worth. I just don't have worth to me. My kids find worth in me. My God sees worth in me. I'm needed in some respect by my children and my God. But what good am I to myself?

Don't worry about me. Don't try to tell me I have great worth because I already know that. Don't tell me to stop beating myself up because if I don't, who will? Besides, like I said, in a few days I'll write a sunshiny hope-filled post and all will be right with the world again.

Stream of Conciousness

Remember those school activities where you were supposed to write something, anything, in a "stream of consciousness?" I had a few of those assignments. I enjoyed them. I kinda feel like I need to do that now. I just need to write. I don't know what I need to write, but I have to write. So here I am. Writing in a stream, a stream of consciousness, the likes of Eric Whitacre and Philip Glass helping me along with their brilliant music.

How do you start these things? You just start, I guess. you know, I rarely filter anyway. Gets me in trouble sometimes. I should filter more. I'm going to close my eyes. I'm closing my eyes and typing and I'm not goin g to fix any errors.

I'ts so cold. The cold stresses me out. Bad things happen in the cold. It's dark, it gets dark earlier when it's cold and bad things happen in the dark. I hate this season, Fall, all it is is a mask that hides winter for a little while, but fall is winter. It's winter pretending. It doesn't fool me. I know what the changing colors really mean. Death and desolation are on the horizon. "It's so pretty!" you may be tempted to believe, but don't depend on the beauty because it will betray you. Just kidding, I'm not a beautiful tree, I'm sharp and baren and ugly. I won't shade you anymore.

You can't count on the beauty. Fall is a mask, a disguise, and it sickens me.

But why? What about Fall, about winter, elicits such negative emotions from me? Why am I afraid of the cold?

What the hell does it matter?

I've been so confused this week. I don't know what's right or wrong and I don't feel like God is helping me figure it out. I dno't blame Him: He's either waiting till a better time to show me what I seek, or I'm not seeing what He's showing me already. A while ago I decided that I depend too much on external sources to show me the way. In the end, I've discovered, I know what's the best choice. It's inside me. When I finally reach a conclusion or a decision or a realization, I sometimes understand that it was in me all along, the answer was there all along, and I wasted a bunch of time and energy looking to outside sources for the answer. So maybe that's where it is again. maybe that's why God is holing back: He knows I know the answer already. Maybe. It's here inside and it's not even so much that I need to find it as I need to acknowledge it.

Confusion. Nathaniel Hawthorne described this emotion beautifully, and acurately. I quote him: ". . .yet hope and dread kept a continual warfare in his breast, alternately vanquishing one another and starting up afresh to renew the contest. Blessed are all simple emotions, be they dark or bright! It is the lurid intermixture of the two that produces the illuminating blaze of the infernal regions."

Funny. I just realized how CONFUSING that quote is. How can Hell be illuminating? Maybe he was just referring to the fire that is associated with Hell. By the way, that quote is in Hawthorne's short story Rappaccini's Daughter.

On the other hand, what great decisions have ever been made without first fighting with confusion? What victory has been won without fighting? Indeed, there can be no victory without a fight! The bloodier the battle, the sweeter the victory. I cannot win without opposition. There is no victory when there is no battle. Success is impossible without the threat of failure. For if nothing stands to be lost, then nothing worthwhile can be gained. You know? Opposition in all things. Confusion, therefore, is a gift. I know something can be lost and something can be gained when I am confused. What I need to find out is which decision benefits me and my family the most?

Hell is, indeed, illuminating. Without it, how could I see Heaven? Without Hell, Heaven would have no value. When I think of Hell's horror, I see the value of Heaven. Without lies, how could I know truth? Without sorrow, I would never know joy. Without confusion, I could never be enlightened. Without imprisonment, I could never taste freedom.

So, yes, the blaze of Hell, as Hawthorne described, is illuminating. And the simple emotions both dark and bright are easy, and produce few results. The "lurid intermixture" of the two is what makes us who we are. It's what bring victory or death. It's what leads to heaven or hell.

The answer is in me.

I remember when I was dating my college boyfriend. He was my first love. He was poison. I remember as he held me, I felt like everything was perfect. I couldn't see anything else. I felt like that's where I was meant to be, in his arms, forever. I felt like we were meant for each other, made for each other, created with the other in mind. But, when I was miles away from him, I could see that he was poison to my soul, and that I needed to get him out of my life forever. I remember learning that when physical responses are so strong, you can't always hear logic and reason. I loved how it FELT to be touching him. But that wasn't the truth. The truth was, he was poison. It's hard to see truth when you're too close to the lie.

I was too close to the lie. I should have known by the way I had to talk myself into believing it was even a possibility. I should have known by how it first shocked me. I should have fled as was my first reaction. I know better. I've always known better. But the logic seemed sound. I, of all people, should know that logic doesn't hold a candle to truth. I'm not too close now. I'm going to go find some answers.

~~~
Having denied myself my feelings all these years and now in the past few months trying to allow myself to feel, I have a hard time identifying those feelings now as they come. It's so difficult just understanding myself! But I'm getting it, more and more, little by little. And now, I feel relief. I feel clarity. Can one feel clarity? I feel lighter. And I think that's an answer. Anyway, it'll have to do as one for now, because I think God wants me to figure this one out without His direct response. And if He trusts me with that, then I can do it. And no one can tell me how I should feel.

I think this blog post tonight was such a good idea. Still don't know what cold has to do with it all, but guess what? Without the winters, Summers would be bland. Without cold and dark, warmth and light would be meaningless.

Good night.