The Grace Experiment: A Memoir (Embarking)

The other Sunday, I slipped. I spent the entire week, until last Monday, in a funk. It was a funk of self-loathing born of anger and frustration. How can I keep doing this when I know better? Why is this still a problem? I HATE THIS! I hate it! Why do I continue to indulge in something that I fully hate?

I was angry to the core and I covered my anger up with extreme guilt and self-loathing. And I was tired of fighting it. I didn't want to fight the negatives. I just wanted to wallow in them because, dang it all, I deserved that.

Anyway, I don't want to focus on that. Finally I pulled myself out of the sludge somewhere around yesterday. Today I had an appointment with my amaaaaaazing therapist, Soni, and gave her a bit of a rundown.

*******I interrupt this program to tell you the story of how I found my therapist. Last August, I made seriously horrible choices with a manfellow, and I therefore forfeited my temple recommend, which I'd only had for a few months after several years of not having it. I realized then that I was sicker than I had been admitting, because, I tell you what, I resisted almost nothing. I couldn't believe I was so weak especially after working so hard for so long. Anyway, I decided I needed counseling again. My last therapist had been the previous year, with LDS Family Services, and she was really great, but she said I was her healthiest client, and I didn't feel healthy at all, so I thought she thought I didn't need her. ALSO, she was all the way in Boise, and too expensive. So I prayed that I would find someone local, and someone who could really help me, and someone I could afford. At the time, I wasn't even employed! But I felt it was important, even so, to find a therapist. So do you know what I did? I Googled "Nampa counselors" and followed links till I found a website that had a long list of licensed therapists in Nampa.

Now, this was terrifying in a way. I was out there all by myself, referring myself, and I was terrified to find someone like David Ridley who would just ruin me further. I knew I would be looking for a woman for sure (because David Ridley poisoned me against male therapists- not that I believe all or even most male therapists are predators, but I figured my chances were better with a female, and that I could relate better anyway). And I read through the bios of several women therapists on the website. When I saw Soni's picture, I knew I needed to contact her. I hadn't even read her bio yet. I saw her picture and I felt that swoosh in the heart- you know what I'm talking about? I went to read her bio and hoped for some indication that she was LDS. She wasn't, but she was forthcoming about her Christianity, so we had that in common. And, she also didn't say anything about sexual addictions in her bio. I was slightly disheartened, but I emailed her right away, and she responded almost right away, and we set up an appointment, and I was humbled and impressed and inspired by her knowledge and her understanding and her compassion. And she is PERFECT. Well, perfect for me anyway. And isn't it awesome how God places people in our paths? She has certainly contributed to my healing, and continues to do so, and I feel so blessed to have been guided to her. ***********

Back to my post! So, I went to therapy today and told Soni what was up, and what was down, and she just guided the truth that I already knew to my consciousness. Grace. She talked a lot about grace. And you know what? I really feel like we LDS folk undermine grace. We say "faith without works is dead" like it's more important than "Come boldly to the throne of grace." There seems to be a cultural focus on works over grace. And we say the traditional Christians have it all wrong when they say all you have to do is accept Jesus into your heart as your Savior and you'll be saved.

But, here's the thing. If I truly and daily and completely accept Jesus as my Savior; if I accept His grace always, if I surrender my will to His, then I will be saved. I am saved. Every day. When we accept one thing, we, of a necessity, surrender another thing. If I accept that I am not 18 anymore, then I surrender the idea that I'm 18 still. You know? When I accepted that my marriage was over, I surrendered the idea that it would last forever. When I accept Jesus as my Savior, then I surrender myself. And when I surrender myself; my will, I will do whatever He wants me to do, and therefore, I will do good works, because I will do His works. We Mormons sometimes talk like works comes before grace, but I really think it's quite the opposite. Grace inspires good. Grace is what heals us and emboldens us, and enables us to do good. I was reading in Romans where Paul said, essentially, that belief is what inspires us to do good... but now I can't find the verse. I'll find it later. :)

Anyway. Grace abounds . . . always. And I'm going to work to stop rejecting it. Every day, I live in a place of guilt and fear. I make all my choices based on guilt or fear (or duty). I wake feeling instantly guilty for my upcoming failures and my last night's failures. I retire to my bed listening to the lullaby of the failures of the day. Guilt, guilt, guilty, every dang day, every dang moment. I'm so afraid that I won't hold myself responsible, that I make sure I beat the crap out of myself. It's not doing it for me anymore, so I'm trying an experiment; a trial, if you will. At Soni's brilliant suggestion, I'm going to work hard to start off my days with grace and not guilt. Can you imagine how different my morning will be tomorrow, when I welcome myself to the day and take notice of the grace around me? And then partake?

It's there. Always.

I'm going to work hard to reject guilt instead of grace. I'll give myself permission to take on my responsibilities, but without guilt. Without my own punitive sports announcer in my head. I free myself of tomorrow's guilt! I permit myself to see and invite and accept God's love for me, all day!

I kinda feel like tomorrow is going to be awesome. I shall report.