Easter, Real Meaning

This easter has been a totally new experience for me. Growing up it was all about the candy, the new dress, and an amazing breakfast. But these past few days I have been unable to keep my mind off of my Savior. I wanted to relive the last week with Jesus (in a sense). 

As I began to study the scriptures and read talks the atonement became so much more personal. Everyday for the last week all day, every day I read what Christ would have been doing that day. Then all day it was in my mind. What did Christ did to prepare for such event? Did Christ know how painful it was going to be? Did my Savior have sleepless nights? Did He question if He was strong enough? 

When I was getting ready on Thursday I came across a talk my Elder Holland called “None Were With Him” (GO READ IT NOW). As I was doing my hair I listened to the audio version. I was unable to do my makeup because I was crying, partially sobbing. I know I had heard this talk before, but it was so beautiful. I still can’t get enough of it. I wanted to share somethings that stood out to me:

Elder Holland speaks of Christ being completely alone. Where God, our Savior, cried out in the ninth hour saying “Eli, eli, lama sabachthani? That is to say My God, my God, why hast though forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46) Elder Holland explains that Christ expected His disciples and all other mortal beings to abandoned Him, but that the Savior could not have comprehend His Father leaving Him. But even though He was completely alone He continued on.

“The goodness in Him allowed faith to triumph even in a state of complete anguish. The trust He lived by told Him in spite of His feelings that divine compassion is never absent, that God is always faithful, that He never flees nor fails us. When the uttermost farthing had then been paid, when Christ’s determination to be faithful was as obvious as it was utterly invincible, finally and mercifully, it was “finished.” Against all odds and with none to help or uphold Him, Jesus of Nazareth, the living Son of the living God, restored physical life where death had held sway and brought joyful, spiritual redemption out of sin, hellish darkness, and despair. With faith in the God He knew was there, He could say in triumph, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” 

I cannot imagine what Christ did for me. I tremble knowing that for me He was rejection, abandoned, betrayed, abused, and forsaken. The Lord loved me personally. How can I ponder about His crucifixion and not be moved? He loves me more than I could every understand. As I have pondered His death I got a tiny tiny glimpse of His love, and it was beyond imaginal. 

I am so grateful for a living Savior! I am grateful that this Easter He helped and inspired me to learn about His crucifixion. I am overflowing with amazement about who this man is and continues to be. 

I know that He saw my face, he felt my pain, sadness, anger, despair, fatigue, joy, happiness, e v e r y   s i n g l e   t h i n g! Oh it is wonderful that he cared (for me) enough to die for me. To know that Jesus has died and was risen I don’t have to “walk such a long, lonely path utterly alone”. 

It is my plea, as well as Elder Holland, that I never reenact the betrayal and extraordinary pain that was caused to our Redeemer. 

Elder Holland explains, “He has walked alone once. Now, may I ask that never again will He have to confront sin without our aid and assistance, that never again will He find only unresponsive onlookers when He sees you and me along His Via Dolorosa in our present day. As we approach this holy week....may we declare ourselves to be more fully disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, not in word only and not only in the flush of comfortable times but in deed and in courage and in faith, including when the path is lonely and when our cross is difficult to bear. This Easter week and always, may we stand by Jesus Christ...for surely that is how He stood by us when it was unto death and when He had to stand entirely and utterly alone. 

I can testify that what Elder Holland speaks of is true. We have a lovely Savior who died individually for us. Let us always remember that He has felt exactly how we have felt, that he cares, and that we do not have to experience what He has already suffered. 

I love the Lord. If you are questioning the atonement, or His sacrifice in anyway it is my humble pray that you study the scriptures and ask. God will enlighten your minds. For the atonement is the very root of christian doctrine. It is our way back to Him, the only way.

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. 

Step 9

I have been having a really hard time with step 9. This song is incredible!! I want to see "through eyes of grace".

I am so grateful for the Lord's help. I am so grateful that He is able to teach me how to "love the unloveable".

I know He will help me.

Hope you guys have a wonderful weekend!

Much Love,

Weak in the Heart

I have been sick for the past few days. It has been very difficult for me to stay positive and not to give into temptation. I have been so triggered. It has been hard for me to stay focused, to have clear thoughts. 

Today I have been so sick of being sick. So sick of being weak. Sick of being tempted. I know that’s a bad place for me to be, but a hard one to get myself out of. I know I need the Lord’s help. 

I watched mormon messages and came across the listed below. I have watched it before. It is truly amazing. 

I know today I am weak in the heart, but I know the Lord is watching out for me. That I will be okay. Satan is attacking. I forgot my purpose and my identify today. I need to let the Lord help me. I need to be humble and teachable. 

Please Lord, Forgive me for being negative and not have pure thoughts. 

Help me have the faith. Help to not feel a lone. 

 Bless me to get nourished physical and spiritually.

Beauty of Forgiveness

I have tons of thing that I want to post that I haven’t yet. I feel prompted to go back and share with you some promptings I have had within the past few weeks. So the next few post will just be a catch up.

01/27/13

Dear Father,

I am sitting here in sacrament meeting. 

I am trying to focus.

I love thee.

I want thee to teach me, guide me, comfort me.

I know you do, and I am so thankful.

Lord, I have been realizing that I get stressed on Sunday because I stay up late and get worried about my calling. 

Lord, wilt thou help me to let go of worry and stress?

Help me to recognize the joy of my calling.

Lord, I thank thee for helping me, especially this last week.

I thank thee for prompting me.

I thank thee for protecting me.

I am so grateful I was able to reach out because of thy spirit. 

Father in heaven, I need thy help to not have hard feelings, especially against my bishop. 

  I feel like he forgot about me. 

I feel like he doesn’t care about me. 

I feel like because he has “forgotten” me, thy hast forgotten me 

I know he is only man. 

I know he is human.

Everything with him has been bothering me.

I don’t want satan to make me feel this way.

I know I have the power to let this go, but I need thee.

I don’t know how to let it go, I need thee.

Please help me see with your eyes.

Thank you Lord.

After church I read Experiencing Christ. On Pg 102 it reads:

Until we have experienced the Savior’s divine help, enabling us to forgive others, we will carry a heavy burden. If we look to the offender to heal the wounds they’re inflicted upon us, we will most likely experience even deeper wounding. 

The focus of forgiveness is on the sin, not sinner.

The focus of forgiveness is on the debt, not debtor. 

God releases or cuts off the sin, not the sinner.

Forgiveness requires compassion.

If you try to forgive while in pain of the offense it will be impossible. But when we allow His infinite love is extended in perfect measures to all men, even those we struggle to forgive. He desires to grant mercy to them, just as much as He desires to grant mercy unto us. 

I felt like I was soaking in forgiveness for the first time. There are so many beautiful lines that the spirit touched me with, I hope He has done the same for you.

I will be honest after sunday I forgot about these words. Until the other morning. As I was laying in bed half awake and grabbed my phone and searched forgiveness in the gospel library app.   

 A large list appeared and I randomly selected a talk from 1980 general conference initialed “Forgive them, I pray thee” by Vaughn  J. Featherstone. A few things stood out to me. The man giving the talk used to be a stake president. He shares a few stories of people who came in a confessed to him. In his talk he speaks of multiple experience in which people have come in with tears and humble expresses a transgression. (all of the stories are beautiful and I highly recommended reading them).

As a sister is confessing he stops her and said,” My dear sister, before you go on, let me share with you a principle of the gospel. When you take a burden off your soul, it is lifted from the priesthood leader’s soul, it is lifted from the priesthood leader’s soul also”

When I first read it, I will be honest. I was like.....sure.

But then He goes on to explain his view, as the stake president:

I have listened to possibly a thousand major transgressions and each time after a truly repentant transgressor had left my office, I have either knelt  behind the desk or bowed my head in prayer and said,” Lord, forgive him or her, I pray thee. if not, blot my name also out of they book. I do not want to be where they aren’t for they are some of the most Christlike people I have ever meet.”

The spirit overcame me in that very instant and let me know that the Lord is my father. That He cares for me. That he has called bishop’s for every individual in the ward. That he is watching over me. That if I let my bishop know how I feel (or anyone that has offended me) that I would feel the love of the Lord.  That I would be closer to my Maker. 

I am so grateful for the spirit and how and what it teaches me. 

I know this is a way late post. But I wanted to bear my testimony that the Lord truly understands me. The He will do all He can to help me. He is truly my best friend. I am so thankful He is helping me learn how to forgive. He is showing me compassion. His love is flowing through me. I promise He is there for you. He will help you forgive. He will help you with whatever you have need of. 

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. 

Rescued!

I have a limited amount of time right now, usually I re-read, re-write and have tons of anxiety about what I wrote and if it made sense. However, today I just want to write. 

I have an amazing Heavenly Father. He is truly merciful. He is truly loving. He is there always. I mean it with all my heart. Tears are literally streaming down my face as I type. 

You see the lord rescued me yesterday. I was struggling a lot, for the past few days I have. I was really unaware of how bad it was getting. Yesterday it kicked in a lot. I felt so overwhelmed. I was unsure what to do about the circumstance I was in. Satan definitely knew where I was. He “helped me” to justify things. He “helped me” isolate. He “help me” feel like if I talked to my husband he would be angry.

I began to be prideful. (before recovery I thought I had was not a prideful person.) HA! Was I wrong. It is something that satan definitely “helps me” to justify.  I was full of pride a few days ago. I was frustrated about this addiction. I was frustrated that the Lord wasn’t helping me with something that was very precious to me. Something that truly mattered to me. 

As I debated whether to discuss it with someone. I felt the spirit. I said a quick (lazy) pray as I was walking around my house. I sat down and talked. I told someone how I felt, what I was feeling. 

I felt the spirit so strong. It was something that I hadn’t had the past few days and I didn’t realize it till that very second. I remembered everything Satan was trying to make me forget. The Lord did care! I was doing my part, even though that is hard to admit. I didn’t go to group because I was feeling a bit sick, when really I could have gone. I should have! I am so excited for wednesday!!! I was warned when my thoughts wondered, yet I certainly justified. Anyway, you get what happen: A LOT of justification. 

No matter how lazy or casual my pray was the Lord heard it. 

It’s always a good reminder to: Let go of pride and let Love in. God is love. 

And I love Him. I am truly overjoyed today because of the lord. 

He rescued me and the beautiful thing is, He always will!

Thank you Lord!

The Crawl

My therapist showed me this video a few years ago. The other day I showed my husband and now I want to share it with all of you. 

It is entitled “The Crawl”. It is incredible! It is so hard to watch the pain of the runners. I could NEVER imagine that. Yet we all feel pain suffering, evil, good, happiness...etc. We all knew before we came here what we would feel. Life is not only joyful, but sometimes overwhelming.  

Each of us are given our own ‘unique’ trials. We are given trails (addictions) to “become perfected in Him”. To learn how to rely on the Lord. There have been times where I believed my trials where to much. I would cry out as Joseph Smith,”Oh God, where art thou”. I have felt like those runners. Putting all my effort and falling, completely exhausted. 

In “Experiencing Christ” Randall J. Brown says: God causes things to happen at exactly the right time. We must, therefore, stop trying to figure everything out and let the Lord be God in our lives. 

Jesus Christ came to exchange with us. Each of us can take advantage of His offer. He came so that we might give Him all our cares, problems and failures. He, in return, give us His peace and joy.

The Savior really does desire to take care of us, but we must let Him. We must stop trying to take care of ourselves and stop worrying about every little thing we cannot control. So often we insist on worrying and trying to figure things out on our own. By doing this, we miss out on the Lord’s guidance. The Savior will give us His peace if we first give Him our worries. We do this by trusting that He had the situation under control. 

What an amazing exchange! We give Him our worries and problems and He gives us His peace.” 

The Lord has said:

“For verily I say unto you, blessed is he that keepeth my commandments, whether in life or in death; and he that is faithful in tribulation, the reward of the same is greater in the kingdom of heaven.

“Ye cannot behold with your natural eyes, for the present time, the design of your God concerning those things which shall … follow after much tribulation.

“For after much tribulation come the blessings” (D&C 58:2–4).

I can testify to you that I know the Lord is there. He will save you. Work step 3 every day (put your trust in the Lord). “Surrender all things to Him”. 

It is my pray and hope that we can come to know that Lord, trust Him and depend on Him for every single thing in our lives. Even if is means we crawl every single inch of the way he will be there to lighten our burden, our affliction and even our addictions, but only in His timing. 

In the name of Jesus Christ,  Amen. 

Soul-deep Healing is Possible

In the book “Experiencing Christ” the author references an analogy from Rick Warren book “The Purpose Driven Life”. It goes as such:

“Imagine riding in a speedboat on a lake with an automatic pilot set to go east. If you decide to reverse and head west, you have two possible ways to change the boat’s direction. One way is to grab the steering wheel and physically force it to head in the opposite direction from where the autopilot is programmed to go. By sheer willpower you could overcome the autopilot, but you would feel consistent resistance. Your arms eventually tire of the stress, you’d let go of the steering wheel, and the boat would instantly head back east, the way it is internally programmed.”

The author of "Experiencing Christ” goes on to say:

“This is what happens when we try to change our lives through, will-power, self-discipline, or self-sufficiency. We may, through our own efforts, try to stop ourselves from...our addiction.  Our willpower may produce short-term results, but we will begin to feel tremendous inner stress because we have not dealt with the issue in our heart. If our faith is in ourselves, we will eventually relapse and return to...our addiction. This occurs because of reliance in our own insufficient strength.

There is only one way to change our internal auto pilot: to let the power of the Savior’s grace go to work in our souls and make us ‘new creatures in Christ.’ Only His infinite grace is sufficient to produce soul-deep healing.”

I am so thankful for the Lord and that He has and is directing my life. I am no longer exhausted, overwhelmed, frustrated at my own efforts. For all things are possible for the Lord. I am so blessed to be reminded of this everyday. I love the Lord and through Him not only has my life been changed, I have been changed. I testify that He can and will change you. 

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

- A recovering addict who is accepted by God, others and herself.