Finding Light In Our Spiritually Dark Times

I was asked to share my thoughts by means of a 15-20 minute talk in church last month.  It was written in the midst of cold season and presented through tears.  Take it for what it is...I share in the hope that some heart may be helped.

Four years ago my husband was diagnosed with an incurable form of cancer.  I’m not going to take too much time going into details today just that it wasn’t quite three years from diagnosis to death.  He died in July of 2016. Through those three years and the year and a half since I’ve experienced a spiritual roller coaster of epic proportions.  There have been days I felt like I was drowning, struggling for breath against a flood of emotions and there have been days of peace made possible by a Savior who chose to suffer this pain for me. His love is strong and constant like the sun. The theme this month is centered around light and Christ being the light and us sharing that light.

Before you tune out this is not a talk about service, this is a talk about how we receive much needed light in our lives during our darkest times.

In a grief course I took last year they explained the emotions associated with grief (and I would say any major trial in our lives) as being in a basement during midday and pulling thick curtains over the windows.  The sun is still there but we cannot see it.  When we face adversity emotion can cloud our vision of the love and help available to us.  It’s not that Heavenly Father there or isn’t aware of us, I’ve even come to understand that in these times He is acutely aware of us, and it isn’t that His love and the healing power of the atonement aren’t available, but our ability to see, hear and understand has been blocked by the excess of emotion we are experiencing. At our house we call this having “Big Feelings.” So how do we end up in these times of spiritual darkness and what can we do about them?

Presdient Uchtdorf in the Oct 2017 general conference explains, “Sometimes spiritual illness comes as a result of sin or emotional wounds. Sometimes spiritual breakdowns come so gradually that we can scarcely tell what is happening.  Like layers of sedimentary rock, spiritual pain and grief can build over time, weighing upon our spirits until it is almost too heavy to bear…We might even feel as though we have no more to give or that living the commandments of God is beyond our strength.”

This hit me really hard.  I’ve experienced that “having no more to give” feeling and even feeling unable at times to do the basic things that I know will build strength. I remember for months attending church meetings to go home completely exhausted from the effort it took to be around other people and keep my emotions in check.  Several times I found myself questioning if it was worth it and the answer was the same every time. “Showing up matters!” So I continued to show up, knowing that it mattered to Heavenly Father that I show up.  I didn’t concern myself with the quality of my contribution but knew that Heavenly Father would bless me for my efforts.

A wise priesthood leader recently explained to me that Heavenly Father does bless us for every obedience, the tricky part of this is that we do not choose the manner in which He blesses us.  We may pay tithing with the expectation that our financial situation will improve or live the law of chastity with the intent to be blessed to find a spouse but that isn’t how it works.  Heavenly Father, in His infinite wisdom blesses us with what He knows will be the most beneficial for our eternal well being.  Having faith that we are being blessed with what we need and not what we want is NOT an easy thing.

This concept of needing blessings and expecting specific blessings has been a challenge for me.  But when I come back to the simple truth that Heavenly Father loves me and wants what is best for me it makes the process more endurable.

President Uchdorf explains why remembering truth in our times of difficulty is so important, “Whatever causes our spiritual ailments, they all have one thing in common: an absence of divine light. Darkness reduces our ability to see clearly… It dims our vision of that which was at one time plain and clear. When we are in darkness, we are more likely to make poor choices because we cannot see dangers in our path.  When we are in darkness, we are more likely to lose hope because we cannot see the peace and joy that await us if we just keep pressing forward.”

It was during one such time I remember asking myself, “do I have a testimony?”, “does praying really change anything.” In these times it was the prayers of family and friends that kept me going and leaning on the light of their testimonies that kept me on the right path.

President Uchtdorf continues, “Light, on the other hand, allows us to see things as they really are.  It allows us to discern between truth and error, between the vital and the trivial. When we are in the light, we have a “perfect brightness of hope” because we can see our mortal trials from an eternal perspective. We will find spiritual healing as we step away from the shadows of the world and into the everlasting Light of Christ.”

I have learned that during times of spiritual struggles it is vitally important to learn to distinguish truth from error.  The adversary works very hard to take truths and twist them just enough to distort our thinking.  A friend of mine taught me a standard for recognizing if something is true.  We know that all truth comes from God.  Anything of God will invite the Spirit, it will FEEL good and right.  So when evaluating a statement focus on how it makes you feel.  I remember in my darkest days feeling a lifting or a brightening whenever anyone spoke of the atonement of Jesus Christ.  One of the thoughts I had a really hard time dismissing was “I can never be happy again.” Others I have struggled with are things like “I can’t give my children the support they need”,  and “I’m just not worth being around.”  All of these felt really bad and it took time and help from friends to talk it out and recognize these lies for what they were and replace those thoughts with their opposite because truth is the opposite of lies.  So the thoughts I worked on inviting were “I can be happy ,” “I am exactly what my children need,” and “I can be a good friend.”

Another time I found it difficult to recognize truth was a day I attended the temple and my grief was very heavy.  I realized the memories of my husband were beginning to fad and it was breaking my heart.  I felt my only options were to hold on to those memories as hard as I could and the pain that came with them or to allow them to slowly fade and take the pain with them.  That’s another way to recognize a lie is when we feel we have only one option or, as in this case, only two options, both of which are terrible.  In reality we have many options, some of which we may not even see yet. This is one of the adversaries favorite lies because he is the one who doesn’t have any options.

The feeling the reigned my mind this day was fear. In 2 Tim 1:7 it reads, “For God hath not given us the Spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” When I feel fear now I try to recognize that what I am thinking is not from God and I need to do something to invite the Spirit back into my mind to dispel that fear and worry. Sometimes the emotions are so strong that my vision is clouded and I need to reach out to a friend for help. Many times I have been rescued by my fear when I hear a friend, family member, or even complete stranger speak truth

I want to share another example of finding truth to dispel spiritual darkness.

When Matt’s cancer came back the second time I remember being in Primary and the theme was miracles that Christ performed.  Miracles have been a very touchy subject for me over the past few years as we understand that NOTHING is beyond Heavenly Father’s ability to do and we occasionally hear stories of miraculous healings. I struggled with this concept for a long time before my answer started to come together bit by bit.  Part of my answer was found in the song the Primary children sang two years ago that taught, “I know this, of all His miracles, the most incredible must be the miracle that rescues me.” Do you remember how strong the Spirit was as the primary children sang those words? This song was a beautiful reminder that the physical healings that Christ performed, while grand in scope,  are not as miraculous as the healing power of His atonement to purify and heal our hearts ultimately making us more prepared to receive eternal happiness.

I continued to receive bits and pieces of answers but felt dissatisfied.  I continued to feel frustrated each time someone shared a miracle story and wondered why Matt didn’t get that kind of healing. This past conference there was a talk that addressed this very topic.  Elder Hallstrom shared the following, “My limited knowledge cannot explain why sometimes there is divine intervention and other times there is not…” He challenged us to ponder where we place our faith.  Do we place our faith in physical healing, relief from financial or emotional hardship or do we place our faith in Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father?

He concluded his remarks stating, “While it is good to pray for and work for physical protection and healing during our mortal existence, our supreme focus should be on the spiritual miracles that are available to all of God’s children…We are all living a miracle, and further miracles lie ahead.” What a beautiful testimony of truth.  I had to look for this talk as I didn’t remember the speaker or even the session it was shared but what was vivid in my mind and what the spirit testified is that I had received a much seeked after answer.  “Focus on the miracle of the atonement.”  That message burned into my soul and dispelled some of the darkness I was feeling and that was a miracle.

The topic I was given today was being Bearers of the Light and I feel impressed to share that we must continually seek to grow that light within ourselves through seeking truth and dispelling lies.  Pres Uchtdorf said, “it is our quest to seek the Lord until His light of everlasting life burns brightly within us and our testimony becomes confident and strong even in the midst of darkness.”

Whatever portion of light you have will show in all you do.  It changes the way we see the world.  Now, for those of you who just had that guilty feeling of “not good enough” creep in I invite you to recognize that is a lie.  You are a child of God, from a heritage of the divine.  Focus on the light you do have and look for opportunities to invite the spirit into your life.  The adversary works very hard to cloud our vision of the good we do as discouragement is one of his best weapons. Please notice that “not good enough” feeling doesn’t feel good and based on our earlier standard can be identified as untruth and replaced with its opposite which would be “I am more than enough, I am loved, I am a child of God and He loves me.” Notice how those feel.  That is truth.

I testify to you that you are here on this earth for a reason.  You are working out your own salvation one day, one word, one moment at a time.  You will be tested and tried and there will be days when you feel unequal to the task.  Heavenly Father did not intend for you to accomplish the work of your life by yourself.  Reach out to Him; reach out to other people.  Some of the greatest insights I have received come when I confide in a friend that I am struggling and they share some amazing truth they learned through struggling with their own imperfections.  There is power in leaning on each other and learning from others’ experience.  Heavenly Father made us very capable but He also gave us weaknesses so we would recognize our need for help, our need for Him.  He always works through imperfect people. Please remember the work in which you are engaged is the work of a lifetime.  It won’t happen in a day or even a year.  Be patient, be faithful and know you are loved.

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Lessons In Grief-Part 2

I called a widow friend to check in the day after Father's Day. Knowing how difficult the day had been for myself and my children as it was the first Father's Day since their dad passed. I'm not sure what I expected by asking this question but the honesty in her response was both shocking and refreshing. "I cried for four hours." 

That's what people who have experienced catastrophic loss do, they cry, they take long walks and long baths, they search for that outlet that helps their body and mind work through the pain. They put together jigsaw puzzles and scrapbook and read old journal entries while constantly composing new ones in their heads. They cry themselves to sleep while listening to the same two sad songs over and over again. Well, maybe that's not what everyone does but that's what I do.

Something I have learned about our society is that when it comes to tragedy we suck at dealing with it. The only consistent things we teach are that saying nothing is the only thing worse than saying/doing nothing and to hand someone a Kleenex when they cry.

I've learned over the past year that Kleenex have their place but there is that tears have power. Tears cleanse, tears have consistently been healing for me and they work better when I allow myself to feel them deeply and allow them to slowly make their way down my cheeks before dripping onto my body. The weight of my grief releases as they fall and after I have allowed time for them to flow freely there will be time to clean myself up, brush myself off and go again.

I often find myself wishing there was a Band-Aid type solution to my grief and in a society full of fast food and instant gratification there are things that offer temporary relief but the reality is we work through the big stuff a little at a time, day after day, allowing ourselves to feel day after day. We must choose a path of healing and while that choice may seem difficult, the other option is to bury it, avoid it and let it slowly take away our ability to feel.

When we choose to feel we put ourselves on a path to find healing and though it's a slow and painful process it is possible...at least that's what I have been told. It's been 11 months now and I have progressed from a feeling of drowning to feeling waves that occasionally knock me over. They are getting farther in-between and less intense as time goes on.

Lessons In Grief-Part 1

Finding Joy

Doing The Impossible

Lessons in Grief- Part 1

I need to preface this post by explaining that I am having a good week.  Each week gets a little easier as we settle into our new normal.  Most of the things in this post were things I learned early on when things were still REALLY HARD so don't everyone panic and think I'm falling apart.  I have difficult moments but overall we're doing well. Having said that, I feel that there are some who need to hear some of these things and, as always, I share with the hope that it may help someone who needs to hear it. I also recognize that the loss of my husband is being felt by more than just myself and though each feels it in their own way there are things that helped me and I hope they will help you too.

Grief is different than I expected. Part of what makes grief difficult is that it doesn't always manifest in the same way, some days grief causes sobbing and other days it aches it can even be smiles of memories followed by painful emptiness.  Sometimes it even causes nausea, headaches and other physical pain. I've been attending a GriefShare class for three weeks and I highly recommend it for anyone who has suffered a loss. It's helped me understand the effects grief is having on my mind and body and recognizing that's what is happening and understand it is completely normal.

Some of the things that stuck out to me are that the denial phase can last six to nine months, it takes that long for the heart to catch up with your head. Mine did not last that long but that's because I started grieving when my husband received his diagnosis. Something else that occurs with loss is shock. I would describe shock as your brain refusing to process emotion because it's overloaded. It is a mechanism the body uses to survive trauma; it doesn’t allow you to process things you can't handle. I would say my denial phase lasted about 6-10 weeks. It wasn't until that point that I really started to address the things I was thinking and feeling and work through them and that only happened because someone told me if I didn’t work through these feeling I would carry them with me FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. Even coming to the point of being ready to begin the grieving process was challenging and I was very blessed to be guided to the people who could help this happen. I put it off for quite a while before accepting that I needed to grieve and even now my instinct is to avoid it. At first it seemed like it would be easier to avoid my emotions but each time I would have a good cry I felt lighter the next day.

I remember realizing one day that I didn't know how to grieve and at that point I started praying to know what to do. I considered counseling before I was invited to GriefShare and just knew I needed some direction. I may still need counseling at some point, I'm open to it and pray to know what is right for me. A couple friends also invited me to join a widows and widower support group on Facebook. I've learned so much in the past month it's hard to summarize it in one blog post. The two most important things I've learned are that grief takes time...lots of it and that the first year will be very difficult at times and the second year will be a little better. The second thing is that grief isn't something that needs to be fixed, it is something to be experienced. The hard part of that is that I don't control when I need to feel grief. I can be fine one moment and I will see, hear or think something that will bring me instantly to tears. It's frustrating but I take great comfort in knowing this is completely normal.

One more thought on grief, when experiencing grief you rarely experience one emotion at a time or go through the steps of the grieving process in a neat, organized fashion. Grief is messy. You will feel a bunch of emotions at once and some of those emotions even conflict with each other and you don't just experience it once, you go through different parts of the grieving process over and over again as you grieve the individual things you have lost.

If you have experienced a loss please reach out, find a support group or ask for help from a close friend. You can sign up for free daily emails from GriefShare.org to help you learn more and there is a link to find a local group. You don't have to do this alone! Remember God loves you, knows you personally and knows what will help if you will only ask. I take great comfort in meeting others who have walked this path and come out the other side stronger. I know we will get through!

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Lessons In Grief- Part 2

Finding Joy

Fear and Faith

I Am Superman

My Hands Are Tied

It was strangly quiet one afternoon at my mothers.  I hadn't seen my kids for a while, knew they were with my sister and decided it was time to go check on them.  I laughed so hard when I found this...

My four-year-old was being a pirate or something and had tied up Auntie's hands and feet.  It was pretty darn funny.

I've been thinking alot lately about how often things happen in my life and I feel that I am powerless to do anything about it.  Two weeks ago my four-year-old took a spill at the playground.  From his cries I knew he was hurt.  I sat him down to relax for a minute but when the crying hadn't subsided in five minutes I knew I needed to get him home.  After Tylenol and some rest I thought he was improving but took him into Urgent Care.  The doctor was pretty sure from the swelling it was broken.  I took him down to X-ray and my heart broke as I had to move his arm for the X-ray.  He screamed in pain at the slightest movement.  The verdict was a subcondular fracture or hairline fracture on the elbow end of his upper arm.  They sent us to Primary Children's hospital (which was 45 minutes away in the afternoon traffic). 

He was really calm which was great because it killed me to see him in pain.  After five hours in the ER they sent him home in a splint.  The little guy had been a trooper all day and then, at 1:00 it hit him.  The pain was in full force and there was NOTHING I could do to console him.  It took about 30 minutes of soothing and reassuring (and more medicine) before he finally calmed down.  I was on the phone with the hospital trying to figure out what happened.  I was up every three hours for the next two nights giving him pain relievers.

I was shocked at the emotional toll this took on me.  It was such an aweful feeling to sit and try to soothe him each time he woke in pain.  The only thing that kept me from falling apart is that I knew my presence there was a comfrot to him.  I really felt as if my hands were tied.  My heart ached for all the parents who have children with serious health concerns who fight that helpless feeling on a regular basis.  It also made me think of how a loving Heavenly Father must feel when he sees us making choices that cause us pain in our lives.  My greatest comfort is that His hands are never tied.  When we seek Him the comfort and strength that we need to pull us through is there.  As my love for my children grows stronger I am beginning to understand how God really feels about me, about you.  He loves us so much and is always close at hand when we cry out in pain and His hand aren't tied.

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Doing The Impossible

My Hands Are Tied-Part 2

I Think I Can

For the past year and a half I've been battling a hip injury.  It all started when I decided to get healthy and start running again.  I'm sure I did too much too fast and within 10 days something had happened in my left hip and I woke up in a great deal of pain.  For the next six months I nursed it along and went to the chiropractor regularly.  For the next six months I started feeling stronger and doing yoga.  About a year after the initial injury I hurt it again.  This was super frustrating as I was just getting to the point where I felt I didn't have to be cautious.  It's been about six months since my last injury and I am pleased to announce I am training for a 5K.  A friend of mine found a training program that is couch to 5K in 10 weeks.  As of tomorrow I will have completed my first two weeks.  I am loving it.  It gets me outside.  It starts me out slow so I'm not prone to hurt myself and I'm learning to pay attention to my body.  There have been days when I've needed to ice my hip but for the most part I'm really loving it.  I'm excited about the prospect of reaching a goal I meant to meet one or two years ago and was unable to due to injury.  I think I can, I think I can.

Perspective

As the mother of two little boys I have to admit that there are days when I would be happy to rent them out to the highest bidder just to give me a break.  And there are some days when I really wonder why we thought we could handle two little ones this close together.  These boys are starting to come into their own lately and can be very opinionated and stubborn (though they get both from me). 

I was starting to get very frustrated with them and even wondering what I was doing wrong for a while and was really in need of a change of perspective.  A couple weeks ago my littlest got the flu.  I was up with min until late at night.  My heart ached watching him try to sleep.  He'd wake up just long enough to vomit and then settle back into the towel I'd wrapped him up in and go back to sleep.  It didn't last long but it was sure hard on him. 

My older boy got that same illness but it wasn't as bad.  Ten days later, out of nowhere, he got a fever of 102.  I treated him with Tylenol but it didn't do much good.  The poor guy had a high fever into the night.  At 2:00 AM he got up to go to the bathroom and I got up to check on him.  His fever was still high and I was worried.  Long story short I didn't end up taking him to the ER and I sat with him for the next hour until his fever finally broke and he rested.  Again, it was very hard to watch him be so miserable.

So, since then I've had a little more appreciation for these little ones in my house.  I'm so blessed to have a full home.  These boys may be crazy at times but I am so grateful that they are well.  So, I'm hugging them a little more often and counting to ten before I get upset.  I even let them help make the chocolate pretzels (it was a little messy but they did good).  I am so blessed to have the love of the boys that live in my house and I hope they know how much I love them.

For those of you who are wondering, that is the neighbor's puppy.  It's so cute but I could not handle a dog right now.  It's been fun to get to enjoy him a bit without being responsible for him.