Yesterday Terry got a letter from the Neptune Society. Thinking water and mermaids? Not so. This was an offer to enter a drawing for a pre-paid cremation! The bottom half had one of my most favorite quotes by Eleanor Roosevelt.
I know the past is to learn from and not to live in (Richard L. Evans) I also know that worry over the future will not change a single outcome and guilt over the past will not undo a smidgen. I also know the present moment is all we have control over. Along with Mrs. Roosevelt I feel the present is a gift. (haven't we all used that to teach a lesson or two over the years?)
I'm fairly good at not overly worrying about the future...Be it the world at large or my own little personal world. The challenge for me?...I have great difficulty at times in dealing with my past. The strange thing is my past is not checkered with posters plastered at the Post Office with my picture. I'm neither infamous or wanted. I have no darkness locked away or buried, in hopes you never get word of it. Don't laugh...I will dredge up things of parenting that I wish I'd handled differently (remember my baby is 42!)....or faux pas or gaffes...and then adding to my wickedness- a list a mile long of sins of omissions (and on that I always back up my badness with- to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not- it is sin).
I have repented of these things forever. Over and over! Why do they pop back up and haunt me and stop me in my tracks with remorse? Why does this old stuff, some deemed ridiculous in the amount of regret that I relive?
Simply put...I have not understood how to free myself through repentance of even things that others might say...you silly goose! Why on earth do you even think of things like that???
So I've been trying to figure this out so I can move ahead once and for all. This will be tricky because life is one big test and that is what we are here to conquer. Ourselves.
In studying I found something that really rang true to me. Remember how Paul struggled and Nephi's lament over his humanness?...wondering why when they loved the Lord and could feel the Spirit so strong and yet they would struggle.
Then I found a talk that really impacted my thinking. The fact that even though we chose mortality and to follow The Plan, that did not mean that our bodies would just be eager to choose the right and do the right and know what to do. Our Spirit, our real self, will have to manage our bodies as there is so much going on against us from Satan's camp. Remember those 1/3 that did not choose what we did came right to earth and then they gather followers here and etc. etc. One part I read that really made sense was the 3 Nephites had to have a change within themselves to avoid the perils of the world.
As we recently read the Book of Mormon, I was impressed with the constant pleading from all sources to repent. Over and over and over. Repent. The really big factor was there was no punishment inflicted or waiting for the forgiveness. Mercy was spoken of. Love came through those words. No matter how vile they were, there was that pleading to repent. There was big time evil behavior going on and still the invitation was there to repent.
Because we aren't ask to light candles or say Hail Mary's or do penance of any sort makes true repentance such a miracle. We ask and are told...I the Lord remember them no more. Instead of my doing as Paul said and forget the past...I seem to dig stuff up that has been buried and settled. Much like a wound that isn't allowed to scab over and heal from the inside to the outside, I pick at it. Lack of faith? Actually I don't think so. I have faith but I think I have lacked understanding of how to move ahead through using repentance as intended.
One really powerful statement I read states that Christ permanently forgives. That coincides with His remembering no more.
Perhaps I've been arrogant in thinking that my errors in minutia judgment calls from years ago are so unworthy, so beneath me, that forgiveness is impossible? Does my disappointment in my behavior render me unworthy to take advantage of the blessing and power and beauty of repentance? Does it work for everyone except me? Methinks the lady does need a mind adjustment!
(so there are some scattered thoughts of making repentance work in my life and next is how grace plays into it)
enjoy this quote...It really has a lot of marvelous insight. Mull it over and enjoy. I did that very thing!
Man's Incapacity in Spirit and Body
While it may be expected that we achieve the "fulness of Christ," we simply cannot do so on our own. Each of us is made up of two things – an eternal spirit and a mortal body (Abraham 3:18; D&C 88:15). Our eternal spirit comes into the world a product of choices made in the pre-mortal world. These pre-mortal choices form our personality, character, and spiritual intelligence. Significantly, no two of our spirits is the same (Abraham 3:19). Each spirit possesses a different degree of spiritual intelligence, or light and truth (D&C 93:36), according to his or her pre-mortal choices. While each of our spirits may arrive in its mortal body at birth clean and pure, and even noble and great, no one of our spirits is yet perfectly developed unto the "fullness of Christ." Perfection of spirit may be pursued during the schooling of mortality and the additional experience of the spirit world (D&C 130:18-19; D&C 138:30-37, 58-59), but perfection of spirit is not finally accomplished until the resurrection.
In addition to the current imperfection of our spirits, our mortal bodies also are imperfect. As wondrous as they are, our mortal bodies are subject to decay, deterioration, and death and present desires, appetites, and passions previously unknown to us. Under such conditions, it is enormously difficult to fully subject the body to the will of the spirit. Too often, the spirit succumbs to the dictates of the body. Some of the greatest spirits who have come to earth have struggled to subdue their physical bodies. "[M]y heart sorroweth because of my flesh," cried Nephi. "I am encompassed about, because of the temptations and the sins which do so easily beset me" (2 Nephi 4:17-18, 27). Paul cried out in a similar way: "O wretched man that I am!" (Romans 7:24). "I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will[,] is present with me; but how to perform that which is good[,] I find not. For the good that I would[,] I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. … I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my [body], warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my [body]" (Romans 7:18-19, 22-23).
The war between spirit and body referred to by Paul is made all the more difficult by another fact of mortality. Our physical bodies are constructed of the materials of a "fallen" world, which gives Satan a particular "power to captivate" (2 Nephi 2:29). Interestingly, Mormon observed that, for the three Nephites to tarry on earth and continue their ministry, a "change [was] wrought upon their bodies" so that "Satan could have no power over them, that he could not tempt them" and "that the powers of the earth could not hold them" (3 Nephi 28:36-39). This suggests that absent such a change, Satan does have power over our bodies and the powers of the earth can hold us. Perhaps for this reason did Brigham Young make the following observation: "Do not suppose that we shall ever in the flesh be free from temptations to sin," he said. "Some suppose that they can in the flesh be sanctified body and spirit and become so pure that they will never again feel the effects of the power of the adversary of truth. Were it possible for a person to attain to this degree of perfection in the flesh, he could not die neither remain in a world where sin predominates. … I think we shall more or less feel the effects of sin so long as we live, and finally have to pass the ordeals of death” (In Journal of Discourses, 10:173).
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