A couple of weeks ago I went to an early Temple session. 8a.m. a couple of hours later when I pushed open the doors to step back into the world, I was just stunned at how things looked and how the weather felt. It was perfection! I spontaneously broke into quiet song...being all alone gave me that license...off key and garbled words but feeling joy, I belted it out. Can a person belt quietly? I think so! Oh, what a beautiful morning!...Oh, what a beautiful day!! I've got a beautiful feeling!...everythings going my way!!! My plodding steps felt light and lyrical and I felt like swinging a calico skirt. It was unexpected to experience the entire, extremely brief moment, but the memory has stayed with me. I knew it was the emotion, the heaven-sent feeling, of pure joy. Fleeting but real. Life is a paradox...a conundrum...a ying/yang...black/white and on and on and on. Exhilarating and exhausting!
Belting out...is that akin to shouting for joy? Did you and I shout for joy in our previous life?
previous life...not in a reincarnate way as someone in a different form but familiar me, myself, abiding in a different location. I guess... I realized that preparations were made and complete with all I/we would need for survival and progression on an earth, made with such care and planning. I guess...I thought we gathered round a amphitheater setting and the plan was presented and 2 volunteers told of their willingness but each with a different outcome. I guess... I thought I gave a sustaining of Jesus and Adam and Eve left for earth. I guess... that not thinking and digging and pondering a bit more, maybe a lot more, caused me to miss a very important point...the fact being- that I was me and was active in my choice of that supportive decision. I was in that battle of persuasive words and I did shout for joy at the victory. As did you.
When I got my Patriarchal Blessing, I was very new in the Church. I was new to understanding the Bible and especially new to Living Prophets and the Book of Mormon. My blessing is long and it is filled with lingo that was foreign to me...references to scriptures and names and counsel that left me scratching my head in puzzlement. I felt overwhelmed and rather doomed as to... how does a person become what this document is talking about? This is an impossibility! At times I was frustrated and even angry and tearful and felt hopeless at never being good enough. I did not feel the feelings of guidance that I wanted to feel because I didn't feel worthy of the mentioned blessings and I felt that I was not in a place, of my progression, to receive the mentioned blessings.
These feelings were very motivating to me and there was a deep desire to be worthy of living up to what this blessing talked about. Lest I'm coming across like my blessing is extraordinarily amazing and I'm going to now announce some personal spiritual experience that you will call and tell a friend...not so. This is about how I made peace with my inner conflict and as a result grew in feelings of self-worth and confidence. In my estimation, a bit late in life, but even that has been a blessing because in the interim between receiving my blessing and my dawning of the beauty of it...the confidence derived from it and the gratitude and self-love of being me and the learning the power of prayer and how to pray and access God and loving/hungering for gospel study/knowledge...came about because I was trying so desperately to feel worthy of receiving and living/becoming myself- my full self spiritually. Myself - that is the person described in that inspired blessing.
The key that was missing for me and honestly, I think I'm very consistent/persistent, in disciplining myself to keep on keeping on but many times I have my ladder up against the wrong wall in pursuit and determination of doing and understanding. I missed the point that I was involved in the pre-existence and not passive. I was thinking/doing/ being and siding with the plan of Christ. I was growing. I was becoming.
that is what I missed...I was in bud. I had strengths & I had weaknesses in that previous realm and they came with me because they are me! I was me. I still am me. I will continue to be me.
I did not arrive on earth a blank sheet. I arrived with all sorts of myself in bud and some blooms! My blessing lets me know of things that are already there and developed to a certain point, a foundation to build on. I don't have to build the foundation. I build on the foundation not start from square one.
When I have desires for goodness or enjoyment or even accomplishments in certain doings...most likely I can read my blessing and see that is a part of me and it is familiar and I recognize that and am thankful for that recognition. Like all of us, blessed by our Church membership, which affords us the Gift of the Holy Ghost, we are in process.
Therefore when I look and recognize gifts of strengths, the neglect of self-discovery will not allow those backpack gifts to grow and flourish. They will be weighted rocks of guilt. A painful prodding. Discovery and development of self takes desire and then discipline. I need family. I need friends. I need those that see a glimpse of the real me, when I am blind or looking at a shattered mirror and seeing no wholeness. I need that love. I need that acceptance. I do not need those that see the reality of my struggles and weaknesses...things in need of being overcome and faulting me. All of that mass of goodness and struggles is my lot to sort...much like a twisted necklace of the finest gold. I'm in a constant state of unkinking!!
Wouldn't this be the perfect time for me to announce that I've overcome all and I've developed all? Stop reading if that is your expectation. I will be trying until I die. Moving ahead at a snails pace but inwardly feeling amazing stirrings and stretchings- that feel so great!
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