Sunday, April 26, 2015

Crisis of Faith: Why my Divorce didn't Destroy Mine.

When divorce happens, it is devastating to those involved.  I never really understood anything about it until I went through it myself.  Because of the emotional trauma divorced people go through, many find it difficult it to stay faithful to their religious beliefs, and many more suffer because of the negative judgments of people in their church congregations and communities.  What's more is that many feel abandoned by their friends and even sometimes their families.  They feel anger, sadness, shame and a whole plethora of negative emotions.  Many may follow this train of thought: "If God knows everything, why did he let me walk into that marriage?  Didn't he care about me and my happiness? Why did he let me suffer like that? There must not be a God, or if there is, he surely doesn't love me."

When I was young, I was very spiritually minded.  God gave me, I believe, a gift of the spirit.  When I heard the word of God spoken, the power and truth in the words sunk down deep into my heart.  I had a curious mind and wanted to know everything I could about the truth and the meaning of life. The messages shared at church gave me many of those answers and made me feel alive.  I didn't believe I was alone in the universe.  I just knew that God loved me and had a mission for me to complete. Believing in God made me feel special and unique.  It still does.

As I grew older, my simple child like faith began to be tested.  It was hard sometimes as a Mormon kid growing up in a minority religion in states like Ohio and Georgia.  I caught flack because I wouldn't engage in the drinking, partying culture of high school.  My way of living seemed to be so opposite of what the majority of kids were doing.  It was tough to feel so different from everyone, like an outcast.  Fortunately, I still made many friends who weren't into that lifestyle either and they came from many different faith backgrounds.  I still cherish those friendships and will never forget them.

Some of the biggest trials of faith came because of circumstances I could not control.  In high school, for example,  I became very ill, and to had to give up my celebrated sports career.  This devastated me at the time. A lot of my self worth was packed into being a great athlete and I had enjoyed good success up through my 10th grade year. When I had my health taken away from me, it felt like an unjust punishment.  What had I done to deserve it?  I questioned God on a daily basis. Why wouldn't he step in for me?  I went over it time and time again in my mind, trying to understand it, trying to negotiate with God over my condition.  I couldn't get him to change his mind, but he opened other doors for me.  Only later did I begin to understand what a great blessing it was for me to go through that experience and how I was blessed to spend time with and get to know other wonderful people who I wouldn't have had a chance to know otherwise.

Later as a 19 year old, while serving as an LDS mission in Ecuador, I continued to suffer health wise and I was extremely disillusioned about how things were run in my mission organization.  I felt extremely let down by people who I wanted and needed to look up to. I was shocked and saddened on many occasions and God still wouldn't intervene and restore my health to me.  It affected me so much that I felt that he had abandoned me.  It caused me to really question my faith, first in my leaders, then in God.  I just couldn't work it out in my mind and to this day it was the closest I ever came to losing my faith.  It took several years after the mission experience to fully heal and have my faith restored.

So why do I tell you these very old struggles of mine? I think it is to make this point. I've had many different trials of faith since then, the most recent being the loss of a marriage and the separation from having my children live with me full time. The difficult marriage and the divorce itself caused me the sharpest pain that I've ever felt,  but when that challenge came, I was ready.  My faith had already become established.  Because of what I suffered before in life, and how the Lord helped me to overcome those things, I knew that I would be given the strength to handle this too. I realize that God doesn't look at challenges and difficulties the way that we do.  In our limited understanding, we would spare ourselves of all pain and discomfort.  God knows what's best for us and he allows us to experience these things to give us an opportunity to learn his lessons and to become better and better.

True faith can never go unchallenged.  What is faith if it is never proven?  If it is never tested by the fire of affliction, the weakness of flesh, the ridicule of peers or life's injustices, then how do we even know that we have faith?  What is our faith if our life is all about having an easy time with no obstacles?  Faith would be only an abstract idea.  We would never really know ourselves and what we are made of and what we are capable of becoming.  It would be like living in the Garden of Eden. Everything would be easy, but there would be no growth.  We need opposition to grow.  Just like an athlete uses weights to help his muscles grow, trials and difficulties are what God uses to build our spiritual muscles.  What we as human beings need to understand is that there is a plan for each one of us, a personal training program designed by God to bring us back to his presence better than we were when we left him, but we have to be willing to drink of the bitter cup and not become bitter ourselves.  If we can do that, and we submit to his will, he refines us and burns out our impurities. He prepares us little by little to be more like him.  He will give us joy, and our joy will be heightened because we have experienced the opposite.  Eventually, our joy will be full.

If we want to be be healed from our wounds and all our sorrow, we must turn to God and live. Healing is a process and takes time, but we have the power to shorten that time significantly if we just allow the Holy Spirit to work in us.  It's all about doing the little things like going to church even if we don't feel like it, praying sincerely, listening to the voice of the Lord when it speaks to us, studying the word of God, serving others.  Those things are what allows God to work in our lives and heal us much quicker than we could ever do by ourselves.  That's the power of grace and the atonement.

At least now, after all I've been through, I know my faith is real.  God already knew me, but now I know myself better.  I'm sure I'll have more trials in my future, but please excuse me if I don't focus on them now.  I'm busy healing and I believe that my future looks bright!

Onward and upward my brothers and sisters!


Sunday, April 12, 2015

Looking for the One

Okay guys, it's been a long time now since I been writing this blog.  Those of you who've followed me on my journey here, have witnessed me take many steps, sometimes painful ones, towards healing.   I'm honestly in a good place now for the most part emotionally.  I've dealt with many demons and I'm still standing.  I have hope and I have no doubt that I will completely rebuild my life, except this time I will build it better than I did before. Because I've experienced plenty of pain along this life journey, I will be prepared to receive greater joy.  This joy will include a new partner.  I know my joy cannot be complete without one.  I also know that  having that partner is essential to my eternal destiny.

But herein lies the challenge.  I cannot exactly control this process.  Oh sure, I could run out and find someone who would agree to marry, but I'm not just looking for just anyone.  I've already seen what can happen in an unhappy marriage.  I will do my best this time to pick better.  I do not regret marrying my first wife despite all that happened, but I would never wish to repeat the experience. This time I marry for real.  The practice marriage I had is everlastingly over.  The new eternal one is yet to be discovered.

Perhaps I'm not ready for marriage yet.  Most likely the timing is not yet right.  It's got to happen on its' own time.  I don't believe in rushing it or forcing things to happen.  As I tell everyone, I would rather be single by far than to make a poor choice.. Ultimately you can only prepare yourself for the opportunity. You have to be ready when that time comes, when your preparation meets an equal preparation on the part of the other person.

What I fear in the mean time is that I will hurt someone or that I will be hurt, and that is absolutely the last thing I ever want.  I guess that's just part of my personality.  I'm the feeling type to the core. So being in this stage of life carries a little bit of unease.  One of the benefits of marriage is that you get to be out of all that fuzzy, foggy dating reality.  That's why many people tend to be much more productive married.  They no longer have to look and risk.  It provides a stability like nothing else, if the relationship is healthy.

So what does all this mean for me now?  I know I can't live my life being afraid to risk something. I've never been the type to just sit and wait for something good to happen.  That's just passive and passive is not me.  I would rather act than be acted upon.   I may not be able to completely control what happens but I have to be out there doing something  For me, that's a hundred times healthier than the alternative.  Meeting potential partners is just an attempt to find the right match.   It's a good thing, a positive thing.  It's a learning experience.  It's prep work.

When you date someone, you subconsciously agree to open yourself to explore and see if feelings could develop that could lead to something more. You both are putting yourself out there and you could both be hurt. That's just the system we're in and there's nothing we can do about it.  If we don't like it, I guess we don't have to participate, or we could hire someone to do all the thinking for us.  In my experience, that's just not Heavenly Father's plan.  He calculates everything to be a growth experience.  Love grows more with the existence of opposition.

I believe that Heavenly Father puts people in our paths in life so that we can help each other learn and grow.  He doesn't throw our future mates to us everyday.  Maybe he has purposes to accomplish with us in knowing others leading up to the one we will eventually be with.  I think the key is to not worry too much about it and let the Lord take the lead.  The mistake would be, however, to never get into the game, to sit on the sidelines waiting for divine intervention.  That may work for some of us, but I think if I told the Lord I was just going to wait till he sent me that right person, he would just look at me, smile a little, and shake his head.  "That's not how we play this game son.  You know that."  Oh snap!  He got me again!

Whose to say that the Lord isn't leading me right this very second in my dating life, helping me get prepared, accomplishing other purposes in the mean time through my relationships and more?  And I suppose that when I'm finally good and ready, she'll show up and I'll know it.

Just some food for thought for you all.  :)  I hope all is well.




Good night!





Monday, April 6, 2015

Looking Back on It: Was it a Mistake?

You know you have to ask the question....  You think you know the answer,  but you need to vet it. You need to make sure. You need to understand yourself.  You need to understand your own life.... Darn veil we have down here!  Don't know anything.  Bumble around bumping into things, trying to build and watching our sand castles get knocked over time after time.  It's a risky, messy and beautiful life, making marks on our spirits and our bodies at the same time.

The truth is that nothing we build in the worldly way lasts anyway and the pain we suffer down here is acute but temporary.  All that matters is the essence inside our souls, and the love we have for Heavenly Father and the others who are on our journey with us.  It's a spiritual world at the core, building future Gods if we want to pursue that.

Was marrying that girl a mistake?  I guess you could say so if you are only looking at a short period of time in a mortal life.   If you look with a narrow focus of a life span 80 to 90 years,  23 years was a big chunk of wasted time.  What could I have done or accomplished in 23 years without that anchor and failure?  Gained more worldly success?  What did I really gain?  What did I really lose?  What was the cost/benefit ratio?

Tonight I'm feeling that I gained much.  The experiences I had over those 23 years have embedded themselves upon my soul.  They gave me an opportunity to lay it all on the line for the Lord.  They gave me a chance to prove to myself that I was willing to go to the end.  The 23 years were not all bad. There were periods of great peace and joy.  The Lord worked with me through my trials.  I met and loved and impacted and was impacted by beautiful people who I never would have met but through my marriage. Through it I have come closer to being my best self.

As for the promises I made to my former spouse both in this life and I believe even in my pre-mortal life, I have kept. I left nothing undone.  I made every effort to ensure the eventual realization of the blessings promised in the temple to all worthy couples through their faithfulness.  I carry no guilt with me other than understanding that I was an imperfect being and could not act as the Savior at all times.  When I didn't, I acknowledged it and did my best to repair and rebuild.  In the end, there was nothing more I could do.

I have now entered a different life, a different season.  My path is bright before my feet, but I can see only a little way ahead, not very far at all.  At least I have the assurance that the light goes before me and that I am being led and influenced by something greater than myself.  I wait upon the Lord to rebuild, remold, to restore me.  I know he is in the process even as I write.

My marriage was not a mistake. In the end it was a glorious and divine tutorial, full of hope, pain, and love.  I wrap it up neatly and present it to God and lay it upon his altar, to be consecrated to my gain and to the gain of my children and to the gain of anyone who may be touched by its' tragic beauty. May it serve to instruct, inspire, heal, or lift any of my brothers and sisters in any way the Lord sees fit to use it.  Someday I may combine these writings and more into a book, a book that will hopefully benefit my brothers and sisters whom I love.

Sincerely,



Your Brother