I gave a talk in church a few days ago, and you know how it goes. You agonize over it, you give it, and then you spend the next few hours feeling very stupid about all the things you said. And it wasn't that I didn't say what I wanted to say. But... I didn't say what I wanted to say.
I am not mighty unto speaking. That's why I write. But while trying to write this talk, I had most severe form of writers block I have ever experienced. And so I tried my best to write as much as I could, and then prayed.But I did not feel my tongue loosened, nor was I inspired in any other direction. So I just gave what I could--standing in front of everyone--shaking, short of breath, and vulnerable. And I sat down feeling choked.
But as I've been thinking the past couple of days, I've been able to make the lines connect and form coherent thoughts about what I was trying to say. So I decided to write it out--all about the boxes, the boulders, and the things I wish I said.
So here it goes: I started my talk out by saying that change is inevitable--but that it's good. I used this quote:
And then I began to talk about the reasons that we might be afraid of change. Mostly, and I'd venture to guess that this is true for many people, it's that change is often times the presentation of a trial or obstacle that we have to overcome . And nobody really WANTS a trial...because, frankly, they suck to endure. And I compared our trials to heavy objects.
Everyday, we get hit with some pebbles. We hit some traffic on the way to work, or have a disagreement with a friend or family member or drop our food on the ground or...whatever. Some days we get hit with some bigger rocks, or some bricks, like the car breaking down, getting sick, pulling a muscle, getting a bad grade on a test. Then there are, like, the pretty big rocks--getting in an accident and totaling the car, breaking a bone, losing a job. And then there are some boulders--like death/loss of any kind of people near and dear to you, sometimes moving can be a boulder. The various degrees of sin cover any range of the spectrum, too.
Sometimes, we have to carry these burdens. And they hurt. And we are sometimes called to carry boulders. But something I wish I would've said is that sometimes, we think we have to be carrying these heavy burdens, but we don't. For some reason, we hold onto them, when we could just let them go. For example, if you are collecting pebbles--stop. That's not even a burden that's going to make you stronger, it's just going to dig into your skin and give you dirty cuts and make you miserable. You do not have to be carrying around your pebbles. EMPTY YOUR POCKETS OF PEBBLES. For other things, maybe you do have to be carrying them. And when the times present themselves with a big heavy weight to carry, you have two options: you can let it crush you, or you can let it strengthen you as you carry it with purpose.
I wish I would've elaborated to say that the ways we let it crush us is when we let it consume us. When all we let ourselves think about is how heavy the weight is. When all we can do is dwell on the fact that we have been hit by a boulder. When we allow ourselves to wallow in self pity and don't accept help, but only pity, from others, yet still expect that someone will come and save us. But I only mentioned the ways that we can let it strengthen us. And that is faith. Faith in the promise that one day, because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, everything will be perfect and make sense and we will be eternally happy. But that's then? So what do we do now? We faith. (yeah, I also explained how faith is an action word). So how do we faith? you know the drill. We read our scriptures. We pray. We go to church. We go to the temple. We serve others. All of those things have been taught for years. And that's because they work.
So in an attempt to show my humanity as much as possible, I made myself a little bare and talked about what I have been experiencing lately.
I feel as though I have been carrying a different kind of burden. Not necessarily a rock, but more like a box. A box that isn't necessarily heavy, but really big and cumbersome. And when I was given this box, I thought, no problem. I can carry this box almost effortlessly. Yet, as the time went on, and I kept carrying the box, it got heavier. And there were moments that I thought it was going to consume me. I tried to turn my attention to other things, like school and work and church and the temple and service and missionary work and family and activities, and those things added enrichment to my life, but they only distracted me from my box. It wasn't becoming lighter, and carrying it was just exhausting. And every time I would stop being distracted by something else, I was just re-awakened to the feeling of emptiness and sadness. And something I wish I would've said was that I feel like this kind of burden is common for people in the transitional period of life. We are all carrying these boxes, that aren't really that heavy, but we just feel like there's something empty inside of us, yet the more we try to fill it, the more we realize we dont know how to fill it and just how empty it is. Sometimes there comes a point where naps, chocolate, exercise, and cat pictures on the internet no longer make us happy. But I think something important to remember there is that maybe we are supposed to have that hole, because we don't really belong here. One of my friends phrased it this way: perhaps the more converted we become, the more we actually miss being in the presence of our heavenly father. Maybe sometime's we're homesick. And we can't really do anything about that while we're here, except draw closer to Him.
So how have I been dealing with my box? Well, I've been carrying it. And at first, I tried to ignore its presence at all. I tried to act as if nothing happened and that I was completely fine and burden free. But then it began to get heavy. And it began to really, really weigh on me. And it hurt bad. And something I wish I would've mentioned is that we cant do that. We can't just ignore the burden and hope it will go away. Yes, we hear that we need to not focus on ourselves and we need to turn our attention elsewhere. Yes, I did say that the way to let it crush us was to focus on it and dwell on it's weight. But there's focusing on the weight and how heavy it is, and then there's the focusing on it and how to deal with it. At first, kind of like when you break an ankle, you can't just get up and go play and everything will be fine. You will cause a much bigger problem if you do that. Yes, eventually you'll need to get up and walk on it and retrain it to bend the proper way and stretch and everything, but first, you need to sit down, ice it, set it, put a cast on it, and set a proper course for how it is going to get better. So it's O.K., actually, it's necessary, to just let yourself stop and orient the box so that it makes you stronger instead of crushing you. Like at the gym, you need to lift the weights the right way to strengthen the muscles properly. If you lift them the wrong way, you could pull a muscle and severely injure yourself. So slow down. You don't have to start running when you get handed a box. It's not turning inward and being selfish if you let yourself cope and heal for a little bit. Just as long as you don't let yourself stay stationary for longer than necessary. But I did mention that it's okay. It's okay to feel exactly what you are feeling. All heart ache is valid. And it's okay to feel sad.
After I realized that I couldn't just ignore the box, I still didn't take the time to orient it. I just started running: going to the temple, serving where I could, praying, grasping for anything that might be able to fill the hole inside of me. But nothing could. And then, I decided I just was exhausted and I wanted to be alone. I wasn't going to go to institute that night because I thought it was just going to tear me apart like all the singles ward events were doing. It's not that anything is wrong with my singles ward, I actually have a lot of fun at the activities. But what happens is that I feel like I have this illusion when I'm there that I have a life, that I have friends, but when I leave, it's like that illusion is shattered. And it's like I feel more alone surrounded by people then I do when I'm on my own. And it's a unique sort of pain. But anyway, on this night, I told myself that I like institute and that I should go. And I'm so glad I did, because that night we learned about the creation and all the things we can learn from it. And we learned that we are responsible for creating the world that we live in, just like God created this one. And so last week, I began my first creative work period--I started by separating the dark from the light. And as I was doing that, I realized just how much light there is. There's a lot of light. But, I also saw that there is a lot of darkness. But so is it in the world, right? 12 hours of dark, 12 hours of light at the Spring and Fall equinoxes (at the equator, at least.) And just like the summers of our years provide more light than the winters, so is it with the summers and winters of our lives. Even the laws of nature dictate that there is opposition in all things. And yet, still, with and within all that darkness, we would never be able to see the stars without it. And I don't know about you, but I love the stars. And light still shines in the dark, yet the light casts out ALL the dark. So there is actually more light--which, I feel like that testifies of the depth and far-reaching ability of the Atonement and Light of Christ. Not even the darkness can shut out His light.
Something else I realized that we can learn from the creation is the importance of learning in God's plan for us. Experiences, and that often means trials, are the best teachers. We are taught the creation was under direction of Heavenly Father, but that Jesus Christ actually was the one who created the earth. We see that God had to give each instruction, one at a time, and that Christ had to go, do it, come back, ask if it was right, and then move forward. I often thought to myself, "why can't God do this all Himself? It would certainly go faster and it would definitely be exactly the way He wanted it." I think that about this life, too. "If God knows what we're going to go through and how we're going to react and all that, then why are we here and why do we have to do it? Why can't we just skip to the end and assume the places in our destined kingdoms?" And the answer that I've come to is that God loves us so much and sees us not as we are, but as we can become. Not only would we not have had the chance to prove ourselves if He just did it all for us, but WE wouldn't be able to see what we're made of. I think Heavenly Father tries to show us what we're capable of-- He not only wants us to see what we're capable of, but He wants us to see ourselves as He sees us. Something I wish I would've said is that, I'm a nanny, and as such, I have a pretty big role in the upbringing of the children I watch. I was watching the two year old the other day, and I just thought to myself "she is going to be my age some day. She's going to grow up." And because I know this of her and her brothers, I teach them how to become such. Every day, I tell the five-year-old to go upstairs and put clean clothes on. He cries and says no. I don't know why, but that kid hates putting on clothes. Almost every day, we have to clean up something. the five-year-old cries and doesn't want to clean. The seven-year-old screams. The two-year-old doesn't seem to understand what's going on, but if we're doing something she doesn't want to, she'll drop to the floor and cry. It would be 1000x easier to sit them down on the couch, put the T.V. on, and just clean everything by myself and just follow them around and keep everything clean all day. But that wont teach them any skills that will be useful for when they get older. It takes a lot more patience and deep breaths and kindness to teach them how to do things and not do it all by myself. And that's a testament to the love and patience and kindness of God. He knows that, just as a child's purpose isn't to remain a child forever, but grow up and be a productive member of society, our purpose as mortals isn't just to endure this trial period--but to be heirs to His kingdom. That's why we have to go through so many tedious learning processes--we are being prepared for godhood.
The day I started my first creation period was the Sunday of ward conference. Going to the singles ward that day was so difficult. It was so painful--not because of anything that happened, but because of the illusion and the rediscovery of the weight of the box. And I remember going home and crying. That night, I prayed the way the stake president told us to pray--pray for everyone else and not yourself. He said that it would help us get answers to our own questions and that sounded really appealing to me because I had not been receiving ANY answers to my prayers lately. So I prayed for everyone I could and I cried so hard. that night, I had also evaluated the concept of agency before that. I thought, if I can decide how I feel, why was I deciding to feel this way? Was I choosing to carry this box? And in my prayer and asked Heavenly Father that, if it was a choice, to give me the power to choose to set it down. I also asked him if it was okay that I stopped going to the singles ward and only to my family ward because it was too difficult (a few weeks earlier, I had fasted about it and felt that in order to visit teach the people I need to visit teach and have the calling I needed to have, I needed to be in the singles ward. But I had had enough, so I prayed for a way out. It turns out, the Lord doesn't change His answers.) I never said the reason I stayed. But the next day, I got a call that a member of the bishopric wanted to meet with me. I met with him, He gave me a calling (the only one I DIDN'T want to have) (I cried, by the way) and then also asked me to speak. So that was a pretty clear answer that I needed to stay where I was.
After that prayer, I felt pretty good though. And I woke up the next morning, and something amazing happened: I was still sad. (you know, you hear those stories all the time that someone follows counsel and a miracle happens? yeah. no, I still felt sad.) But immediately following that initial burst of sadness, I audibly made a "nuh-uh" sound, and I turned my attention to something else. The pain--the weight of the box--was undoubtedly still there. But I didn't have to focus on it. And that idea was liberating--I had the best day overall that day than I had had in a month, all because I chose to turn my attention elsewhere.
Something that I didn't say was that I think that after turning my attention to other things, I realized that I didn't need to be carrying that box--so I began to put it down. And putting down the box is sometimes hard. I don't know why, but sometimes we just like to hold on too long. Maybe we feel like when we get rid of it, we will lose a piece of ourselves. And if you think about it, sometimes setting a box down--especially one that is big and cumbersome, requires the strength of shifting it around and bending over and making sure not to crush our fingers. Going from holding a box to setting it down requires a little more exertion of energy, but the relief that comes when that burden is gone is so instantaneous and so freeing. So--if you have been carrying a box or a rock or a boulder for too long--set it down! Don't hang on longer than you have to. Use that strength to run and experience the joy coming your way because of the opposition principle.
I think that's a pretty solid example of faith. It's not saying "because I believe that it will get better someday, I will wait til this boulder is lifted," but instead, saying "because I believe that I am a child of God, I know that I have the power to make it better, and I will carry this boulder until it is taken or I can choose to set it down." Faith is understanding that we are not in complete control, but also that we are not victims of our circumstances. Often times, we think "patience" and equate it with waiting. But it is more than waiting, it is actively persevering. And something I wish I said is that I know it's hard, when we are under this weight that wants to crush us, to do anything productive. It's hard to even want to pray for anyone other than ourselves and sometimes it seems to hard to pray at all. But that's the only way it will get better. We have to separate the dry earth from the waters--we have to re-create our world. And it's difficult, but if we consult Heavenly Father, He will show us how. He will tell us what to do. He will let us know if we are doing it right.
In the above quote, President Monson is saying that the problems are not the difficulties and challenges in life, but instead our lack of patience. Just be patient.
I'm not going to tell you that everything is going to be okay some day and that the sun will come out tomorrow. Those things are true, but that's not what I'm going to tell you. I'm going to tell you that everything you're feeling is valid--that the box, or rock, or boulder that you are carrying is probably hurting you, and it's okay to sit there and be shocked, hurt, confused or sad. It's okay to be feeling the way you are feeling. Take as long as you need to with those feelings, but then get up, readjust the weight you're carrying, and move forward until you can set it down. And there are some boulders and boxes that we will have to carry through our whole lives. Sometimes God will lighten the burden--but I think more often, He will strengthen you enough to hold it. Because He's already told us that He wont make us hold anything we're not strong enough to carry. And something I wish I'd said is that I can testify that the Atonement happened so He can help us to carry our weights and it compensates for any pain or unpleasantness that we encounter while bearing up our burdens. I can say honestly, when I look back at the times that I have had to carry boulders, and even at the ones that I still must bear everyday, I can no longer remember the pain. He has strengthened me to the point where it doesn't weigh on me anymore, and the parts that do still weigh on me, He helps me carry.
So in the meantime, while we are being patient, while we are being made stronger, while we are "hoping for better days ahead" and until everything is perfect...what do we do? I have two answers. One of them is develop your relationship with Christ. And something I wish I would've said is that while we are doing this, we need to be focused on Him. I'm not very good at that, I go to the scriptures a little selfishly too often, asking for answers to my questions and searching only for stories and revelations that will guide me in my life. I go to the temple expecting to have my spiritual expectations met. I pray for me. But that's not fulfilling. It's enriching, sure--prayer, scripture study, temple attendance--they're all GOOD things. But to really get all that is intended for us through these actions, we must do them with the intention of coming unto Him and learning more of Him. We need to focus our spiritual lives on Him.
The second thing that we must do while we wait is follow the example of Christ and practice charity. Don't let your burdens and wounds make you into a person that you are not. Sometimes, when we are hurt, it's easier to be angry and full of bitterness. But bitterness, anger and hatred are not going to hurt anyone else nearly as much as they are going to hurt yourself. Jesus Christ said to love your enemies, and pray for those who spitefully use you. He says to do good to them who hurt you. And He assures us that even if it is not well received, that love is never wasted. There's a quote that states that we all have to choose between two pains--the pain of discipleship or the pain of regret. When we choose to be angry, when we choose to be mean, when we choose not to be charitable--we are choosing the pain of regret. Something I almost wish I said is that, unless you do some serious self reflection and feel like you need to change, don't try to change who you are just because some people don't understand it. I guess the best way I can explain this is that I can remember one of my companions who was so full of love that she wanted to show it so much and sometimes she didn't feel like it was well received. I remember her crying on the couch saying that she needed to change, that she needed to stop loving so much, because it's too much. And all I remember thinking was "no." I've thought that of myself before. I wish that I didn't love so much--that way, it wouldn't hurt so bad when people didn't reciprocate. But then I think, "no." There will be people put into my life who need that love that I can give. And even though it hurts to love because it makes us so much more vulnerable, it is an incredible gift to be able to love. And I don't think that Christ would ever tell us to be less charitable. Because He who possesses charity--it shall be well with Him in the last days.
I can testify that Heavenly Father loves us and wants us to become nothing less than the kings and queens that we have the potential to become. I testify that burdens, though it feels like they hold us back, actually propel us forward, and that we are powerful enough to decide what they make of us. I know the light of Christ is real. And I know that He loves us infinitely, completely, and eternally.
