Patiently waiting is hard. Especially when you're waiting for blessings, answers, peace, or your birthday, and they're just not getting here fast enough. Finding ways to keep yourself busy in the meantime is hard. Because all you want is to know what to do, or to just feel like the decision you already made was the right one. But it feels like you can't hear anything. So you think, "Maybe I'm not doing enough." So you try to read your scriptures more deeply, and pray more fervently, and be there for your friends, and...nothing. The only place you feel it, and hear it, is the temple. But you can't always be at the temple. So you don't know what to do except doing what you're doing and hope that you'll hear it soon. You have faith that He is there, even when you can't hear Him, because you have felt it before. You're not sure why it even stopped, but you just keep hoping. And it's not like you haven't felt it; you have. Just not when you have wanted and deeded it desperately. But you keep going, and lean on the testimonies of your friends and family until you're back on your feet and can hear it and feel it again.
~I think it's because I can hardly hear anything over my depression. And even though I want to be and try to be, I'm not really happy. Luckily I am not alone in this time of my life: I have family, friends, my therapist, and my Savior. I have a meeting with my therapist tomorrow and I am hoping to be able to find an answer, or be closer to finding an answer.One theme of today that I noticed was God's love. It was kind of just all encompassing today, and I'm not going to lie–I really needed it.
One of my favorite things that was said in sacrament meeting today was that we can't forget to have charity towards ourself. I'd never thought of that before–having charity towards yourself. But when you think about it, it makes sense. We're told to love our neighbors and ourselves, and we're told to have charity towards our neighbors. So if we're supposed to love our neighbors and also have charity towards them, and also love ourselves, it stands to reason that we should have charity towards ourselves, too.
Gospel doctrine was just what I needed today. We talked about successfully failing. And how we need to learn to be...maybe not happy about failing...but positive about it. Note that we tried! And learn from it. Recognize the progress you've made. And–most importantly, in my opinion–understand that YOUR VALUE DOES NOT CHANGE WHEN YOU FAIL.
We don't really learn a lot from succeeding the first time. We really learn the most when we fail. We learn to take a step back and look at things from a new angle. No matter how many times we fail, we are still the same value as we were before.
Another thing that we talked bout that I absolutely LOVED was that it's not very Christlike to not forgive yourself. I've never thought about that before but it is so true! Christ forgives EVERYONE, every time. So, if we want to be more Christlike, we need to forgive ourselves, too.
And nothing is embarrassing to Him. We can tell Him anything, and ask for forgiveness for the littlest and most dumbest things in our mind, but it's important to Him because it's important to us.
Heavenly Father's view of us doesn't change, even if our view of ourself does.
He will always love us, and we will always be important to him. And we will always be valued.
Relief Society was great, as always. :)
One of my favorite things that was said today was, "Just because we can't remember it [the premortal life/living with God] doesn't meant it's not real."
We talked about worshipping God today, and how worshipping God is how we become more like Him. If you don't spend time with someone, you never get to know them...so in order to get to know God more, we need to spend time with Him.
One of the girls in class today told a sweet story about her sister and ended it with this question that I loved: What right do we have to think we are less than we are?
We need to bask in the glory of God's creations. That's one way to worship Him. But...we forget sometimes, I think...we are His creations, too.
God MADE US. He crafted us. Created us. Gave us unique qualities. Unique talents. Unique personalities.
He LOVES US.
He loves YOU.
Have you ever made something that you absolutely adored? You loved it SO MUCH and thought it was so amazing and beautiful and well-crafted and thought out? That's how God feels about us. Except more. I don't know how, but He does. He loves us more than we can ever imagine.
Back to having ever made something. Did you have someone tell you once that it was awful? Lame? Ugly? Not worth it? How did that make you feel? Awful, right? That's how God feels when we talk down about ourselves. He spent so much time making us JUST THE WAY WE ARE...and how do we repay Him? By degrading our body, personality, and self-worth. It makes Him so SAD when we do that! HE LOVES US. SO MUCH. More than I love my friends and family. Which, to be honest, is a lot. I can't even IMAGINE the depth of His love.
I struggle with it, too, especially lately. For some reason I just can't see how people want to be friends with me...and I always think I am bothering people when I talk to them. But I am trying to work on it. I am working on being confident this year–in myself, in dating, in friendships, etc. Sometimes it's hard though. Which is why I am grateful for the chances to try again. But sometimes Satan just really gets down on us, and we can't see the good we do, the good we are...he makes us think that our worth is based on the opinions of others and not ourself or God and...it just feels impossible to remember our worth sometimes.
I think being human is hard. Because once someone makes a mistake, BAM! They're imperfect and a failure, and no amount of repentance or fixing things can make them human again. How awful is that? We do it to ourselves, and sometimes to others, too. I think that we need to be as forgiving of ourselves as we are of others. It's hard, I know, but I think once we do it, we'll be open to a whole new world of possibilities and love for ourselves. But remember that even if you fail to forgive ourself, if we fail to remember who created us, whose we are...you are STILL valued. You are still worth so much more than you think you are.
Remember the story of Punchinello? And how the whole village bases their worth off of stars and dots from others? And how Punchinello meets Lucy, who has no dots or stars because she meets with Eli, their maker? And when Punchinello goes to see Eli, a dot falls off when he leaves the workshop? How can we get rid of our dots/stars? There are many ways, and in all honesty, it's up to you. What can you do to get rid of your dots/stars?
Xoxo
Mattie
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