My Spiritual Landscape Changes

I'm not so musicless after all. On Saturday after replacing some Jack Johnson CDs and that Bob Marley boxset I was able to find the lost music library on itunes. It was so easy to fix it was laughable how hopeless I was about recovering the music. Finding my music was one of many good things from this past weekend.

Friday: Work was rather uneventful. I'd much rather it be uneventful then hectic. The phone rang occasional, I did a little book work and that was it. Pretty low key. I didn't go to the gym because the Young Single Adults were having a fireside that night and Richard G. Scott was the speaker. I had been preparing for it all week by being as well behaved as I could manage. I was actually able to manage quite a bit and it surprised me. The fireside began at 7pm I got there at 6:15. Imagine that, me 45 minutes early. What was even better, when I arrived there were already about 150 YSA kids outside the building waiting for someone to come unlock the building. Eventually someone with keys arrived and let us in. I was happy to be there and I got a great seat on the end of the third pew from the front. As 7 o'clock rolled around it became apparent that Elder Scott wasn't actually able to attend. He has pneumonia and Elder Packer told him he couldn't go. Imagine that. lol. I forgot to mention that the Stake President had called me earlier in the week to ask me to give the closing prayer at the Friday meeting. I was disappointed but also a bit relieved I wasn't going to have to pray in front of an Apostle.

Elder Richards and Elder Staley of the 70 delivered some amazing messages to us. Every major point they shared was exactly what I needed and had been mulling over in my head for a while. Elder Richards hit more of my spiritual needs and Elder Staley absolutely nailed my more temporal needs. Though both of their talks were spiritual in nature they seemed to apply themselves differently to my situation. I was absolutely uplifted to hear Elder Richard's talk about keeping underneath the umbrella of the Lord and making a clear conscious choice to stay underneath it and not venture out. Elder Staley's talk felt more like a no nonsense, coach in a lockerroom, pump you up talk about taking responsibility for ourselves. He really let us have it by telling us in plain terms to stop being mediocre. The Lord made us and expects us to be the most exceptional creatures of all creation. Staley told us that we needed to be courageous, take chances and rely on the Lord and if we did He'd never fail us.

His words just really rang with a lot of truth. I had forgotten how completely reliable the Lord is. Its just who he is. There 100% of the time. I guess over the last few years when I've made some stupid decisions it was because I felt the Lord had let me down. I lost confidence in the Lord because the way things were unfolding in my life didn't match the expectations I had gleaned from the Church. You all know what I mean I'm sure. You have certain expectations, expectations that often are drawn up by members of the Church but ones you adopt yourself. Sometimes those expectations are pretty unrealistic and unhealthy, but other times they seem right in line with what we are taught doctrinally and spiritually. Like the expectation we have that if we're faithful and pray deeply problems will be solved in our lives. I'm not saying that's not right. But what the expectation fails to do is include a clause that allows for the option of extended problems that go beyond the pail of other people's experiences. Getting back to my main point, I lost faith because I was duped into believing that God had failed me.

Why was I duped? How was I duped? I wasn't doing what was right. I had stepped out from underneath the umbrella of the Lord and was exposing myself to all the ferocious winds and storms of the adversary. Its very easy to become disoriented when there's a constantly changing landscape in front of you and you become dehydrated and hungry. Very easy indeed. Looking back its clear that I realized I'd left the safety of that umbrella after about five months time. Once I realized what I'd done and what the implications were I started to run back to the umbrella. But remember what I said before, an ever changing landscape and no sustenance leaves you disoriented. I ran every which way and tried lots of things to alleviate the hunger pangs and get out of the storm but they were temporary in the least and poisonous at the worst. It wasn't until I moved back to my home town that I got my bearings. And after a year of a steady uphill battle, sometimes sliding back a few hundred feet I've reached some sort of summit. Its not smooth sailing from here but its not such a big incline, and there's regular spiritual food and water.

The talks on Friday were really necessary for me. I feel and believe I'm finally getting a handle on the last of the really bad decisions and I can actually start dealing with other aspects of my life. In college I gave lipservice to future educational and career plans because that's all I could do. I was so lost that making those sorts of huge decisions just wasn't possible. I'd try to think them through and I'd get so bogged down in everything. I had no faith to get any spiritual direction, I couldn't reason them out because I'd lost confidence in my own decision making skills because of the choices I'd made. It was rough. But as I said before, I feel like I've gotten a handle on things or more correctly the handle was given to me.

I didn't mean for this to be such a weird metaphoric post. I'm sorry if it isn't all entirely clear. If I was going to turn this in for a grade believe me, I'd go back and hammer it out clear as day but its I'm not going to turn it in so I'll just leave it as is. It makes sense to me and maybe it'll make sense to you. If not you could always just call me up and we could discuss it. Uberstud-Seth and I did last night and it was a pretty uplifting convo I must say. On a parting note, I turn 26 years old tomorrow...and I got a new suit which I will be sporting at Conference. I hope I see all you guys up there and we can go to a session or two. In the very least Canadian Robb and I are going to see Serenity Friday night so ya'll are invited though I know at least one of you hasn't the imagination for such a film. Oh well your loss.