Chapter 2

Learning that He Had Always Been with Me

I find it impossible to describe the overwhelming panic, fear and confusion that I was experiencing.

 But if I had to name it, I think I would call it emotional or spiritual trauma. 

Now if I had been in a car accident and had an injury to my head, that would be trauma, and I would be urgently taken to the hospital, probably by way of an ambulance.

 This was the kind of urgent feeling I was having about my state of mind.  

I knew I needed help but didn’t know what kind…. or where a person even goes for help when they don’t know where to go? Wow…that sounds as nutty as I was feeling.

I am grateful for my daughter Peggy who suggested she could call her friend Stephanie, who is a Christian Counselor and Life Coach.

I think I said, “Yes!” immediately.

Thankfully Stephanie was willing to accommodate my feelings of urgency. She agreed to see me within a few days.

I had several sessions with Stephanie over the next few months.

These sessions were all spiritual and emotionally healing for me.

All our sessions began with prayer and sometimes more than one.

Next, Stephanie would have me close my eyes as we talked about the emotions that were troubling me.

These discussions always led me back to past experiences, mostly they were childhood experiences.

When your eyes are shut, and the focus is on looking at your emotional pain, memories will often surface bringing you to where and what in your past needs to be examined.

Most of the time you’ll be looking for a false belief system or misunderstanding about life and or relationships.

This was the intent of these sessions with Stephanie; to find the source/memory of the pain. Then using the scriptures, she would help me separate my pain or illusions about life from the truth.

One unique thing that Stephanie used in these memory sessions was to ask me to ‘look for God’ in each memory. Her belief is that He is always with us, we are never alone.

During one of these sessions I went back to a memory when I was four years old.

Mom is in the house taking a nap with my baby brother.

Although she would most times make me nap with them, this time she told me I could play in the back yard. I was told to stay in the back away from the front yard and the street.

But here I’m playing near some rose bushes in the front yard, on the sidewalk right near the street.

Looking around me I suddenly noticed a man walking toward me from a couple of blocks away.

His manner of walking and his dress were disturbing to me.

Seems like he might have been limping and maybe he was homeless?

Right away I felt like he was coming to get me, and I was totally struck with fear.

Quickly I ran to the back yard and scrambled up the steps to our back door. Turning the door knob, I began to panic when the door would not open.  

I frantically knocked as hard as I could, but mom didn’t come.

By now my fearful little heart was beating a mile a minute as I considered trying to get in through the front door.

Without a moment to waste I quickly ran around the side of the house, up the driveway and back to the sidewalk by the rose bushes.

Yes, I went back to check on the man, who still is coming to get me, and he is getting very close now.

Panting and out of breath I scurried up the steps to the front of the house and tried the door.

It’s locked as well. Why did my mother lock me out?

She’s never done this before, why does she not care about me?

Why does she not here me desperately pounding with my four-year-old fist…let me in!

Once more I run back around the side of the house and up the driveway thinking I should try the front door again.

But this time I am met by the man who is now walking up the drive way right toward me.

Frozen in my tracks I can do nothing now but stand there awaiting my doom.

As the man reaches me he simply asks if I know where a certain street is.

I remember just pointing back toward the street in hopes he would leave.

And to my relief, He promptly did.

This little memory brought with it a lot of painful emotions and illusions about life for me.

But what shocked and amazed me about this session, happened when Stephanie asked, “Where is God?”

I answered her that I didn’t know where he was.  I thought he just wasn’t there.

In fact, I thought that if he had been there, then this scary experience probably wouldn’t have happened to me.

In fact, no one was with me.

I couldn’t even make my mother hear my frantic knocking for help.

“Look again”, she insisted.

So, to appease her, I looked again…first up in the sky, then around the yard, and finally up the driveway…But there was no God.

Then, just as I was about to say, “I can’t find him”, I had the sensation that someone was behind me.

As I focused on that sensation… the Savior came into focus for me.

I saw him now in my memory.

He was standing directly behind me with both his hands placed on my shoulders.  

I can’t describe the feeling of intense love that totally filled me as I realized He was there with me on that day.

My perception and understanding of the scriptures that tell us he is always with us changed that day.

My eyes filled with tears as I tried to explain to Stephanie what I was now seeing.

As I said before, these sessions were ‘spiritual experiences’ and so the lessons I learned there were spiritual.  

They nevertheless were very real.

Not everything you learn in this life should be based on physical laws and man’s scientific theory.

Some of the most beautiful things to experience are taught from spirit to spirit.

For it is with our spirit we learn the things of God.

His Spirit to Be with You

By President Henry B. Eyring

Second Counselor in the First Presidency

“More precious than a memory of events is the memory of the Holy Ghost touching our hearts and His continuing affirmation of truth. More precious than seeing with our eyes or remembering words spoken and read is recalling the feelings that accompanied the quiet voice of the Spirit. Rarely I have felt it exactly as the travelers on the road to Emmaus did—as a soft but unmistakable burning in the heart. More often it is a feeling of light and quiet assurance.”

To Be Continued…

Playing Hide and Seek with Emotional Pain

May 22, 2018

LEARNING FROM LIFE’S STRUGGLES

The Storm of Desperation…

In the summer of 2014 I was at one of the lowest times of my life.

A few months earlier I had come from a relationship that had left me feeling broken, sad, forsaken, lost and helpless.

I felt like my heart and soul had been shattered into a million jagged and sharp pieces.

But the worse part was that my thoughts were irrational, and I was emotionally out of control.

Mere words cannot describe the scenes and scenarios that were in constant motion in my head and heart all day and night. They seemed to be repeating themselves; stuck on repeat like some sort of penitence or torment to drive me over the edge of insanity.

I was angry and discouraged with relationships; I couldn’t even watch a movie that involved a relationship. Even if the movie was funny; the whole audience would be rolling with laughter and I was just left with feelings of rage and disgust for both the genders.

This emotional upheaval had me spinning down and out and into a place I didn’t recognize.

In fact, I didn’t recognize me anymore. I felt completely lost and desperate and could not make any sense as to how this affliction could be mended.

We humans, (I’m supposing that most others are like me) are so interesting, when it comes to what we will try first when we are sick, hurt, broken or in despair.

Whether my ailments are physical, spiritual or emotional, I never fail to try for the easiest option or get well right now remedy.  But as I’ve learned easiest is not always the best.

One of the first remedies I decided I needed for my desperate heart was a sedative, or nerve pill.

This is what I remembered hearing my mother call it, when she thought someone was ‘Off their Rocker’ or acting insane. I can still hear her saying, “Someone put her out of her misery and give her a ‘nerve pill’. That will calm her down”.

Well, the day had finally come that I was she whom my mother had described…out of control, off my rocker and feeling very insane. I was deeply in need of a nerve pill.

Ask and you will receive… I did find one… and yes, I took it.

It helped.

I remember thinking right before I fell asleep,” Yay, this is going to work…I’m going to be all better now!” Then I drifted off into sweet sleep.

But as soon as the effects of the pill wore-off I woke up…and guess what?  

I was back to desperation.

Taking that pill was like trying to put a bandage over a cannon-ball wound and expecting everything to miraculously be healed.

Nothing I tried worked.

I walked the floor for days considering several other options like “running a way”.  Truly I did think that that might work, until I realized it was me I wanted to run away from.  

Finally, the thought came to me…… that there was no way anyone or anything could fix how I felt…unless it was the Lord.

With a broken heart and tears rolling down my cheeks I asked one of my brothers to please give me a blessing. He being a good and kind brother agreed. He then laid his hands upon my head and willingly and beautifully called on the Lord to bless and comfort me. He asked that I would be led to the things that would help me.  He then admonished me to trust in the Lord. He also told me to trust in my-self and my ability to follow the counsel and direction the Lord would surely give me.

Looking back on that summer day, I remember hoping my brother would ask the Lord to just heal me and take the desperation away. Although the prayer was comforting I was not healed that day.

But hind-sight as shown me the Lord had something else in mind for me.  Instead of a quick fix, the Lord wanted to restore my soul and change my heart.

He did not remove the storm of desperation but held my hand and He did lead me through it.

Broken Things to Mend

Jeffrey R. Holland

 Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostle

The first words Jesus spoke in His majestic Sermon on the Mount were to the troubled, the discouraged and downhearted. “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” He said, “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”¹ Whether you are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or among the tens of thousands listening this morning who are not of our faith, I speak to those who are facing personal trials and family struggles, those who endure conflicts fought in the lonely foxholes of the heart, those trying to hold back floodwaters of despair that sometimes wash over us like a tsunami of the soul. I wish to speak particularly to you who feel your lives are broken, seemingly beyond repair.

To all such I offer the surest and sweetest remedy that I know. It is found in the clarion call the Savior of the world Himself gave. He said it in the beginning of His ministry…He said it to believers, and He said it to those who were not so sure. He said to everyone, whatever their personal problems might be...

“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

“Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.”²

I posted just a small part of this beautiful and comforting talk given by an apostle of our Lord, mostly because I want to share what this verse of scripture has come to mean to me over the past four years.

I have heard this scripture many times in my life and every time I did, I always pictured myself yoked and weighted down by this gigantically heavy wooden yoke, the kind typically worn by two large oxen. In my mind they would always be pulling a great burdensome load.

Although I had always pictured this yoke as a two oxen yoke, not once did I ever notice the Savior beside me in this task.

Each time I ever considered taking His yoke upon me I only saw myself. 

Somehow, I believed that if I took His yoke upon me I would be so overwhelmed with the load that I would fall. For it was truly a load that only the Savior of mankind could possibly lift, and I did not see how this could be easy and light for me.   

The thought would always come to me that I did not understand this scripture.

For sure I did not.

However, I remember reading it about a year ago and a completely new picture formed in my mind.

This time, I saw the Savior pick me up from off the dusty ground and yoke Himself to me and my burdens. I pictured Him bearing this yoke right along beside me.

As I saw Him there, with me for the first time, I felt the weight of my afflictions lift… I witnessed him in His strength and power totally carrying the weight of this gigantic wooded yoke. The same yoke I had always imagined was mine alone to bear.

He lifted and carried for me what I was incapable of carrying. Totally easing my burden and pain with His atonement.

Looking into His eyes, in this same moment,  I saw compassion and a greater love and sympathy for me than I had ever known existed.

I saw for the first time one who knew me as no one ever has before. Yet knowing all my weaknesses and sins as He does, He was still willing to yoke Himself to me.

For the first time for me, this scripture took on a feeling of lightness, love, compassion and yes, rest.

I heard for the first time Him encouraging me to share my burdens with Him.

I heard him tell me that  if I would be willing, He would show me how meekness and lowliness of heart would bring rest to my soul.

 So, no…on the day my brother rested his hands upon my head and blessed me that my desperation would be comforted, it was not immediately taken from me.

Truly the Savior knew what I needed better than I did….and because of this, I have been blessed in ways that I would never have understood I needed.

Proverbs 3:5-6 King James Version (KJV)

⁵ Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.

⁶ In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths

 He has always been with me…

I was living with my daughter, Peggy, in South Carolina at the time of my “Desperation” …

It was Peggy’s floors, where I before mentioned, where I had paced day and night trying desperately to find my way out of this dark emotional abyss I had fallen into.

She and some other family members who knew how lost I was feeling, were all very concerned for me. I talked openly to Peggy hoping by so doing she might think of some way to help me.

As I talked with Peggy one afternoon I told her I had decided to talk to someone professional  who could help me better understand my emotional and irrational thoughts and feelings. I thought maybe I needed to see a Psychologist or therapist of some kind.

Peggy told me about her friend, Stephanie who was a Christian counselor. She would call her if I wanted and see about getting me an appointment.

To Be Continued….