I have felt the tug for another blog post these past couple of weeks but have struggled with what topic to write about.
There have been so many miraculous, wonderful, and even challenging events in my life lately that I have a burning desire to share but I would like to do so in a tactful way.
I guess the best place to start would to be balanced.
Just like my head is swirling with stories and knowing what exactly to share at this time or to share later so are our lives. I believe it is a constant struggle of individualized needs and being apart of a community and greater purpose than our own. I know I've struggled with this and the moment I started having children I only felt more split.
I felt a duty to God.
I felt a duty to myself.
I felt a duty to my religion.
I felt a duty to my family both immediate and extend.
I felt a duty to my callings in church.
I felt a duty to my spiritual study.
I felt a duty to teaching and being an example to my children.
I felt a duty of an honest person.
I felt a duty to be a good citizen of the state, country, and place of the world that I live.
I felt a duty to be a friend and make some friends.
I felt a duty of love, kindness, patience, and sanity.
I felt a duty to my home and the care and maintenance of it.
I felt a duty to health and happiness.
I felt a duty to authenticity and uniqueness; to be me and what that meant.
All of these ( and probably more) pulled and continues to pull in what feels like different directions . I am left feeling confused, lost, anxious, exhausted, and stressed. There was no way I could be all of these things, still be a sane person, and not to mention happy.
SO I wouldn't....
Last Sunday we had a lesson in relief society about being a Bearers of Heavenly Light. The talk was called just that and it was given by Dieter F Utchodrf last October for the Priesthood Session of General conference. Although it was given to the men of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, it was the perfect talk I've been needing on this journey to get my life back on track and to be content and determined once again. Even better was when our discussion leader read a quote at the end of the hour for Relief Society by Marianne Williamson. It summed up the very feelings I've been feeling for a few months:
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, who am I to bne brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you NOT to be? You are a Child of God! You're playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people the permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
That quote hit home so hard that I probably sat there with my jaw hanging open for the whole relief society to see. It pointed out to me that I've been squashing myself down because I didn't want to disappoint or lead astray anyone when in reality by squashing myself into nothing I was not only miserable but I WAS letting people down and they weren't following me anyway! This was the perfect explanation that by being the person I was created to be and by following the Christ's light there would be no room for hectic and crazy and everything else would naturally work out into the balance I was desiring the most in my life.
The Peace
The Calm
The Happy
As well as fuel my motivation to rise up and love and help others the way I've always wanted to do.
I'm going to share an experience that has happened to me recently that I feel would make the perfect ending to this particular blog post. It all started with a dream....
A few weeks ago I had woken up in a panic from another dooms day dream. There was ciaos outside of my home and I kept asking everyone I came into contact with inside, "what is going on?" But no one gave me a straight answer. I could see my family by the window looking at what I then saw was a mass amount of SWAT team and police men as well as their well armored vehicles covering our whole street. They were surrounding our neighbors home across the street and everything looked crazy outside. I then looked out my backyard window and saw teenage boys from the age of 9-14 trying to climb over our fence and into our backyard. For some reason this didn't alarm me.
I turned back to my family and again I asked "what is going on?" and to my right the answer, "there's been mass murdering going on outside and they are trying to grab hold of the leader of the group whose been killing everyone." One of the teenage boys had gotten into my house (again fr some reason this didn't alarm me) and was holding his phone recording a video of the event. After that everything seemed like it slowed down. I was outside now, and I could hear people in the background yelling at me to gt back inside but I just kept walking towards the park down our street. There was trash and belongings everywhere and the park was the worst. Toilets, bunk beds, dressers, tires, and other items littered the whole park as if houses had just been gutted and thrown onto the lawn of the park. I turned around and saw the front of our neighbors house be ripped off by the SWAT team and noticed that the house was completely empty except a sandbag barricade, and in the center a man with a mustache wearing a wife beater, cargo pants, and a look of gruesome pride holed up, waiting. He surrendered. What shook me the most was the fact that the house was used as a base, not even trying to be concealed as an actual home, as if this had been plotted and planed for awhile and he was just waiting.
I woke up during this part of the dream with my chest tight, my heart pounding, and feeling sick to my stomach. I felt as if there was no where that would ever truly be safe. The security system we had just got wouldn't matter when the world was ending. The safe places wouldn't be safe. The sanctuaries wouldn't hold any meaning. No precautions would end up mattering and worst of all was it wasn't just my life to worry about. If it were just me I'd give it away, I wasn't afraid of death but the dying part and even more beyond that was my children. I couldn't stand it if they were hurt or if I wasn't there to take care of them and be there for them. I prayed that if this is what the end were really to look like to please just let me die first. I was tormented and my very core ached. I felt like I was falling apart and so I woke up my husband and asked him if he'd hold me so that I could feel a little bit put back together. It was at that point in the middle of the night that I realized how impact the dream really was to me. I cried and I sobbed and I exhaled in anguish. My husband became more alert and asked me 'what was wrong' to which I told him, "just hold me really tight".
We laid there for awhile until I gained some composure and stretched out a little bit. I was still frantic and that's when I felt a warmth on my cheek and heard a voice in my head. It was a woman "shh-ing" me and telling me that "it's okay and everything will be fine." I asked her in my thoughts who she was and immediately had the thought of Heavenly Mother. She respond that it didn't matter. I had the impression that-whoever she was- was stroking my hair and sitting on the side of my bed. I relaxed and felt calm so quickly that I knew I wasn't just imagining things since I've had panic attacks before and there has been no real way to calm myself down, not to mention a complete one-hundred and eighty degrees. I asked her again who she was and she said, "I'm a friend it doesn't matter who I am. You're safe, go to sleep." I then thought about my kids and worried about there safety. "They're safe," the woman responded, "There are angels with them just like there are with you." I had the impression that there were two angels in each room with my children which made me relax to the point where my eyes closed. I kept trying to have the conversation in my thoughts with her and opening my eyes but I felt like I had no control of them. I felt like the woman had rolled her eyes in humorous disbelief almost like "you're at peace why aren't you trying to go back to sleep?"
I told her, in my thoughts, that I didn't want to forget when I woke up. I didn't want to forget the angels. I didn't want to forget her and the experience I'd been having.
She told me, "You won't. You won't forget and someday you will be doing just as I am doing, comforting others who need it."
With one more sigh I fell asleep and the next morning it was just as she promised: I didn't forget and a week or so at general conference there was a change in how we reach out to others in love and minister to them just as Christ did and again her declaration to me that someday I would be comforting others just as she was doing became that much more real to me. This is a purpose of mine and I'm going to let my light shine and glorify God by doing His work.
-Megan
