HOLD FAST

I went to a wedding last weekend. The Temple location was hot enough to fry an egg in the shell. Since we couldn't be a part of the sealing because we turned in our temple recommends a few years ago - we waited outside for the couple and families to exit from the sealing.

But Lo! What's this? A nearby Temple visitors center?! Our little family hastened with hastening of hastes to enter therein. Ah....a blast of air conditioning hit our faces as we naively stumbled inside for relief. I quickly learned that sometimes it's better to suffer physical discomfort than to endure spiritual turmoil.

Nevertheless, the Lord met me in my oversight and I gained a slice of wisdom I was seeking after and now I need to record it so I don't forget.

Also...Thank you for being a part of this journey with me. It's brutal. I don't know who reads this blog but the statistics show that a little number of people are reading it. So thank you for letting me vent and rant and being patient with my growth (or lack of growth).

As we entered the building a beautiful sister missionary was right at the door to greet us. We hadn't even been able to all set foot inside before she began to open her mouth for a speech. I quickly interrupted her and said we needed a bathroom - which was true. She pointed the way and we all appreciated the clean and orderly way the church keeps their restrooms.

When we came back there were plenty of benches surrounding a Christus statue. We all began to attempt to sit down when another sister missionary swooped in to ask us if we wanted to hear a short message over the intercom that pertained to the Christus statue. Were missionaries always this aggressive attentive? As I sat down I knew I didn't want to hear it. I was tired. I wanted silence and cold air. I came in for that. But oh that sweet sister missionary's face.

Flashbacks of my mission to Tokyo danced across my memory. A simple "yes" would make her day. Or make that moment better, at the very least.

"Sure," I said. I visibly watched the dopamine hit her brain as a big smile spread across her face. She pushed the button and a familiar pre-recorded voice said, "I am Jesus Christ...I created the heavens and the earth...". My mind was no longer in the room but was whisked away in memory of me watching the temple endowment video for the hundredth time. My heart sank as I stared at that marble face of the Christ statue looking down at me with cold indifference and the pre-recorded words that only further widened the gap between me and Him. I didn't want my children to know this "Jesus Christ" that the church was serving up in a pristine package. This is not the Jesus I know. This is not the Jesus I have worked tirelessly to help my children to experience. Sitting there in that moment I realized how long I have been away from the church. In the past this visitor's center experience would have delighted me and I would have looked at my children with joy to see them experiencing this beautiful moment. But now I had a giant knot in my stomach and the mother bear in me had my hair standing on end and claws out in defense of their hearts and minds. 

The recording ended and I found myself staring at the marble feet contemplating my next move. "Did you think of a word that describes what Jesus means to you?" the sister asked. I had forgotten she asked us to think of a word. Our eyes all darted to the ceiling trying to think of a word to apease her question. I told her there was no word to describe what Jesus means to me. He is the Alpha and the Omega - the Beginning and the End. She opened her scriptures to begin teaching and my mind trailed off again.

This post will take you through some of my thoughts that went through my mind last weekend as I watched one of the most beautiful couples share in their love for each other. Watched their joining families celebrate them and celebrate love. For some reason we were thoughtfully given the best seat in the house - right up front where nothing could be missed. We soaked it all in - all of our kids were in awe of their love story, in awe of each family's musical talent and excellent humor when a mic was placed in their hands and they were given free reign to roast the sibling who's special day it was.

"Ruth - your children will never have this. They're screwed. You screwed everything up. They will never have this love. Never have this marriage. Never have a family like this. If only you had stayed in the church. If only you had stayed. They could still be going. They could find a member of the church to marry and have the kind of marriage this couple will have. That you and Ryan have - because you both were in the church and found each other through the church. Now you've pulled your kids away. They will never have this. Why did you do this? Why did you do this to these sweet children? You've ruined everything for them. Everything."

Imagine having that wash over you as you sit at a table fit for a king with lavish flowers and gorgeous place settings - a feast of food in front of you and jesters and musicians enhancing every moment. To top it off you're sharing it with the ones you love most in all the world.

Tears gushed out as I felt the weight of the whispers in my ear of failure. 

I whispered a prayer..."Help me Lord. Meet me here in this, Jesus."

And then - a vision from a movie we watched a long time ago:

From the outside looking in I can see people saying, "Ruth! You're so prideful! Go back to church! Get back to the Temple! That's the spirit telling you to get back to the church!!"

But I'm not after the church. I'm not after a prophet to lead and guide me. I'm after Him...Jesus. The King of Kings. The Lord of Lords. And I've found Him. And I want more of Him. And He fills my cup and leaves it overflowing.

Hold Fast.

After the wedding I whined talked to the Lord a fair bit about my heart and my sadness. This was the return conversation that came back to me:

"If you went to church there would be no guarantee that your children would find a healthy match like this. This is indeed a special match. Each of your children's lives will look very different from each other. Your job is to teach them to look to Me and I will do the rest. Give them to Me."

"But Lord..."

"Ruth...it's time to stop whining. You received your answer to teach your children at home. When you doubt My goodness you will experience the Garden of Eden where My Goodness was questioned. When they doubted My Goodness they reached for what was forbidden and lost My Presence. Sarah and Abraham doubted My Goodness and they reached for Hagar.

"You can continue to doubt My Goodness. However, this doubt can lead you to reach for the forbidden which will produce an unworthy sacrifice. Cain offered an unworthy sacrifice because it was easier for him. In the end - a blood sacrifice was offered and it was the sacrifice of another life. Don't sacrifice another's life through the seemingly easier sacrifice made out of fear. Trust Me. Wait on Me. And even if, in the end, things look like they went the worst possible way - Trust Me. Hold Fast!"

Time to stop whining...That's a big ask. I am a big whiner. I've never admitted that out loud - or publicly. I don't let my kids whine for a second. Even the dog gets sent to his crate if a whine escapes his throat. I can't stand whining. I think I have an overly sensitive nervous system because whining grates on me like no other.

And yet...in conversation with the Lord I whine...Sariah's got nothing on me...And I'd missed it...

Everyone is at a different place in their journey in their return from the fall. We must each seek to pass through the cherubim and flaming sword to be able to enter back into His Presence. What that flaming sword is for you will be different from another. It is customized just to you and is single file. I have come to learn that there are many flaming swords we are asked to pass through on our return journey to the Father. I thought it was a "one and done" kinda thing. And in some respects, it is. But there are rungs on a ladder and layers to an onion and steps in ascension. Line upon line. Precept upon precept. Here a little and there a little. It felt freeing to "give up whining". Until that moment I didn't know that was the spirit's name that had a dark hook in my heart and mind. But when I said I was done whining - I felt the Breath of Heaven blow life into my heart.

I trust you Jesus. Please bring sanctification to our relationship. Please bless it and bring Your Cross and Your Blood over our journey together. Satan will try to get me here. Please, seal my heart unto You. Make me Yours forever. Fight for me. And help me to fight for You. The coming days and years are going to make me doubt Your Goodness. Don't let the enemy gain ground here. I declare I am Yours and my heart is Yours and I ask you to rebuke the enemy on my behalf.

Please, reader - pray over your relationship with Jesus. The enemy will get you to doubt His Goodness. Doubt the Father. Doubt your ability to hear the Holy Spirit. Pray over it - today. Bring it under His Authority, Rule and Reign. We all need it for what is coming.

Being at the Temple made me sick. All that money. We did end up leaving the visitors center. I couldn't sit there for one more second. We went inside the temple and found a small empty waiting room. The couch I was sitting on was probably $5,000-10,000 dollars and there were five or six of them in the room. It was a customized couch that harkened to the pioneers. As we gazed at the architecture Ryan said, "These light fixtures are like the ones in the dream I had." 

When we first "woke up" years ago Ryan had a dream. In the dream he was outside and there was about a 10 foot wall that was in front of him. It was changing material from rough stone which transformed into rough wood which then transformed into ornately carved wood and stone.

He climbed up to look over the wall and looked down to see a temple room with no ceiling with patrons and the furniture and fixtures were of the pioneer era and so were the people. Then he saw the Salt Lake Temple afar off and he went to it. When he entered the doors he was surprised to see that it was a shopping mall! People were going in and out of shops and he was confused as he looked around for me. A man in white stood at the entrance of a storefront and said, "For those that know what I am talking about - we're about to begin." Ryan entered the door and it was a white room with a recommend desk but no one was at the desk. Ryan passed through and got ready and went to the elevator. A woman at the elevator said, "You're a little late." Ryan responded, "I didn't know I was going to be here at all." He didn't want to leave without me but finally decided maybe I had already entered and so he decided to get on the elevator. As he stood in the elevator there was a mirror which showed he was dressed in white with a blue apron on. He had on a bowtie that was loose and dangling. He worked and worked to get it to be perfect but it would not. He thought to himself, "I look unusual with the bowtie like this but it's not inappropriate." Then the elevator descended downward and he woke up.

My interpretation of that dream was that the church initially was out in the open and roughly/newly hewn but over time it became more complicated/ornate and moved to SLC. Once Ryan went inside the temple it revealed it had sold itself for money. The man in white could represent an angel calling to those who had ears to hear. There was no one at the recommend desk because your worthiness isn't determined by a piece of paper or a person to double check that paper. The woman who told Ryan he was late helped reveal where Ryan's heart was at - he didn't know he was going to end up on this path. Ryan expressed that throughout the dream he was looking for me and trying to meet up with me. But the path back to the Tree of Life is single file - admit one. When he saw his reflection his apron was blue which represents priesthood. His tie annoyed him because he couldn't get it the way he wanted it. That is the flesh - we will never be picture perfect but we can be acceptable. His elevator went down instead of up because the path back to the Tree of Life requires a decent and life will get harder before it gets better.

I didn't intend to share that dream but I remembered he said that as I was reviewing the trip. Hopefully it was helpful.

And lastly - I love the author and psychologist M. Scott Peck. In the book, "The Road Less Traveled" the author shared an experience during his adolescence when he was attending Exeter - one of the top private schools in the U.S.. His family had gone to that school and now it was his turn. And he hated it. He fell into deep depression and contemplated suicide. Everything in him told him that he was in the wrong place. After two years of intensive suffering he felt to tell his parents he couldn't do it anymore. They disagreed with is decision to leave. Scott decided to talk to three people at the school before making his final decision. I will share what he wrote of that experience. I share it because the Lord led me to it with precision timing after the wedding. This passage can be likened to the church experience.

"Death is the ultimate emptiness. We are terrified of the void of death even if we believe we will come out the other side. Yet we don't know what the other side will be like.

There are many varieties of emptiness, but the most important (and the easiest to speak about without getting to mystical) is the "emptiness of not knowing." Despite living in a society that appears to push a "know-it-all" mentality and label incompetent those who don't always seem to be in the know, we still have a choice to not know without feeling inocmpetent or guilty about it. In fact, there are times in each of our lives when it is not only proper but healing to give up thinking we know all the answers.

The most healing experience of my adolescence was a gift by a man who related to me out of the emptiness of not knowing, and who served as a wonderfully positive role model to boot. As i look back on that turning point in my life (when he felt to leave the Private school), I am amazed at the grace that gave me the courage to do it. After all, not only was I dropping out of a prestigious prep school against my parents' wishes, but I was walking away from a golden WASP track that had all been laid out for me. Hardly aware at that age just what I was doing, I was taking my first giant step out of my entire culture. That culture of the "establishment" was what one was supposed to aspire to, and I was throwing it away. And where was I to go? I was forging into the total unknown. I was so terrified that I thought I should seek the advice of faculty before finalizing such a dreadful decision. But which of the faculty?

The first who came to mind was my adviser. He had barely spoken to me for two and a half years, but he was reputedly kind. A second obvious candidate was the crusty old dean of the school, known to be beloved by thousands of alumni. But I thought that three was a good number, and the third choice was more difficult. I finally hit upon Mr. Lynch, my math teacher and a somewhat younger man. I chose him not because we had any relationship or because he seemed to be a particularly warm sort of person - indeed, I found him a rather cold, mathematical kind of fish - but because he had a reputation as the faculty genius. He had been involved with some kind of high-level mathematics on the Manhattan Project, and I thought I should check out my decision with a "genius."

I went first to my kindly adviser, who let me talk for about two minutes and then gently broke in. "It's true that you're underachieving here at Exeter, Scotty," he said, "but not so seriously that you won't be able to graduate. It would be preferable for you to graduate from a school like Exeter with lessser grades than from a lesser school with better grades. It would also look bad on your record to switch horses in midstream. Besides, I'm sure your parents would be quite upset. So why don't you just go along and do the best you can?"

Next I went to the crusty old dean. He let me speak for thirty seconds. "Exeter is the best school in the world," he harrumphed. "Damn fool thing you're thinking of doing. Now you just pull yourself up by the bootstraps, young man!"

Feeling worse and worse, I went to see Mr. Lynch. He let me talk myself out. It took about five minutes. Then he said he didn't yet understand and asked if I would just talk some more - about Exeter, about my family, about God (he actually gave me permission to talk about God!), about anything that came into my head. So I rambled on for another ten minutes - fifteen minutes in all, which was pretty good for a depressed, inarticulate fifteen-year-old. When I was done, he inquired whether I would mind if he asked me some questions. Thriving on this adult attention, I replied, "Of course not," and he queried me about many different things for the next half-hour.

Finally, after fourty-five minutes in all, this supposedly cold fish sat back in his chair with a pained expression on his face and said, "I'm sorry. I can't help you. I don't have any advice to give you. You know," he continued, "it's impossible for one person to ever completely put himself in another person's shoes. But insofar as I can put myself in your shoes - and I'm glad I'm not there - I don't know what I would do if I were you. So, you see, I don't know how to advise you. I'm sorry that I've been unable to help."

It's just possible that man saved my life. For when I entered Mr. Lynch's office that morning some forty-five years ago, I was close to suicidal. And when I left, I felt as if a thousand pounds had been taken off my back. Because if a genius didn't know what to do, then it was all right for me not to know what to do. And if I was considering a move that seemed so insane in the world's terms, and a genius couldn't tell me what it was clearly, obviously demented - well, then, maybe, just maybe, it was something God was calling me to do.

....

There are no simple or easy formulas. In handling all life experiences, we must endure a degree of emptiness and the agony of not knowing. Although there is no certain formula, there is a guideline to help in such decision making. It is to recognize tha tthe unconscious is always one step ahead of the conscious mind. The problem is we don't know whether it's ahead in the right direction of the wrong direction. We don't always know if that still small voice we hear is the voice of the Holy Spirit, or Satan, or maybe just our glands. It is, therefore, impossible ever to know that what we are doing is right at the time, since knowing is a function of consciousness.

However, if your will is steadfastly to the good and if you are willing to suffer fully when the good seems ambiguous (which to me seems about 98.7 percent of the time), then your unconscious will always be one step ahead of your conscious mind in the right direction. In other words, you will do the right thing. But you won't have the luxury of knowing it at the time you are doing it. Indeed, you will do the right thing precisely because you've been willing to forgo that luxury. And if this guideline seems obscure, then you might want to remember that almost all of the evil in this world is committed by people who are absolutely certain that they know what they are doing."

HOLD FAST.