The Darkness Deepens...The Light Will Come...

I have been hesitant to post anything on this blog for the last few weeks, maybe even months. There are a few reasons why. I will get into them in a moment. I have had a hard few weeks and months. I read over a previous post of mine and it's interesting to note that I said this was going to be the hardest year of my life. That may have been an exaggeration. I've had harder years. This one is turning out to be pretty difficult though. One reason I didn't want to post anything is because I don't want people or God to think that I'm not blessed. I'm VERY blessed. I have an amazing family, a home, a great job, religious freedom, many things of monetary worth that I take for granted everyday like a cell phone or clothing or food in my fridge...or even a fridge! I am blessed with so many things so I don't want it to seem like my life is awful or that I have nothing good in my life. That's not true at all. Another reason I didn't want to post on this blog is because I didn't want people to think this was a cry for help or a plea for some attention. My purpose in writing what has been happening to me is so that 1. I can look back and see how much greater my life has become than where it used to be and 2. so that others who are struggling can relate to some part of what I'm going through so you don't have to feel alone. A third reason for not posting my recent experiences is that I don't want people to get the wrong idea. That one's hard to explain. I'll try. So two years ago (maybe three, I honestly don't remember) I left a 6 year committed relationship with a partner and decided to come back to Christ's church and live by his teachings. I "gave up" a lot of things in an attempt to find greater blessings and more happiness than I was currently experiencing at the time. In the last two years I have gone through some things...and that's putting it mildly. Now I sit here and ask myself, "okay. Are you happier? Did you receive the blessings you wanted? Was it worth it?" two weeks ago, my answer was no. I'm not happier, I'm much more depressed. I haven't received the blessings I wanted and, not only that, but I don't even know if I wanted those blessings to begin with. No, this wasn't worth it. All the fighting, the changes, the struggling. It wasn't worth it. Why did I do this? What's the point? I even thought, "I could have been so much happier had I not done any of this; had I just stayed in a comfortable relationship and live out the rest of my life with someone who made me happy and in a life that made me happy." I think people would get the wrong idea here. People might look at my life and say, "okay, so if this isn't making you happy, then why are you doing this? It seems like following God and following Christ just lead to misery and depression, not happiness." While it is true that I do not have the things that I want, I have received exactly those things that I need. Those things that would make me happy, if I would just choose to be happy with those things....does that make sense? In the Book of Mormon, a prophet named Lehi, took his family and led them to the Americas, because God commanded him to. Lehi had some sons and two of his sons, Laman and Lemuel were angry and depressed and could not see the point in leaving their home in Jerusalem and going to America. They said, "he hath led us out of the land of Jerusalem, and we have wandered in the wilderness for these many years; and our women have toiled, being big with child....and it would have been better that they had died before they came out of Jerusalem than to have suffered these afflictions. Behold these many years we have suffered in the wilderness, which time we might have enjoyed our possessions and the land of our inheritance; yea, and we might have been happy." This is the attitude that I have sometimes; "I might have been happier..." Lehi also had another son named Nephi, who, at the same time his brothers were complaining and giving into their unhappiness, said, "and also, I , Nephi, had been blessed of the Lord exceedingly...My God hath been my support. He hath led me through mine afflictions in the wilderness, and he hath preserved me upon the waters of the great deep. " I feel this way too. These sons had completely different attitudes about the same situations. I, now, have examples to look to. I can choose to be a Laman and Lemuel and see the negativity in every situation, or I can be a Nephi and see the positive. The negative: I want a wife. I want to marry a girl who loves God and can share my love of Christ and of church and of all things light. I want a wife who will take this selfish, immature, and broken piece of clay and work patiently with me to turn me into the better man that both she and I know I can be. I want a wife so that I can have a best friend who will be with me all the time. I want to get home after a closing shift at work and see her sitting on the couch watching a cheesy romantic comedy and waiting to ask me how things went at work. I want to discuss whose family we will be spending Christmas with this year and I want to fight about...I don't know...whatever it is that couple's fight about, but know that after the fight is over, we will still be married and it's because we love each other more than we want to be right or win an argument. I want a son. I want a boy that I can raise up and can be another best friend who I am proud of and who makes me laugh, but at the same time drives me nuts! I want to hope for him to go on a mission and to get married.  I want to take him out for ice cream when he's upset for not making the basketball team and attempt to cheer him up when the girl he asks to homecoming dance tells him she already said yes to someone else. I want a daughter. I want to see her go to college and get an amazing job and be super successful and I want to see her in her prom dress smiling and getting a corsage from the boy she has a crush on who I think is so totally not good for her. I want to be there to hug her when that stupid boy breaks her heart and leaves her feeling like the world is going to end and cry with her because I know what that feels like to have a stupid boy break your heart and leave you feeling like you aren't good enough and that the world is probably going to end. I want to have a home that is filled with the smell of pancakes on Sunday morning and the sounds of kids laughing on a Monday night. I don't have any of that. I have a stupid physical attraction to men that makes the thought of ever having a wife seem like an impossibility. I am not good enough, spiritually, to deserve a righteous, beautiful woman who ACTUALLY lives up to the standards I would like to have, but am too weak to commit to living. Depression is an ugly monster that can quickly swallow you up and drag you deeper and deeper into it's darkness and when you are in the dark, it's so very, very hard to find the light. You tell yourself things that are not true, "I'm not loved enough, why did I think I could do this when I can't, I don't want to be happy I just want to cry, I'm ugly, I'm terrible and this is hopeless." It leaves you feeling physically drained and emotionally done. numb, weak, fragile, and scared. For those of you in this situation, I am so sorry. I am so sorry I can not be there for you enough. I'm sorry I didn't give you a hug or tell you that you are important and that you mean something. I'm sorry that you haven't found a way towards the light and I'm sorry I didn't realize you needed help.  I know you feel absolutely alone. There are nights when I cry and no one else knows it. There are times when I text back, "I'm good! How are you!?" when I want to say, "I'm alone and I could use a hug and some loving words to get me through," but I don't want people to know I'm sad because who wants to be around someone who's sad all the time? So I sit alone or read scriptures through my tears alone or listen to songs that make me cry alone. I do it alone. Sometimes the hardest thing for me to do that day was to force a smile. Sometimes the sadness becomes so overwhelming it can literally turn itself into a physical pain. That physical pain can cause you not to eat and it can cause you to burst into tears because you really have no idea how to get rid of this physical pain in your stomach or in your heart. It's awful and for those of you who are in the midst of this battle, I am so sorry and I cry with you even though we are not together, I am with you. I apologize if you are reading this blog and I have gotten too depressing for you. Might I suggest watching a Studio C sketch or typing in 'funny cats' on youtube at this point to help you feel better. Or, you can continue reading and I will give you the good news. The Positive: I am amazing! I have a most blessed life! I have a mom who constantly asks me when I get home from work, 'do you want to watch a movie?' I have a dad who tells me about an interesting piece of interior design or asks me about something cooking related because he wants to be a part of my life. I have friends who sit by me at church and ask what the highlight of my week was and really, the highlight of my week was that I had a friend sit by me at church! I have the most loving and cutest nephews and nieces I could ever ask for who give me hugs exactly when I need them and who know what funny thing to say to make me laugh. I have a job where I walk in and see smiling faces and know that it's going to be an amazing shift! I have a beautiful car and I have an ipod that lets me enjoy listening to music while driving around in my beautiful car. I have clothes in my closet and sheets on my bed. I can see. I can hear. I can walk. I can speak. I have cheesecake! God gives me rainy days because He knows they make me happiest. I have God and I have Jesus Christ. I am never alone. "Therefore, I will look unto the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me. Rejoice not against me, o mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me." (Micah 7:7-8 KJV) This IS worth it. It's so hard, but it's so worth it! There are days when I don't feel like it's worth fighting. I don't want to keep going. But I will rise up again. I'll keep going. I'll keep fighting. Friend, keep fighting too! You can do this, I know you can and God knows you can. I know there will be times when you will have to suffer through trials and your mom, your aunt, your best friend, your dad; no one will be around to see you cry or see the hurt. In those times, you are still not alone.  God is around. Jesus is there for you as well and He knows what it is like to be alone. when he was in the garden suffering for our sins and pains, feeling every single thing that you and I feel, he was alone. "and he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, what, could ye not watch with me one hour? He went away again the second time and prayed...and he came and found them asleep again." In the stillness of the night when your friends and your family is asleep, you weep silently and pray for morning and for daylight so that you can feel better. Christ felt that. I feel that sadness. I know a little about what you're going through and I know that Christ knows PERFECTLY what you are going through. He and I are there for you and love you. I know that may not be the same thing as having someone physically hugging you and telling you it's going to be okay, but...it will be okay. Keep holding on and keep trying to find the positive in your life. For me, I'm still trying to be positive and still trying to tell myself each day that things will get better and that I still have good things in my life. I may not have the things I want, but maybe it's because I'm not ready for them. Maybe it's because I need something else all together. I don't know. I do have blessings now, though, and I will continue to look for the good things, treasure the good moments, and pray to make out of the dark times until the light comes. "The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.... He is the light and the life of the world; yea, a light that is endless, that can never be darkened" (Isaiah 9:2 KJV bible and Mosiah 16:9 Book of Mormon)