It's been a couple of months now... feeling consumed with a sense of hopelessness with my "situation" and the loneliness, anxiety, frustration, anger and emptiness that follows - a punishing private pity party for sure! I've been an inmature boob.
I allow my feelings of inauthenticity to overwhelm me and overcome me to the point that I can't see beyond my own self. I forget or can't remember the joys and goodness and bounty and blessings and fortunes and love around me. All I can see is the terrible situation that is my life and nothing more. I can't sleep. I can't connect. I can't feel... And yet I'm overcome with feelings and emotions are very much camping out on the surface.
It has become this mode of operation for some time now. And I'm so tired... so tired... In this spirit, we took the family to Temple Square Saturday evening and downtown to enjoy the lights and spirit of the season that should be beautiful as usual. You would think with family, and kids all around me excited in the spirit of it all that I wouldn't feel so lonely and befuddled. But I was.
We shuffled to the manger scene presentation between the Tabernacle and the North Visitor's Center and stopped to listen to the scriptural rendition of the nativity. I stood there contemplating what I was doing, why I was so consumed, how lost and lonely I felt surrounded in the crowd of people.
Deep in thought I prayed for some kind of support to get through this current funk. I stopped hearing the speaker or the hustle and chatter about me and I looked up and my view caught straight onto the Christus statue through the window and I "heard" a voice penetrate me soul... saying:
"Please listen: You're okay! I love you! I love you completely as you are!"
It really was that simple. I felt the love of my Savior overcome me and envelope me to the point that I started weeping uncontrollably. My wife and kids wondered what was up with dad and I just tried to shrug it off, but I couldn't. I'm sure they didn't think much of it as I've been a bit weepy of late. I felt the spirit whisper to me that I was understood, that I was validated, that my feelings of confusion, frustration, anxiety and anger were realized. I was given at that moment a sense of peace that sustained me through the weekend (and an incredible Sabbath) to the point that I could begin to engage again with family, friends, neighbors, and myself.
I know that I am on the right path for me, as strange as that seems to some, and that I must keep keepin' on. I know that I will fall, that I am broken (as we all are "broken" in the sense of being imperfect) and that the healing and comforting and real affects of the atonement are a continuing event for me. I need this sustaining influence continuously to help me through the "pity parties" that keep me in the dark and feeling hopeless in my circumstances.
In that one brief moment on Temple Square, I felt a glimpse of blissful peace, renewing comfort, and reassurance, enough such that I can keep going, and keep doing the best with who I am, that I am loved and accepted for who I am. I know the funk will return. I will cycle again as I am known to do... But I hope for myself that writing this experience down will help me to remember.
There is always hope! I am truly blessed! I have been given much! I am surrounded with love!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
