Testimony

Millie's sick, which means I'm home from church today, grumpy about having to fast at home all day and sad to be missing testimony meeting. I know some people aren't huge fans of the first Sunday of every month, but personally I love hearing what the people I go to church with think, feel, believe, struggle with, overcome; in essence, how they blend their faith with their daily life and inner thoughts.

As I lay in bed trying to figure out how I could mimic that experience at home, because clearly it's not happening on its own with only a coughing kid to keep me company, I realized I could bear my testimony to myself. Dorky, I know. I thought about dusting off a journal and jotting it down there. I thought about just thinking it through in my head. Then I thought I could share it here. (Maybe my kids will even look back and read it someday! Maybe...)

Living the gospel is hard. No one ever said it would be easy, but for some reason I always find myself expecting things to ease up, for age and life experience to hand me the self-will, stamina, and courage I naturally lack. Of course we come to this earth to be tested, and of course agency and personal choice, our own and others', make that testing very real almost every day. There will always be difficult choices. There will always be sacrifices. There will always be distractions and attractive temptations that make those sacrifices seem too hard and not rewarding enough.

The ironic truth that I've painfully learned over and over again in my own life, however, is that doing what we want all the time doesn't lead to happiness. Selfish, lazy, prideful choices = a short-sighted fix. Sure, it feels good in the moment. How can it not? But then that moment ends and we're left with that same hollow emptiness, the same hole we had before. And try as we may to cover up that hole with more self-serving, self-indulgent, self-gratifying activities, we simply can't do it. That hole serves a purpose.

I remember a conversation I had with a friend many years ago. We were juniors in high school and part of a big group of friends, boys and girls, that used to get together on Saturday nights to hang out. We often gathered at Andy Dodel's house where we could play ping pong or pickleball, watch TV, and eat all their food, and Andy and I had become good friends. One night he and I got talking and he acknoweldged having a good family, good times (sports, skiing, friends, school), a good life; and yet he couldn't help wondering if there was more to life than that. He, the poplular rich kid who could make anyone laugh, went on to ask me why I think we're here in this life. It was the first time someone outside of church had ever asked me that, and it was the first time I realized I knew what I knew. I'd just taken that knowledge for granted since my days in primary, and even though I certainly wasn't living up to my spiritual potential--selfish dummy until I went to college--I knew that a loving Heavenly Father had sent me to this earth and that He wanted me to learn and grow and make my way back to Him.

God's love has become so much more real to me over the years. My darkest moments, the ones where I feel like I'm drowning in loneliness, confusion, hurt, rejection, sorrow, or regret, the ones that drive me to my knees out of desperation and longing, have surprised me by also being the moments when I've felt the most reassurance that He exists, that He does care for me, that He does want to help me, and that dark moments teach me lessons I'd never learn on my own or in a life full of light ones. I always waited too long to ask and get that answer, of course. If only I'd humbled myself and sought an answer earlier, maybe the darkness wouldn't have surrounded me quite so completely. But stubborn pride = my Achilles heel, so I put it off until the near breaking point. Maybe that's what makes His mercy seem so large and undeserved in those moments, the fact that I've procrastinated feeling it for such a long time. It's amazing how months of unhappiness can almost disappear after one powerful minute of feeling Heavenly Father's love for me.

Those minutes are few and far between in my life. I have learned, however, how to access that feeling on a more regular--albeit more subdued--basis. By putting others' needs above my own, by seeking God (through reading His word, living His laws, serving in His church), I feel that gift, that extension of His love--the Holy Ghost--filling that hollow, natural man hole with a peace and happiness that the world has never been able to provide for me. It's not a fleeting, temporary joy, the kind our society teaches you get from a drink, an outfit, a high salary, a movie, a shocking word or idea, a jean size, a smug attitude, a hook-up, a material possession, a powerful job, or five-hundred Facebook friends. It's a lasting joy that changes my very nature and changes how I treat and act toward others. It's closer to the way I picture the Savior living and loving.