Freedom

I've spent a lot time the past few months with the attitude of "Woe is me. My life is really, really hard." I've spent a lot of time throwing myself a pity party that not only is this really, really hard but it's not even my fault, I don't deserve it, and I've been greatly wronged by someone else. And I even have hard evidence that my life is super hard. Divorce is considered to be the second most stressful thing a person can experience in life, right behind death of a spouse.* Some professionals consider divorce even harder than death and I can see why. With divorce, as compared to death of a spouse, you have to deal with the following issues beyond the loss of the spouse and relationship: feelings of rejection, feelings of failure, the knowledge that the person is out there in the world living their life without you by choice, there is no source of higher peace from a belief in a happy reunion in the next life, lifelong complications of dealing with an ex when it comes to children and such, you get no life insurance money, (come on folks it's a joke, lighten up,) etc.

But a truly (and I don't use this next word lightly,) miraculous thing happened last week. I decided to let it go. I decided to stop thinking that I'm not ok, because the truth is I am ok, often better than ok. I decided to stop thinking that what I'm going through is just the most awful thing, because it's not. I decided to stop having a pity party, because the choices that anyone else decides to make don't determine my success and happiness in life. When I did this I can't describe the peace and happiness and freedom I felt. In doing this I gave myself freedom to be me and to be happy.

Then something even greater happened. I found God, and I saw so clearly how he had been blessing me over these last few months. It's like President Eyring talked about in General Conference. God doesn't have a pavilion between him and us. We put up the pavilion. And when with lots of effort and trying and time we are able to remove the pavilion between us and God it is so humbling, and clarifying, and joyful. And this wasn't the begrudging, sure my parents moved here and I found a good job and that's nice kind of feeling. This was being completely bowled over by the greatness of God and the mercy he has shown me despite my failings. I realized that he had blessed me beyond what I even had thought to ask for, beyond what I deserved. He was always there, even when I felt like he wasn't.

This doesn't mean I'm not still sad sometimes or that things aren't hard or that I'll always do the right thing, it's a very sad and hard thing. For instance, I've been surprised at how hard this Thanksgiving weekend alone has been. But it's ok, I'll get through it. And there is a difference between thinking you have a sad and hard life and sometimes being sad and having a hard time. And I know there will be challenges ahead that will continue to cause sadness and make things hard for me. But I don't worry about those too much anymore, knowing I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. I now know that I can get through anything because I know completely that God is Great and he is ALWAYS there with us.

One more point, I don't necessarily believe this is something I should have arrived at sooner than now. It takes time to work through things, you have to allow the natural process of grief and pain and healing to work. But we can either speed or slow that process down and I believe that this experience is a real breakthrough for me in my healing process. Plus lessons hard and long fought for tend to mean more. I also know that it's hard to hold on to break through moments like this, that there will likely be times when I'll slip back to my pity party attitude. But I do hope to not stay there very long. I hope to at least distantly remember what I have experienced and learned. That's why I'm recording it. So if nothing else I can come back and reread it to remind myself of these things.


*Disclaimer: First World Problems. I consider the list of most stressful things in a person's life to be First World biased. I think people living in other places, like Syria right now, or anywhere in Africa at any point in time, have way harder things to deal with in life then I ever will!