Should I stay or should I go?

For the purposes of this piece, I am setting aside questions of abuse and actively damaging relationships that simply must be exited for personal safety. For the sake of this discussion let's limit the topic to relationships that still may feel damaging, painful, draining, empty, or difficult, but are not abusive. 
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Should I stay in this broken marriage?

Should I keep ties with this manipulative parent?

Should I keep attending these tense, cold family gatherings?

Should I embrace this difficult wayward child?

Should I keep going to this church when I often leave more empty and hurting than when I went in?

When the hurting is louder than the call to duty, when obligation or even obedience isn't compelling me strongly enough to counter the compulsion to avoid pain.  What to do?

Dang it, we all just want love in this world—to feel valued, to belong and feel safe.  Why is such a universal aching need so very hard for us all?  Almost everything comes down to this.  We want love--we want to feel love for others, yes, but mainly we want to feel love from others.

Aye, there's the rub.  We'll give them ours when they give us theirs (and in the way we want it given).  We'll give them ours when they earn it. We'll give them ours when they behave as they should.

And they echo the same conditions.  Thus the standoff.

We deem relationships worthwhile because they bring something to us. If not love, security, friendship, joy and peace, sometimes we simply value the relationship more than the alternative: solitude, guilt, fear of sin or judgment.  Sometimes we are noble, and value the lessons we gain in a hard relationship and trust in the personal growth and hope in a positive turn in the relationship.

It still all comes down to: what's in it for us?

In a marriage, people end it because the pain or work outweighed the benefits.  Same with church going, jobs, friendships, and sometimes even children and parents.

In the case of marriage, it can be said "We just fell out of love," like our relationships are dictated by random weather.  Do our relationships just happen to us passively, like a spell has been cast?  But what they mean is, "We determined the relationship no longer held value, it didn't give me anything anymore."

Yet Christ tells us all relationships are inherently valuable.  Not just spouse and child and sibling and parent, but boss and employee and coworker and neighbor and fellow church member and friend—and enemy. Why?  Because He knows our need--that we just want love in this world.  And He knows that love can be found in any relationship.

Learning to feel and give love is the purpose of life.  Family, our first relationship lesson, creates a flawed environment where we practice that. We don't get a say in our parents or siblings (the LDS worldview sometimes implies maybe we did at some point, but I certainly hope a wiser soul did the pairing up), but now these relationships seem thrust upon us.  Family relationships naturally develop because of sheer time spent together and the weight of influence our parents have (for both good and bad).  We may choose in most cases how many children we have, but we don't get to choose who they are.

Marriage, on the other hand, is different from other family relationships in that it involves autonomy and choice, as opposed to biology.

It may be all our family relationships are purposefully designed by God and not an accident of biology, it adds a measure of meaning and purpose to the people we are placed with, parents and siblings. It may be that it could be just as well random because God knows we can learn about love in any environment.  While we can't see now whether our choice was involved as with a marriage, all relationships offer an education in love whether you believe that God is involved or not.

This is because God is love (1 John 4:8), and all love is merely an extension of the love of God.

All our love to each other, and even to Him, is simply moon to His sun, and we are all in various phases at various times.  Just like the moon, we shine brightest when we position ourselves directly to Him.

This is why love can be felt and given in any relationship, because God is always there. But, we can choose to receive or reject that opportunity for education, and of course some relationships make it easier than others.

Let me channel my Born-Again Mormon Buddhist for a moment and say that I believe that what we think is "good" or "bad" in our family relationships is generally not necessarily either, but always comes down to an experience and education in love, or compassion, as the Buddhists might be more apt to say.  Call me crazy (and I am), but my ability to love and empathize with others, for instance, was a direct lesson from an abusive parent who was himself severely abused.  What is good there?  As I've said before, God does not dispel darkness, just as darkness is not pushed out by light, God transfigures darkness into light.  We run around labeling circumstances and experiences and people "bad'" then later often can see, even with our human, fallen eyes, that God has transfigured it into what we would call "good."

God can, and will, and already has—whether we believe it or see it yet or not—transfigured our darkness into light.  

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God 

—Romans 8:28

Whether marriage or sibling or parents, we can choose whether we really want to feel and reflect love in that situation or not.  Of course you can decide you are going to practice this only with selective people, to make it a little easier.  Whether to church, or any relationship we find ourselves in, we can choose to learn how to make it work or choose not to bother.

 That's where that first principle of faith is again involved, believing there would be any growth or value in making that effort.

And maybe that is why this life really is inherently an equal playing field for everyone, no matter the circumstances we are born into.  If the purpose is only to learn to feel and reflect love, we can learn that in both negative (or what we call negative) or positive (or what we called positive) experiences. We can learn it with any type of person in our family, our workplace, or our church. The Savior has gracefully provided for our inevitable failures to do so in the learning process.  This provides a level of safety (our only safety), even in this most treacherous world.

Christ said, "It is finished."  He has done His work already, and we are simply learning to cooperate with Him.  This is what my friend's Bishop means when he says, "Everything is already alright."

It is not saying that everything goes exactly as God would have it.  Of course, that would be a perfect world, and how could He wish upon us such pain and suffering when He couldn't even allow us to fall in the first place without our active consent?

It is saying He can work with anything, and he can save us in any circumstance, and no darkness is out of his reach.  He is that big.

Neither is it saying that nothing we do matters. We can choose to prolong our pain (and that of others) by resisting His love and staying on the dark side of our moon.

It is simply saying that we can choose to learn to love one another, or we can choose not to, in every moment and every situation.

It is saying that Christ has already paid the price for all of us us not loving one another.  He did this so that when we do choose not to love, later we are free to choose again—to try again.

Christ's immense patience and gentleness works with us in our messy free will.  He can even make our dark choices to not love now end up later increasing our capacity to love when we turn again and try. He is that big.

As we see the consequences of our choices in ourselves, our families, churches, our nations, not to love, it helps us understand the importance of that love all the more.

That's the need for the fall, the ugly beauty of this very painful fall: to see what lack of love does to us and to others, and to the world, and to experience the healing power of love. God is the realist, who, knowing how this would all go, provided a Savior to swallow up all of that loveless pain in His love, ever giving us another chance to learn to love again.  Always shining His Son to our moon.

If you boil it down, giving and receiving love is the only source of true joy and value and meaning in our lives We don't always call it love--we can call it feeling valued, belonging, having purpose or a connection.   But in the end it is a sense of being loved.  And there are many loving relationships that don't see God as the source of love, but thus it is regardless.  I know many happy, loving, generous souls that aren't necessarily spiritual or religious and say they have no interest in obeying God, yet here they are loving one another (exchanging God, as God=Love) just as their Savior asked.  Others may warm a pew every Sunday yet have cold hearts.

This parable in Matthew 21 on this point has come to mean a lot to me:

 28 ¶But what think ye? A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go ^awork to day in my vineyard. 29 He answered and said, ^aI will not: but afterward he repented, and went.
 30 And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir: and ^awent ^bnot.
 31 Whether of them twain did the will of his father? They say unto him, The first. Jesus saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you.

This is why the hard phrase "Wickedness never was happiness," (Alma 41:10) really does apply. Selfishness or fleeting and immediate pleasure never brings lasting happiness.  The moon cannot brighten itself.  The Sun still shines—yet we sit alone in darkness at noonday.

Job 5:14

They meet with darkness in the daytime, and grope in the noonday as in the night. 

Deuteronomy 28:29

And thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways: and thou shalt be only oppressed and spoiled evermore, and no man shall save thee. 

Yes, no man can save any of us.  Cursed is he that puts his trust in the arm of the flesh (his own, or others).

2 Nephi 4:34

O Lord, I have trusted in thee, and I will trust in thee forever. I will not put my trust in the arm of flesh; for I know that cursed is he that putteth his trust in the arm of flesh. Yea, cursed is he that putteth histrust in man or maketh flesh his arm. 

We look to each other--other fallen mortals--to fill our need for love, and we ultimately are left empty.  We cannot look to other flesh to fill our aching heart.  Even the nicest of them.

Yet, facing the Sun, feeling love (God) in us and through us, and then reflecting it back to one another, relationships brighten—it brings joy.  Thus the true definition of repentance: turning from self and sin to Savior.

Isaiah 58:10

And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday: 

So we can say to ourselves, I'm not feeling any value/love/joy from this environment — this family, this neighborhood, this church, this job. And we can choose whether we want to be a part of it or not. God gracefully allows us to take the time we need to figure this out. He knows we'll need time, that's why he placed us here in time.

We can even isolate ourselves completely, disassociate from these neighbors, this church, this family, this marriage, because we cannot feel that love there.  It is true that some places are easier to feel loved and others, some lessons are harder than others.  It is true that when we are empty and feel no connection to the love of God, we are more inclined to turn away from harder relationships where the love is not free-flowing, because our own moon is new and we feel dark and cold.  We then increasingly see our relationships as empty, because we are empty.

But the Son still is ever radiant and always patient.  He knows that love can be felt anywhere and He is always ready to make us shine full again.

And even if only one member of a marriage or family or workplace or congregation turns to face the Sun, their light is reflected to the other members. When you face Him, those facing you, even those not currently facing the Son themselves, will feel His love, too.

This is why the love of God and man stands at the head of all the law and all the prophets.  When we feel the love of God, it flows into all of our relationships, actions, it sparks purity and goodness at every level.

But the measure of the first (love of God) dictates the measure of the second (love of man).  That is why we cannot look to man first to put love into our relationships.

So again the question: "Should I stay or should I go?"

The answer: "Whether here or somewhere else, the lesson will be the same."

CAPAX DEI (Come Join With Us Part VI)

[This is part VI of the Come Join With Us Series that starts here]

There is a phrase used by early Christian mystics: “CAPAX DEI”—it means creating capacity for God.  The premise for this is that all our religiosity and spiritual striving—in the Mormon world, that long list of ACTIONS—is simply the act of creating a space for God—to enter in, change us, and make us whole and one with Him. 

These early Christians used the analogy of the sailboat, that in our religious practice we set our sails, essentially tuning them to the wind of the Divine.  But it is God that fills them and moves us.  Without Him, all the sail-setting will come to naught and we won’t move an inch. 

We are all called upon to open up ourselves for God and allow Him to work in us.  As Ezra Taft Benson said, he makes more of us than we can make of ourselves.  We must cooperate with Him, we must clear out our baggage and get out of the way.  Prepare ye the way of the Lord into your heart.

We are wise to search ourselves to discover what other things are filling the places that God is ready fill.

Consider the lamp of the ten virgins—these are Church members—what are the lamps? Testimonies, knowledge, actions, but they represent outward performances.  Yet half of them neglect to notice there is no oil in them?

LAMP +      ?      = LIGHT

Do we spend our time polishing our empty lamp, our religiousness—a tidy, clean vessel for the world to see?  Could it be that we imagine that somehow having the vessel of ACTION is sufficient, and we need no light now, here, in this dark world, we will simply be judged at the end on how nicely we cared for our lamp? What comfort is treasuring an empty lamp? Why not allow God to fill us and have light now?

It’s human tendency to mistake the symbol for the thing itself.  It’s like eating a picture of a pineapple in lieu of the fruit itself, or holding a map instead of going to the actual place. 

But the best analogy for this Capax Dei vessel is simply our heart—the scriptures say so much about this.  The beautiful empty lamp is our lips that draw near while the heart wanders far from Him.

So again, what is in my vessel that takes room that could be filled with God—filled with his Spirit? 

I’ll tell you—Pain.  I hold on to my pain like a prized ribbon (or a germy teddy bear)—same with my sorrow, anger, self-pity, disappointment, regret.  I can let go of them and let God fill those aching places, but I can’t will my clenched fists to let my noble story of suffering go.

A long time ago I asked God to make me His.  Repeatedly this prayer has been answered by a broken heart.  I have always wondered why my loving Savior asks this of us.  I’m starting to see that this is simply part of the work of Capax Dei: as I have requested, He is simply breaking up my will to make space for His. 

A beautiful thing here is that His will for any of us can be carried out perfectly in any circumstance imaginable, in any place in the world, and at any time, with any person—it simply requires us to allow ourselves to be filled by him.  To look for His light.  (Remember--the eye is the light of the body, look and live.)

So, what does all of this have to do with going to Church?  

I went back and analyzed the list of Uchtdorf’s promised blessings for those who “Join With Us.”  I sorted them into like categories and saw they fell neatly into four areas:

·         DIVINE COMFORT & HEALING

·         REDEMPTION

·         KNOWLEDGE

·         DISCIPLESHIP

I then saw that these four areas fell neatly into a sort of yin and yang of God/Man, Spirit/Body, Oil/Lamp.  In the blessings he lists, there is a clear division between things we can ACT on and do for ourselves (works/external actions) and things God must do for us (sanctification/saving/grace), back to my aunt’s original comment of finding out what was God’s job and what was my job.  Of course we will feel empty if we have one without the other, yet a large portion we cannot earn or force or create for ourselves.  If we want to be independent on this, we will never be finished.

Our ACTIONS, our works, are where we simply create a space for Him to come in.  Capax Dei.  We then simply look, ask, trust and believe that he will do the rest—we allow him to do His work in us. 

Just as we personally can mistakenly look to an empty lamp for light, perhaps I have been looking for the outward commitments of my Church observance to deliver the healing, and was sorrowing that I wasn’t finding them. 

The Church can symbolize the healing, ritualize the healing in ordinance, teach us about the healing, persuade us toward the healing—but only Christ can do the healing. 

As Uchtdorf said, this is a church with a Divine mission carried out by a group of flawed mortal humans.  It’s very apt that people suggest you “stay in the boat” when testimonies waver—as the Church is just that—a vessel being created to complete a destiny.

The Church is Capax Dei—it is setting the sails for Christ to fill and carry us to the finish of His work here—to prepare the earth and build Zion for Christ to enter.     

But the capacity of the Church to be filled with God begins with the hearts of the members.

“It is deeply damaging to the church and its members to suppose that we can transform the world if we are unwilling to be transformed personally.”  (Marjorie Thompson)

Capax Dei—making a place for God to enter—it’s our hearts, our homes, our meetings, any place or group we inhabit, but especially our Church as a whole.   Capax without Dei is emptiness.  Everything is an opportunity to open our eyes and hearts to the direction of Divine wind, to see the gifts, to trust that He will fill us. 

“What could happen if an entire congregation or community became a faithful doorway into God’s living presence?”  (Marjorie Thompson)

Think on that.  We have an exciting road before us as a Church. I hope to get out of my pity party and join with you for it.

So the variable in this divine algebra—solve for X: the wind in the sails, the oil in the lamp, the only thing our hearts are really designed to hold, the essential extra ingredient required to fill the emptiness and attain the promised blessings: THE LOVE OF GOD.

 1 NEPHI 11

21 And the angel said unto me: Behold the ^aLamb of God, yea, even the ^bSon of the Eternal ^cFather! Knowest thou the meaning of the ^dtree which thy father saw?

 22 And I answered him, saying: Yea, it is the ^alove of God, which ^bsheddeth itself abroad in the hearts of the children of men; wherefore, it is the ^cmost desirable above all things.

 23 And he spake unto me, saying: Yea, and the most ^ajoyous to the soul.

There's that joy again.

Those first two great commandments that everything hangs upon and boils down to—receiving and reflecting the Love of God—that is what will save us, our Church and this world.  It is what has saved me and is saving me.

Because I have felt that love I see now how Jesus Christ is mighty to save—He has felt everything I ever have felt or will feel.  He understands me, and understands you, with a perfect and patient empathy.  He is your personal and intimate advocate, He is never your accuser.  He has already paid all of your debts from your birth to your death.  I have felt His saving power and witness that he can transfigure pain and suffering and sin and brokenness and darkness, even all of it in this whole crazy world, into light.

And even better, He can do it now.  Not just in the end, but every day.  We do not have to wait until this life is over or put in a certain number of actions or hours to feel the cleansing and transcendent power of the Love of God.  It is right here, right now, and ready to be felt at any moment if we simply look for the light.  

A Savior doesn’t watch you drown here only to save you in heaven after death.  Our beloved, dear Savior can and will save us—you—HERE.  

NOW.  

Simply look to Him—and live.   

Not sure how?  Here's the practice I started with that helped me to start to see God's hand in my life. 

Post by Valerie Wise Christensen.

PART I
PART II: THE MISSING FACTOR
PART III: THE DARKNESS
PART IV: THE LIGHT
PART V: THE WIND & THE WAVES
PART VI: CAPAX DEI 

THE WIND AND THE WAVES (Come Join With Us Part V)

[This is part VI of the Come Join With Us Series that starts here]

I joke that I am a Born Again Mormon. It is true that I have felt a direct connection to Jesus Christ that has become more tangible and real than any other religious or spiritual experience.  I wondered if it could last.  Dark Utah winters are hard on me, and all the unresolved life baggage isn’t magically carried away by some cosmic bellhop.

I’ve had a very hard winter and challenges continue.  But I’m happy to report that the change—the deep sense of God’s love for me, an intense love for Jesus Christ, and a lack of fear—it has stayed with me.  The sorrow is back, and I’m doing difficult work with my counselor to process past issues, I still wrestle with theological questions, but I do it in the safe arms of a loving God.  There is something changed in me, a solid foundation and sense of intimacy with the Divine.  I feel forgiven, and I feel Him continually on hand, ready to forgive again whenever necessary as I stumble along my path.

We all live in a very challenging time—great storms, wind and waves rage about us.  It is very hard here and many of us have to deal with painful things we never would have expected.  We don’t have a lot of control in many aspects of our lives.  Many of us are empty, sorrowing and aching on a soul-deep level.  We are strangers in a strange land, a fallen people in a fallen world.  Further, that blessing and curse of free will provides us little safety—we are surrounded with 8 billion people who are free to do whatever they want to each other all the day long.  It’s a recipe for global mayhem, scriptural prophecies are no comfort at all, and you can see why so many were scared to take the risk to even come here in the first place. 

But the promise was that Christ was big enough to swallow it all and we would be able to come home with all the education and growth of this experience but be cleansed from the stain and pain of this fallen world. We could go into the pit and find our pearl and purpose, and were promised a Savior to get us out, clean us off, and it would all work out for the best.  We were to keep our eyes fixated on him.

After my “saving” moment, as I said, I didn’t feel afraid anymore, even if I did feel sorrow.  I understood I had to keep my eyes off the wind and waves and on my Savior, looking to light instead of darkness, and only then could I take on this task of living—a task that feels as impossible as walking on water some days. 

In my seeking for light, I felt a instinctive desire to praise Him and thank Him for what he’d done for me.  When Sunday would come, I would go to Church hungry for Christ, sometimes starving, ready to worship the God that makes blind see.

“And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins” (2 Nephi 25:23, 26).

Our Hymns are a beautiful reflection of this—full of praise and worship and our dependence on God.  (Remember this tip when you don't know what to do and feel lost--"It is as simple as 123."  As in Hymn 123).

Yet in our lessons and conversations with each other, too often we let our eyes wander from the light to the darkness.  We let the adversary sneak in, sow fear and doubt, and call our attention to the wind and the waves.  We move from the childlike dependence Christ asks to prideful independence and act like it really is all on us.  And as a result, sometimes our Church meetings can start feeling less like worship and more like self-help and pep talks about working harder to tread these waters. For someone hurting and needing comfort, there is greater balm in finding and clinging to the lifesaver that is Christ. 

I’ve seen the disastrous fruits of my self-help.  The principle of self-sufficiency was never intended to extend itself to Christ himself. Christ is both the author and finisher of our faith, who even grants us life and breath from moment to moment, King Benjamin says.  We rely on him for everything whether we know it or not—yet too often His name is only mentioned to conclude talks and prayers.  

Now we are told that we are to preach nothing but repentance to this generation, which can be interpreted to mean we must spend all our time berating our weakness.  But what is repentance?  It’s a turning away from sin and self toward Savior, accepting his cleansing Grace. If we want to be good at something, we watch the master, we learn from the best.  Said another way, when we’re bowling, we don’t watch our hand, we watch the pin we are aiming for and allow that image to adjust our physical actions.   

But when I put my focus on the false idol of my human weakness—it destabilizes the peace I had felt as I focused on the true God and His love.  Throughout last fall and winter, too often I came home from meetings sinking in my life’s water, hungry and aching, fixated again on my lack instead of my God’s plenty, on my darkness over His light.  I find myself wondering again if maybe even in my exhaustion I really do need to just find a way work harder to earn grace.  My eyes leave His, I’m back on my own in the storm. 

Then that particularly painful day the first Sunday of the year hit and sent me reeling. My perception and pain was causing Church to become a traumatic experience.  I went home and told myself I couldn’t go back, thus the seven weeks.  This inactivity wasn’t final or declarative, but more slippery and cowardly—a few weekends away here and there, a headache, a work deadline, etc.  My sweet visiting teacher and a few friends in the know watched petrified as what everyone (including myself) thought was a rock-solid valiant churchgoer crumbled to dust in a moment.

With over two months of missing church, you may find yourself called into the Bishop. 

The first meeting was a little awkward.  We have a wonderful, kind Bishop who is sincerely loving and concerned.  He encouraged me to consider that this difficulty was more related to my perception rather than what was happening in the meetings themselves. I’m the first to admit my perceptions are inaccurate, and I clearly have a lot of baggage going in.  But were the meetings secretly full of worship, praise and comfort in Christ and I just am not noticing it?  Maybe in my exhausted state I just can’t see it through all the pioneer fortitude being declared.  

Originally he was worried maybe I was being a perfectionist and letting Satan make me feel down on myself.  But I fundamentally don’t believe in perfection without Christ, and have no interest in trying to do that on my own and see no scriptural foundation that He expects me to be perfect without Him. 

I know it’s mercifully not all up to me.  I’m just raw and exhausted and need the comfort in Christ that I know is there, and the continual cry of self-improvement is overwhelming and discouraging. It took a couple of tries but eventually there was good understanding with the Bishop and we had a good talk.  In the end, I want to look at Christ’s light and rejoice in it, but it seems worship is always focused on my own fallenness. That's not worship at all.

The Savior says “I’ve got you. Fear not. Have faith. Just look to me in every thought.  Keep your eye single to my glory.” Christ’s plan for perfection was simply that despite the inevitable mistakes we would make in this world, if we looked to Him, he would make us whole—perfect—through Him. 

Satan says, “You’re on your own.  Look at everything you are doing to mess this up.  You know, if anything goes wrong down there, it’s on YOU.  Just try harder with that puny arm of the flesh.  Just go a little faster than you have strength. Oh no, this will NEVER work out. Your life plan is completely derailed.”  Count on him to be the eternal Alarmist.  Satan is the real perfectionist—wasn’t it he who wanted to make sure every detail was controlled and no mistakes were allowed? 

But still we listen to him. 

Around this time, I wondered out loud to my friend, “Couldn’t we spend a little more time rejoicing in Christ, praising him for this 99.99% of our salvation rather than myopically focusing on our own pathetic fraction?”

My friend said, “Well it makes sense that we’d spend most of our time at Church talking about what we should do.  Christ has done His part, and that is assumed.  All we can do is focus on ourselves and what we can do.” 

And I totally agree with this, as long as we can agree that all we can do is look to Christ.  Without that caviat, I don't agree at all.  Christ says to look unto Him in every thought, and that we are completely powerless to do anything without him.

Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever.(Alma 26:12). 

I have spent enough time worshiping the false idol of my weaknesses and relying on my own arm of flesh to purge them.  I have seen God change in moments errors I futilely strived against for years simply because I finally looked to God’s power instead of my weakness.  I’m done with self-help, but I will look and live.

“It should be clear that Christian spirituality begins with God, depends on God, and ends in God.  We owe our capacity to be spiritual to the grace of One who creates us free to share our love.”— Marjorie Thompson

When I’m hurting, I am comforted when I glory in the strength and power of my God.  Yet some of my friends will look at me skeptically and worry that such talk of grace puts us at risk of complacency.

Do we really believe that resting in Christ’s grace and love makes us complacent and lazy?  For me, it’s just the opposite.  With my eye on Him, I am filled with His love, I am happier and energized and hopeful and end up doing more, but more efficiently.  I even physically feel better. I’m led by the Spirit in the moment instead of by tasks and checklists which can’t fortell the unseen demands of the day.  When I feel His love, I’m beautifully compelled to share His love—the ACTIONS get easier.  His burden really is lighter than the ones we place on ourselves.

When my eye isn't on him, I'm too hopeless to move.

We don’t need to work harder to earn His love and grace, we need to work harder to FEEL and REFLECT his love and grace. We are so afraid of being complacent that we avoid the word “grace” as if it isn’t the complete fuel on which we run.  

 “The spiritual life is not a task of self-reformation…Spiritual growth is essentially a work of divine grace with which we are called to cooperate.  Free and active cooperation is our share of the labor….All is grace, yet all depends on our willingness to work freely with grace.”  (Thompson again.)

Our work is to allow God to reform us.  It is cooperating with him.   It is Capax Dei.

NEXT: PART VI: CAPAX DEI 

Post by Valerie Wise Christensen.
PART I
PART II: THE MISSING FACTOR
PART III: THE DARKNESS
PART IV: THE LIGHT
PART V: THE WIND & THE WAVES

One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

Soul Feast: An Invitation to the Christian Spiritual Life

THE LIGHT (Come Join With Us Part IV)

[This is part IV of the Come Join With Us Series that starts here]

The light started to come in September with the advice of a sweet Aunt who told me I was trying to do God’s job for Him and I needed to figure out what was His job and what was mine.  She suggested I start being still, and simply notice God’s little gifts from day to day and write them down.  She called it “making a little lane change” in how I was thinking about things.  It sounded trite and simplistic, but as I had already thrown in the towel and come to terms with a much lower glory on earth and in heaven, what could it hurt?

In just a few short weeks of this practice, naming the gifts, I started to see Him more and more, and then everywhere.  When I talked to my visiting teacher about this, she recommended a book called 1,000 Gifts (a dare to live fully right where you are), where this practice of naming God’s gifts actively led the author to a deep and personal relationship with Christ.  As I practiced this little hunting game of naming gifts, my experiences began to mirror the author’s. As I looked, I began to see. 

Over the weeks I started to feel something I can only call Joy. I can honestly say I had never felt that feeling before. Fleeting happiness yes, but not Joy.  I felt like I was seeing things that I had never seen before, even though they had always been there, I could see that life was good, and that to some extent I had wasted so much of my life in darkness and despair, focusing only on all of the places that I and the world were falling short, focusing on the real and painful darkness, but not allowing myself to see the transcendent Joy that was all around me and just there for the seeing.

Yes, there is darkness, and the darkness is not pushed out or beaten by light, it is simply transfigured into light.  I started to see how even my own dark experiences in life have in many cases already been transfigured by Christ into light.

This effort all culminated one day in the kitchen when I was making dinner and listening to the Tab.  The song "I believe in Christ" came on, and I walked over to turn it down, because that particular version is very bombastic and a little annoying, but as I went to do so, I was stopped in my tracks as with a hard stomach punch, and became overwhelmed by an enormously powerful physical experience where I felt completely filled by this feeling of Christ's love for me—and the whole universe—and the love was so huge that I couldn't bear it and physically had to lean on the counter to stay standing.  I could hardly breathe.

I always wondered how I could build a relationship with Christ since we always prayed to the Father, but somehow in this moment there came this enormous connection to Christ directly—just an instant awareness and connection to Him and what He did for me—it was an all-encompassing comfort.

I felt this distinct impression to notice that this experience did not happen in the temple or the chapel or on the mountaintop, or even in my anxious striving and seeking (in fact I had been going to the temple daily most of the past summer just to make it through the day), but in my kitchen as I was wrist-deep in flour just listening to music--in my day to day, mundane life, He was showing me he could save me in my daily walk, even while my children walked quickly through the kitchen, giving me odd looks as I cried like a baby—awash in His love. 

A Yale theologian and favorite writer of mine, Marjorie J. Thompson, said, “Christ provides realistic hope for a realistic life.”  (I highly recommend her book Soul Feast)

I felt literally saved in this moment. I felt so loved, so at peace with where I was on my journey, that I was in God’s hands, and He  had me, I did not be need to be afraid anymore.  

I tried to recover myself and get back to dinner, but then the song, "I am Called By His Name," came on and I felt this intense burning in my heart—a sense of being literally branded by Christ, made His, becoming called by His Name as the song played.  It was searing joy.

Dinner was late. 

But it’s okay, because now I knew how God felt about me—I can understand those who say they are saved, because this love saved me from being lost.  I was found.  He knew where and who I was, and it wasn’t just ideas or symbols or words, it was inside me.  The song Amazing Grace meant something entirely new.

I was so peaceful and happy and grateful for quite a long time, I joked to my husband that I might have a brain tumor or something—perhaps you’re thinking the same thing, or maybe that I’m bi-polar with all this happy/sad.  Nope--just a boring depressed person saved by Jesus.

All of the fear went away, even the fear about all those close to me leaving the church, all my religious anxiety, wondering what eternity looks like—I just trusted.  If God loves me like that, I just need to keep feeling and reflecting that love and everything would be okay.  In fact, like my friend’s bishop always tells her, “Everything is already okay.”  Did we think Christ wasn’t serious when he said not to fear?  Did he mean don’t fear unless something really scary comes up?  Don’t fear unless a loved one wanders?  No, he says, look at me and don’t fear.  When Moses fears, he looks into the mouth of hell.  Fear breeds fear.

The result of this experience was the loss of fear, because I knew in whom I had trusted.

I no longer felt like my own weakness or mistakes now or in the future could derail my great cosmic plan somewhere.  Christ was what He said He was.  He did not leave us comfortless.  I can look to Him, and He is big enough to save me, and all of us, and He loves me, and all of us, enough to actually do it, whether we see it, or believe it, or not.  He has done the work, and it is finished.  Our work is to look and live.

NEXT: PART V: THE WIND & THE WAVES

Post by Valerie Wise Christensen.

PART I
PART II: THE MISSING FACTOR
PART III: THE DARKNESS
PART IV: THE LIGHT
PART VI: CAPAX DEI

One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

Soul Feast: An Invitation to the Christian Spiritual Life

THE DARKNESS (Come Join With Us Part III)

[This is part III of the Come Join With Us Series that starts here]

So, I was already exhausted when a bomb fell in my personal life last February and by August I was my darkest place.  

I’m sure your mind is running with all the possible sordid details, but my facts are likely the same for most of you.  

Life gets exhausting. 

Disappointments, loss, and failures pile up, some bigger than others, and some simply are the last straw.  

The arm of the flesh fails us—both our own, and others’.  

Marriage is hard, children are hard—being a fallen human being is hard. 

Your body falls apart, everything makes you tired. 

The suffering of family and friends and even of strangers is immense and overwhelming.

The weight of childhood baggage gets heavy.  

You hit 40, and your friends and family start losing their faith, children, jobs, marriages, hope, and what you thought life was going to be is firmly replaced by what it is.  

I watched my 93 year old grandma die after 12 years of corrosive dementia and (having written her practical, yet often sad biography).  I’m left with the sense, “Is that all there is?” 

I wondered if I really wanted eternal glory, eternal progression, even eternal family. I coveted a bit the born-again heaven where I could just sing praise all day.  

But really, I just wanted to be alone, and I wanted to nap.

So yes, a raging midlife crisis. 

And yes, I’ll admit there is a big blanket of chronic lifelong depression laid over all this, but as my sweet, equally lifelong depressed husband always says, “It’s not depression, it’s seeing things clearly.” 

(So you can imagine how rosy things are around our house.)

So yes, the dark is there to see.  But there is also light, which I started to see in September.

NEXT: PART IV: THE LIGHT

Post by Valerie Wise Christensen.

PART I
PART II: THE MISSING FACTOR
PART III: THE DARKNESS
PART V: THE WIND & THE WAVES
PART VI: CAPAX DEI

One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

Soul Feast: An Invitation to the Christian Spiritual Life