Six months
This weekend is "General Conference" at church. Instead of regular Sunday services, we are able to watch via satellite, talks from the leaders of the Church (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints). Each October and April, for one weekend from 11 - 1 and 3 - 5 on Saturday and Sunday, we are blessed to hear about 25 different talks on various gospel topics, focusing on Christ as well as enjoy musical numbers from choirs and, of course, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
So many answers can come during Conference. We are always encouraged to prayerfully take questions we have in our lives to the Lord and then go and listen to Conference with an open heart and mind. There are times when it is like they say one sentence and you feel like it was said directly to you. Now, this happens in regular Sunday services from time to time as well, yet Conference is like that "perfect opportunity" to just listen and feel.
I realized that it was just last Conference, six months ago, that I sat watching with a heavy heart. With the things that had transpired in my life in the previous four months, I knew in mind that the best thing I could do for myself to get healthy was to ask to be released as Relief Society (the women's organization) President. Knowing it in my mind was one thing, actually acting on it was another. I had been contemplating it for a few weeks already, weighing it out in my mind and heart. I was doing a pros/cons exercise without even knowing what that was! As I have written previously, it was a deep struggle, as I didn't accept the calling (voluntary service in the church) to ask to be released.
When Conference rolled around in October, I decided to honestly put the "take a question" to the test. I am a believer that when it comes to trying to get answers, God prefers us to make a choice then take that choice to Him, over just asking what to do. Based on my thinking and rationalizing and all, my decision was that I would asked to be released. In prayer I shared my decision and how I came to it with God, and asked Him that if this was not the right choice, please let there be something I hear in Conference tell me otherwise. I knew that by Sunday evening, I would know with a surety what to do or not to do.
I listened to every word spoken because I knew with my luck, my answer would be in some obscure sentence when I was momentarily daydreaming. As I listened, I was not getting a "this is not the right choice" answer. If anything, the things I kept hearing, especially when Elder Holland spoke about mental and emotional challenges, only supported the choice I made. Sunday evening, at 5:01 pm, I had my answer. My heart was not so heavy anymore with making the choice, it was now humble, yet broken, knowing the choice I was about to act on.
It has been six months. I have come a heck of a long way in six months. I often question how I am doing - if I really am getting healthier, am I learning all I can be learning, am I making the right choices, am I just doing better than I was, etc. I have gotten better about not asking for validation with that until I first make a conclusion myself.
Seems that sometimes living day to day can cause tunnel vision that blinds you from realizing just how far you really have come along. Some days I get up and get going without thought and forget that it was not that long ago that the very task of getting out of bed was so overwhelming that I would bargain with God to just let me not do it. I sit out on my steps, taking time to just feel the warmth of the sun, not realizing just how hard the simple task of solely going outside once was.
This past week, I stepped up in a meeting that, for almost a year, I have been able to "hide out in the back" and took control of it. Another had volunteered to moderate the meeting, which was fine as they had the majority of the items on the agenda. Once the meeting started, they decided they didn't want to do it and there was that momentary, uncomfortable silence. Knowing the importance of this meeting, I perked up, took control the agenda, moderated it, called for action items, and in the end, kind of saved the day. The thing with this was not me moderating a meeting, as I have done that for many years. It is the fact that I had quit doing it a while ago because I had lost faith in my ability to do so. I had convinced myself somewhere along the way that I didn't have what it took anymore and I had become quiet. I felt that there were others with much more knowledge and ability than myself, therefore it would be best to just be a quiet participant. In a few brief minutes, I realized that even though on the inside I nervous, I still had it. I could do it, and I could still do it well.
It is possible that I may have finally crossed over from surviving to living. Having the reference point of Conference has allowed me an "ah-ha" moment that, at the end of the day, has made me smile a little more. Now, just as the poem says, I have plenty of miles to go before I sleep, although, who knew I would make it this far - I sure didn't. Then again, six months ago, I was not even sure what path I was on.
What's next? When I asked to be released, I asked that I not be offered another calling until I finished class. I didn't know what was to lie ahead of me and I knew that I had to, even as hard as it would be, focus my energy on myself. I had also made the same request in prayer to God as callings in the Church come via inspiration and I needed Him to please not to inspire anyone that they needed my help for a while.
In prayers of thankfulness for the time, as I have watched the end of class come closer, I have felt in my heart that it is time to get "back to work" and ask God where I was needed. I have just been a little anxious as to what God might have in store for me next - it is hard not to look back and remember that things didn't turn out the greatest the last time. What I have to remember is that is only one experience out of so many and it is now, a very different time. I am healthy and strong and have a lot of people to be thankful for taking time to help me get here.
A few years back, the Church started working on and developing an Addiction and Recovery program. It has since been made available worldwide. Based on the 12-steps of AA, it incorporates Gospel Principles in a program to foster healing and recovery. I have dear friends who have been group facilitators for meetings in Champaign as well as in Mattoon. Soon after the first of this year, it was discussed to start up a group in Danville. There was a definite need yet some logistics that would have to be worked out. Because the program is ran by LDS Social Services (as compared to a program ran by the local congregations) and the importance of confidentiality, there had to be a bigger plan than just "let's do this." Things were finally put in place that this wonderful resource would be available starting this month.
I've shared my crazy 30-minute attendance at church last week and how I went because I felt I needed to try and go. Sometime when we "feel" we need to do something, there is more to it. Right before services started, I was approached by the wife of a couple that have been facilitators in the program since it was developed in Champaign. They recently had been asked to take a position with the program that was more of a supervisory position. Their responsibility would be more of setting meeting times and places and contacting individuals to attend rather than the actual facilitation of the group meetings.
Very aware of my struggles, she expressed that they had been prayerfully searching for someone to be the facilitator of the Danville meeting. Each name they came up with and took to the Lord, they felt was not the right person. She shared while being in some training over the weekend my name came to her mind followed by a feeling of confirmation that she should approach me. She wanted to talk to me about it before submitting my name to see if it would be something I was interested in as well as make sure I would be ok emotionally with it. They have watched me fight to get healthy and the last thing they would ever want to do is put me in a position where I might go backwards. Listening to her words and listening to my heart, I just looked at her and said, "If this is what the Lord wants me to do, then I will do it." Late Wednesday night I got a call "officially" offering the opportunity to me. I accepted.
Now, I did not just go "sure, ok" and that was it. People know me better than that. For many weeks, when we were not fighting with each other, God and I have had a lot of talks about what was to be next for me. I would express my desire to help others, yet I was not sure what that meant. Sure, I would be happy to be a teacher again or something like that, yet I had a lot to offer and hoped that whatever I would be asked to do, I could make a difference. On top of that, as I have tried to find peace with a lot of my struggles, I have always gone back to the idea of, if my struggles will help another, then I can accept them. It has been my struggle to find peace with things in my life if there has been no reason behind them. I wasn't even up for accepting that I could be going through something simply for me. Struggling for the benefit of myself was unacceptable. Struggling to later help another, totally acceptable. So when the opportunity was presented to me, of course I knew it was the right thing. Then I just tried not to pass out for the rest of that 30 minutes. Isn't it amazing how Heavenly Father works sometimes. He helped get me to church that morning for a reason. I would come home and when I woke up later, would write an email to my favorite elder on how excited I was to be able to do it. I have thanked God many times for the opportunity in the past week.
Being a facilitator doesn't bother me too much. I can lead, teach, direct - all those "logistical" type things. I have several years of Al-Anon behind me which gives me familiarity in the 12-step environment. I have a little anxiety at the emotional level. It was an emotional situation that was the tipping point this past summer. It is an understandable fear. Then I remember, I have resources now. I have coping tools I didn't have before, I have a renewed faith in myself, and I have people that God has put in my path to help me when I don't understand. I am only alone in this if I make the choice to be.
I think this all is what has sparked the whole reflecting state of mind I have been in this week and my attempts to finally let go of un-winnable battles. I think it is what has stirred up trying to make amends with that last dark piece of my past. It also has made me finally realize that I have to get the eating issues under control. It has been the key that has made me realize the very importance of taking time for myself. I kind of get to have my cake and eat it too through this - I get to help others, yet as I work the program, it will only help me as well.
What a busy six months it has been. I can't wait to see what transpires in the next six.
I realized that it was just last Conference, six months ago, that I sat watching with a heavy heart. With the things that had transpired in my life in the previous four months, I knew in mind that the best thing I could do for myself to get healthy was to ask to be released as Relief Society (the women's organization) President. Knowing it in my mind was one thing, actually acting on it was another. I had been contemplating it for a few weeks already, weighing it out in my mind and heart. I was doing a pros/cons exercise without even knowing what that was! As I have written previously, it was a deep struggle, as I didn't accept the calling (voluntary service in the church) to ask to be released.
When Conference rolled around in October, I decided to honestly put the "take a question" to the test. I am a believer that when it comes to trying to get answers, God prefers us to make a choice then take that choice to Him, over just asking what to do. Based on my thinking and rationalizing and all, my decision was that I would asked to be released. In prayer I shared my decision and how I came to it with God, and asked Him that if this was not the right choice, please let there be something I hear in Conference tell me otherwise. I knew that by Sunday evening, I would know with a surety what to do or not to do.
It has been six months. I have come a heck of a long way in six months. I often question how I am doing - if I really am getting healthier, am I learning all I can be learning, am I making the right choices, am I just doing better than I was, etc. I have gotten better about not asking for validation with that until I first make a conclusion myself.
Seems that sometimes living day to day can cause tunnel vision that blinds you from realizing just how far you really have come along. Some days I get up and get going without thought and forget that it was not that long ago that the very task of getting out of bed was so overwhelming that I would bargain with God to just let me not do it. I sit out on my steps, taking time to just feel the warmth of the sun, not realizing just how hard the simple task of solely going outside once was.
This past week, I stepped up in a meeting that, for almost a year, I have been able to "hide out in the back" and took control of it. Another had volunteered to moderate the meeting, which was fine as they had the majority of the items on the agenda. Once the meeting started, they decided they didn't want to do it and there was that momentary, uncomfortable silence. Knowing the importance of this meeting, I perked up, took control the agenda, moderated it, called for action items, and in the end, kind of saved the day. The thing with this was not me moderating a meeting, as I have done that for many years. It is the fact that I had quit doing it a while ago because I had lost faith in my ability to do so. I had convinced myself somewhere along the way that I didn't have what it took anymore and I had become quiet. I felt that there were others with much more knowledge and ability than myself, therefore it would be best to just be a quiet participant. In a few brief minutes, I realized that even though on the inside I nervous, I still had it. I could do it, and I could still do it well.
It is possible that I may have finally crossed over from surviving to living. Having the reference point of Conference has allowed me an "ah-ha" moment that, at the end of the day, has made me smile a little more. Now, just as the poem says, I have plenty of miles to go before I sleep, although, who knew I would make it this far - I sure didn't. Then again, six months ago, I was not even sure what path I was on.
In prayers of thankfulness for the time, as I have watched the end of class come closer, I have felt in my heart that it is time to get "back to work" and ask God where I was needed. I have just been a little anxious as to what God might have in store for me next - it is hard not to look back and remember that things didn't turn out the greatest the last time. What I have to remember is that is only one experience out of so many and it is now, a very different time. I am healthy and strong and have a lot of people to be thankful for taking time to help me get here.
A few years back, the Church started working on and developing an Addiction and Recovery program. It has since been made available worldwide. Based on the 12-steps of AA, it incorporates Gospel Principles in a program to foster healing and recovery. I have dear friends who have been group facilitators for meetings in Champaign as well as in Mattoon. Soon after the first of this year, it was discussed to start up a group in Danville. There was a definite need yet some logistics that would have to be worked out. Because the program is ran by LDS Social Services (as compared to a program ran by the local congregations) and the importance of confidentiality, there had to be a bigger plan than just "let's do this." Things were finally put in place that this wonderful resource would be available starting this month.
I've shared my crazy 30-minute attendance at church last week and how I went because I felt I needed to try and go. Sometime when we "feel" we need to do something, there is more to it. Right before services started, I was approached by the wife of a couple that have been facilitators in the program since it was developed in Champaign. They recently had been asked to take a position with the program that was more of a supervisory position. Their responsibility would be more of setting meeting times and places and contacting individuals to attend rather than the actual facilitation of the group meetings.
Now, I did not just go "sure, ok" and that was it. People know me better than that. For many weeks, when we were not fighting with each other, God and I have had a lot of talks about what was to be next for me. I would express my desire to help others, yet I was not sure what that meant. Sure, I would be happy to be a teacher again or something like that, yet I had a lot to offer and hoped that whatever I would be asked to do, I could make a difference. On top of that, as I have tried to find peace with a lot of my struggles, I have always gone back to the idea of, if my struggles will help another, then I can accept them. It has been my struggle to find peace with things in my life if there has been no reason behind them. I wasn't even up for accepting that I could be going through something simply for me. Struggling for the benefit of myself was unacceptable. Struggling to later help another, totally acceptable. So when the opportunity was presented to me, of course I knew it was the right thing. Then I just tried not to pass out for the rest of that 30 minutes. Isn't it amazing how Heavenly Father works sometimes. He helped get me to church that morning for a reason. I would come home and when I woke up later, would write an email to my favorite elder on how excited I was to be able to do it. I have thanked God many times for the opportunity in the past week.
I think this all is what has sparked the whole reflecting state of mind I have been in this week and my attempts to finally let go of un-winnable battles. I think it is what has stirred up trying to make amends with that last dark piece of my past. It also has made me finally realize that I have to get the eating issues under control. It has been the key that has made me realize the very importance of taking time for myself. I kind of get to have my cake and eat it too through this - I get to help others, yet as I work the program, it will only help me as well.
What a busy six months it has been. I can't wait to see what transpires in the next six.