Some moments don't even feel close to real life.
This is one of them.
In a few days, I will be released as a full-time missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
I have a lot of complicated emotions going through my heart. Pain and sadness and gratitude and happiness and love and awe and just about everything else. My mission has meant more to me than I could ever express in words, so I'm not going to try. Instead I'll attempt to cover the biggest lesson of my life in one blog post.
God has been teaching me a lot of things in the past 18 months, but mostly He has been teaching me about happiness. Now let me define "happiness" because it's something we talk about a lot, and there are shelves dedicated to the topic in bookstores everywhere. When I say "happiness" I don't mean stuff-happiness or relationship-happiness or achievement-happiness. I'm talking about deep-happiness and inside-guts-happiness and in-spite-of-anything-that-could-ever-go-wrong-happiness.
People told me all my life that happiness is a choice, and it always bothered me. It just never seemed that simple to me. I would try so hard to be happy anyway when my kitten died or I fought with my sister or was stressed at school. I would sit very still and "choose" happiness, silently screaming my choice to the universe and demanding it right then. It never worked. I figured I didn't deserve happiness yet so I would try harder to be the very best. I would be close to happy when things were going well, and I felt that I was succeeding, and I would spiral into sorrow when real life happened. And I ended up just resenting everyone who said I could control my emotions or my life because everything felt so very out of my control which only increased my need to control everything.
About 9 months into my mission, my life imploded. I found myself for the fifth Saturday in a row crying on the bathroom floor over the figurative pieces of my life. It seemed that my lifelong battle with perfectionism had ended at 22, and I was and forever would be a failure. I had done good things, but I felt they could never make up for all my weaknesses and imperfections. I felt abandoned by God and cut off from His love. At the bottom of the deepest hole, I cried out to my Heavenly Father, "Is life supposed to be this hard? Am I supposed to feel this way about myself?" The answer was sweet and clear.
"No. You are My Daughter, and you are not supposed to feel this way."
And I finally chose happiness.
Not by sitting very still until my "choice" of happiness settled over my life which had been my previous method. This time, I chose to meet with a counselor and figure things out instead of hating myself forever. I wasn't happy instantly, but that choice led to other choices. I chose to pay attention to and change negative thinking patterns. I chose to let myself take quiet time to think when the anxiety had my heart beating out of my chest. I chose to learn how to accept my imperfections as normal. I chose to believe in and trust the grace of Jesus Christ to help me gradually overcome the parts of me I don't like. Finally, I chose to love myself and set myself free from my own unrealistic expectations.
I see now that happiness isn't one choice; it's a series of choices! When I wake up, I choose happiness by communicating with my Father in Heaven! I choose happiness by studying His word, by serving others, by enjoying the beautiful creation of this earth, by doing the things that my Father in Heaven asks me to do! I choose happiness by living the gospel of Jesus Christ: exercising faith, repenting, keeping covenants and participating in ordinances, listening to the Holy Ghost and doing the best I can with every day!
I have found the happiness I've been looking for! It wasn't where I thought it would be. I thought I would receive happiness as a reward when I finally learned how to be perfect. But instead I experience happiness every day as I receive love from my Heavenly Father and learn how to send my love right back. And it's the kind of happiness that sticks.
As a representative of Jesus Christ and as a human who's starting to figure this life thing out, I testify that when you live the gospel of Jesus Christ life gets happier every single day!!
"And it came to pass that we lived after the manner of happiness."
2 Nephi 5:27
God has been teaching me a lot of things in the past 18 months, but mostly He has been teaching me about happiness. Now let me define "happiness" because it's something we talk about a lot, and there are shelves dedicated to the topic in bookstores everywhere. When I say "happiness" I don't mean stuff-happiness or relationship-happiness or achievement-happiness. I'm talking about deep-happiness and inside-guts-happiness and in-spite-of-anything-that-could-ever-go-wrong-happiness.
People told me all my life that happiness is a choice, and it always bothered me. It just never seemed that simple to me. I would try so hard to be happy anyway when my kitten died or I fought with my sister or was stressed at school. I would sit very still and "choose" happiness, silently screaming my choice to the universe and demanding it right then. It never worked. I figured I didn't deserve happiness yet so I would try harder to be the very best. I would be close to happy when things were going well, and I felt that I was succeeding, and I would spiral into sorrow when real life happened. And I ended up just resenting everyone who said I could control my emotions or my life because everything felt so very out of my control which only increased my need to control everything.
About 9 months into my mission, my life imploded. I found myself for the fifth Saturday in a row crying on the bathroom floor over the figurative pieces of my life. It seemed that my lifelong battle with perfectionism had ended at 22, and I was and forever would be a failure. I had done good things, but I felt they could never make up for all my weaknesses and imperfections. I felt abandoned by God and cut off from His love. At the bottom of the deepest hole, I cried out to my Heavenly Father, "Is life supposed to be this hard? Am I supposed to feel this way about myself?" The answer was sweet and clear.
"No. You are My Daughter, and you are not supposed to feel this way."
And I finally chose happiness.
Not by sitting very still until my "choice" of happiness settled over my life which had been my previous method. This time, I chose to meet with a counselor and figure things out instead of hating myself forever. I wasn't happy instantly, but that choice led to other choices. I chose to pay attention to and change negative thinking patterns. I chose to let myself take quiet time to think when the anxiety had my heart beating out of my chest. I chose to learn how to accept my imperfections as normal. I chose to believe in and trust the grace of Jesus Christ to help me gradually overcome the parts of me I don't like. Finally, I chose to love myself and set myself free from my own unrealistic expectations.
I see now that happiness isn't one choice; it's a series of choices! When I wake up, I choose happiness by communicating with my Father in Heaven! I choose happiness by studying His word, by serving others, by enjoying the beautiful creation of this earth, by doing the things that my Father in Heaven asks me to do! I choose happiness by living the gospel of Jesus Christ: exercising faith, repenting, keeping covenants and participating in ordinances, listening to the Holy Ghost and doing the best I can with every day!
I have found the happiness I've been looking for! It wasn't where I thought it would be. I thought I would receive happiness as a reward when I finally learned how to be perfect. But instead I experience happiness every day as I receive love from my Heavenly Father and learn how to send my love right back. And it's the kind of happiness that sticks.
As a representative of Jesus Christ and as a human who's starting to figure this life thing out, I testify that when you live the gospel of Jesus Christ life gets happier every single day!!
"And it came to pass that we lived after the manner of happiness."
2 Nephi 5:27
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