Healing and Growing

The past 5 yrs. have been so rough for me, and I have had to endure and persevere through a lot of things, and I have had my ideas and ideals shaken and I have learned to stand up for myself and I have learned to not care about some things I used to think were important, and I have just plain learned and grown a lot through those years although it has been dang hard, when I tell people pieces of it, I jokingly will say, "but I've had enough, that's enough growing for me."  

I have had a really nice respite since we've been here and I have healed some.  Well, last week, unfortunately I ran into the same type of idiot authoritarian, snarky, mean attitude at church over what time we should have scouts.  But this time, my reservoir was not totally empty, and although I spent a couple of really difficult days, I really was able to deal with it much better.  I did realize that I was broken, it was the same as if I had been physically kicked and bleeding and I was down on the ground, my spiritual and emotional wounds from the hurt inflicted on me over time were still open and bleeding, but had started to heal some.  So when I got kicked again  I did what I have learned to do through every difficult time I have ever encountered and that was to pray openly and with sincerity and complete honesty about my situation.  

A friend of mine who had been in the process of moving and selling her house had told me how she had reached the end of her rope and asked the Lord if He would just grant her 3 specific things she asked for in regards to getting her house ready to put on the market and such, and she said, those 3 things happened almost immediately and she was so grateful and wondered if that was all she had to do was ask, but it increased her faith and it increased mine.  

So anyway, as I prayed, I told the Lord that I needed to be healed from this and the past and exactly how it felt and what it was.  Right after my prayer, I remembered how painful my parents' divorce had been and how angry I was and how sad I became, but how I wasn't sad or angry anymore, that I had healed from that, that I had accepted the situation as an experience and there were no longer those intense emotions associated with it anymore.  I have even learned from it and I am a better person because of it, much more compassionate and empathetic.  And I truly love my parents and appreciate their sacrifices and love for me, which I am only beginning to understand now that I have teens of my own.  So anyway, I felt that all was not lost that I was so broken, but that I would heal from the wounds I carried then.   Amazingly, it only took about 4 days after that, and I really felt healed from the pain I still carried from our previous ward, it doesn't anger me ao much any more as well as this more recent incident.

I also thought about our sweet little dog and her unconditional love for me even though I reprimanded her a lot and was exasperated and unkind to her at times, she still loved me and I wanted to have that same kind of love even for this new crazy lady in my life.  Of course, I will not put myself or my children in a position to be harmed by her or someone else like her, but I'm no longer powerless or angry, and that was a huge blessing.

So anyway, I'm learning a lot despite myself, because that's pretty much what life is-- learning.  Then I ran across this scripture in 2 Nephi 28:30 

 30 For behold, thus saith the Lord God: I will give unto the children of men line upon line, ^aprecept upon precept, here a little and there a little; and blessed are those who hearken unto my precepts, and lend an ear unto my counsel, for they shall learn ^bwisdom; for unto him that ^creceiveth I will give^dmore; and from them that shall say, We have enough, from them shall be taken away even that which they have.

So here's to learning and more growth! (Even though it's hard, this scripture encourages me to keep growing and learning and doing, no quitting)