Seeking My Father in Heaven

I am past the storms for now. The last week has been tumultuous and exhausting and emotional...but it needed to be done. And now I am wondering what comes next. My life has to change. I can't be the same person I was a week ago. Things cannot be better unless they change. And I want things to be better. I don't want to go back to the way things were...I don't want to be complacent and in a way complicit in my husband's sin. And in order for that to happen, I need to be a partner and helpmeet....not just a roommate.

I need to start with me. It's that old analogy of the oxygen masks in the airplane...you have to put your own mask on first before you try to help others with theirs. I need to be a better person before I can be a better wife....and I need to be a better wife before I can do anything to help my husband be a better anything.

So I've decided that I'm going to be more studious in my reading of this website; a support guide for spouses of pornography addicts. And I'm going to be writing each day about what I've studied.

Principle 1:  God will console us in our afflictions.

One of the study helps was this talk by Thomas S. Monson. Much of it is another one of those stories...the ones that always make me think "I wish God loved me that way..."...but this part stood out to me: 

"There will be times when you will walk a path strewn with thorns and marked by struggle. There may be times when you feel detached—even isolated—from the Giver of every good gift. You worry that you walk alone. Fear replaces faith. When you find yourself in such circumstances, I plead with you to remember prayer...President Ezra Taft Benson...Said, 'All through my life the counsel to depend on prayer has been prized above almost any other advice I have … received. It has become an integral part of me—an anchor, a constant source of strength, and the basis of my knowledge of things divine… Though reverses come, in prayer we can find reassurance, for God will speak peace to the soul. That peace, that spirit of serenity, is life’s greatest blessing.'"

I know that my ability to pray has always been someone weak...with frequency ebbing and waning depending on my circumstances. I don't have the overt spirituality that some have. I was never comfortable with the hypocritical spirituality (if you can call it that) exuded by my parents only when it was convenient...and so I learned to hide whatever spirituality I have ever possessed. I have no desire to be lauded as a great, wonderful, super spiritual person. But I need to learn to be more comfortable with being a spiritual person at all....in an emotional and metaphysical way...not just an intellectual way.

I'm not sure how to find the balance. There I a woman in my neighborhood who, though quite sincere in her way, seems so misguided as she credits "the Holy Spirit" for her every whim! Saying things like "I didn't feel like going to my volunteer shift at the school and I figured, if the Spirit was telling me not to go, then I shouldn't go!" seems to be against the nature of how I believe the Spirit to operate. On the other hand, there was my father who only rarely prayed over his meals at home but was always sure to make a spectacle of our family praying over our Happy Meals every time we went to McDonalds! And in the third corner has always been me...trying to hide my candle under a bushel and constantly snuffing it out. It is a battle. And its about time I learned that the hiding of the candle in the first place is what is causing so many of the problems!

So my goal is to first to be more comfortable in prayer. I want to make my first impulse to be prayer. "When it becomes too difficult to stand, kneel."

Even writing this is difficult for me. I don't anticipate anyone will read it ever...but I feel that old uncomfortable stirring in my chest...almost a fight or flight response. I feel vulnerable. But I need to know that God loves me. I need it in my life. I need to feel like I deserve to be happy. Otherwise, it's too easy to be miserable.