It is Enough

So this week has been rough (news flash: grad school is REALLY hard!), but Saturday was amazing.  I have made no secret of the fact that I have really struggled with feeling forgiven and like I am truly a different person.  I still have issues with some things, okay a lot of things, but some epic challenges have been overcome and I still couldn't feel like I had reached that plateau.  I was absolutely certain that I would not relapse, & yet I couldn't seem to feel different.  Something about my life has very seriously compartmentalized my brain from my heart.  I think that saved me in many ways, but wow it blows.  It's hard.  It's not a healthy, enjoyable way to live.  But I'm doing everything I know to do so that I can become more whole, & I've really craved the chance to feel that way.

Saturday my sister Tricia received her endowments, and nine of the ten adult members of my family were able to be together in the temple.  I cannot describe the peace or the gratitude, knowing what we have all been through to be there together now.  I cannot describe the excitement I feel thinking of the day when Allie will join us there.  I am SO EXCITED for Andrew and Tricia to be sealed together, with their beautiful little boys, for time and all eternity.  Darn, I started thinking I was all prepared with my hankie in my temple dress pocket but then I remembered I won't be wearing it!  Guess I'll have to find somewhere to stash a whole box of tissues.  A bit pitiful but I figure everyone else will be in the same boat.

So there's not really a much better way to start a day than that.  We did an after party at the house just like mine, and of course that was great fun.  But then, I got to go to a special meeting with an apostle of the Lord, just for people my age and in my situation, i.e. young single adults.  The thing is that I've been in the presence of prophets of the Lord before.  I met Elder Robert D. Hales in an elevator in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building when I was about 10.  Elder Richard G. Scott came to my stake when I was a teenager.  Both times I was fortunate enough to get to shake their hands.  The last time, I was a freshman at Brigham Young University & attended a devotional in the Marriott Center when President Gordon B. Hinckley spoke.

The thing is, at best I felt a little starstruck.  I never felt the positive things you are supposed to feel near spiritual giants like that.  When I shook Elder Scott's hand, I felt squeamish, afraid, exposed, wildly uncomfortable but hey, my friends were going up & what kind of weirdo would pass on that opportunity right?  In the temple I feel amazing peace.  I feel like I am in the right place, & that is vital to note.  I recognize that.  But I never felt different.  I never could quite connect with this new person I was trying to be.

I was fortunate enough to get a great seat at the meeting, due in very large part to an awesome friend who got there two hours early.  The crazy sad thing is I arrived a half hour later & there were still only about 30 people scattered throughout the chapel.  But....when Elder Russell M. Nelson came in, I felt it.  I can't explain it & honestly, either because I'm human or because I'm jaded (or both), I can't really feel it anymore.  But I knew everything I'd been thinking & pondering was true.  Everything I've suffered, everything I've sacrificed, it is enough.  My Heavenly Father accepts my efforts.  I am new.  I am different, improved, better, etc.  Not perfect but I'm not supposed to be yet.  I'm still here, working & growing & perfecting (very slowly most days).  It was gone by later that night, but I felt it several times during those two hours & fortunately had my journal on hand to document it.

That's been my biggest goal for several months now.  Sobriety was a huge deal, and the biggest obstacle to my entering the temple.  I didn't used to think I could make those covenants, because I'm not someone comfortable with making covenants I don't believe myself capable of honoring.  I'm so grateful, but I have a really crappy habit of never feeling like what I've done is enough, like I am, in any given moment, enough.  And now I know that yes, I do need to continue to work to get better, every darn exhausting day.  Thankfully my therapist validates that, because our brains are designed to be automatic in how we operate.  I'm trying to be different.  That will be tons of work that will often wear me out, but it will be worth it.  And as I continue to work to be more, be better each day, that will be enough.  Maybe it won't be the next day & I'll have to try a little (or a lot) harder.  But today?  I am enough.