I'm Not as Good as You Think I Am

“I found someone new for you to help.” She said it with the same tone that I would expect someone to say “I have European chocolate for you” or “I got you a new book.” She literally thought she was offering me one of my favorite things in the world.

I didn’t have the heart to tell my friend she was wrong, that I wasn’t the person she thought I was. Because I wanted to be that person. I really did. And apparently that was enough to fool her.

It’s not that I don’t genuinely want to help people. I do. I want to care. But sometimes, that’s all I’ve got. I know I should be patient with a new employee, or go talk to the new person, or offer to do the dishes. And I usually do it. But I don’t always want to. It’s a choice. It’s a habit.

My friend saw me as the person I want to become, the person I try to emulate. I am grateful for that. She saw the best in me. She didn’t see that sometimes I fight it. She didn’t see how often I have resented the expectation that I will act altruistically. "Oh, ask Laura. She's good at that." No, I'm not. It's no easier for me than anyone else. I just choose to do it because it's right.

But it really isn't just others’ expectations. I expect it of myself.

God has set me up. My whole life is a set-up. He sent me seven younger siblings. He gave me responsibility early in life. Some of my first visiting teaching assignments were to sisters with serious medical problems. God led me to jobs that involved teaching, training, and coaching. He called me as a missionary. He set me up, over and over, to care for the most vulnerable – for children and for people with disabilities.

And I’ve walked right into it every time. I’ve walked right in because that’s where I want to go. Or at least, I want to want it.

I’m grateful really. I worry about who I would be without that drive to serve, to take care of people. I have other characteristics, too. I’m ambitious. I’m comfortable with hard work. I like to think I’m reasonably intelligent. None of those qualities are inherently good. They can be used for good. But they can easily be used to be manipulative and selfish, and even downright evil.

God has given me a focus, and it has (mostly) kept me out of trouble. It’s grown within me. I am closer today to the person I want to be than I was when my friend told me so enthusiastically of an opportunity to serve.

Things I No Longer Believe

There are some things I used to subconsciously believe. They were never taught as doctrine, but I don’t think I am the only teenager who developed a dangerous kind of faith. In a nutshell, I believed something like this: If I follow God, the really, really bad things can’t happen to me.

What qualifies as “really, really bad” is probably not the same for everyone. In my case, it would be things like rape, divorce, or a child committing suicide. I think having to come home early from a mission was on that list at one point for me, too.

There were some fundamental flaws in my thinking, but they are so subtle it’s hard to see. Because God does protect us from things. Because the truly worst things really cannot happen if we follow God. But there’s a heck of a lot of room for suffering before it reaches that point. He doesn’t promise that things won’t happen. He just promises that he’ll be able to heal us. He promises that if something truly horrific happens it won’t rob us of our exaltation, of our opportunity to endure to the end.

And I think that’s my problem. I subconsciously categorized some things into being beyond healing. Like rape and divorce. For me, the opportunity to give my virginity to my eternal companion is essential. Rape or divorce would take that away. And regardless of how much emotional healing Christ gives, I would not be physically restored. Granted, I couldn’t be physically restored from amputation either, and the thought of any permanent physical damage bothers me a lot. But somehow that doesn’t seem quite as bad to me. Maybe it’s because I could see how a missing hand would be restored in the resurrection, but I somehow exempted other forms of physical restoration from that miracle.

Whatever the reason, there are certain things I believed God would protect me from. He would warn me not to go to a party, or not to date/marry someone, or to check on my child, or not to do the thing that would cause the injury that would send me home from a mission. And the thing is, I still believe God does that frequently. And I believe that sometimes really, really bad things happen because promptings are ignored. I have ignored promptings and had bad things happen. And when that happens, it is important for me to accept that and learn from it.

But what if there are times when you are following God and the bad things happen anyway? What if you hide Jews during the holocaust and the end result is that you end up in a concentration camp where you’re sexually abused? What if God is the one who told you to hide Jews in the first place? What if it’s not that obvious? I think it would be a lot easier to come home from a mission because you got hit by a bus while saving a child than because you developed severe depression as a missionary. But what if God needed you for six months and you never fully realize how that changed lives? What if a battle with depression was the inevitable result of your service (just as permanent health problems and an early death were an inevitable result for three young men who carried a handcart company through the icy Sweetwater River)? What if you’re Job?

I think, in the course of discipleship, everyone will eventually come up against something “really, really bad.” That doesn’t mean it will be something exactly from your list. It may not be something you realized would be that hard. After all, I think that list is mostly subconscious. But there will come a point when you ask “God, why didn’t you show me how to avoid this? Did I miss something? How could this be right? Why didn’t you warn me?”

When that happens there are a few possible answers. One is “I did warn you, but I let you choose. And now, stick with me, and I will heal you and turn your suffering to glory.” That answer takes a lot of humility to receive and time to sort through.

Another answer is “I won’t protect you from everything. That’s part of mortal life.” Or, even, “There was no righteous way to avoid this.” And that can be faith-shattering. It can challenge foundations of belief. It can mean discovering that God is not who we thought he was, or at least that we misunderstood our relationship with Him. It doesn’t mean that God wanted it to happen. He never wants something like rape. That only happens through sin and God hates sin.

I get that the drunk driver has to have the agency to drive drunk, but I want God to tell me not to drive down that road with my family that night. Sure, I’m willing to die to follow Christ. But am I willing to suffer other forms of abuse and still follow Him? Am I willing to watch loved ones suffer or die and still follow Him? These are questions I once conveniently ignored.

In the last few years, I’ve grown a lot more comfortable considering these questions. The following things have helped:

•  I’ve gained a deeper testimony and understanding of the atonement. Part of this is seeing the atonement in my own life. Part of this is seeing the atonement in other people’s lives. I’ve seen people go through terrible trials and come through battered, wounded, but eternally OK

•  I’ve had bad things happen to me. Not really, really bad things. But I have asked God “Why? Why didn’t you protect me?” and He’s told me “I won’t protect you from everything. But, let me show you how I already prepared everything to allow you to heal completely.”

•  I have followed the Spirit and experienced results I didn’t expect. I have asked “Why? Why did you tell me to do that if it was going to have this result?” I’ve had him respond with “trust me” and found that I really do.

I think the most important thing is that I’m better at believing that who I become is more important than a sum of events that happen to me. For example, I genuinely see sexual purity as being about whether I am filled with pure Christ-like love for myself and those around me, whether I see everyone as a child of God and not an object, whether I have control of my passions, whether I have the ability to give myself completely to a spouse and be entirely faithful. That is, in fact, what the doctrine teaches. It’s just hard to wrap your head around it as a teenager in Sunday School.

Skipping Church

I’ve seen a lot of love going around Facebook for Elder Renlund lately, so I feel like maybe I should focus on saying nice things about the other two apostles. But the thing is, Elder Renlund once gave me the answers I needed almost a year before I needed them, and that’s the story I’ve been thinking about lately.

You tend to pay really good attention to General Conference when you’re a missionary. There are several talks where I can tell you what year, month and session they were given in simply because I remember what city I was in, what investigators I was thinking about, and if I had any of them there with me. So, I remembered Elder Renlund’s October 2009 conference talk even though it wasn’t one that struck me too deeply at the time (in case you were wondering, I was in Praha. I was thinking about Lubomir, Jitka and Saša. And Saša should have been with us, but wasn’t – he needed Elder Holland’s talk that session).

Fast forward almost a year. I was home from my mission and working as a caretaker/trainer for people with disabilities. I had just been moved to a shift that required me to work on Sunday mornings, with the understanding that I would be able to take some of the people I worked with to church, and thus attend myself (there are definite perks to living in Utah). I’d never worked on Sunday before. I’d never had a job that I felt justified it, but the people I worked with would not survive without 24-hour care.

The problem was, not everyone in the apartment I cared for was able to go to church. So if I was working alone, I couldn’t just leave some people home alone. But, I had felt good about moving to that shift and felt that if I did my part, the Lord would bless me to be able to attend church.

The first Sunday where I worked alone, I went to every other apartment in my building asking if there were other residents who wanted to attend church and if it was possible to combine apartments so I could take everyone who wanted to go. No luck.

Next, I asked if there was anyone who could cover my apartment so I could take my half-hour lunch break at 9 am, run over to the church building, take the sacrament, and run back to the apartment (another perk of living in Utah… that was actually a possibility). Someone said they would try.

At 9:10, nobody had come. I sat down in my apartment and cried. I felt I had done everything in my power, not only to attend church myself, but to help those who wanted to go. I’d failed. And I felt let down. I don’t think I realized until that day how much weekly church attendance meant to me.

That’s when I remembered this story from Elder Renlund’s talk the previous year:

In 1980 we moved as a family across the street from the hospital where I trained and worked. I worked every day, including Sundays. If I finished my Sunday work by 2:00 p.m., I could join my wife and daughter and drive to church for meetings that began at 2:30.

One Sunday late in my first year of training, I knew that I would likely finish by 2:00. I realized, however, that if I stayed in the hospital just a little longer, my wife and daughter would depart without me. I could then walk home and take a needed nap. I regret to say that I did just that. I waited until 2:15, walked home slowly, and lay down on the couch, hoping to nap. But I could not fall asleep. I was disturbed and concerned. I had always loved going to church. I wondered why on this day the fire of testimony and the zeal that I had previously felt were missing.

The spirit whispered to me that “the fire of testimony and the zeal” were important. As long as I maintained that, I would be OK. I would be spiritually safe even if there were times I could not attend church. I pondered on the times in the New Testament when the Savior was accused of breaking the Sabbath. I’d thought in the past it was kind of odd that it came up so many times. But now, it was a distinction I needed to understand.

The Savior fed people on the Sabbath. The Savior treated the sick on the Sabbath. I realized that I had been very blessed for several years to be able to focus on myself and my own Sabbath worship. But my job was not the only thing that would challenge that. Someday, as a mother, I would have babies and sick children. I needed to know how to keep the Sabbath in those circumstances, too.

And the answer, again, was Elder Renlund’s talk. Would I ever use my circumstances as an excuse not to attend church? Or would I maintain the fire and zeal to do everything in my power to worship in sacrament meeting every week? That Sunday, I felt my offering was acceptable to the Lord.

In conclusion, my fervent but unsuccessful effort to attend sacrament meeting that Sunday had an impact I didn’t anticipate. Because of that day, everyone in the building knew how much I wanted to attend church. I never missed again – not even on the day that the sanitizer broke and flooded the kitchen. Others stepped in to finish cleaning up so I could take people to church as planned.

And on the Sundays when there weren’t enough staff for me to be able to take people for the whole time, someone always covered me for a half hour so I could go participate in the sacrament ordinance (in fact, it was usually the lady who I had initially thought disliked me for being a goody-goody Mormon).

Here’s the link to Elder Renlund’s talk: Preserving the Heart's Mighty Change

The Eternal Nature of Love

In my first area on my mission, there was this one investigator that my companion absolutely loved. I didn’t. I mean I cared about her. I wanted to be a good missionary to her. I studied for her and prayed for her and all that stuff. I liked her as a person. But I didn’t love her the same way my companion did. Not until my last day in the area.

We were supposed to meet with her and she didn’t show. Then it hit me hard. Love. Lots of love. Not my own love. But I knew how God felt about her because I could feel it. I knew what He wanted for her. And suddenly, it all became much, much more important to me. I wrote it all down in a card for her and we left it at her door.

As we walked away, I asked God “why?” Why give this to me now? Why not all the time? The work would be so much easier if I could feel that for every investigator all the time. I would be a better missionary for it.

The answer came quickly and simply: “You couldn’t handle it.” I immediately comprehended the truth. My mortal body, my mortal heart, could not handle that level of divine love and compassion. Both the joy and the pain that came with it would overwhelm me.

The next day, I transferred to a new area. That was rough. See, there had been a lot of investigators and members that I did love. Deeply. It was a beautiful blend of my own love and divine love. And then I got dropped in a new city. It was dirty. It was ugly. And there was nobody there I loved.

My second day there, I knelt by my bed and cried as I pled with God to send me someone to love. The next day, I met him. I loved him instantly. There could not have been a more perfect set up. His youth. His sweetness. His sincerity. His pain. Everything that my heart is naturally drawn to. He got baptized at the end of that transfer and I finally understood the over-the-top rejoicing in Alma 26.

Then I got transferred again. Eventually, I started understanding scriptures like John 3:30 and 2 Corinthians 12:15. This discipleship thing is hard sometimes.

I’ve been thinking about my mission lately. If my mission was “Christ-like Love 101” then I’m currently working on the next, more advanced course. I’ve got the same teacher. And He keeps referencing the prerequisite.

He started by telling me I couldn’t handle His love. Then He began increasing my capacity… along with all the side effects. I’m really good at setting boundaries. I have to be. Because when I do let my walls down, the love is almost more than I can handle. I can only manage it for so many people at a time.

So this image has been going around lately. I like it, but I would add more. “But I love it God. I love it because you gave it to me in the first place. You told me it was important. You made me love it.” I want God to give me eternal things. I’m bad at letting go.

In D&C 51:17, the Lord tells a group of saints staying on a farm temporarily to “act upon this land as for years.” He’s been telling me to do that with people, too. But then he pulls the teddy bear thing.

The hardest is when it’s ongoing. “Here, pour energy and love into this person. Now let that be and focus on other things and other people.” But then, when I’m not even thinking about them, a random impression comes to do something. And it all comes back. The tenderness. The meaning. The compassion. And then I’m supposed to just put that away again for weeks or months. My heart doesn’t just turn on and off like that.

D&C 132:14 says “For whatsoever things remain are by me; and whatsoever things are not by me shall be shaken and destroyed.” So when a relationship grows out of Christ-like love, when the very core of the relationship is centered in Christ, then it’s by Him, right? It should remain. This is my struggle right now.

Last week, while trying to understand how to hold on and let go at the same time, I looked over my notes from “Christ-like Love 101” (figuratively speaking). I volunteered at the MTC. One set of missionaries taught me about preparing for General Conference and asked me to share a time when I received personal revelation through General Conference.

What came back to me was an experience from my second area on my mission. I think it was Elder Ballard who was speaking, but it wasn’t anything he said that I remember. I had this impression of being in heaven. There were investigators there that I had left behind – one in particular. I’d felt a connection to him when we first contacted him on the street. A “this is my brother” kind of feeling. I had a terrible time communicating with him. My Czech was terrible and he had very educated diction. I could hardly understand him. I only taught him for a few weeks before being transferred, but that feeling was there every time I saw him. I felt it again in that impression of heaven. And I was able to talk to him with no language barrier.

I believe that love is eternal. All real love is eternal. Love is never wasted. It will all mean something in Heaven. It will still matter. It didn’t just start in this life and it won’t just end with separation. I want eternal things.