Line upon line, precept upon precept

Sunday post #2 - see the other one below

Don't anybody die of shock or anything, but I was on time for church today. Now, they started the announcements as I was going to sit down, but my foot had stepped over the threshhold before the first words were spoken from the pulpit, so it counts! It was an accomplishment today. Just celebrating the little things, you know.

Which sort of brings me around a more serious topic (stick with me here, you'll get it.) I've had a hard struggle over the past two years with my spirituality and general self-esteem. I've made some major mistakes, a lot of which were financial, but some were personal issues too, and while that may not seem really bad to some people, for me it's been hard to stop kicking myself on a daily, if not hourly, basis. I mean, I was probably clinically depressed for a long time. I had days where if I kept the kids safe and fed them, that was all I could accomplish. Forget a clean house, forget quality time with the kids, forget spiritual progress, forget any other useful activity at all, I mean I just sort of floated through the days, doing as little as possible, just sort of existing. I know my sister would tell me to get some decent meds, and heaven knows they would have made a difference, but I am nothing if not stubborn, stubborn, stubborn, and I just wanted to hide away, and lick my wounds in private. For some really sad reason, I needed my grief. Still do, I think. It's like I need it sometimes so I can remember who I am, what things I've learned, to keep me grounded, because I never, never, never want to be that kind of stupid again, period.

And something about me has changed, too. It's been changing since I got married and had kids, and realized that this really spectacular, wonderfully good life I thought being married and having kids was going to give me, never materialized, at least not in the way that my twenty-year-old self understood it. I woke up to the reality of work and sacrifice, where I could see that I'm not all that fantastic of a person right now. I'm so far off from my ideal, you just don't know. Now, I know I don't want to be all down on myself, but I'm just tired of dragging around this baggage of "I'm not perfect, I'm not worthy." And I think what the last two years have done to me, is kind of broken my inner self down to the basics, and made room to start over fresh, to do things one at a time, line upon line, precept upon precept, to help me be in a place that is teachable. I think I just want to quit worrying about being perfect at everything right now, and take what's good and add a little at a time. I hope that I get the space and time to get it together, that if I can just keep this forward-reaching attitude, I can slowly over the years to come, become this person that I see inside, that will be the tool that Heavenly Father wants me to be, to help build His kingdom and be of service to other people.

And I think that's what I want my overall attitude to be right now: how can I be of service to other people, to help lift them up? Because I just don't want to worry about how good I am right now. I don't want to block myself off from internalizing the principles of the gospel, and deliberately shut myself off from the Spirit, but I just can't do everything all at once. It's like prayer: I have a hard time working out my issues in prayer, praying that I can be good, when I know there's so much I'm not doing right, and just not ready for. But maybe I can say a few words of gratitude for the things I'm thankful for, and pray for the welfare of other people if I can't pray for myself. I hope I can get to the point where I can read my scriptures daily, because for a long time, I've just felt like, "I am so messed up, I just can't handle the my sense of unworthiness when I think about reading them." You can't help but compare yourself and your attitudes to the prophets there, and think that you've fallen so short. But I pray that enough time passes that the wheels in my head will at least roll in a forward motion, and some day there will be space in my heart to do the things I should do, and be glad. That's why I'm making a renewed effort to connect with other people, because I've been hiding out in my cave for a long time, and I think I can let go of stuff a lot easier if I just hit the reset button more often, which is what can happen when you interact with other people. Plus, it's good to step outside of myself and see what's going on with other people, and maybe with service, I can forget my own issues from time to time, which is a good thing.

P.S. I hope I wasn't too depressing here, and I really, really do love my family. They have changed me, and left that twenty-year-old in the dust, and that's a good thing. I definitely don't want to criticize any moms out there who work and have kids, heaven knows I've not been a 100% stay-at-home mom myself, but I made a conscious decision in college to pick a family over a career, and while it's revealed my stupidity and weaknesses in more ways than I care to count, it was the right thing and the best thing for me to do. I'll never regret it.