The One About Burdens

I stop myself whenever I want to blog about spiritual things.  I've become more guarded knowing less and less about the audience that reads them.  But I think if my troubles and answers helps others, then it's worth it.  Even if it's just one person.

Lately I've been pretty...we'll say frustrated, with my body.

Of course you know I had my ovary attacked by a cystic teratoma in January.  It ate the whole thing, so the doctor ripped it out.  Which was fine.  

Then February through May marked a sort of see-saw approach to getting sick.  First I'd get the stomach flu, then my back would go out trying to reclaim the house from the stomach flu.  Then I'd get the stomach flu again...well, you see how it went.  

I missed a lot of life, it felt like.

I was pretty grumpy a lot.

And then other physical ailments struck me.  I was feeling a huge desire to shout to the Universe, "C'mon!  Enough already!"

But I didn't really think I had any right to complain or be frustrated.  So many other people were suffering so much more in other ways, I just couldn't bring myself to feel, "Woe is me."

I sort of lost my own identity, if that makes sense.  I was still a mom, a wife, a Sunday School Teacher, but...when it came to me, I just had to deal.  No time to fret and worry or feel down.  I didn't feel like I deserved a pity party.

And maybe I didn't.

Maybe I don't.

But I realized recently that it's not a pity party I was denying myself.

I was denying myself a very special relationship with my Heavenly Father.

I lost that identity someone in there.  Because I didn't want to "bother" Him with this stuff.  I didn't want to sound ungrateful for a pretty great body.  I was afraid if I opened up, the "why me" statement would slip out and then I'd get the plague.  

I didn't understand that, "We are not and never need be alone.  We can press forward in our daily lives with Heavenly Help.  Through the Savior's Atonement we can receive capacity and "strength beyond our own"." -Elder Bednar, April Conference 2012

What he said later in this talk really slapped me in the face, "I wonder if we fail to fully acknowledge this strengthening aspect of the Atonement in our lies and mistakenly believe we must carry our load all lone - through sheer grit, will power, and discipline and with our obviously limited capacities."

I feel like I've missed so many opportunities to humble myself and ask for help.  Because I didn't want to be healed, necessarily, I felt like those blessings weren't for me.  "The unique burdens in each of our lives help us to rely upon the merits of mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah."

Physically, I feel beaten.  I don't want Heavenly Father to take away my burden but I have forgotten that I can be strengthened in it.  "And now it came to pass that the burdens which were laid upon Alma and his brethren were made light; yea, the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord" (Mosiah 24:15)

What am I going to do with this information?  I'm going to ask for a blessing from the Priesthood.  I'm going to pray and be grateful for my body in the ways that it functions, and asked to be strengthened in the area's it lacks.  I'm going to, hopefully, learn to rely more on my Heavenly Father.  Not because I don't want my burdens, or feel that I can handle them without Him, but because, why would I?  

One last quote from this fabulous talk:

"Thus, the Savior has suffered not just for our sins and iniquities - but also for our physical pains and anguish, our weaknesses and short comings, our fears and frustrations, our disappointments and discouragement, our regrets and remorse, our despair and desperation, the injustices and inequities we experience, and the emotional distresses that beset us."

If you can say you don't suffer from any of these in your life, then you are truly blessed.  But if you do, then you also are truly blessed.  Because you get to rely on our Savior, the Atonement, and our loving Heavenly Father.  No better help, love or support can be found.