"Thine"

Here's a post I began on October 16 :

I have been avoiding certain self-realities I've been confronted with lately due to...well, life. One of the big ones I've been forced to face is my lack of meekness.

Kierkegaard, at one point, talks about our narratives. From what I remember of his philosophy, we create narratives for ourselves: ideas of who we are, identities. But they are simply narratives, like fictions, in order to compensate for the chasm we find between where we are (the finite, mortal) and where we long to be (the infinite, immortal). However, in order to truly come to the infinite, we must shake ourselves from these narratives and rely on Christ, the only one who can bridge the finite and infinite.

C.S. Lewis says something much the same in "Mere Christianity." He says that we must lay the selves we make up for ourselves and everything that comes with them at the feet of Christ, because Christ has paid the price and wants to give us our true self. We must accept it, however, and live according to it. But like the man with the lizard in "The Great Divorce" (which, if you haven't read, you absolutely must!), we must first, before the lizard and man are transformed into greater beings, allow our selves and narratives to be burnt away through Christ's Atonement.

As we all, I have a narrative that I'm struggling with, selves I can't let go of, and things God has given me that I'm struggling to accept. It's forced me to an emotional existential crisis. This existential crisis has driven me to the point of wondering why I am beginning my studies for a masters and if I really actually care about it. God so clearly helped me be here, so it makes sense in my mind, but my heart is persistent. Don't get me wrong! I love life and all it has to offer to grow, but, lately, that love has been buried underneath anxiety, self-doubt, heartbreak, homesickness, frustration, loneliness, and weariness with mortality, and now I'm trying to dig up my, say, "zoephilia" (love of life). I know the next year and a half in grad school will be very long if I don't.

In addition to trying to rediscover my wonder and love of life, the message of trusting in God and giving up my will for His has never been more prominent or pertinent in my life. There's really nothing I can do but trust in Him. It's as difficult and as simple as that.

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I'd like to finish this post now, if I can do so adequately, though it will make this post long and text heavy.

Since October 16th, not much has changed. I'm still in the midst of my existential crisis and as emotionally torn between home (everything that came before this/everything I care about) and grad school as ever. However, I have been a little comforted in many ways. 

First, a masters will be great and it's only a year and a half away. If missionaries can dedicate that same amount of time to serving the Lord, then I surely can dedicate this time to diligently striving to do what clearly is God's will: progress spiritually and study in this English program.

Second, my grandmother studied at the very same university I am for quite a while. I never knew Grandma Beth since she passed away when my dad was 16, but many people have said for years that I'm like her and she has since become one of my heroes. So, this little fact makes me want to lift my head and appreciate at least something about the university every day, even if my affections don't (yet) reside with it.

And third (this, admittedly, doesn't deal directly with grad school), this scripture:

Philippians 4:6-7

"Be careful for nothing [in the Greek: Do not be unduly concerned about anything]; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.

And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep [or guard] your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."

These three things, amongst others (like my ever patient parents!), have lifted me up a little, and I hope I have become a little meeker. What has lifted me up the most, however, has been the opportunity, whenever I go home, to go to the temple. Ironically, I go more frequently when it isn't seven minutes away. Through attending the temple, I have been comforted and have slowly but steadily received answers to prayers, and have been ready to receive them. In particular, I have come to know that "be patient," an answer I've struggled with since summer, means to personally progress toward a celestial life and to know, as well as trust, that the things I too often am "unduly concerned with" are in God's most knowing and loving hands.

Of course life is still hard, and I have a lot of things I simply need to do, but the Atonement enables as well as saves. Christ bears a lot more of our burdens than we realize as we endeavor to make and diligently keep our covenants with Him. In fact, He bears all of our burdens, and through Him we can repent (a change of being and re-choosing). This is a beautiful and joyous truth. We can find strength and peace in Him as we progress toward Godhood.

2 Peter 1:10-11

"Give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:

For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."

(A picture of the temple I took last year)