Dear Week,
Thank you for ending. Sunday night when I sat down and looked at you I knew I'd have a hard time. Thankfully, you were understanding and went by as quickly as possible to as to alleviate the pain a little. I appreciate that. And even though it was extremely difficult just to make it through, I learned a lot and accomplished what I set out to do. Thank you week for being awful but good at the same time.
Thanks for being over.
Treu.
The biggest trial I've had the last two weeks hasn't been anything temporal or physical though. Homework has been stressing me and I wasn't getting much sleep with how much I had to do but what was troubling me at heart was an internal battle being raged. I'm taking a Doctrine and Covenants class right now. The main reason I took it was because I wanted, needed even, more clarification on the history of the early church. The early church has always bothered me. Polygamy, temples, revelations, the organization of the church. Well, my D&C class hadn't been helping. In fact, it'd been hurting my testimony a lot. Everything we learned made me think harder and question more. After all we talked about the most I could say was that I honestly could see why a non-member would think we're crazy. I understood their point of view. And the more I saw our church from their eyes the more I questioned it. Hours were spent trying to push those thoughts away because I didn't want to hear the answer "it's not right" if I thought too hard. But they continually crept in and battered at my mind. Finally I broke down. I decided I needed to talk to someone. I mentioned it casually to Alex but I really needed someone more that I knew wouldn't judge me and would be able to help me. My home teachers, poor, sweet men that they are, came by on Sunday. They must have been startled when they asked "so, how are you?" and I just started crying. Sorry guys! Hahaaha. I explained everything and they offered to give me a blessing. That hadn't even occurred to me, I'm a horrible person. I accepted with great relief and got a blessing. I felt like I had renewed strength behind me but I definitely did not have an abundance of personal revelation and answers in that moment with that blessing, it didn't help like that. So, I stopped thinking about it and forced myself to get through this gosh-awful week {it really was awful, I had so much to do and so little time}.
Know what happened Wednesday? Let me tell ya. :)
If you notice, the last blog post is that morning. Yes. That is how my morning started. Absolutely terrible. That was before I went to my dreaded Doctrine and Covenants class.
The Lord gives us answers and blessings in His time through other people, that's for sure. I went to my D&C class and from the very first discussion was receiving answers and revelation about nearly all of my questions. In fact, I also received insight on the temple and baptisms, something I was preparing to do later in the day. At one point I was so filled with the Spirit and my mind was going so crazy that I whipped out a piece of paper and began scribbling furiously, capturing all of my thoughts and the promptings the Spirit was giving me. Oh my holy great goodness. Everything was taken care of! It all makes sense for me now! The history of the early church may be sketchy sounding but it's not! In retrospect, of course it looks nonsensical. Of course we're confused, and in my case perhaps horrified, at some of the things that went on. But it fit them. They received what they could handle, what was culturally acceptable, stepping stones to a modern church. Just as revelation is a process, so is the church. It's all process, line upon line, continual expansion of the mysteries of the kingdoms of heaven. Here's an example. The temple. When it was first built it was simply a meetinghouse. A really pretty, nice meetinghouse specifically for them. Then Joseph was like, "alright, now you need to be worthy to go inside". Once the priesthood keys were restored covenants began taking place in the temple. Now, when Joseph revealed the concept of baptism for the dead everyone was doing it, without record, for everyone in random places. Definitely not A-OK for us today. After a little while he said, alright, time to move that to the temple. Then it was established as same-sex, and had to be recorded, and eventually it became the way it is today. Early temples and temple work began as very broad, general concepts, that over time were narrowed into very specific modern-day routines. And this applies to much in the early church. The temple, the priesthood, organization, polygamy, consecration and tithing, gathering. The Lord couldn't just throw all that at them at once, they needed easy, simply stuff to gradually work with. You don't give a first grader calculus. They also needed familiarity, He wouldn't throw something culturally incorrect and shockingly futuristic at them so soon. If the blacks had received the priesthood at that same time.. all hell would have broken loose. It wasn't the right time. The Lord is surprisingly accommodating to culture and society. And it may be that some things weren't pertinent in other dispensations or even just a hundred years ago that are now. Maybe they needed an institution like polygamy at that time but we just don't need it now.
Here's the main thing though.
It doesn't matter.
As long as you know that the solid, base things are true, the scriptures are true, prayer works, Joseph Smith restored the gospel, God lives and hears us, and Jesus is the Christ.. you're set. Everything else is just a trifling matter to be dealt with at a later time. As Mosiah 4:9 says, "Believe in God; believe that he is, and that he created all things, both in heaven and in earth; believe that he has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend." There are some things we just can't know. There are things that we have to let go of because there's no way of understanding. Some day we will. It's time to find peace in the simple truths of the gospel until we find those answers we look for. The church is true; that's what matters.
Thank you horrible week for teaching me something.
Thank you Heavenly Father for blessing me with answers to my questions.
