This was written November 26, 2014. I wrote this thirteen months after the opening experience and six months after reluctantly going to counseling again after about thirty years. If you have read "Committed" on my Blog, you will have some understanding of why it was so hard to return to therapy, even though I had been silently suffering for years. Now, six-and-a-half years later I continue in counseling and other supportive therapies. That was the beginning of this part of my journey. This beautiful, difficult soul journey.
(In my Welcome post I said that my faith was my anchor, this is one that really illustrates that. Whatever your faith, whatever your anchor, relate in your way. For we all have trials in common, trials that are heavier than we can bear alone, we all need an anchor.)
It was a Saturday morning in October when my bishop laid his hands upon my head and gave me a blessing. This was during a desperate moment when he was called to my house for an emergency visit in my behalf. Such was my state that I was not even certain I wanted a blessing. This was so out of character for me as I was such a strong, obedient, faithful and stalwart woman and had experienced many miracles in my life.
But at this point, I did not know really if it would make a difference at all. I felt that God had forsaken me. I had faithfully been doing all within my ability to do what is right and to be well. I had already received priesthood blessings. I had fully believed. And yet, here I was, completely without ability to function mentally, emotionally or physically after years and years of efforts to be well. Mustering up a small particle of faith, I received the blessing from my bishop. Among other things, he told me to remember that “God will never give us more than we can handle.”
At that time I rejected that thought. I would eventually be diagnosed with adrenal insufficiency among other things including recurrent severe depression, generalized anxiety disorder and post traumatic stress disorder. In light of mental illness especially, the thought of “not being given more than I can handle” made no sense. I had experienced a psychotic break, short and mild, but a psychotic break nonetheless. I had been given more than I could handle. I felt broken. I was rendered completely disabled physically, mentally and emotionally and with high-maintenance disabled children to care for. My husband had just been put on indefinite furlough due to a government shut down and we had no income. I felt the epitome of being given more than I could handle. And as it turned out, it seemed that almost no one knew how to help. I felt as if I was largely left alone. Yep, not only more than I could handle but apparently more than they could handle.
Since then, I have come to learn what that phrase really means and now embrace it fully...
The key is, no matter how hard it gets, hold fast to your testimony. That is what matters most. For in the end, we choose satan or we choose Christ - we choose whether to be destroyed or refined in the fires of adversity.
I have become more acquainted with Job recently. He feared, he became depressed, he wished he had never been born, wished to die and was weary of his life, but he never gave in to the temptation to turn away from his testimony. (Job 3, 10, 19). I have learned that is what it means to not be given more than you can handle - it means we will always retain the agency to choose Christ, even if our souls cry out at times like our Savior, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Or that of Joseph Smith, "O God where art thou?" And yet they waited on God and did his will, remaining steadfast in testimony and so can we. No matter what is given to us to endure, we will never have the agency to choose who we will follow taken from us. That is what it means to “never be given more than we can handle”. It is a statement about our spiritual life, our eternal potential. The atonement is infinite and for those who bear the burden of losing touch with "reality", the comforting truth is the "reality" of that infinite atonement.
I have come a long way in the last thirteen months and have yet a long ways to go. God has been gracious in setting a deliberate and ordered course for me to follow, guiding me step by step.
His direction has been exactly in line with the inspired talk Like A Broken Vessel given by Jeffery R. Holland in the 2013 October General Conference. It was given exactly one week before I received the blessing from my bishop. The entire talk is of great truth and value and comfort. But I wanted to just point out the following counsel that he gave...
"Faithfully pursue the time-tested devotional practices that bring the Spirit of the Lord into your life. Seek the counsel of those who hold keys for your spiritual well-being. Ask for and cherish priesthood blessings. Take the sacrament every week, and hold fast to the perfecting promises of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Believe in miracles. ... If those miracles do not come soon or fully or seemingly at all, remember the Savior’s own anguished example: if the bitter cup does not pass, drink it and be strong, trusting in happier days ahead.” (It was this last statement that helped me to hold on for a long time.)
He continued, “If things continue to be debilitating, seek the advice of reputable people with certified training, professional skills, and good values. Be honest with them about your history and your struggles. Prayerfully and responsibly consider the counsel they give and the solutions they prescribe. ...seek a priesthood blessing and get the best medical care available. ... Our Father in Heaven expects us to use all of the marvelous gifts He has provided in this glorious dispensation. ...
“Don’t assume you can fix everything, but fix what you can. If those are only small victories, be grateful for them and be patient. Dozens of times in the scriptures, the Lord commands someone to “stand still” or “be still”—and wait. Patiently enduring some things is part of our mortal education."
I took this counsel to heart. All of it. I could speak to it all. It happened as he laid out.
Of note, he told me to take the sacrament every week. This was not a simple task in my condition. I came as often as I could to partake of the sacrament. I was often in a very confused state or an anxious state or unable to even sit up long. I felt ridiculous and embarrassed. I was told once that I was "unapproachable". Who knows what all people were thinking about me? How much easier to have stayed home every week. How I wanted to. But obeying this counsel was my only hope. And actually, such was my disabled state, that I could not read scriptures or anything else. I could hardly put thought or words into prayer. I could not even sing a hymn, but I could partake of the sacrament. It was my only real accessible lifeline at first. Lying in a silent dark room was largely the extent of my ability for a long time. And I found that taking the sacrament did sustain me. I have no words to explain the enabling power that came in renewing my covenants as often as I could. So what if people saw my weakness and struggle and were uncomfortable in my "unapproachable" presence? Why do we pretend we do not struggle? Taking the sacrament is so very important. Nothing should stand in the way. It heals. It cleanses. It strengthens. It renews.
I did have to be diligent in taking the sacrament and all things I was directed to do as I could do them. As I could, I observed the daily “devotional practices that bring the Spirit of the Lord into your life”. And in time I was able to start attending the temple, not only regularly, but frequently.
Almost against my will I sought out professional counseling as suggested by Elder Holland but mostly as persistently urged by the Spirit. I had no respect for the profession due to prior experience and had once thought that it would be a cold day in hell before I did that again. Well, that cold day came and it was my own hell that I was living. Having called LDS Family Services, I waited for the right person to be available as the spirit guided me to whom I should see. I was only there to get help to cope with living with chronic illness. This was meant to be a few visits ... in and out and on my way. In the end, it would take three months just to accept being there and admit that it was helping. Another three and a half months later, I am still there getting much needed help.
Finally, I added frequent priesthood blessings after seeking and receiving my bishop's counsel in regards to that. I began having blessings every two weeks and annointed once a month. While I had been receiving some inspiration and direction from the time of my bishop’s blessing noted above, it was at this point that the heavens opened fully and the blessings and answers and healing began to pour out and still it continues.
My Heavenly Father has opened my understanding in many things. I continue to seek and to do. And I am most humble and grateful. I have a long way yet to go but have come so far. I am finding much to be grateful for. I am seeing the light ahead. I feel the need to do all that I can as there is something Heavenly Father has yet for me to do and will bless me with the ability to do it. I will receive at least that much healing, whatever that may look like for me. God is gracious. He will supply.
I am grateful that I had that feeling of being given more than I could handle for it humbled me. It was in this place that I learned that I was holding back and not truly submitting to God’s will. I wanted things to happen my way, which was more comfortable and made me look better. No wonder I felt like I was given more than I could handle and why I felt so alone. But I was never really alone. We will never be left alone. (see None Were With Him by Jeffrey R. Holland) I don’t have to “handle it” on my own. Jesus Christ has already “handled it” all and is ever there for me. Scripture tells me that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:13) That means I can even live with a mental illness or chronic illness if that is God’s will and I can do so joyfully and with peace one moment at a time.
I look forward to the glorious resurrection made possible through that infinite atonement of Jesus Christ, wherein I will be made whole. Elder Holland called it the "unspeakable cornerstone gift in the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ!" He went on to say, "I bear witness of that day when loved ones whom we knew to have disabilities in mortality will stand before us glorified and grand, breathtakingly perfect in body and mind. What a thrilling moment that will be! I do not know whether we will be happier for ourselves that we have witnessed such a miracle or happier for them that they are fully perfect and finally “free at last.” (See "Like A Broken Vessel")
Where much is required, much is given. It is only after the trial of our faith that we receive the witness. Faith makes things possible, not easy. And the truth is, while faith can do anything, sometimes the mountain does not move. But a way is made to climb the mountain if we remain patient and diligent and hold fast to that testimony of Christ, enduring on as he did. He is the rock on which we must build our foundation so that "when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall." (Helaman 5:12)
“Fear not to do good, my sons, (my daughter, Molly Grace) for whatsoever ye sow, that shall ye also reap; therefore, if ye sow good ye shall also reap good for your reward.
“Therefore, fear not, little flock; (little lamb, Molly Grace) do good; let earth and hell combine against you, for if ye are built upon my rock, they cannot prevail.
“Behold, I do not condemn you (Molly Grace); go your ways and sin no more; perform with soberness the work which I have commanded you.
“Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not.
“Behold the wounds which pierced my side, and also the prints of the nails in my hands and feet; be faithful, keep my commandments, and ye shall inherit the kingdom of heaven. Amen. (D&C 6:33-37)
Sidebar:
“Christ knows better than all others that the trials of life can be very deep and we are not shallow people if we struggle with them. But even as the Lord avoids sugary rhetoric, He rebukes faithlessness and He deplores pessimism. He expects us to believe.” (Jeffrey R. Holland, An High Priest of Good Things To Come)
“Healing blessings come in many ways, each suited to our individual needs, as known to Him who loves us best. Sometimes a “healing” cures our illness or lifts our burden. But sometimes we are “healed” by being given strength or understanding or patience to bear the burdens placed upon us.” (Dallin H. Oaks, He Heals The Heavy Laden)
Molly Grace Daniels
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