So, little secret here. I have fears. I know, I know, everyone has fears, but mine really trouble me at times. They get so debilitating, to the point where I cry my heart out when Matt goes away because I'm so afraid he won't come home. I really do have a hard time with this, and I try to tell myself that 99% of people who leave for the day, or weekend, return home alive! Poor Matt, right?
It's not just Matt, though. I was so worried about SIDS when Elijah was a little baby. Then, just after he hit a year, I read a blog where the writer expressed her sorrow for a family who'd lost a 15-monther to the later, childhood form of SIDS. Just when I thought I was in the clear! I worry about drivers t-boning my vehicle (especially since being side-swiped last April,) whooping cough, and random sicknesses that come and go, like H1N1, and C Difficile.
You'll notice that most of my fears centre on death. I don't know when I became so afraid of losing a loved one; I've wondered this before, many times. Does it have to do with my high school insecurity of always being the one who was dumped? Did it come about because of how much I love and depend on Matt, and that love has grown, so my fears have too? Was it because we knew this couple, and the husband died of a freak workplace accident just a few months after we were married?
Or, is it simply that, I'm consumed by fear because I'm not having enough faith?
Yesterday in Sunday School the teacher made a comment along the lines of this:
"Our Heavenly Father doesn't want us to be sad, fearful, and unhappy. He wants us to be happy, joyful, and excited about life. It's called the Plan of Happiness for a reason."
That doesn't seem like rocket-science, right? But sometimes I need the reminders of truths I know in my head, but haven't committed to my heart yet, and this was one of those times.
What I'm feeling, these fears I have, and the struggle to be optimistic each day, that's not what God wants for me. He wants so much for me to be happy, to trust him, to have faith in the Plan of Happiness/Salvation, to draw strength from the eternal existence of families, and to remember that, because Jesus Christ fulfilled the Atonement and was resurrected, I and all my loved ones will be too. He wants me to keep the commandments, endure to the end, and be resurrected to live eternally with those I love.
How often I lose sight of this! As it says in 1 John 4, "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment..." and in Doctrine and Covenants 50:41-42, "Fear not, little children, for you are mine, and I have overcome the world, and you are of them that my Father hath given me; and none of them that my Father hath given me shall be lost."
So I was thinking all of these things already, and then I noticed this article in July's Ensign about choosing to be happy. I could probably sit here and quote the whole thing, but here is the main part that stood out to me:
"Speaking to the Apostles in His final moments before Gethsemane, Jesus said, “In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Elder Neal A. Maxwell explained: “The unimaginable agony of Gethsemane was about to descend upon Jesus; Judas’ betrayal was imminent. Then would come Jesus’ arrest and arraignment; the scattering of the Twelve like sheep; the awful scourging of the Savior; the unjust trial; the mob’s shrill cry for Barabbas instead of Jesus; and then the awful crucifixion on Calvary. What was there to be cheerful about? Just what Jesus said: He had overcome the world! The atonement was about to be a reality. The resurrection of all mankind was assured. Death was to be done away with—Satan had failed to stop the atonement.”
Christ’s enabling power helps us feel happiness and cheer amid mortal gloom and doom. Misfortune and hardship lose their tragedy when viewed through the lens of the Atonement. The process could be explained this way: The more we know the Savior, the longer our view becomes. The more we see His truths, the more we feel His joy."
I'm not doing a very good job explaining the feelings I had reading these things, but suffice it to say, it helped me so much. I'm going to make a greater effort to just...remember the Savior. So often I go throughout my day and simply forget everything but what is passing at the time. My mind is so far from the purpose of this life and the Plan of Salvation that I can draw no strength from it. I'm going to do better with that, starting today. :)
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