Mercy

Hi.

Still off my game today.

It's more than just the sleep/sick thing.

It's really hard for me to feel less-than-happy, which is actually probably true of most people. I'm a happy person. I like to be happy. And it's even harder right now, when I should by all accounts be happier than I've ever been. I have my dream job. It's an amazing job, which most of you already know by now. And I know that my life has a lot of promise in it. Things that I don't have yet are already well-planned on the Lord's timetable. It's all taken care of to maximize my happiness.

So why do I feel unhappy?

I'm lonely. That's the simple truth. And it's hard to acknowledge it, because a lot of it is my fault. I stay at home when I should go out. I moved away from my entire support system. I close off around the people who are in my life right now. I don't make the effort to go down to visit my old friends.

I should do better, but it's so tempting to just give up. And the shameful part is that, too often---especially recently---I do. I take the easy route: book in my lap, alone in my room. It's simpler than trying to find a ride to get somewhere I've never been before and talk to people I don't know.

A woman I really admire wrote an emotionally honest blog post this morning, and I felt like jumping in a plane to Texas and hugging her, because it's good to know that I'm not the only one struggling with self-reproach and feeling down. She talked about not letting the guilt of things undone eat you into giving up. She also talked about trying to focus on the positive things after acknowledging the not-so-great things.

I felt like bursting into tears of gratitude. First, because she is someone I really, really love, and I know that I could curl up in her arms and sob and she would still love me. (No, she's not my mother, though Mom certainly fits that description, too.) Second, because it felt like a gift from the Lord, telling me when I needed it most that it's okay to feel the way I feel and providing me a solution in the same message.

Today, more than ever, I am truly breath-taken by the Lord's mercy. I've been slacking. I've been lazy in my zeal about the gospel. I haven't been living up to my own best standards. And yet, in a moment where I feel I least deserve mercy, the Lord still tells me that He loves me. He blesses me with a sweet reassurance that He is still right here with me, and He's still giving me blessings, even though I've done so little to deserve them.

It's amazing how much He loves me---loves us. I found a beautiful quote that captures what I understand about my relationship to the Savior:

"This is grace: The willingness to give what has not been earned and what may not be deserved---it is certainly the highest virtue and the deepest expression of love." (Excerpt from the 9/11/11 Memorial Service of Music and the Spoken Word (I love that my job makes me find things like this more often than I would otherwise))

The original context talked about mankind showing this grace for each other, and I happen to feel that it would make a really excellent piece of marriage/parenting advice, but I think it applies to the Savior as well. This is my relationship with Him: I can never earn my own salvation, and most of the time, I feel like I don't deserve to even try for it, but He is willing to love me anyway. Even the tiniest "act" of acknowledging that I'm not where I want to be brings great rewards, despite the fact that I haven't done anything to change---or even figured out how to go about changing---at the time. The simple thought, "I'm not happy, and I want to change that" suddenly opens an avalanche of loving reassurance and counsel.

Before I know it, I'm reading things that apply to my problems, I stumble across a solution in the most unexpected place, and it's suddenly much easier to see the hand of God in my life. From that, the tiniest blossom of hope blooms, then faith, then confidence that I can do what needs to be done. I can keep doing this. Giving up ceases to be the only solution. In fact, it drops off the option-list altogether.

This cycle happens over and over, every day. Many times each day, even. And we are all so blessed that the Lord never gets tired of it.