But sometimes the answer is that it doesn't really matter what you do, it would have happened anyway. Because maybe the mishap made wasn't yours. Or maybe because it was something you had agreed to deal with long before you came to this earth in order to potentially benefit another--that they would have the opportunity to make a choice, for better or worse. And you took one for the team.
As I thought about an experience I had many years ago, soon after my mission, I have slowly come to realize that this is what happened. It's an experience I don't normally talk about--I don't even think I have shared it with Andrew, who knows me better than any other person on this earth. And I don't think that was ever intentional--I just hid it in a closet in my mind with the label, "No idea what happened," and moved on to other experiences and happy thoughts. But it was painful. And hurtful. And confusing. And it was one of the first times I had felt such a deep feeling of betrayal in my adult life. That box, although packed away, weighed heavily in that small space in my mind, causing my spirit to sag like a shelf struggling to stay up under the weight of too much crap.
And I felt so stupid. I wished I could somehow go back and make different decisions that would keep me out of a situation that I knew had little chance of resolving itself in a way that didn't create emotional destruction. That's the thing--I KNEW it going in. How dumb is that?
Over the years since this has passed, I would sometimes reflect on that experience. It would get triggered by very few things, and that feeling that there was no closure just kept nagging at me. And it played on my deepest fears about myself. So whenever it came up, I would try to push it back down, telling myself that there was no way at this point to get closure the way I wanted it, and trying to assure myself that I wasn't the person I had grown up thinking I was, an image I battled hard in my early adult life to change. I tried hard to forgive the entire experience. And I think I did a pretty good job. Instead of feeling anger, I began to feel compassion. One of my favorite quotes is from Maya Angelou, who said, "You did then what you knew how to do. And when you knew better, you did better." I became very good at applying that to other people.
But not so much myself. In the past week, I've realized that over this entire time, one of the reasons why this experience refused to resolve itself in my mind was that I had not yet been able to forgive myself. One of the main reasons why I kept thinking about it seemed to be that I was just beating myself up for it--Geez, you KNEW what a bad idea this would be. Why did you do it anyway? When I finally allowed myself this past week to finish that question, I was actually able to sit with that pain, that uncertainty of why I would do something that logically I knew in my brain made no sense and was fraught with problems.
And slowly the answer came to me. I did it because although in my head I knew it was dangerous, I felt a small whisper that told me I needed to try, that I needed to help. There was a situation where Heavenly Father had such concern for those involved, he needed someone to be His hands. I'm not afraid to get into the mud in this life. But I think that I had the idea that working in His garden, the dirt would magically just clean itself, that I wouldn't get scratches when weeding out the thorns. Wouldn't it be awesome if it were that way?
Now, this may sound as though I'm some hero in this story. I think the largest part of my shame comes from the fact that I ended up being a great disappointment in that idea. Somehow along the way, I forgot that this is what Heavenly Father had asked me to do, knowing full well that it would not end in a pretty bow all tied up neatly for me. Instead, I allowed confusion and despair to color my thinking, and my communication with my Heavenly Father, and I focused my attention on berating myself for doing something I logically knew would unlikely bring a happy ending, forgetting that spiritually I had known it needed to be done as part of a larger plan. So 12 years later, I am finally in the last stages of that battle. I am allowing myself to open up that packed up and stored away box and feel emotions about that time that had long since been buried. And I'm learning to forgive myself. Not for following a spiritual prompting, but because I had lost sight of that fact when the clouds became too thick to see the path through the storm, either in front of or behind me. And I got a little lost.
However, what's even more incredible to me is that even when feeling like I was lost in the mist, I still found my way out to a much better place, a testament that even when we abandon ourselves, Heavenly Father stays with us. And He will lead us, even when we don't realize that this is what is going on. I still look back at it feel really stupid, but not about the same things that I used to. Instead, I feel stupid that I didn't recognize all the miracles that were taking place quietly around me, how in my effort to support another, I, too, was being given support by other heavenly and human "angels" that I have no doubt were inspired to be there for me. I feel stupid that I forgot that Heavenly Father does not leave us. Period. And He certainly does not leave us when we are trying to do His work. But, forgiveness is a process. And at least for me, it is much harder for me to forgive myself than to forgive others. I am a work in progress. And for that, I am grateful and have no regrets.
You are my hero....no really, you are a great example to me in so many ways. We are meant to fall and stumble our way though this life. Sometimes its a product of our own making. Other times it's as a result of others and we were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Forgiving ourselves can be the hardest thing we do. just remember that the challenges we face were meant to be ours! :-)
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