resisting and growing

How muscles grow: (this information was gathered from a wiki type website about building muscle. Based on my own studies in fitness classes, biology and real life experience I feel it is safe to say this is an accurate description)


1-Your muscles grow when they recover after heavy stress that you put on them in the gym. Your body 'thinks' that you were running for your life from a lion and nearly escaped, and it builds some extra muscle to make sure that you outrun that lion next time he finds you! 


2-The same story in other words: when you stress your muscle to the limit, it develops micro-injury. When it repairs the damage, having enough time and material, it 'overdoes' a little, to prevent you from having that 'micro-injury' in the future.


3-To put it short, if you want your muscle grow, you should give it as much stress as possible in the gym, then you should provide it with everything it needs to recover and grow, which is time and food.

As I read this...can't remember why I was looking for it...it struck me that this was a very good example from nature of how my growth in the gospel works.  Some things that struck me:

1. "Your muscles grow when they recover after heavy stress that you put on them"
2. "when you stress your muscle to the limit, it develops micro-injury. When it repairs the damage, having enough time and material, it 'overdoes' a little, to prevent you from having that 'micro-injury' in the future."
3. "then you should provide it with everything it needs to recover and grow"

"then you should provide it with everything it needs to recover and grow"
My spiritual muscles DO seem to be stronger after each trial.  I find that I have a bit more resistance to my temptations, less of a desire to give in, and an increased desire to hold fast to the gospel that I know to be true.  And given time to gain some perspective for any given trial I can even begin to see the...necessity? of that particular struggle.  And if I'm really lucky what I've learned from a past trial comes in handy when faced with a new one...just like the muscles I build in the gym one day will hopefully pull me up Walters Wiggles when hiking Angel's Landing on another day.


"when you stress your muscle to the limit, it develops micro-injury. When it repairs the damage, having enough time and material, it 'overdoes' a little, to prevent you from having that 'micro-injury' in the future." 
There are moments, days, months...years even...that I feel as if I've been pushed to my limit...that I have been "broken" and am in need of repair.  I think this is what our Father expects.  We break and then we turn to our Father and to our Savior and his Atonement to heal what has been broken.  "Breaking" leads me to humility...I can no longer continue on my own...I must ask for help.  And so...hopefully...I do.  My Savior steps in and takes what is broken...takes my weakness...and repairs it...makes it stronger.  And suddenly what was once so weak, has now become a strength that I will use to battle through other trying times.

"then you should provide it with everything it needs to recover and grow"
As I struggle, with any number of things, I forget the recovery aspect.  I'm just so thrilled to be done with my "spiritual workout"...I'm so emotionally and spiritually drained that I don't really think about what is going to help to recover.  I'm just glad that a particular trial is over and that the Savior has stepped in...but what now?

When the physical workout is over...what do I do?  Do I go to In-N-Out burger to celebrate my hard work after a couple hours in the gym?  No (...well...I shouldn't) I stretch and nourish my body with food and water.  So after I've made it through a spiritual trial...what am I doing?  Am I providing myself with the spiritual nourishment that I need to help the new muscles I've built recover?  Am I continuing to call upon my Father and the Savior?  Am I renewing my covenants with the Lord through regular temple and Sunday meeting attendance?  Is my scripture study regular? Without providing my spirit with the needed nourishment all that hard work was for not.



It doesn't seem unreasonable that I apply a workout regime not only for my physical health, but for my spiritual as well.  Trials and temptations will never cease...not in this life...and even in the world to come...at least for a time.  Spiritual muscle growth is essential to my salvation.

I do know that we are here to grow and become who our Father in Heaven already knows we can be.  The potential for my spiritual muscle growth is there.  It is not unachievable...but it will not come without difficulty.  So I'm going to do my best to make it less difficult with a better workout regime.

Pride...and not the kind you have a parade for.

I'm going to preface this post with a warning that it contradicts my previous 90210 post.  I may know the gospel principles but unfortunately I don't always apply them in my life.

And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them. ~Ether 12:27

My weaknesses are given so that I may become humble.  Humility is something that I feel I've been sorely lacking lately.  Perhaps this will turn a few readers off...but lately I've been really struggling with my pride.  Not the "I'm better than you because I'm awesome and have more than you kind of pride"...more a "from the bottom up" kind of pride that I once hears Spencer W Kimball speak about (now I can't find the reference).  I listened to Elder Scott recently interview a married couple and was filled with disdain for the couple and pride in myself, as they discussed how they counsel together and with the Lord to work through disagreements in their relationship.  The disdain wasn't specifically aimed at that issue...more at the fact that they were married and HAD someone to counsel with over struggles in their relationship.  I sat there thinking..."I do this alone.  I don't have anyone to counsel with for help."  

Reading that now is laughable.  A) Because it is prideful and ridiculous and B) because I DO, indeed, have someone to counsel with.  I might not be sealed for time and all eternity, nor am I married civilly, nor am I even in a relationship.  However, I have parents and siblings, I have friends...and most importantly...I do have the Savior and my Father in Heaven...and their counsel is the best around.

Last night I was speaking with a friend and we were talking about struggles, frustrations, weaknesses, etc... and how they give us reason to turn to the Lord...and as it says in Ether...when we do that those things that are weak unto us...He can make them strengths unto us.  I've seen it in my own life...on a daily basis.

I'm grateful that despite my pride, my Father in Heaven still blesses me...that the Atonement is there so that I can leave that pride with the Lord.  Some days seem to drag on...and this life feels like it is a never ending battle...but I am working towards an end goal...a happy ending, if you will:

"A happy end...that's a bit of a tall order for everyday. I mean ultimately, sure, you want to end happily. But at the same time, who wants to end? Either you're happy and ended or you're not quite happy and at least still living...

That's where I have to find consolation...in the fact that I'm still living....a day to day...hour to hour...breath to breath...just living."  ~Little Happy Secrets

The speaker in the play acknowledges that her statement is a fairly literal take on happy endings...but I can relate to exactly what she is saying...many times I've said that choosing the gospel is a  daily, hourly and sometimes minute by minute choice.  And I don't always make the right choice.  But I do find comfort in the fact that whether humbled or prideful my Savior, His Atonement and my Father in Heaven...they are always there for me...they don't give up on me.  It is much easier to hear their counsel when I am humble...and as you now know...I'm not always filled with humility...but I still take comfort in knowing that even with my nose turned up at others...they do not turn their noses up at me...or their backs on me.  Their arms are always open waiting for me to turn my heart to them.

life lessons from 90210

Obviously the main issue that I write about on this blog is about dealing with my attraction to girls and its incongruence with the gospel that I know to be true.  But there are other things that I struggle with.  They are not so acute but they do exist.  However...because liking girls is so...I can't think of a word...but it is something that would require a significant, to say the least, lifestyle change...including giving up things that I love and hold sacred...it seems to be front and center in my life.  This is NOT in any way to say that my life is more difficult than anyone else's.  I don't believe that at all.  In fact I believe that your challenges and struggles and obstacles are as difficult for you as mine are for me.  I believe that principle to be true.  I like to call it my 90210 principle.  I will explain...


In 1990 Beverly Hills 90210 made it's television debut.  It was not a show I had any particular interest in  (except for when Rebecca Gayheart and Tiffani Thiessen were on...they are both really easy on the eyes...I digress) but it taught me a great lesson about judging other's situation against my own. 


I was sitting at lunch one day...at the lunch table were a group of girls, with whom I was friends and who had a deep LOVE for 90210...and then a couple of my closer friends who had about as much interest in the show as I did.  One of my closer friends commented on how lame the show was, which of course almost incited a lunch room riot.  Being the peace maker/people pleaser (working on that) that I am I tried to temper the increasingly incendiary situation.  My closer friends took the stance that the show was so fake, so ridiculous and that if their lives were anything like that they would have nothing to complain about.  The 90210 girls immediately countered saying...well honestly I don't know what they said...but I do know they were horrified by the lack of regard given to their televisions "besties" (just an aside, this was LONG before the term "bestie", but I am fairly certain that these girls would have been part of the group to incorporate the word).  


This is when true Divine inspiration struck my 13 year old mind.  In less than articulate terms, I'm sure...I was in junior high, cut me some slack...I explained to the fuming group that the lives of the TV CHARACTERS (yes...I am sort of about to defend television characters) were as difficult for said TV characters as our lives were for us...that my life was as difficult for me as it was for any one of my friends...90210 lovers and anyone else...and though our struggles were very, Very, VERY different (especially from the likes of the students at Beverly Hills High) said struggles were still just as difficult, and heart wrenching and stressful and painful and whateverelseful for each one of us.  I don't really remember anyone being awed at my words of wisdom (I guess I was no Mother Mary) but things settled down and I was the heroine for the 90210 crowd...not sure if they understood what I was saying totally...but they could tell I was on their side...and as far as my closer friends...they just chalked it up to me being my usual crowd pleasing self...and we continued on, peacefully, with our non-90210 related conversation.  


To be honest...I think it was many years later that I was actually awed at my own words...not so much at what I had said, but somewhat amazed that at such a self centered and moody age (it wasn't just me, right?)  I came to understand what is a very true principle...regardless of someones struggle...I cannot compare it to mine...I cannot judge that what I go through on a daily basis is more difficult than what you go through.  Of course and by all means...we can support each other and share with one another our heartbreaks and our "heart-heals"...and we indeed learn from one another.  But I would loath the thought that anyone out there ever thought that I felt as if my life was so much more difficult than theirs.


Our trials...they are here to make us better...make us who it is we truly are, who we can really be...I don't always love that idea...but there are a lot of principles in nature (muscle growth immediately comes to mind) that seem to evidenced the truth that our growth and progression come often times from obstacles. 


And I will leave you with some thoughts that are not my own but that I would like to have etched underneath my eyelids so I read them while I sleep!

"The path of least resistance can lead through a minefield" (this comes from the main character in the movie The Nannie Diaries)         

"Patient endurance permits us to cling to our faith in the Lord and our faith in His timing when we are being tossed about by the surf of circumstance.  Even when a seeming undertow grasps us, somehow, in the tumbling we are being carried forward though battered and bruised." ~Neal A Maxwell

And for those moments when you're 100% POSITIVE that you've learned ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING that you are going to learn from a particular trial...Neal sheds some (more) much needed light:

"In our approach to life, patience also helps us to realize that while we may be ready to move on, having had ENOUGH of a particular learning experience, our continued presence is often needed as part of the learning environment of others." 

~Neal A Maxwell

"There is a gap between what I feel and what I know."  This thought came to me one day while sitting in a Relief Society lesson...or perhaps I was listening to a talk...I don't really remember. I DO remember that is resonated with me...it describes exactly what I feel about the two very powerful competing forces in my life.  

I realized recently that the only possible way for me to close that gap...the only way that I have any chance of that happening is if I keep my covenants.  If I can do that, then sometime in this life...or the next...that gaping hole...can be filled, completed, closed, made to be as if it never existed.  I will be made to feel whole.  Isn't that the whole purpose of the Atonement?  I know that somehow, making and keeping covenants with the Lord will allow me to "take all MY insecurities, all MY short comings and recognize them but turn them over to the Lord" (from a note written to me from a friend the day I realized the gap in my life.)  I'm still working on how exactly to turn those things over to the Lord...and I'm still trying to fill that gap.  Some days my trying is much more diligent and valiant than others...but I do try.

ELEVEN DAYS

Deuteronomy 1:2 - (There are eleven days journey from Horeb by the way of Seir unto Kadesh-barnea.)


Horeb is the place where Moses received the 10 Commandments.  Kadesh-barnea is a point at which Moses sent spies into the promised land to see what's the what.  I had a friend once tell me that the drive from Horeb to Kadesh-barnea takes about 45 minutes...that is about the drive from Salt Lake City to Provo on a normal traffic day.  The Israelites wandered for FORTY YEARS.  They were an eleven day journey away from the promise land...but because of their hardened hearts and pride...they wandered for FORTY.YEARS.

Am I going to hang on to anger and frustration and pride and "wander for forty years"?  Or am I going to be able to just let it go and reach the "promise land"?

In October General Conference of 2008 Elder Lawrence E Corbridge gave a talk entitled "The Way" .  (Read it. Love it.)

He made the following statement:  

Life is hard, but life is simple. Get on the path and never, ever give up. You never give up. You just keep on going. You don’t quit, and you will make it.

There is only one way to happiness and fulfillment. Jesus Christ is the Way. Every other way, any other way, whatever other way is foolishness.

And so...I really am trying to get on and stay on that path...and never give up.  Some days are better than others...but I am just going to keep on going...because any other way is foolishness.

"But hold on to what you believe in the light...when the darkness has robbed you of all your sight."

I think that if I ever get a tattoo this is what I will get tattooed.  I use to want a poem that Alex wrote for me, but it is kind of long...and I think this phrase sums up a truth that would be useful tattooed underneath my eyelids.  Or perhaps I will make a recording of it over and over  and listen to it each night as I fall asleep (SINCE I CAN'T BUY THE SONG THE LINE IS FROM ON iTUNES...PLEASE Apple...let me buy music form iTunes Ireland...geez).

I've come to realize in the VERY recent past (ie about twenty minutes ago) that what always pulls me out of a slump or back to the "straight and narrow" is a gospel truth... EVERY.SINGLE.TIME.  

I don't want to admit that.  I want to be able to live my life happily without the gospel in it...for the mere fact that I could then date who I actually was interested in dating.  But it is the truth.  Well...almost the whole truth...for me, the whole truth is, the gospel brings about the majority of my happiness...the rest of it is a result of the relationships in my life...and as kick ass and bitchin' as my friends and family are...they are not a significant other.  Sometimes they are a fabulous substitute...but even then they are only fleeting in their ability to fill that GAPING hole.  One day my mom and I were discussing Prop 8 and gay marriage and the temple and I explained to her that in my ideal world I could be sealed to the girl I loved in the temple.  In my ideal world that would be A-Ok. But this isn't my world...and that isn't how natural law works...so...I do my best to:

"...hold on to what I believe in the light...when the darkness has robbed me of all my sight."