I've been feeling pretty bleak lately. So bleak that it isn't worth talking about. No one needs to really hear that. I have the best people surrounding me, but I'm to the point that when people ask me how I'm doing, that I just don't have it in me to unload on anyone anymore. I can only imagine that it's just too awful to listen to over and over and over again and I can see how badly people want to help, but there truly is no helping this problem. This one's between me and God. I have found myself in an awful and painful place...doubting spiritual knowledge and faith that I've never ever doubted before. It's torturing me from the inside out, making Sundays even more heavy and trying than they were already. I'm trying, am I ever trying, to investigate and explore my way through all of this. Despite the unfamiliar and foreign territory I find myself in, I'm trying to hold onto all that I DO know, for certain. I have a keen awareness of the impact that spending time discussing gospel principles and afterwards playing together can have on a family. We call it Family Home Evening and try to do it every Monday night. Since Naki died they've been really interesting. Some were only 5 minutes long. Some were spent corraling little ones over and over to stay where the rest of us were. Tonight we spent most of it with me shouting over Ane's screaming and crying because she was insistent that she was not going to sit on my lap, but was instead going to wreak havoc on our discussion by running from sister to sister and distracting them with her adorable antics. We let her have a brief moment of such distraction, and then put her to bed. Afterwards we spent the rest of the night talking about the goals we each had for the New Year. What a treat it was to listen to each of their ideas. We've done this every year and have them write them down on a paper that they can display somewhere in their room in a place that they'll be reminded of what goals they chose for themselves. At another Monday night Family Home Evening about halfway through the year we review how we've done so far. They were so aware of their own areas that are in need of growth, as am I.
I may feel despondent, lost, confused, afraid, furious, resentful, alone, and without identity most of the time. But tonight there was just a moment of peace that hopefully will last within me for a little while. It came actually at the beginning of our Family Home Evening. One of our dear Home Teachers, Wyatt, is leaving for his mission in New Zealand a week from Wednesday, and is speaking in church this Sunday. Our Ward Music Coordinator has asked if the girls will sing that day in church, somewhat in honor of Wyatt. We spent the first part of our FHE practicing that song. I loved it! The girls were all sitting together without pinching, pushing, crying, finger pointing, and accusatory glares. Instead one of them had their arm around the other, another had her sister's head in her lap and was brushing her hair with her fingers. They were singing and loving it. I taught them some harmony for the very last notes of the song, and when they actually all hit the notes just right at the very end, all their eyes opened in awe. They felt so amazed with themselves and loved the way it sounded (it really was pretty good) that they just wanted to keep doing it over and over again. Now, I may walk around these days full of rage and in denial of the Spirit of God in my life. But when I heard those guileless voices singing all around me, there was no denying it in that moment. I love these little angelic voices.
