Fill My Cup With Living Water

I have been looking forward to Sunday all week. This week has seemed to be a grinding force that was determined to reduce me to a starchy, mealy paste. My week has been filled with demoralizing work, fraught with disappointment, and loaded with an overwhelming need to feel the calming force of the Spirit.

In Monday's post I talked about how since my forced exile to the family ward four months ago, I have felt that I am having trouble filling my cup to capacity. I went from getting about 80% out of my meetings, to about 20%. The disparity makes me feel as if I was moving along a ridge and then have suddenly fallen off a cliff. Now that I have fallen. my wings are not strong enough to raise me back to the height that I was at when I was just walking along the edge. Like the bottom has fallen out, and I don't know how to get back up.

In February, I was was the highest I had ever been. My faith was solid, I could feel the iron rod in my hand, and was somehow a sheep amid a flock, heading in the right direction. I was confident, felt well taken care of, and had a fellowship in the Gospel like I had never know before.

Today I am a different. I think that my faith is still solid. Ever since a seventeen year old version of me knelt in my tiny bedroom, in the upstairs of my father's house, I have known of the truth. My strength of my conviction is what has waxed and waned over the years. It was not until several years later that I realized that baptism really was only the gate and it would take several years of hard work before I was wholly and completely dedicated. It was a journey that no one told me to expect but fared well in the end. Today my testimony is full and mature, and have the conviction necessary to live up to my temple covenants.

The family ward comes as a sharp incline on the path. Where I was cruising along before at a rapid clip, I now feel as if I am crawling along at an excruciatingly slow pace. Every step is hard earned, every gain a minuscule one, all progress hungrily gulped up but not enough to feel that same sense of fullness that I have grown so accustomed to.

I need more. I want more. Today that need was so consuming that after my own block of meetings, I went to my former YSA for an additional one and a half hours of church. There is something different there that is amazingly satiating. Thrusting my cup under the spigot, I felt guilty. Questions about what I was doing there left me hard pressed for an answer. I gave the truth to Frankie and Red, who wholly and completely understood with a simple, "I need more". But how to do causally explain to other about the searing desire I feel in my chest to be close to my Heavenly Father, to bask in his glory, to feel of his love that is incomparable to the love you can get from any mortal man? I don't know if you really can.

I think that part of my need this week is due to my upcoming trip to visit family. The church and what it means in my life are so foreign to them. It is easy to be dismissive when you do not comprehend the foundation that the institution of the church is built on.

A month or so ago, when I was talking to my father about The Boy, I was trying to explain to him about my mixed feelings about dating a non-member. His response was, "Are you still doing that? Isn't is about time that you let that go? If you are not careful your convictions are going to guarantee you that you will never get married". How close to the bone he cut. All my fears and insecurities welled to the surface and sent me into a swirling eddy of actually considering what he was saying. But by the light of the next day, I could see his argument for what it really was. I am concerned that my five days in Vegas are going to prove to be nothing of a campaign by my parents to have me give up my silly obsession with God.

Tonight as I close on my post, I want you to know, dear reader, that today, today my thirst was slaked. After a week of hard work, I finally have enough in my cup to drink of the Living Water. I know next week will be just as hard...and the week after that. Moving forward from here, I am going to have to actively seek out my opportunities to fill my cup to the brim. My days of passive participation are over, and you do not miss them until they are gone.

When The Sunset Meets The Horizon

Day two and another entry; I am already exceeding my own expectations.

Facebook informed me today that Stix’s pseudo-boyfriend has finally gotten the okay to leave for his overseas expedition. He leaves Thursday, and I am sure that this week will bring their all consuming time spending together to a fevered pitch. My own recently disappointed heart goes out for her in the most empathetic way. I in no way ever wish this feeling for anyone. When the sunset meets the horizon, does it ever feel good? My own selfish desire hopes that this separation will free up some time for our relationship to return to where it used to be. I miss her, and it is hard to see her and feel how truly far away we are from each other.

Tonight is FHE and I am so looking forward to it. Ever since I have joined the family ward, I have felt an overwhelming incongruity of how much I want and how much I am getting from my weekly meetings. Lessons about being good parents, raising children to the light, and eternal families rain down on my heart week after week but fail to fill my cup to capacity. Even when lessons are about faith, repentance, or the plan of salvation, they are still couched in family ward terms. I find that in filling that need that FHE, Institute, and Firesides, meant for those so many years younger than I, are like bright spots that give me the spiritual nourishment that I so desperately need. I am at the point in my life that I should be a complete spiritual person and am now intended to fill other people up. Am I selfish to long for the days right after my conversion where every one's wish was to bolster and to be sure that I was on the right path? I fear it is.

This week the thermometer is tipping into triple digits and as the temperature nears boiling point, so does the temperaments in the office. Our dynamic has changed since the Peacemaker has been out and consequently the balance of power has tipped the other way. Our dynamic is a delicate one that depends on the blending of the five of us in our own specific way. When one piece is missing, nothing is the same. The group has been a sulky, sodden mess for a week now and I can feel the stress pressing down on me as if it were a literal hand. I am ever being tested in my weakness of patience. Everyday I work on it a tad more. Like grains of sand passing from the top of an hour glass, it does not feel like I am making progress, but I think if you ask anyone who knows me, they could tell you my growth from just a year ago is immense.

Yesterday was Father's Day and due to the fact that mine was in Arkansas, got to talk to him for 55 minuets. Their retirement home, I fear, is a bigger responsibility than they anticipated. Their biannual trips there does little more than beat back the wilderness that is slowly determined to take the land back. I can feel how much he is ready to be done with working and to spend his day lazing my his tiny pond, listening to the crickets serenaded him. A combination the market, his gastric banding, and life in general, he is slowly being stepped back from his hard earned retirement. I know that he fears his own demise will happen before he ever gets to his days of leisure. His own demise haunted my own fears. His ever growing girth is wrecking havoc on his system. Between his heart, blood pressure, and diabetes, I am ever worried that his chair will stand empty on my wedding day. Every parent should have the privilege of dying before his children, I just hope that his day is still many years off.

Upon that cheerful note, I must jaunt off to finish getting ready for FHE. I hope to post again tomorrow, but cannot guarantee it. Till then...