Stopped at the Gates

In 2014, when I was traveling through Israel with my tour group, we visited several sites sacred to Israelis. Our tour guide told us that we should dress appropriately. At least knee-length pants or dresses and longer shirt sleeves. In short, if we wanted to get in, we couldn’t wear tank tops or shorts. 

However, when we went to the Wailing Wall at Temple Mount in Jerusalem, probably the most sacred place for the Israeli people, some members of our group who had forgotten the dress code wore short shorts and tank tops. They were stopped at the gates. The guards wouldn’t let them in. 

But they really wanted to go in. They had been looking forward to seeing the Wailing Wall for the entire trip. They had previously written a prayer on a piece of paper that they wanted to put in one of the crevices of the wall. They were so relieved when someone told them that there were vendors outside the gates selling coverings. After purchasing the coverings and putting them on, they approached the gates again, and the guards let them in. 

Communicate Respect or Disrespect

I have thought about this experience often. Through it and other similar experiences in foreign countries I’ve learned that I communicate respect or disrespect through the way I dress, the way I speak, and the way I act. This concept becomes extremely clear when I visit other countries and especially their sacred places. If I want in, it is an act of humility, respect, and love to make the effort to speak their language and follow their rules.

Kicking Bad Habits – Spiritual Gates

Now scroll back to 1984-85, when I was 15 years old and had recently gone back to church (see Change Like A Sunrise). I was learning more about God and his way of doing things and came to a sort of spiritual gate. I wanted to enter in, but I was stopped and directed to change something about myself first. Here’s how that happened:

I had picked up the habit of swearing during my junior high days. So, even after I went back to church at fourteen, I was still swearing until the beginning of my sophomore year of high school. 

There was one day when I was hanging out with a few of my friends around the cement planter at Santa Teresa High School where we always hung out. I swore and then suddenly sensed that I should not do that anymore. It wasn’t a harsh voice speaking to me. It was more like a suggestion – one that hadn’t occurred to me before that moment. I had approached a point of increased self-awareness and realization. 

It was like the guards at the Wailing Wall that told my friends that they couldn’t come in until they were dressed appropriately. I had come to a gate in my spiritual progression. I needed to increase my respect past this point. I could have chosen not to go in just like my friends in Israel could have chosen that. I could have stayed on that side of the gate and continued along the same pathway. But like them, I really wanted to enter in. 

I chose to change my language. From that time forward, I dropped the habit completely.

The Gates of Heaven

Throughout my life, I have continued to approach other gates. I’m not fully aware of them until I get there and realize the choice. The choice is usually about sacrificing my old ways of doing things for better ways.

I love these gates because they are evidence that the Lord is actively training me. Each gate represents an incremental level and invitation to draw closer to him. My motivation to change is driven by His intense Spirit. It’s a total privilege. At each gate, he unlocks chains that have kept me at a level of sorrow I had no idea I could overcome. It’s the best feeling I’ve ever experienced.

Change Like A Sunrise

It was a Sunday, and the year was 1983. The place was San Jose, California. I wasn’t at church like I hadn’t been for the past year. I was fourteen years old and hanging out at home in my red and white striped shorts and a t-shirt. There was a knock at the door, and I answered it. Two women from my church had come to see me. They introduced themselves as Sister Braun and Sister Schuck, my young women leaders, and asked if they could come in. 

I agreed and showed them into the living room. What followed was a conversation that has echoed through my mind and heart for 37 years. It’s not that it was amazingly powerful or touching at the time. In fact, it was pretty awkward for me. They told me they loved me with tears in their eyes. They invited me to come back to church for 6 weeks. Even though I wasn’t a fan of such mushiness and was anxious for the whole visit to be over, I agreed to go back. 

So, I went back. I don’t remember when the six weeks ended. I lost track of time. There were good friends, boys, love, guidance, leadership, inclusion, and opportunities at church. I needed this community. My ward became my family. My bishop, his counselors, and young men leaders were like father figures to me. My young women leaders were mother figures. And they loved me.

They taught me that I was a daughter of God and that he loved me. They told us all that we had been saved for these last days to perform a special mission for Him. We were youth of a noble birthright. Something stirred inside me. It began to grow.

“Now we will compare the word unto a seed. Now, if ye give place, that a seed may be planted in your heart, behold, if it be a true seed, or a good seed, if ye do not cast it out by your unbelief, that ye will resist the Spirit of the Lord, behold, it will begin to swell within your breasts...” -Alma 32:28

The Promise

Within a year, around my fifteenth birthday, I went to one of the regular interviews that the members of the bishopric have with the youth. This particular interview was with Brother Williams, one of the bishopric counselors. He told me that there is a promise in the scriptures that if I consistently read them, the Lord would prosper me. He took a few minutes to define what prosperity meant – flourishing financially. That appealed to me. During these years, I was very interested in figuring out a way to meet my needs.

In telling me about this, Brother Williams introduced me to a covenant relationship with the Lord himself. He told me about a promise that I didn’t know about before. Up until that time, I tried to obtain some of the things I wanted in ways that were imbalanced and definitely weren’t sustainable. But after hearing about this promise, I latched onto it. I believed it and was excited to test it out.

Change Like a Sunrise

After the interview, I started reading the scriptures consistently. I rarely missed a day. I experienced light. That’s the best way to describe it. It was like the sun rising so gradually, I barely even noticed it and the changes that were occurring inside of me. But in hindsight, I can see the movement, the progress. Over time scripture reading became a habit. Little by little, I learned a better way of living – a better way of obtaining my desires and resolving my conflicts. Many imbalanced thoughts, words, and actions were balanced within a year. But other more difficult relationship issues would take me more time to figure out, realize, and correct. Oh, and financially, I've always had enough and to spare. 

See my post: My Financial Advisor and I Was On a 500-mile Bike Trip for some examples of how that happened.

I Was Part of a Miracle

When I was sixteen, I was at a youth fireside at our bishop’s home – Bishop & Sister Hunter. They were spotlighting our leaders. The leaders had a bunch of questions to answer beforehand. When they did Sister Schuck’s spotlight, they told us things about her like her favorite color, where she was born and grew up, etc. I can’t remember the details, but I do remember one of the questions: What is one of your most spiritual experiences? They read the answer – Reactivating Gretchen Nahinu. I was astonished. I had forgotten who I was before and hadn't realized the full story.

Later she told me that she had received such a strong impression to go to my house and invite me back to church. And then she had watched me grow and change over the years. I was a part of her miracle and I hadn’t been fully aware of it. The realization caused me to reflect on the changes that had occurred in me and her role in my conversion. I also became more aware of the Lord's role in my life. He had come for me. The atonement of Jesus Christ is real.

I owe so much to Sister Braun, Sister Schuck, and Brother Williams. The feelings of awkwardness that I had when I first met them have turned into feelings of complete gratitude. I am so thankful that they came for me and taught me about my relationship with my Savior. It was through these and many other good people in my life, scripture study, prayer, and personal revelation that my relationship with Him has been developed. And it has been through this personal training relationship with him that I've been able to rebalance, work through the more difficult issues that I have been assigned to overcome throughout my lifetime, and find Sustainable Joy.

Could I Forgive My Past Self?

When I was growing up, my family didn’t have a lot. We struggled financially. I didn’t have money to buy what I wanted. And there were many little things that I really wanted. One day, I found some money in my mom’s dresser drawer that I knew belonged to my little sister, Emelia. She had received it for her birthday. I guess my mom was keeping it because Emelia was only eight years old. It was sixty dollars, three twenties. I didn’t think anyone was using it or that they needed it as much as I did. So, I took it.

I stored it on the top shelf of my closet and would take a little down at a time. I used it over the course of several months to buy the things a fourteen-year-old girl wanted. When my mom asked me if I took the money, I told her I hadn’t. I think she ended up blaming my brother.

Do you feel guilty?

One day I was taking some of the money down, when a question came into my mind:

“Do you feel guilty?”

“No.”

“But do you remember learning in primary that stealing is wrong?”

“Yeah, but they said I would feel guilty, and I don’t. I feel perfectly fine.”

I distinctly remember analyzing the lack of guilt that I felt. At the time, I saw the conversation as my own thoughts. But now that I know how the Lord talks to me, I can look back at these memories and identify his presence more accurately. This was definitely one of those moments when he was working with me.

The more I changed, the more it bothered me

This situation was not resolved when I was 14. I did not do the right thing right away. I was focused on my own needs and had little empathy for my sister’s. But over the next few years when I went back to church, I grew up and grew closer to the Lord. The incident was always in the back of my mind. I never forgot it. The more I changed, the more it bothered me that I had done it. 

In a young women’s class, in a Sunday school class, or in a sacrament talk, I heard about making restitution for the things that we did wrong in order to truly repent. Some things were outside of our control, and we couldn’t physically do anything to make amends. But other things we could. I heard this lesson a number of times between the ages of 14 and 19. And when I did, I reflected on the stolen money. The guilt increased over these years. I never felt toxically ashamed; the feeling was more like motivation to make it right. I was one way at 14. I was another at 15 and another at 16 and 17 and 18 and 19.

The motivation converted into action

By age 19, the motivation converted into action. When I came home for the summer from my first year of college, I got my first full-time job. One day after work, I stopped by the teller and withdrew sixty dollars. That evening, I asked my mom and sister to come into my room. Emelia was now around the same age I had been when I took her money.

“I need to tell you guys something. Remember when someone took the sixty dollars that Emelia got for her birthday?”

They nodded.

“It was me. I’m sorry.” I didn’t cry. I felt solemn and excited at the same time. I handed Emelia the three twenty dollar bills (I didn’t know about interest rates at this age).

My mom hooted and said, “I wondered what had happened to that money.” She was happy and maybe even a little surprised that I was making restitution of my own free will.

Emelia had a big smile on her face. At eight years old, she may not have completely understood what she had lost. Now, it was clear that she understood the value of it. Sixty bucks was a lot of money for a 13 year old girl.

Could I forgive my past self? 

In telling this story, my hope is not to highlight my goodness. It’s actually pretty difficult for me to tell it because my values are so different than they were at fourteen. I am not that girl anymore. Her ways are no longer my ways. Her thoughts are no longer my thoughts. I see her as I would another person. And the Savior has taught me to have compassion on her.

That said, my main purpose is to illuminate the atonement of Jesus Christ in action. He wanted to know how much I understood about what I was doing. Maybe he questioned me to make sure. And maybe the questions were more for an older women when she looked back on the younger. Could I forgive my past self if I remembered that she didn’t completely understand the “why” behind the laws?

They that are without the law

A number of years ago, I learned more about Him and the way his Mercy works:

“For behold that all little children are alive in Christ, and also all they that are without the law. For the power of redemption cometh on all them that have no law; wherefore, he that is not condemned, or he that is under no condemnation, cannot repent.” ~Moroni 8:22

Under the Savior’s laws of Mercy, He gave me time to grow up, learn more, and to repent. He held back the full consequences of Justice for me. At no time did he smother me with guilt. But this wasn’t a free pass to just keep on stealing what I wanted. Over the next several years, he worked on me, trained me step by step, and I listened. 

I don’t think that it was ever about the money for him. I think it has always been about me learning the best and most sustainable way to obtain my desires and resolve my conflicts.

The laws of Justice & Mercy

At fourteen, I obviously knew that I shouldn’t take the money. I knew the law. According to Justice, I was guilty. But because of Mercy, I was given time for the law to become written in my heart. I was given time to decide who I wanted to be and to whom I would swear allegiance. At fourteen I had very little sense of belonging. I was operating in survival mode - just looking out for myself. I had not yet consciously devoted myself and my life to Christ. But over the course of the next five years, I gradually became aware of my identity. As my mind sharpened and my awareness of my choices increased, I chose who I would be allegiant to. I became a strong advocate for Christ. And that became a powerful reason for my obeying the law.

My story reminds me of Eustace Scrubb’s in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis. This character is a pain in the butt during the first half of the book. He is always looking out for number one, which ends up causing other people trouble. But in the story he is cursed for stealing and changed into a dragon. He is not happy about this consequence and views it as a prison. Aslan is the lion character that symbolizes Jesus Christ. He works with Eustace to tear off the dragon’s skin layer by layer. Eustace changes through this experience. He becomes compassionate, empathetic, and courageous. He is forever after allegiant to Aslan.

Layer by layer. That is a good description of how I changed over the course of time, from fourteen to nineteen years old. And it’s a good description of how I have continued to change through the Savior’s training throughout my entire life. If I were to dwell in Toxic Shame on any of my past layers, it would really deter me from my future growth. 

The only way I have been able to let go of the past and become more than I once was has been to learn to have as much Mercy on my past self as Christ has had on her. As I have increased in this ability, my patience and empathy with my own kids and other people has increased. Because I was given Mercy, I am bound by the laws of Mercy. I am obligated to forgive myself and others who don’t yet know the law and who do not yet have it written in their hearts. I am harshly censured when I don’t.