The Secrets I Have Learned

I remember a morning when I was five years old. My mom wanted me to wear a dress to kindergarten. But I didn’t want to. So, there arose a conflict between us. I was vehemently screaming, “I don’t want to wear a dress!” when I saw my stepdad coming up the basement stairs. I thought he had gone to work already. He usually wasn’t there at this time of the morning. But there he was, an angry look on his face that I recognized all too well. I stopped screaming immediately and I turned around and ran back up the stairs. He came after me…

Above Image: Guiding Light by Annie Henrie Nader

This is part 5 of "I Have a Tale to Tell"

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

What followed was extreme NW parenting. I won’t describe the details. They don’t matter now. What matters is what I learned AND did not learn from this and many subsequent interactions with him between the ages of 4 and 10.

In evaluating this story and my stepdad, I want to address the semantic concept of Evaluation, which is on the Southern side of the Compass. It has been important for me to know and be careful about the way I evaluate relationships, people, events, feelings, and results. This is because the way I evaluate others is the way I evaluate myself.

"With what judgement ye judge, ye shall be judged." -Matthew 7:1-5

The Southern Balance

The South is the ideal way of evaluating the past and present things that happen. We divide these results into two categories: successes and failures. Of course, on the Compass, there are degrees between total success and total failures. In semantics, every concept has incremental degrees between the two extreme points like the degrees between light and darkness that make up the Zone.

So, the South represents the ideal way to evaluate success. Ideally, when we achieve success, we acknowledge that we have been a contributor. Our choices, our actions, our words, our thoughts, our sacrifices. We also acknowledge that there were others who played a significant role in achieving it. Others include God, our parents, teachers, friends, children, extended family, spouses, or other community members. 

We need to remember that there are so many people who have come before us and who have contributed to our present privileges and resources. Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin, the Founding Fathers, whoever invented plumping, automobiles, and computers. There are so many more. Seriously, we cannot forget that we stand on their shoulders. It is important to acknowledge that it is always a team effort to accomplish our goals.

It is also important to evaluate accurately because when we go into the next goal achievement process, we won’t try to do it in an extreme NW/NE way, in which we think that some things ride on our effort and sacrifice alone (when they don't) AND at the same time leave other more crucial things undone. When we evaluate in Extreme Imbalance and the going gets tough or when the going gets super boring, we are likely to abuse and neglect ourselves and others. It is not a sustainable evaluation process.

If we evaluate in the South, we are very aware that in our next goal achievement process, we need to find the balance in the team effort. When we engage in this type of process, we will achieve a greater degree of success together.

Evaluating Failure through the Southern Balance

The South also represents the ideal way to evaluate failure. We acknowledge that we have contributed to the problem. Our choices, actions, words, thoughts, and NW/NE ways of doing things were most likely partly responsible for a failed outcome. We also acknowledge that there were others who played a significant role in causing the problem. Others include God, our parents, teachers, friends, family, spouses, and other community members. 

We all are falling together because of this bumper-car-state we are in. And we need to experience this Fallen state in order to develop REAL sustainable compatible relationships. The bottom line is that sacrificing for each other enables us to develop bonds of love that cannot be developed in any other way. If there were not REAL opportunities to sacrifice, these bonds could not form.

Southeast Evaluation - Pride & Shame

The Southeast (SE) way of evaluating is when we take too much credit for successes or too much responsibility for failures. 

Taking too much credit is pride. It is thinking that we have obtained our privileges and resources by the strength of our own arm without any help from anyone else. We think we deserve all the credit. That’s the extreme. But it is still an incompatible way of evaluating when we don’t attribute enough of the credit to others. 

Taking too much of the responsibility for a failure is Toxic Shame. Shame and guilt are within the Zone between the South and extreme SE. Sometimes that kind of evaluation is helpful and contributes to our motivation to change. Changing is about developing better relationship skills that bring us Sustainable Joy. But Toxic Shame will result in the opposite. It will lock a person up and ruin people and relationships. 

Southwest Evaluation - Inhibition & Blame

The Southwest (SW) way of evaluating is when we take too little credit for successes or too little responsibility for failures. 

The semantics behind taking too little credit for successes is somewhat hidden in our society. It is vague and squashed out because so many of us are attempting to avoid the extreme imbalanced evaluation of pride. But when we take too little credit for the actual contributions we have made to a success we end up with low self-esteem or low confidence. We are inhibited, hesitant, doubtful, nervous, insecure, unsure, and wavering. We might think it is the saintly thing to do to attribute the success completely to God or to others. But where does that end us up when we go into the next goal achievement process? In the NE. In a NE goal achievement process, we think God or others will do everything for us to accomplish the goal. And if it doesn’t happen, then what? Should we blame them for the failure? 

Toxic Blame is the other side of the SW coin. The Lord has trained me to think of this constructively. If we blame too much of a failure on someone else, we miss opportunities to turn failures into successes. We get so hung up on something that has happened to us and we think the solution is to talk about what others have done to us over and over again. There is a time and space to talk about it. And we need to do that. But when that is our eternal resolution process, we are not understanding the power that the Atonement of Jesus Christ gives us to make lemonade out of lemons!

The opportunity to change things is made possible by his Atonement. He comes in as an opposing power to the Fall. The Fall causes the bumper-car experience. When something bad is done to us, we inadvertently are forced to do something bad to someone else. Bumper cars. Or you could think of it like dominoes. When one falls, it hits the next one in line, and before you know it, everyone is down.

The Atonement of Jesus Christ is the Space between Stimulus and Response

Jesus Christ creates that space between the bumper cars or between the dominoes. He can help us create that space in ourselves. Even though something bad has been done to us, we can be trained to use our choice, our will, our strength to refrain from passing it along. Instead, we turn to Christ with the pain and sorrow. We turn to him to receive his comfort, peace, and strength. And we turn to him for retraining. I have found that process completely healing and satisfying. More on that later.

But let’s get back to evaluating my stepdad. The Lord has taught me how to evaluate in the Southern Zone. He has given me time to talk about what was done to me and what it subsequently caused me to do. There were many times that I needed to vent. He was there to allow me to do that. I needed that space and time. To force me or guilt me into forgiving others before I was actually ready to do it from my heart is not a sustainable process. To objectively evaluate the pain and sorrow that I experienced throughout my childhood and into adulthood because of the way I was raised has also been important. I used to perpetually evaluate my past from both the SE and SW extremes. Learning how to evaluate in the South has freed me from many of the chains of bondage that have kept me down for so many years. 

My stepdad parented me from the extreme NW/NE. Too much discipline, too soon, and not enough patient training. But he did this because his parents disciplined him in the same way. Before he married my mom, he turned to the Lord to change some of the dysfunctional behaviors he had learned from his upbringing. For example, he didn’t pass on alcoholism to me or my siblings. I am thankful to him for that. 

But it is difficult to absorb the full force of the impact from previous generations and completely stop it from passing on to the next. Some of it usually squeezes through. I know this because I experienced it myself. 

When I became a parent, I had no idea there were dormant dominos inside of me. I mean, I knew what had happened growing up, but I thought that just knowing that it was not a good way to parent was enough. It wasn’t enough. The dormant dominos woke up when I was faced with the challenges of parenthood. I also parented in the extreme NW/NE at times. In one of my previous posts on Paradoxical Parenting, I referred to this as Survival Parenting.

Read more details about my parenting experiences in these posts: 

It's My Party

Before & After

Children Need to be Disciplined

The fact is that children need to be disciplined. They don’t have compatible relationship skills yet. They are focused on getting their own needs met. They scream and yell. They throw tantrums. They kick, hit, punch, push, and bite in their attempts to resolve conflict and obtain their desires. They aren’t always the little angels that many people like to portray them as. But they do have that angel side. They are a dichotomy of angel and devil (think Jack Jack). And parents have to figure out how to deal with them. 

The Lord showed me that the key to remember is that we all have desires and conflicts. It is not wrong to desire something. It was not wrong that my stepdad wanted me to learn how to resolve my conflicts in a more reasonable way than screaming. We all would prefer that our children did not scream their heads off when things didn’t go their way. But I did not learn a more functional way of resolving my conflicts when my stepdad responded to me with extreme NW/NE discipline.

I didn’t learn the following principles from these interactions: 

1. When things don’t go your way, stay calm and try to patiently discuss the pros and cons of each viewpoint. 
2. Use gentleness and intelligent conversations to persuade other people if you seriously believe (or know) that your viewpoint is the better choice. 
3. Evaluate who has the final say on what should be done. Children have the right to choose many things, and it is good to give them as many chances to choose for themselves within the NW/NE boundaries as you can. 
4. Parents should let children experience consequences instead of resorting to Extreme NW/NE parenting to prevent them from happening.
5. Parents should give children appropriate consequences within the Northern Zone to train children before they go out into the world and suffer harsher consequences because they didn't know better.
6. Developing compatible relationships between parent and child and obtaining these Balanced Northern Relationship Skills are more valuable results than getting your way using brute force in the moment.

The Secrets I Have Learned

I have spent years being ashamed of disciplining in extreme NW/NE  during my early parenting years. Even though I too absorbed much of the force of the impact and did not pass along much of what I experienced to my children, there was still some that squeezed out of me during the toughest moments. I have cried many tears of regret and shame. I knew better but I did not know HOW to discipline in the Northern Zone until the Lord came for me and rescued me. Literally rescued me. He gave me the power to absorb much more than I was able to do alone.

What helps me to evaluate my past-self appropriately is the following variables:

1. I was consistently praying for help throughout those years
2. When he came for me (or I finally had enough, and came to him with a heart sufficiently broken) and showed me the HOW, I changed

The semantic secrets that he shared with me stopped the domino effect in me. That doesn’t mean I was a perfect parent, but I became very functional. With the Lord, I parented my kids within the Northern Zone. We teamed up together. I asked to know his secrets. I devoted my time to studying them. When he showed me what he was and taught me his relationship skills I didn’t just write them down and try to publish them. I applied them. I had questions. I asked him. He answered them. My knowledge increased. My accountability increased. That accountability led me to change my dysfunctional ways of resolving conflicts and obtaining desires to more functional ways. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t. A better way of saying that is that I couldn’t live with myself living with the Lord if I didn’t. I’m not talking about Toxic Shame. I’m talking about admiration and love. He is what I respect. He is what I see. I am not happy unless I can see him. And I am not happy unless I am continually striving to balance myself in the North as he balances himself.

I Have a Tale to Tell

The tale I have been trying to tell is not about the Imbalanced things that have been done to me. Yet they do play a part in the story. How could I possibly value the freedom and the Sustainable Joy I experience now if I had never experienced the sorrow? 

My focus and my complete joy is the tale of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I'm telling the story of how he came for me and in doing so I hope to propagate the news that he has the power to come for everyone. This is the secret: If you have sorrow, thank your lucky stars! You now have the capacity to experience joy to that same level of intensity that you have experienced sorrow. But you need to ask and choose to listen and commit. 

If you have a tale to tell like mine - of how He has already come for you, I encourage you to share it to strengthen others' faith in Christ. 

If you're still in the middle of your story and are experiencing extreme pain and sorrow, I hope this story I am sharing will strengthen your faith in Christ and give you hope!

Listen: Live to Tell by Madonna (clean)

Differentiating Between The Thoughts In My Head

Perfectionism: Will I Ever Be Good Enough?

I remember feeling similar to the girl in the video behind the above link. It was during a time that I was actively striving to live my life better. Previous to this time period, I often looked in the mirror, listened, and agreed with a voice in my head that said, “You are so fat and ugly.” Consequently, I didn’t feel very good about myself. 

During this same time I was in the habit of reacting to people when there were conflicts in our relationships. But through the grace of God (literally) and his personal training, I was making improvements. 

However, one day, I had a bad day. Regression. I was on my bed thinking about what an awful person I was. I thought that even though I was trying to improve, I would never be the person I wanted to be. My continuous mistakes and my imperfect past made it impossible. Because I hadn’t grown up making all of the right choices from the beginning, I would never truly be valuable. 

My thoughts said to me, “Who are you kidding? You will never be who you want to be.” 

But at the same time another voice in my head was evaluating these thoughts. This part said that the first voice was not only attacking me but also Jesus Christ. To assert that I could not change myself for the good, was an indirect attack on the Atonement of Jesus Christ. This voice was basically saying that Jesus Christ was not powerful enough to enable me to change and become everything that I desired to become.

I responded something like this, “What the heck! You are right!”

Then I turned to the first voice and said, “You can attack me all day and I might believe it’s true. But when you attack Jesus Christ and tell me he doesn’t have the power to make something beautiful out of me then you give yourself away. I know who you are and you are completely wrong. Leave!”

That was a life changing experience for me. I remember thinking that I would never hang out with someone who was putting me down all the time. I would choose to separate myself from someone who degraded me, instead of constructively helped me achieve my goals. So why would I choose to entertain such mean thoughts about myself? 

Knowing I have the responsibility to choose which thoughts to accept and which ones to reject has been powerful for me. Stopping them early before they suck me into a black hole I can’t easily get out of has been a very important skill to learn. Fighting for my Savior first gives me the strength to fight for myself. 

This has made all the difference in how I feel about my personal worth. Actively choosing to listen to, entertain, and believe appreciative thoughts about myself and receiving respectful constructive training as well as empathetic kind words makes me a happy person. When I am a happy person I have an easy time appreciating, respecting, and being kind and empathetic to others.

Consider the Source

Recently, I have learned about three adults who conspired together to kill four people. Two were their spouses and two were their children. In wondering how any person, especially a mother, could commit such an act of horror, I read some articles on the case and watched an interview of the mother’s friend who was not in on the murders, but who witnessed the backstory.

I found out that they believed they were doing it in the name of Jesus Christ. They murdered innocent children in his name. They murdered their spouses in his name. They said they received their instructions via personal revelation. That means they believed they were receiving their instructions from God.

They said that they had been told that they were key players in preparing the world for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. And they apparently believed that role included a Hitler-like elimination of people who were not worthy to continue living. They had concocted a twisted backstory, which they said was revealed to them from spiritual sources, which justified their heinous deeds as merciful and necessary sacrifices.

“Some of you may die, but that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.” ~Lord Farquad quote from the movie Shrek

So when people do horrifying things like this in the name of Jesus Christ, claiming they are receiving their guidance from God, it causes fear and prejudice against religion in general and against the practice of receiving personal revelation from God. 

There have been many groups throughout history who have exterminated an individual or group of people and claimed that they were doing it in God’s name. One example is the early Catholic Church’s inquisitions. The inquisitors put innocent people through an unjust trial and then burned  them at the stake in the name of Christ. Ironically, the people they killed were the real people standing for Christ such as Joan of Arc, William Tyndale, and John Huss (Jan Hus). 

Hitler and his NSDAP Nazi party is another example. They attempted to cleanse their country of subhumans similar to the ideology of the Daybell/Vallow people in the news story I have been reading about. The “Nazi regime was responsible for the genocide of about 6 million Jews and millions of other victims whom [Hitler] and his followers deemed Untermenschen (subhumans) or socially undesirable” (Wikipedia). The Nazis may not have murdered people in the name of God, but it was in the name of what they believed was good and true. They asserted their actions improved their community relationships.

Additionally, in the times of John Wycliffe (early 1300s), John Huss (late 1300s) and Martin Luther (1500s), the Catholic popes sent out armies to force people to adopt their “Christian” religion. If they would not, they killed them.

I think this is one of the most disturbing and alarming behaviors I have ever contemplated. To commit crime, sin, and murder in the name of Jesus Christ is the most monstrous thing I can think of. It's important to me as a follower of Jesus Christ that non-Christians know that there are people and spirits masquerading as Christians but are not really Christians at all.

I think the Daybell/Vallow people really thought they were being guided by God. And I think they did reach for the spiritual world. And I think that some people have a greater awareness of that spiritual world than others. They have a gift. But that doesn’t mean they are necessarily good at discerning the good from the evil spirits that are in that world. Many of these people with this gift struggle with boundaries. Because they have such a high degree of tolerance, empathy, and compassion for others, they want to accept all things as good, right, and true.

Considering the source is about using light and knowledge to discern between good and evil. 

In the physical world, without light, there would be no sight. This same principle is true in the spiritual world.

I found the following quote about light from a website called the Physics Classroom.

“[In the absence of sunlight during the night, and in the absences of] a porch light or a street light, the neighbor's house can no longer be seen; the grass is no longer green, but rather black; the leaves on the trees are dark; and were it not for the headlights of the car, it would not be seen approaching the intersection. Without luminous objects generating light that propagates through space to illuminate non-luminous objects, those non-luminous objects cannot be seen. Without light, there would be no sight.”

Physical light allows us to differentiate one object from another. I’m attempting to use spiritual light to differentiate one way of doing things from another. By more closely evaluating the two very different spiritual sources who are trying to influence us, we can defeat the fear that the Daybell/Vallow people introduced. Setting them side by side to examine the motives, the actual type of counsel received, and the consequences, is shining light upon them to see how they are different from Christians truly receiving guidance from God.

“But, O my people, beware lest there shall arise contentions among you, and ye list to obey the evil spirit” (Mosiah 2:32).

I think it is crucial that we understand that there are two sides to the spirit world and both are trying to influence us. And the evil side is usually trying to masquerade as the good side. Our responsibility is to differentiate between them, discover the masquerade, and choose which ideas we believe are good, right, and true.

So the reason this whole thing shook me is that the Daybell/Vallow people are treading on my personal beliefs in Jesus Christ, in God, in the kingdom of heaven, in angels, and in personal revelation from God. I believe in miracles. I believe in personal revelation. I believe in guidance from heaven. I believe in angels. I believe in God.

These people had the same belief, and claimed that they were connected up to the same God I listen to. The result was they murdered innocent people.

I don’t know about you, but this scared me and has caused me to feel awful and confused. This motivated me to shine the bright light upon the evidence and consider the sources. What these people said and did threatens to undermine something that is foundational to my religious beliefs. So I have to differentiate between what is good and what is evil here. Here’s what the light reveals:

When Jesus asked his disciples who men thought he was, his disciples answered that some people thought he was John the Baptist, Elijah, or Jeremiah reincarnated. Others thought he was a prophet in general. 

Then Jesus asked them, “But whom say ye that I am?” 

Simon Peter answered, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Then Jesus told Simon Peter that he came to this truth through personal revelation, which had been revealed to him by his “Father which is in heaven.”

Jesus then said that he builds his church upon this rock – personal revelation – “and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

(Matthew 16:13-18)

Frederick Farrar discusses these verses in his biography of Christ: “It was the revealed fact, that they only can acknowledge [who and what Christ is] who are led thereto by the Spirit of God. It told mankind for ever that not by earthly criticisms, but only by heavenly grace, can the full knowledge of that truth be obtained.”

(The Life of Christ by Frederick Farrar, p372)

These two sources make it clear that personal revelation is powerful evidence that enables us to discern between truth and error and should not be discounted.

The following verse from the Book of Mormon reaffirms that being open to personal revelation is a safe and secure way of determining what is true.

“For behold, again I say unto you that if ye will enter in by the way, and receive the Holy Ghost, it will show unto you all things what ye should do.” ~2 Nephi 32:5

The next verse adds that we should also study the word of God in combination with listening to the Holy Ghost. 

“Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore, they speak the words of Christ. Wherefore, I said unto you, feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do.” ~2 Nephi 32:3

Much of my own personal revelation has come to me in the form of the scriptures I know and have studied throughout the years. Verses are brought to the front of my mind when I pray for answers.

After learning about the Daybell/Vallow case, fear might drive us to believe that yielding to ALL spiritual direction is dangerous. That is evaluating the situation in the dark, without light. Differentiating between the kind of spirit they chose to listen to and the kind of spirit I choose to listen to is using light to differentiate between good and evil.

The scriptures indicate that there are two separate parties of influencers in the spiritual world. Here’s one example that contrasts them:

“And when they shall say unto you: Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep and mutter—should not a people seek unto their God for the living to hear from the dead?” ~2 Nephi 18:19 (a nearly identical verse is found in Isaiah 8:19).

Thoughts and ideas are continuously presented to our minds from external physical and spiritual sources. Some are good and others are evil. There is a gradient of spiritual sources between these two extremes. We have been given the choice to differentiate between the good and the evil. We don’t want to believe everything we hear from other people and neither do we want to believe everything that is presented to our minds from spiritual sources just because we acknowledge it is a spiritual source. We have to be on our guard to filter through these things. We have brains. We can use them. And we have hearts, which we can also use.

And let’s keep it real. Why search for crazy weird things? Why not seek out the answers to our relationship conflicts? Why not seek for ways to obtain Sustainable Joy, which is God’s (not Satan’s) desire for us? 

I have used the gift of personal revelation to figure out how I could become a better wife, mother, daughter, sister, and member of my community. How could I better respond to the inevitable conflicts that arise in relationships? How could I control my knee-jerk reactions? How could I work with my kids to help them overcome their imbalanced behaviors and ways of doing things? The answers I received always included faith in Jesus Christ. This is faith that even though things may not be perfect now, if I choose to keep my own behavior in balance, and endure conflicts without responding with selfishness, and seek to empathize instead of hate, the end result will be good even if I have to wade through temporary times of sorrow and less than ideal circumstances.

Out of all of the thoughts and ideas that enter our mind, we decide which ones we will entertain and which ones we will NOT.  Just because they enter our mind does not mean they are thoughts that belong to us.  The ones we DECIDE to accept as true become our thoughts. If we’re unsure that a thought is good, we can study it out, do some research, and pay attention to our heart. 

Our heart verifies what is good, true, beautiful, meaningful, right, and of God. Our heart will also warn us when something is bad, evil, selfish, ugly, meaningless, wrong, and of the devil. This verification effect occurs while we engage in the research process. Sometimes we have to test ideas out, put them into action, in order to accurately assess their truth. When we continue to pay attention to our hearts, we will know if what we are thinking, saying, or doing is good or evil.

“For behold, my brethren, it is given unto you to judge, that ye may know good from evil; and the way to judge is as plain, that ye may know with a perfect knowledge, as the daylight is from the dark night.” ~Moroni 7:15

“Two indicators that a feeling or prompting comes from God are that it produces peace in your heart and a quiet, warm feeling” ~Elder Richard G. Scott

Daybell and Vallow chose to listen to spiritual voices that taught them to elevate themselves in pride and see other people as subhumans or zombies whom they prayed would be eliminated (die) or whom they personally eliminated (killed). 

Others of us have chosen to listen to voices in combination with the scriptures that have taught us empathy, humility, confidence, and gratitude –ways of thinking that teach us conflict resolution, mercy, and promote compatibility in our relationships.

My experience with the voices in my head have been accompanied by peace in my heart and a quiet, warm feeling. This is often very intense. I can’t make myself feel this way. When I start thinking, speaking, or behaving with pride, selfishness, or hatred, I can’t keep this feeling inside me. It leaves. So I can differentiate the daylight from the darkness.

The following counsel is in section 8 in the Doctrine and Covenants:

“Yea, behold, I will tell you in your mind and in your heart, by the Holy Ghost, which shall come upon you and which shall dwell in your heart. Now, behold, this is the spirit of revelation; behold, this is the spirit by which Moses brought the children of Israel through the Red Sea on dry ground. Therefore this is thy gift; apply unto it, and blessed art thou, for it shall deliver you out of the hands of your enemies, when, if it were not so, they would slay you and bring your soul to destruction.”

And in a previous section, it says:

“Blessed art thou for what thou hast done; for thou hast inquired of me, and behold, as often as thou hast inquired thou hast received instructions of my Spirit. If it had not been so, thou wouldst not have come to the place where thou art at this time. Behold thou knowest that thou hast inquired of me and I did enlighten thy mind; and now I tell thee these things that thou mayest know that thou hast been enlightened by the Spirit of truth.” ~D&C 6:14-15

These scriptures ground my faith in personal revelation. Even though the Daybell/Vallow people misused this gift, it doesn’t mean relying upon personal revelation is dangerous and wrong. We are required to shine the light and consider the source.

Because I have studied the scriptures and searched for general truth for so many years and have experienced the confirmation of the Holy Ghost in regards to those general truths, I am able to discern the feelings that come into my heart when I receive more specific revelation for my personal life.

I strive to be wide awake when it comes to differentiating between truth and error. But one of the ways I’ve been tempted is by flattering and prideful thoughts and ideas. I’ve had to learn that these taste different from the true peace and joy that comes from the Holy Ghost, the Savior, and the Father. The pride feels good in the moment. It seems to be on my side, but with experience and practice I have come to understand that it is no friend of mine. Still, I have to be always on my guard to identify these pride thoughts because they are often very sneaky.

This is where I believe the Daybell/Vallow people initially got tripped up. They believed that they were key players in preparing the way for the Second Coming of the Lord. That thought in itself is not wrong. We are all generally encouraged to be key players – to do what we can to prepare ourselves, our families, and our communities for the Second Coming of the Lord. We want him to come. We want to be ready when he does. This is a good thing.

But the Daybell/Vallow people seemed to twist that role and see it as a prideful-top-of-the-pyramid role. They saw themselves as smarter, more righteous, intelligent, and knowledgeable than others. They looked down upon the Untermenschen (subhumans) around them.

I just want to point out that having knowledge, resources, abilities, and talents doesn’t profit us or anyone unless we use them for good.

“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal."

Though the Daybell/Vallow people may have indeed obtained some valuable knowledge about the second coming, if they didn’t use it to develop their charity…

“And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing."

And though they may have had the gift of the awareness of spirits and understood some of the mysteries of God, if they didn’t seek to cultivate charity in their hearts…

it profited them absolutely nothing.

(1 Corinthians 13:1-8)

In other words, if we’re trying to obtain knowledge, even if it is scriptural knowledge, for the sake of being better than other people, becoming popular, thinking ourselves above other people, and not for the purpose of applying it to help others, to improve our relationships with God, our spouse, our family and our community, to love people with this Charity (as defined in 1st Corinthians 13), then it profits us absolutely nothing.

IF the Daybell/Vallow people were receiving their guidance from heaven and applying the truths of the scriptures to their personal improvement and to the development of compatible relationships, they would have had charity, charity for their fellowmen and especially charity for their children.

After shining the light on this conflict, I understand the difference between their source and mine. My faith in God has increased and I feel balanced again.

Bad Things Happen To Good People Too

I have been thinking about this murder that happened here in Layton this past weekend. A young woman met a young man on a dating app that is mostly used for hooking up for one night stands. The man was crazy, on drugs, and overtaken by all things bad. So after hooking up, he killed her. Then he called the police and turned himself in. 

I am horrified by this story. I have been struggling to make sense of it, to resolve it in my mind. Meanwhile, others are trying to resolve it in their minds too. There are some who are blaming the woman for using this hook-up app. They are saying that when you make sexually immoral decisions, this is the consequence. Thus it was her fault that she was killed. She got herself killed by her choices. That’s one way to resolve it. Say, she got what was coming to her.

But I can’t think that way. I think evil happens to people that may not be doing everything right but the level of the bad consequences certainly is not balanced with their incorrect choices. 

So I’m saying that there’s this whole world of people out there who try to resolve the revulsion they feel when things like this happen with an imbalanced way of judging. They like to blame the person who had the bad thing happen to them in a way that resolves the revulsion. They like to say this awful thing happened to her because of her sins. This way of thinking seemingly protects them. They think this awful thing won’t happen to them or their loved ones as long as they don’t do what this woman did. But we know that bad things happen to good people.

I’m so sick of the judgmental attitude some people have. Not only are there people within my church that have this attitude, but there are also people in other churches and people who don’t belong to any church that have it. When we judge like this it prevents us from having to mourn with the family of those who have suffered this grief. It prevents us from realizing that something is inherently wrong with our society in general if it's breeding an increased number of murderers.

To choose to connect up the cause (the victim's choices) with the result (the victim's consequences) in these situations doesn’t work. Jesus Christ said that even though the tower of Siloam fell on some people, it didn’t mean they were all sinners. And even though Pilate killed those other people, it didn’t mean that it was a consequences for living a bad life (Luke 13:1-5). Instead, He said that bad things can happen to good and bad people. To swing around our judgement in false ways is dangerous, not only to our community, but also to ourselves.

This is one of the reasons it is dangerous: There is another group of people that takes their cue from these judgmental people. This other group doesn’t like this unfair way of judging. They know it is wrong. So they use it as a way to justify their continuous poor choices. They say there is not any connection whatsoever between the bad things that happen and our choices. They believe they can live in any way they want and it has no connection to the general consequences in society or their specific life trials.

But we know we can’t live however we want because the murderer was following that rule. The result was that he wasn’t happy. He hated himself. He hated people. The reports say he had lived for quite some time entertaining homicidal and suicidal thoughts.

My thoughts are that everyone makes bad choices sometimes, including me. That doesn’t mean it’s a good, productive thing to do to criticize others. It does not promote compatibility in relationships to ostracize and condemn others in order to punish them. It is not correct to conclude that the bad things that happen to people are always connected to a specific choice they make. 

But we do promote compatibility in relationships and sustainable joy by generally figuring out and talking about the laws of cause and effect. Joseph Smith said, “I teach them correct principles and let them govern themselves.” Governing also includes that judgment of connecting up cause and effect. 

That said, in regards to bad things happening to us in general, I have learned that it is an objective fact that danger and evil exist independent of God. There are entities that act independent of him. They have their own will. We have our own will. We have been given the agency to use it. People have been given the agency to do good and and evil or a combination of both. 

If we want to increase our protection from danger and evil, we can do our best to learn more about the general rules of cause and effect and apply them to our specific choices. But that doesn’t mean bad things will never happen to us. They still do. So what is the benefit of figuring out the laws and striving to live them if bad things still happen?

In black and white judgment, there doesn’t seem to be a benefit. But in a careful analysis of the variables, we can see that many of the bad things that could happen to us because of our poor choices would not happen. We can actually reduce the number of bad things that happen by learning and keeping certain laws. In fact, many bad things don’t happen to us because of the countless people who have sacrificed their lives for us (and others who continue to do so) in establishing the physical and political freedoms we have in our country. 

Additionally, I have found it very useful to learn to differentiate between the results that are good, better, and best. To increase my ability to judge more accurately I have spent a lot of time thinking about what is most valuable to me. For example, there have been some bad things happen to me in my life. From the perspective I stand in now, I am thankful for them. Without these trials, I would never be able to have the relationships that I have now. The level of sustainable joy I live in now is directly related to the struggles I’ve had to work to endure and overcome.

I’m saying that even though we have adversity, which is usually categorized as a very bad thing, the end result, because we have it, work through it, figure things out, gain knowledge, become more than we would have, and develop relationships, is more valuable than the results we would have obtained had we never had to deal with it. 

One very obvious example of this that has been a big part of the development of my understanding is physical exercise. It is painful to lift weights, to run, or to hike up a mountain, but the long-term benefits of incrementally sacrificing in this way has built muscle and increased my cardiorespiratory health. I also experience a level of satisfaction, motivation, and spiritual intensity that I have not been able to obtain in any other way. I’ve found that this part of the sustainable joy equation can’t be obtained by eating more, giving myself more stuff, sitting around more. I actually have to sacrifice, work, face the trouble, learn, endure, and overcome. 

So what does this have to do with some of the awful, horrible things that are happening in our society today, like this senseless murder in Layton, Utah?

I think I was talking about dealing with our evaluation of someone who had bad things happen to her. I was talking about how misjudging these kinds of things can perpetuate the problem.

But how can anything good come of this awful thing? What is the purpose for it happening? What am I supposed to do with this story? How can I deal with it? I’m mourning for her family. I’m mourning for our community. I want to help prevent these kinds of things from happening. Is there some way to do that? But I also want to know if there is anything that can be done now -after the fact- for our community, for this family, for this young woman who died, and for justice and mercy to be done.

I feel like the best thing I can personally do after balancing out my own way of judging the bad things that happen, is to proactively love and support the members of my family and community. I’m realizing I can’t be neutral in the way I interact with people. I don’t want to entertain negative thoughts if I can help it. Instead, I need to fight for the good thoughts and actively use my agency to control them. Proactively love other people. Proactively allow them to figure out the cause and effect of their own choices and stop busying myself with doing that for them. I have enough of my own causes and effects to worry about. In this way, I provide them with a portion of the spiritual nourishment (love) they need, which prevents them from needing to seek it from conflicting sources that might entrap them and hurt them.