My 12 Step Journal

11-3-11 “He did deliver me from bondage” Day 6

I love the mote/beam principle. President Monson told a perfect story that illustrates this perfectly.

http://lds.org/general-conference/2010/10/charity-never-faileth?lang=eng&query=clean+window+(judge+OR+"judge+not"+)

It was the one about the lady who would look out of her window every day at her neighbor’s laundry. Every time she would look out of her window she would see her neighbor’s dirty laundry. Then she would criticize and complain to her husband about her neighbor’s incompetence that could never manage to get her laundry clean.

I see that this perfectly illustrates this principle because that’s how it is when we look at other people’s faults. We see theirs and not our own. Last summer when I was going to a family reunion, I saw certain faults in my family that I thought they needed to change. When I inquired of the Lord, He told me that these were the things I needed to do for them first even before they did for me. Later I saw that I was the one with the dirty window. It was very humbling. This has also happened several times with either my friends or with my husband. I know other people think I am being too critical of my self when I say so, but I really just feel I am being honest. I have been a hypocrite most of my life, and maybe I still am to some degree. It goes back to the saying that “we see the world not as it is but as we are”. If our window is dirty we will see that the world is dirty. This is our beam. Conversely, when we start becoming very honest with ourselves when we look inside our hearts, we can not help in the light of the Savior’s love to recognize our own darkness and ask Him to take it out of our hearts. If we are looking honestly at ourselves, we will be so much more understanding at the human failings in others. I love this part about Gandhi. I watched this movie last weekend and he often spoke of his own weaknesses that gave him compassion for others. I believe this is a quality of a true leader: self honesty and disclosure. It is something sorely lacking in the world today.

11-2-11 “He did deliver me from bondage” Day 5

Oh, I know this prison very well. I read a book called “The Bonds That Make Us Free” that talks about the psychology of self-deception. I have had multiple witnesses that this is what is happening when we become angry. Our emotions lie to us. We rationalize and justify ourselves so that we appear to be right, needing no repentance. Christ understood the whole psychology of the matter, but instead of explaining the whole of the complication, He simplified it and said “Agree with thine adversary quickly…” He gave the solution without getting stuck on the problem.

“What are the character weaknesses that keep us in bondage?”

I think they are more exterior behaviors than interior character flaws. The temporary natural man is not who we really are eternally. If we say they are our weaknesses or a flaw in our character then we are owning them and therefore holding them to us. If we say they are like barnacles on a whale, then they are something that is not really us. We do not own them but they are something outside of us that we must learn to sluff off like old skin.

Yesterday I was talking to a friend who teaches the classics to a group of youth. She told me how she made up victim cards for them. The card says they are entitled to blame, criticize, complain, and make excuses. For 5 minutes every day they are given the card and allowed to be a victim. Then she takes the card back and they have class. If I understood correctly, when someone starts complaining or making excuses she asks them if they need their victim card. Otherwise she holds them accountable and helps them see the choices they do have, instead of feeling victim to others choices that do not have control over.

I love the scene in the movie “The Other Side of Heaven” when Elder Groberg has just lost their boat in a storm and is trying to swim to safety. I think in a conference talk, Elder Groberg spoke about this experience and said that every time he started to complain or question why he had to go through this he would start to drown. So he decided to stop complaining and just swim. I have found this to be true in so many cases in my life. The more I start to complain, the more I start to drown in the circumstances of the moment. I have to put down my victim card and take responsibility to get out of ‘the waiting place’ (from Dr Suess’s book “Oh the Places We’ll Go”) to learn what choices I do have and what I CAN control. This is the way out.

Elder Groberg’s talk, Nov 1993 Ensign (not the one about drowning and complaining)

http://classic.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=d63a425e0848b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD

Sometimes we pray for the strength to endure yet resist the very things that would give us that strength. Too often we seek the easy way, forgetting that strength comes from overcoming things that require us to put forth more effort than we normally would be inclined to do.

How often do we not do more because we pray for wind and none comes? We pray for good things and they don’t seem to happen, so we sit and wait and do no more. We should always pray for help, but we should always listen for inspiration and impressions to proceed in ways different from those we may have thought of. On the boat, five men prayed, but only one heard and acted. God does hear our prayers. God knows more than we do. He has infinitely greater experience than we have. We should never stop moving because we think our way is barred or the only door we can go through is closed.

No matter what our trials, we should never say, “It is enough.” Only God is entitled to say that. Our responsibility is to ask, “What more can I do?” then listen for the answer, and do it!

11-1-11 “He did deliver me from bondage” Day 4

Making amends is often something that we’d rather not do. There is a scripture in the New Testament about taking up your cross. (Luke 9:23-24 is one example.) There is another scripture that talks about taking up your cross and doing what you would rather not do (I can’t seem to find it now.) I read this one day and realized that my will and my life are not my true mission. If I am to do as Christ, I must do the Father’s will. Some of the things revealed to me about my true mission I can honestly say they are things I would rather not do. It seems God is asking me to do the very things which frighten me the most, and which will require me to grow my faith in the very place it is the weakest. That day I came to the realization that to do the Father’s will, I must do what I’d rather not do. He will eventually turn it for my benefit and joy, but for now it appears to be a wall of fear. I have broken through this wall before and I will do it again. I know He will lift me to be able to do all that He has commanded me to do, in His way and in His time.

10-27-11 “He did deliver me from bondage” p.116, Day 3

Yes, I have seen people both forgive and people who have been hostile to me in my attempts apology.

v.21 http://lds.org/scriptures/bofm/alma/24?lang=eng

“What does this verse teach us about our resolve to be “defenseless” even in the face of such hostility?”

I like v. 18 even better:

18 And this they did, it being in their view a testimony to God, and also to men, that they ^anever would use weapons again for the shedding of man’s blood; and this they did, vouching and ^bcovenanting with God, that rather than shed the blood of their brethren they would ^cgive up their own lives; and rather than take away from a brother they would give unto him; and rather than spend their days in idleness they would labor abundantly with their hands.

I think I have not been willing enough to suffer the retribution of the pain I originally caused. I was not willing to accept any reaction either way, but only wanted forgiveness to get it over with. That is for my benefit, but what about their path to healing? I had a responsibility in causing a downward cycle that hurt someone else. I chose to hold offense for many years and it discolored my whole world view, and soured many relationships. Then in my attempt to healing my own pain, I blamed without having first seen my part in it. I wish I wouldn’t have said anything until I was totally healed. Now I see differently. I see them differently, and me differently. As children we were both hurting and starving for love and acceptance. Like an addict, I was desperate to get it from any source that would give it. I got it from boys. The acceptance was temporary and superficial. I have seen in my life that if a child does not get acceptance from home that they will never feel truly accepted anywhere else they go. This other person still feels rejected in our own family, and I do not feel accepted either. The pain is very deep and silent. I ruptured and amplified their pain when I tried to apologize without recognition of my own error. Now they feel rejected even more and I have deepened their pain. How do I make it right? What rejection and repercussion must I willing to suffer so that they can see I am sincere and have buried my weapons of blame and offense? I am now healed by the Savoir of the pain of the past, but they still hurt. My heart weeps for them. What can I do? Maybe I will have to suffer their rejection for the rest of my life, but I must still return kindness and love. I must remember that the outward behavior is a manifestation of their inner pain and not take offense to it, but understand it and have compassion for it. With full intent, I am now willing to prostrate myself before their mercy of what ever reaction they may have, so that they may see my sincerity in repentance and hopefully eventually feel my love and acceptance for them. Then and only then I will be at peace having set right the cycle I once started.

10-26-11 “He did deliver me from bondage” p.116, Day 2

If I were to “zealously strive to repair all the injuries which I had done” what would I do? Who would I go talk to?

As I have been working thorough these 12 steps, I have been making amends as best I could to people along the way. After the “Inventory” I feel free of my past. I feel like I have come to a place where I am able to live in today and repair the injuries of today as I go. There are still those in my past who have not forgiven me, but that is not in my control. I could do service for them if I were more zealous in striving to repair the damage, but because of the ‘dirty windshield’ I fear my actions may be misinterpreted.

10-25-11 “He did deliver me from bondage” p. 115, Day 1

“Becometh as a child” means to me is a process of humbling gradually by continual submission. We are Heavenly Father’s children and if we are to do as Christ, then we too must be about our Father’s work. During my day when I need help trying to figure out how to discipline the children it’s a matter of “Do I ask ‘What do you want me to do’?” so that I can respond or do I react as the natural man by the arm of the flesh. When I think of being “willing to submit in all things” I imagine a twig floating down the river who is happy to go by the flow instead of trying to go against God’s will. Or I can imagine a bendy straw that I can put into just the right position that I want it to be. If we are willing to submit in all things then we trust God explicitly to know that He knows best and He wants us to be happy and that He is leading us there. If we can stand in the narrow way we can have joy in all things because we have perfect hope of deliverance. With that perfect brightness of hope we will feel the peace now as if it was then. (This is what Leslie Householder teaches - to visualize what you want and feel gratitude for it as if you already have it. Then you are able to be lead to the things to do in order to get it, with peace or to have a genius idea that will get you there. It’s because we feel peace that we are led to the harvest. We have to choose to believe. See Jackrabbit Factor)

10-22-11 Continued “Pride”, Benson

conflicts. The scriptures tell us that “only by pride cometh contention.”

I think I need to work on my unrighteous dominion. I still see myself trying to motivate and control my children through fear or force because I get tired or run out of patience and forget to ask for more… The way that I notice it is because the children do the same thing to each other, and when I see that it’s really bitter. I abhor it. I want to see them talk nicely to each other and motivate through kindness. In this I still await the grace of deliverance… What must I do to overcome it?

Christ wants to lift us to where He is. Do we desire to do the same for others?

This was literally my prayer this morning because I am giving a seminar today to obey the commandment of the Lord to me.

Pride is the universal sin, the great vice. Yes, pride is‍ the universal sin, the great vice.

Pride is also contagious. I have noticed that the more prideful I am, the more prideful my husband is. I have also seen the converse to be true. Humility is also contagious. I have seen my husband become more teachable as I have become more teachable. The best advice I could give to myself is that if I see that someone else needs to change something, then change that thing in myself and see what happens. The Lord asked me to do this last summer. Maybe this is what it means to ‘Do to others as we would have them to do us”. It is truly amazing. As Steven Covey says, “We see not the world as it is, but as WE are.” I have really found this to be true.

we must prepare to redeem Zion. It was essentially the sin of pride that kept us from establishing Zion in the days of the Prophet Joseph Smith. It was the same sin of pride that brought consecration to an end among the Nephites. (See 4 Ne. 1:24–25.)

Pride is the great stumbling block to Zion. I repeat: Pride is‍ the great stumbling block to Zion.

Yes, it may be that ‘we must’ but how much do we want it? If this was the thing that we wanted more than anything else, I believe we would go though all the pain of whatever it takes to really let go of all our pride. Yes we may say we want Zion, but what do our actions show that we want more?

After reading it today, I couldn’t help but think of President Uchtdorf’s comments on this. They kind of need to be discussed together. Here’s the link on Uchtdorf’s

http://lds.org/general-conference/2010/10/pride-and-the-priesthood?lang=eng&query=(pride+OR+benson)

Pride is sinful, as President Benson so memorably taught, because it breeds hatred or hostility and places us in opposition to God and our fellowmen. At its core, pride is a sin of comparison, for though it usually begins with “Look how wonderful I am and what great things I have done,” it always seems to end with “Therefore, I am better than you.”

All of these things help us recognize the sin of pride in ourselves, but how do we overcome it?

They look for any flaw and magnify it.

Am I looking for strengths or weaknesses in others? What is my vision? We will eventually get what we desire and work for.

As priesthood bearers, we must realize that all of God’s children wear the same jersey. Our team is the brotherhood of man. This mortal life is our playing field. Our goal is to learn to love God and to extend that same love toward our fellowman. We are here to live according to His law and establish the kingdom of God. We are here to build, uplift, treat fairly, and encourage all of Heavenly Father’s children.

I love this idea of the same jersey. Especially as connected with the things taught on the Sermon on the Mount.

We can be grateful for our health, wealth, possessions, or positions, but when we begin to inhale it—when we become obsessed with our status; when we focus on our own importance, power, or reputation; when we dwell upon our public image and believe our own press clippings—that’s when the trouble begins; that’s when pride begins to corrupt

It seems like gratitude and humility are the antidotes for pride. If we are focused on Zion and unity then we will desire to lift others up.

by design, the Lord chooses “the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.”¹³‍ The Lord does this to show that His hand is in His work, lest we “trust in the arm of flesh.”¹⁴

I feel this so strongly today because of my seminar. I feel so weak, yet I am willing to do what He has asked.

So how do we conquer this sin of pride that is so prevalent and so damaging? How do we become more humble?

It is almost impossible to be lifted up in pride when our hearts are filled with charity.

Here’s the question I asked earlier.

The moment we stop obsessing with ourselves and lose ourselves in service, our pride diminishes and begins to die.

Maybe this is why the Lord has asked me to do this today, so that I could loose my pride…

… let us follow the example of our Savior and reach out to serve rather than seeking the praise and honor of men. It is my prayer that we will recognize and root out unrighteous pride in our hearts and that we will replace it with “righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, [and] meekness.”²⁷‍

It seems with my focus on living my mission that I have a desire to be an instrument and to serve. As the Spirit leads me along this path, I see my pride being rooted out. The more I feel the acceptance of my Heavenly Father, the less I feel a need to be liked or accepted by others. I love this talk. It clarifies so much for me.