Reborn

I hate it how after you've had an amazing spiritual experience, something happens and slams you back down and you feel like you can't get up again.

That was yesterday for me.

I had planned on going to the temple yesterday, but then, inevitably, something went wrong.

I lost my wallet. 

And it had my temple recommend in it.

So, instead of going, I spent the whole morning and into the early afternoon looking for it, listening to the Spirit as best as I could to direct me to where I'd lost it, but I found nothing. Not even a trace of where it had been.

Going home in an even worse wave of despair than last night, I sat in my room and began to wonder if my fight was really worth it.  

Did God really care that I was struggling?

Because if He'd been urging me so much to go to the temple, why hadn't he showed me the way to allow me to get there?  I was rather distraught, and the last thing I wanted to do was pray.  

I was angry with God, for I felt that He'd been withholding his help from me. I'd been trying sooo hard to do the right things, but I kept running into roadblock after roadblock, and it's been so frustrating, because I need help. I know I can't get through it by myself, but I felt like He was purposely not helping me.

Naturally, I spent the whole day struggling to remain emotionally intact, and Nathan asked me to come to Institute with him, but I was in no mood to do anything "church-y".
He ended up making me go with him, because he just came to my house and said "Are you ready to go?"
I glared at him a lot, and wouldn't talk to him the whole time we were in the car.
When we got to the building, we sat in the back, and I turned sideways, only half listening to the lesson.
It started off with him talking about Satan, and the way he works.
He showed us this video from Mormon Messages, about how sometimes we can be caught, but we can be freed.  

.

When it talked about the Atonement, I got kinda teary-eyed, and afterward, the teacher continued talking about the way Satan works, and how that related to Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden.
I still wasn't giving all of my attention to him, because I still felt somewhat cheated and abandoned by God.
At the very end of the lesson, he said "I just wanted to share this last video with you, because sometimes, it's not sin that we're trapped in."

This was the message I'd needed to hear all day.  It hit me hard, and I could barely keep myself in check so people in the class wouldn't know I was crying.
After class was over, Nathan took me up to the temple grounds and we walked around, talking about what we'd just learned, and how it applied to me.

There was a video the teacher had shown us the week before, that basically put the Atonement into direct perspective.  It's a great video, I love it.

If you watched it, you saw how at the end of the video, when the girl is fighting against the "demons" to get back to Christ, they tear away her black shirt to reveal a white shirt, but even then, she's still fighting.
By herself.
It isn't until she's given everything she has, and been literally thrown to the ground, looking like she's going to give up and not bother continuing to fight,  that Christ steps in and blocks the demons from getting to her anymore.
As Nathan and I sat up at the temple grounds, I wondered if that's not what yesterday was for me.
If that wasn't my moment of being thrown down, not wanting to get back up, then Him coming in and rescuing me from the demon pushing me down.
One of the things the Institute teacher talked about was how Satan assigns his followers to attack those of the righteous who are sincerely trying to do their best and keep the commandments. But, if that's true, we also have that many of God's angels assigned to be our guardians.  Sometimes I wonder just how many are around me all the time, sometimes it scares me, but at other times, it's a wonderful comfort, knowing I have someone, or someones, surrounding me and protecting me from the adversary.
Since that night, I've been doing better.  Not stellar, but better.
And that's all that matters right now.