Thank You Dad!

My Dad died today. It was hard watching him die. But I am so grateful for some of the things he taught me. He taught me to love the scriptures. He also taught me that God loved me. Because I knew my Dad loved me, I knew that God loved me. If he taught me nothing else but those two things I would be forever grateful. They have made it so I can make it through life's tough times. Goodbye Dad. I will miss you for a time.

Life Changes

My Dad is dying. I got a call a week ago that he didn't have long to live, so I flew  to my parents home. This new phase of life is another growing experience. The twelve steps have helped me with this too. I don't worry about what I have no control over any more (not much anyway). I'm at peace with whatever God wants to do.

I'm going to give a copy of the 12 step program to my Mom and sisters. If they choose to do any of it, it can help them find some peace. It is amazing how working on something for one area of your life can help in all areas.  Learning to trust God (step 3) is so important in life, I'm beginning to see the bigger picture for me.

Feelings

Wow, I haven't been on for over a month. I have been working on the steps for myself, though just not making the time to write about it. The past month or so I have been working on the workbook, "He Did Deliver Me from Bondage, " by Colleen C. Harrison. She was addicted to food and perfectionism and wrote it to go along with the twelve step program. It has a scripture study that go along with each section. Some thought provoking questions that go along with various scriptures. It has given me new things to think about. It is work though. I'm filling up a notebook. My husband agreed to read and do the work in it. We will see.

We go another draft of the twelve steps last week. This one is much smaller 39 pages. I will have to compare it. I have saved all of the rough drafts so far. There are things I like from each of them. No more Serenity Prayer. I really liked saying that each week it gave me peace. That I know I will miss. They titled Step 1 as Honesty instead of Awareness.

I like the start of Step 1 where it talks about how we sometimes feel controlled by some of our feelings, such as:

• Fear that our addicted loved one would never get better and fear of the real possibility that he or she may even die physically as well as spiritually.
• Helpless to  prevent the harm our addicted loved one might do to others around them, especially children.
• Bitterness, resentment, and alarm over financial challenges as we dealt with excessive spending, treatment programs, legal expenses, fines, and destruction of property.
• Physical weariness as sleeplessness, stress, and anxiety took a toll on our health.
• Confusion as to why our loved ones were behaving so irrationally and why nothing we said or did seemed to make any difference.
• Shame, isolation, and hopelessness as we took responsibility for our loved ones' choices and tried to protect others from knowing what was happening. 
• Sorrow that baptism and temple covenants may be irreparable broken and eternal family ties severed.
• Anxiety that our loved ones' continued addiction somehow reflected our inability to access God's help in their behalf.
• Exhaustion at constantly reacting to the emotional upheaval in our family.

This new twelve step guide is written for all addictions so some of it doesn't fully apply to me, but I could relate with pretty much all of these feelings. When someone new comes to support group, I am reminded of when I first went several years ago. You feel so many feelings that you haven't even identified and and scared to be there, and angry that you are. We feel that we shouldn't have to be there. It isn't our addiction. We don't need to be fixed. If they keep coming back they realize that everyone has need to be "fixed" in someway. They eventually will find peace. I love the twelve steps! They have really saved my sanity. I am at peace even though things in my life are not stable. I'm sleeping better than I have for over ten years. True-fully these steps could benefit everybody.

Have a great weekend!

I Need Conference

I'm so glad General Conference is this weekend. I really need to be spiritually fed. I feel so drained right now that I need to be filled again. Reading the scriptures helps, a lot,  but there is nothing like two days of being drenched with the word of God to help me make it through the next six months. I am so glad it is not just once a year. I need it twice.

Women's Conference was really good. I needed to hear President Uchtdorf's talk "Forget Me Not." I needed to hear "Forget not to be happy now," and  "Forget not that the Lord loves you."  It is nice to hear that you are loved by God, again. There are moments when I forget or feel alone. Link to the talk:  Forget Me Not

Temperaments

Wow life is just crazy and I haven't made the time to blog. So I will  post something now. I recently read
"Understand your MAN Secrets of the Male Temperament" by Tim LaHaye. What an interesting book. Yes I learned about my husband, but I also got insight into my children's and more importantly my temperament. Why would I want to learn about my temperament or anyone else's? Because then we can make sense of why people act the way they do and be more tolerant of them. For instance, why do some people forgive easier than others? It is their temperament. I really liked how it broke down the temperaments into their weaknesses and strengths. Then the author suggests we focus on our top ten weaknesses to work on. Yes it may be our natural temperament to be fearful or stingy etc. but if we are aware of our tendencies we can work on changing them.

This goes along so well with step four. When we know what needs to be worked on we can do it. I will say it is hard sometimes to admit I have some of the weaknesses I do, but if I don't humble myself enough to admit them, God will find a way to do that for me as I have found out. This is why we are here right, to improve ourselves? I just wish I didn't have so much which needed improving. lol

An analogy

I haven't been feeling the greatest the past couple of weeks, so I watched the Lord of the Rings movies again. I like them but don't watch them much because they take so much time. This morning at about 5 an analogy with that movie and addiction came to me, so I will share. In part two: The Two Towers, there is a scene with Gandalf, Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, Theoden and Wormtongue. Theoden has been listening to Wormtongue and becomes essentially his puppet. Wormtongue is a puppet of Saruman who is the under Sauron. Sauron we will equate to Satan. Saruman we will equate to the porn producers and Wormtongue is porn. Theoden looses himself in Wormtongue cleaver talk. He doesn't recognize good and bad anymore, he just listens to Wormtongue. He looks awful, feels old and isn't the best king.

Gandalf the White and the gang ride into town to save the day. Gandalf gets rid of Wormtongue and Sauron's influence over Theoden. Theoden sheds his old, awful looks and now recognizes the mistakes he has made. He sees things from a new light. He has light. We will equate Gandalf to Christ.

As long as Theoden let Wormtongue influence him, he was ineffectual as a king and a man. His people would have been destroyed. Once he was "saved" by Gandalf he once again had hope and could start being the king he was meant to be.

So with our porn addict husbands. When they are under the influence of porn they don't think right. They think they do, but they just don't. Unless they turn to Christ for help they won't be saved. They will be lonely lost creatures who are pathetic to behold. For:

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. Matt. 6:24

So if they are loving porn they are hating God, the one that can help them get this evil spirit out of their heart. They can only overcome porn by coming to the Savior. I'm praying for this miracle now. It will be a miracle.  I hope this is clearer than mud. Just something on my mind.

Worthy Of His Love

I've been out of town for a couple of weeks, which has given me time to think. It came to my attention how dependent I was on my husbands happiness for my own. Not a healthy place to be. Granted it is better now than in the past, but still room for improvement. That co-dependent part of me that seems to be hard to let go. Maybe I had put him as the center of my life instead of God. Big mistake. This is something I'm going to be working on this month.

I listened to a song last night from a recovery cd my husband has. I really liked the words to the song for step 12 Worthy of Love. Link You can go here to listen to the song. Sometimes we forget we are worthy of our Heavenly Fathers love, no matter what.