Knowing is Half the Battle

Tonight the girls and I hit up Karaoke Cafe. This has become a Monday night tradition... our own little FHE, if you will. We decided to pick a theme for the night: Sad, heart-brake songs-love gone wrong. Oh, man. I was close to tears before we even started! (Which is the goal of these songs.)

I love Shanna and Kristy for a number of reasons. Not last among those is how easily I can confess to them. There is something about being a girl that makes it next to impossible to hold shameful, guilty feelings inside- as stupid or miniscule the reason is for having them. We have to confess them! (How many times has a friend muttered under her breath what she paid for a new pair of shoes I complimented her on? She just had to confess!) And I love that I have Shanna and Kristy to hear out all the things that ail me.

Tonight's "confession" was from me. All three of us felt very sad for the predictament. I felt and feel awful. Sometimes I'm soooo dumb! Does it ever happen that the worst of yourself meets together in a Bremuda Triangle at the worst possible time? I hate disappointing people I care about. Uhhh! So, why do I feel calm right now? (Karaoke is therapeutic?) Why does this dust-of-the-earth humility feel good? *thinking* Just a guess: 1.) I feel protected from future bad choices of this sort. 2.) I learned a lot about myself and where I am which is helpful to know exactly how I need to move forward. 3.) I feel willing to accept the come-what-may because I'm so humbled.

I wrote a letter to Ryan today. He comes home in only two months! After responding to his letter, I set about to give an accounting for my life since he always asks for one. Without effort at all, I could only report how happy I have felt lately. Honestly. I feel really happy. Even when I'm sad, there is an underlying happiness. Perhaps I'd been under a cloud for a long time and am now coming back to normal life. Whatever the case, I love it. It's been growing for a couple years now, and I attribute it to the power of the atonement. I sometimes hesitate to post my "church talk" on my blog because I wonder if those who stumble on my blog will understand and respect the place that it is coming from. I'd hate to think that my honest and most personal feelings would be sneered at. Anyhow, I love discovering how the atonement can change my heart and feelings. I love discovering how much I need it; how desperately I need it. Life really is a sort of game about chasing feelings. Where would I be without joy? Without all the deep and sincere feelings the atonement allows me to have?

I keep thinking about the concept of knowing something. I think 'know' is like the word 'love.' There should be a million different words to describe the nuances within each that are not apparent in the flatness of one, single word. We don't throw whole trust into these words when they're used because we don't know where on that spectrum this 'love' or this 'know' came from. Consider the phrase "ever learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth." This makes so much sense to me right now. And it makes me feel like an idiot because I have been the subject of such a description. I have been crystal clear on something and had that clarity reaffirmed so many times, but when a window of doubt opens- a loop hole- I jump right through to that place where I don't "know" and try to doddle in the mire of neivity. But no matter how hard I try to stay neive and deny my level of "knowing," I'm forcefully shoved out of that comfortable place by experience. I cannot stay there no matter how hard I try. I openly confess this only because I am confident that each of us deals with a level of this within ourselves. It really is epidemic. For example, (an extreme example) it is common knowledge the harmful effects of pornography on family and society. However, the industry is exploding. Why? Because the powers that be "know" but will not "know" (i.e. claim to know) for the purpose of being able to shirk responsibility. Or, a less severe example: You identify a bad habit that you've casually maintained for years. When it comes down to it, you clearly see it is not good for you to keep up this habit. But you reason with yourself that it's not so bad and you wouldn't be all that better off without it. Beside, you aren't actually sure if anything would substatially improve if you overcame said habit. God must be aware of this disease among us: Not choosing to know and claim that we know.