falling apart and not looking back

I often get messages from women who read my blog, who are the same faith as me, asking me to share more spiritual blog posts. So today I thought I would share with you how I love to write and talk spiritually. For several years I have had the opportunity to lead/guide/plan and serve the women of my church, in my local area. This often involved me giving talks and in my usual style, I spoke openly and encouragingly to women about taking care of themselves in a spiritual way and also a mental and emotional way.

So, this is very different to my normal blog posts and there is a strong emphasis on religion with my thoughts and words. I do not apologise for this as it is what I believe and how I feel. I hope you still enjoy what I have to share even if you are not the same faith as me and even if you have a different spiritual guide in your life. N xx

Our relationship with God can have a lot to do with how we feel about ourselves. As we learn to love God and have the desire to be like him, He will help us be the type of woman we want to be. As we grow closer to Him, we will be able to see ourselves as He does and have the strength to be the type of woman we also need to be.

I love to write, especially about motherhood and happiness. About what makes me happy on the inside and on the outside. As I have been on this ‘happiness journey’ I have been learning a lot about who I am, what I like, what really makes me happy and about who I want to be. Since becoming a busy mother, I noticed I have forgotten what really makes me happy and in some ways I have forgotten who I am! I am now Matt’s wife, Chelsea’s mum, Nathan’s mum, Liahona’s mum and so on. But, I am also Naomi.

Being a woman in the gospel involves being busy. Busy serving, caring, loving and providing relief to those around us. Sometimes we can become so busy helping others that we forget to help ourselves and to think about who we are and what we want to be. For me, I really want to be more spiritual and more like God in my life and I also want to take responsibility for developing into who I believe I have the potential to be.

As women, God needs us today. He needs us to speak up for what is right, even when doing so is unpopular. He needs us to develop the spiritual maturity to hear and seek his guidance. He delights in women who keep their covenants with precision, not perfection but precision.

One of my favourite lines of a hymn profoundly expresses, 'in the quiet heart is hidden sorrow that the eye can’t see'. We all have trials and challenges in life but, I wish to speak about those sorrows, those burdens that make our heart heavy and sometimes stop our emotional and spiritual progress. Those sorrows that stop us bringing to flower and fruitage the richness of the spirit because, even in laughter...the heart is sorrowful.

Basically, those struggles that leave us feeling depressed and discouraged. Some matters are so sensitive and intensely personal that prayer is the best way for us to identify our thoughts and feelings. Our Heavenly Father will never forsake us but he will not do for us what we can do for ourselves.

God does help when we go to Him in times of need, especially when we are committed to His work and respond to His will. God loves to help those who are willing to help themselves. He expects His children to be self-reliant to the degree they can be.

You are a daughter of Heavenly Father. You are his child. He loves you. He listens to your prayers and he will hear you as you speak to him. As you open your heart and put your trust in Him, He will answer your prayers and He will not leave you alone.

Now you might be saying to yourself well, that’s alright for you to say Naomi. What do you know about being depressed? I do not profess to have all the answers but I do know a little of the prolonged struggle with sadness and discouragement that can come with feeling depressed.

The times when I have felt the most depressed in my life have been when I felt trapped. Trapped by the circumstances around me and trapped by how I could react to them. As a woman in the gospel I felt I had to be kind and loving and charitable to everyone around me and in the process forgot to show those feelings to myself. I reached a time in my life where I knew I needed to be a different woman than I currently was.

I needed to make more serious changes to live my life according to God's will. I was active in my church assignments, a stay at home mum and supported my husband in his assignments but I knew in my heart that more was required of me if I wanted to progress. I knew that God could see a large part of my heart was carrying hurt and pain and anger and sorrow.

To progress and for me to feel real charity {that pure love of Christ} I had to cleanse my heart and release the pain and anger. I was scared to face what I knew I was holding inside. You see, I was very comfortable in my miserable state. It was something I was familiar with, I did not have to change anything, the sadness happened naturally for me.

But to be happy, now that was going to require hard work and change and I knew that the only way I could be healed was to rely on the Atonement of Christ. To achieve this I had to give myself permission to ‘fall apart’ as I call it {and boy did I fall apart!} to heal myself.

You see, I was born into my family to be a chain breaker. To break the chain of abusive living and to start a new generation of healthy living. This has not been an easy assignment. I have had to stand alone, against all of my family, to fight for what I knew to be right and true {and I use the word fight here because it has been a battle!} and to have the courage to change the entire course of my lineage.

I refused to let this destructive tradition pass on to my children and was determined to break the mold. I set out to build a supportive foundation based on commandments, covenants and charity. A foundation built upon Jesus Christ. I believed that just because I grew up in what felt like a terrible circumstance it did not mean my children were destined to the same fate.

As I let myself fall apart, there were times the pain felt unbearable and too much to carry. I would have trouble discerning the spirit. I would become confused between what was emotion and what was the guidance I needed. Often my mind wanted to look back. To relive experiences, to remember and to bring back those feelings of discouragement and worthlessness. Ladies, we cannot look back on mistakes we may have made or wrong choices in our lives. We need to look forward, to plan for our future, to follow the path the Saviour has set and to be the kind of woman the Saviour wants and needs us to be.

For me to heal it required studying spiritual doctrine and a determination to follow it. Today my heart is free from that pain and anger and sorrow because I gave it away. The Saviour took it from me because I let him. Many people would have me believe that I need to spend the rest of my life suffering and sorrowing over past experiences but the Saviour has already paid the price for us, He has already felt our pain and sorrows. We just need to give ourselves permission to be free from it, to trust him and to let it go.

My goal in life became to move from being a victim, to that of a survivor to where I am now, what I like to call a thriver. As women we need each other. We need to talk to each other, to share our burdens and to trust each other. We need to be women who can keep confidences, who can gain wisdom and inspiration for those who are hurting around us. We need to share a smile, a hug, a kind word and show forth kindness. I know that so many women already do that in their lives and I am so thankful for the great support and help they are to others. My hope is that we will continue to love and care for each other and that we will keep looking forward with faith and striving to be the best we can be.