The past few months, I've really been struggling with my faith. It's been really difficult and it's been weighing on my mind quite a bit, so I just need to write things out I guess. I recently decided to make a permanent move from the University Branch, to the family ward, and it's directly related this struggle of faith I've had. There's no one single reason why I decided this, there's a lot of reasons that factored into it, and I know a lot the reasons are even partly (or mostly) my fault. I know the church is true...but beyond that...I don't really know where my place is in the gospel/applying it to my life.
It wasn't something that just suddenly happened- it's been growing for a few months now. Since I'm pretty open about it nowadays, most of you know I struggle with severe depression and anxiety. What has become more and more frustrating for me, is that because of the depression, I often can't feel the Spirit when I need to. For the most part, I understand (and do my best to accept) that this clearly isn't something the Lord is going to take away from me. For whatever reason, this is a trial I'm supposed to experience and continue to face. What I get angry, frustrated, and confused about is that in my darkest moments, I can't feel the Spirit when I need it the most, when I just need a little bit of comfort. This anger and frustration has been growing and growing. I began to feel alone and abandoned. I have felt like Heavenly Father and the Lord have left me all alone and don't hear my silent, or very vocal pleas for help. The angrier I felt, the more frustrated I became, the more I felt alone, the less I would do the things I should- such as reading my scriptures and praying. The less I did those things, of course, the more alone and frustrated I felt, which then resulted in doing those things less. Vicious cycle continues... I've always struggled a little bit with scripture reading, but saying my prayers wasn't usually a struggle. But the less I did the things I was supposed to, the less I read my scriptures, the less I went to church, the more my mind convinced me that I SHOULDN'T pray. Every time I thought about it, all I could hear was, "you haven't done squat lately, why would Heavenly Father do anything for you right now." Yes, I "know" that's not how it works, but sometimes it's hard to realize that.
There was a situation last week, where I made the decision that I was going to drink- the temptation has been creeping up and growing for some time, and I just broke down and decided to give in. I was out with friends from work, and I ordered a drink. Got a couple of sips in and noticed a huge fly in my drink. Flagged down the waitress and she was going to bring me another, but I was so turned off at the thought of having the same drink where the fly came from, I opted for something different (non-alcoholic). In the moment, I know why that happened, and honestly, it's probably a good thing it happened. BUT, it honestly made me really mad and upset- "Heavenly Father can intervene when I'm going to make a not-so-wise decision, but I can't feel a thing in my darkest moments when I just need some comfort?!?!?!" Uuuggghhh.
Then I started struggling with going to church in general. It became really overwhelming for me every week. Not just because of all the things I was already struggling with, but also because I've been feeling out of place at church lately. The problem is, my anxiety would get so high, that I didn't want to talk to people, unless I was really comfortable with them. There were so many new people, so many forced introductions, so many people I was uncomfortable with, so I would avoid talking to people. But then I would get mad and feel alone when people I was comfortable with wouldn't talk to me. Ridiculous, right? The thing is, overall, I was feeling left out, unwelcome, unaccepted; not just at church, but even in my personal life/friendships. I know this is all mostly my own fault/doing, but still...it affected me. As changes in the branch happened, people I was close with moved on, lots of new people moved in, home teachers changed, etc etc. Home teachers that I was comfortable with and who kept in contact/visited, changed to home teachers that don't. I know I'm not always someone who is up for official visits, but I always appreciate at least a little bit of contact, especially since I don't have many people I could ask for a blessing if I needed one. The last thing I'm going to do in a dark moment when I could use a blessing, is call up my home teacher(s) that I don't hear from.
Slowly, I've just started to feel like I've outgrown the branch, like it just isn't for me anymore. Don't get me wrong, it's a great place, and I strongly believe it's an awesome place for students, young couples, etc and I think they'll do well there. But I just feel like I don't belong there anymore, so I started thinking about going to the family ward. I decided to try it out last week, and it seemed to go well, and I went again this past week too. The family ward isn't necessarily ideal- it's hectic, there's tons of kids, it's hard to hear sometimes during sacrament meeting and it's filled with people who have known me since I was a kid, watched me grow up, Abe to be honest, it's sometimes a little awkward; but oddly, I kind of felt like it's where I needed to be. So for all these things going on, I'm going to switch to the family ward, and I'm going to strive to get back on track with things.
