In a 1982 address entitled "The Inconvenient Messiah," Jeffrey R. Holland and his wife Patricia spoke about the realities of discipleship to the BYU student body.
The last three years have been a challenge for me. Especially the past year-and-a-half.
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| What went wrong? |
I suspected I was "slightly" depressed during my pregnancy with Max. I thought something about boy hormones was not sitting with me right.
Swings of anxiety and depression hit me post-partum. I brushed it off as being overwhelmed with my four cute kids five and under, with other stresses of family and acquaintances weighing on me.
I knew I had a problem when I called 911 the day after Thanksgiving 2014 with a severe panic attack.
And I was devastated in April 2015, when despite trying to work with doctors, counselors, family members and spiritual leaders, I ended up in the state hospital in a severe state of psychosis (for those less acquainted with the term, psychosis is a break with reality).
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| Should I just give up? |
Now, I am in recovery, but going through a grief process of sorts. In some ways, it feels harder now than it did as I was going through it all, because now I have more time to process all that happened. Mental illness has, at least for the short term, thrown a wrench in my plans and added an air of uncertainty to my hopes and dreams for the future, as well as zapped a lot of time and energy. However, as I come to terms with what I went through and continue to work on my own, with my family, with professionals, and with God toward the best path for healing, I know I am richly blessed and God's hand is in my life. I have had challenges and ups and downs in my life before, and while none of them compare, I know some of them have prepared me for this one.
I share some of my story not to elicit sympathy, though I am grateful for friends and family that have lifted my family and me during this time of need. I share because one of the most helpful things for me has been as family, friends, acquaintances, and even strangers have shared their stories of dealing with mental illness. It is a taboo topic in our society, a subject of many jokes, and one laced with shame. I actually had terrible thoughts where I wished I had cancer or a severe car accident instead. Something people would better understand. Something physical. Something that showed up in blood work. Anything.
I now know those were foolish thoughts. No one really understands another's experience. Even two people who go through the same event, cannot completely have walked in the other's shoes, as we are all viewing life through a unique lens.
However, there is One who has paid the price to know us all. And, as Elder Dale G. Renlund, a newly called apostle, said in an
October press conference, "The Holy Ghost can bless us with the Savior's compassion."
In closing, I wanted to share Sister Holland's message from "The Inconvenient Messiah."
She told the story of her daughter Mary running in and losing the election for seventh-grade class president. When her daughter came home from school, she ached to be able to take away the pain and tried words of comfort. Her daughter requested they simply pray together.
Sister Holland's words follow:
"As we knelt in prayer, [Mary] said, 'Heavenly Father, I promised you I’d do anything if I could win, and now I know I must show how to be a good loser.' And then she said, 'I don’t want you to be my servant anymore. I just want to be yours.'
"You see, it was because of her pain and disappointment that she was given to say in a twelve-year-old way, 'Maybe what I wanted would not be the best thing to serve you at all.'
"I guess what I’ve come to you today to say is that God uses broken things—and I quote:
" 'It takes broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to give rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread to give strength. It is the broken alabaster box that gives forth perfume. . . . it is Peter, weeping bitterly, who returns to greater power than ever.' [“Broken Things,” an excerpt from Vance Havner, The Still Water (Old Tappan, NJ: Flemming H. Revell, 1934). Quoted in Guideposts, October 1981, p. 5]
"Our Father in Heaven sometimes uses our pain as a megaphone for very significant instruction as he did with Joseph Smith, with Spencer W. Kimball, with Mary Holland. And as he did with Peter who, weeping bitterly, returned to greater power and service than ever."
I echo Mary Holland's prayer: "I don't want [God] to be my servant anymore. I just want to be [His]."
During this experience and in the aftermath, I have felt a closeness to my ancestors and the phrase "saviors on Mount Zion" keeps returning to me. I know as I use this experience to better understand the Savior's atonement and all it means, I can be a savior on Mount Zion by helping both the living and the dead accept His priceless gift.
