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Spiritual Lightening
Challenges are a necessary part of mortality. But as author M. Catherine Thomas points out, the suffering that accompanies challenges can be lessened and our joy increased through a more informed faith. Her concepts of "spiritual lightening" suggests that spiritual principles and powers can both enlighten minds and lighten burdens. Practical as well as refreshingly insightful, this book illuminates many of those principles. Working from a base of solid gospel scholarship and personal experience, the author discusses such topics as the difference between self-confidence and confidence in God, overcoming spiritual discouragement, women and the priesthood, separating fear from love in parenting, and healing through repentance. This thought-provoking book points the way to deeper understanding, personal peace, and joy in the Lord Jesus Christ.
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
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January 19, 2017
4.5 stars
I got this book from my mom's stuff when she died since she had made some notes in it. As I read it and looked at her annotations, it was really nice, since I felt like I got to spend a little time with her.
Whenever I read something by M. Catherine Thomas, I always think she has really valuable things to say. This book is no different. It's very personal, almost a writer's diary, as she invites us along on her path to finding peace and joy. Here's the premise of the book:
"When life's burdens get us down, we can ascend in our minds to a higher reality--a truer one. It is possible during troubled times to feel a sweet spiritual lightening steal into our darkened minds with these impressions: 'My child, peace be unto thy soul'; 'He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.' It is possible to feel an irrepressible joy even in the midst of seeming chaos, because, as the Apostle Paul teaches, there is a peace which passes understanding and a love that passes knowledge." (p.16)
It was reassuring to be reminded that I can have joy despite my circumstances. I know I tend to let worry rob me of joy. M. Catherine Thomas reminds us that we can set down our burden of worry and exercise faith in a God who is perfectly omniscient, omnipotent, and emotionally committed to his children. (p. 42)
I love her thoughts on relationships. "We can tell that our love is often based on the degree to which another person satisfies us: If they don't satisfy us, we criticize them. It seems to me that most criticism is saying, 'In these ways, this person does not satisfy my expectations as to what he should be.' But our expectations are a function of the finite mind, not the mind of God. ...We stand in a sacred relationship to the people in our lives, especially family, because they are not there by chance. The people in our lives were placed there not only for us to enjoy but also to cross us and to dissatisfy us from time to time so that we can learn that love is not a matter of personal satisfaction but a going out of our hearts to empathize with, to understand, and to try to bless the other, giving up the demand of the natural man for satisfaction." (p. 56)
There's a whole chapter on how to let go of our children's choices that was really good for me. "We may think we bear the whole load of another's salvation and forget that every person is a child of God and has his own personal Savior." (p.71) "It is very hard to let go of that agonizing knot in the intestines that urges us to take all the blame and to beat ourselves mercilessly. But if we are going to learn godliness we must redirect the energy that we're giving to sick anxiety over another's choices. We do not perfect others with our fear, or even with our love; rather, we perfect the principle of love in ourselves.. ... Do we love our children more if we allow our grief over them to destroy us? Do we love them less if we allow them their agency and establish serenity in ourselves? Can we actually detach ourselves from the tyranny of our grief?... I am learning that my rest in God is not dependent on others' choices, not even my children's." (pp. 72-3)
This was a really lovely book that took a while for me to read since I'd pick it up and savor it just a little at a time. I'm glad it came back into my life again recently since I'd forgotten it in the pile of books to read on my nightstand :). It was exactly what I needed to hear just when I needed it.
I got this book from my mom's stuff when she died since she had made some notes in it. As I read it and looked at her annotations, it was really nice, since I felt like I got to spend a little time with her.
Whenever I read something by M. Catherine Thomas, I always think she has really valuable things to say. This book is no different. It's very personal, almost a writer's diary, as she invites us along on her path to finding peace and joy. Here's the premise of the book:
"When life's burdens get us down, we can ascend in our minds to a higher reality--a truer one. It is possible during troubled times to feel a sweet spiritual lightening steal into our darkened minds with these impressions: 'My child, peace be unto thy soul'; 'He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.' It is possible to feel an irrepressible joy even in the midst of seeming chaos, because, as the Apostle Paul teaches, there is a peace which passes understanding and a love that passes knowledge." (p.16)
It was reassuring to be reminded that I can have joy despite my circumstances. I know I tend to let worry rob me of joy. M. Catherine Thomas reminds us that we can set down our burden of worry and exercise faith in a God who is perfectly omniscient, omnipotent, and emotionally committed to his children. (p. 42)
I love her thoughts on relationships. "We can tell that our love is often based on the degree to which another person satisfies us: If they don't satisfy us, we criticize them. It seems to me that most criticism is saying, 'In these ways, this person does not satisfy my expectations as to what he should be.' But our expectations are a function of the finite mind, not the mind of God. ...We stand in a sacred relationship to the people in our lives, especially family, because they are not there by chance. The people in our lives were placed there not only for us to enjoy but also to cross us and to dissatisfy us from time to time so that we can learn that love is not a matter of personal satisfaction but a going out of our hearts to empathize with, to understand, and to try to bless the other, giving up the demand of the natural man for satisfaction." (p. 56)
There's a whole chapter on how to let go of our children's choices that was really good for me. "We may think we bear the whole load of another's salvation and forget that every person is a child of God and has his own personal Savior." (p.71) "It is very hard to let go of that agonizing knot in the intestines that urges us to take all the blame and to beat ourselves mercilessly. But if we are going to learn godliness we must redirect the energy that we're giving to sick anxiety over another's choices. We do not perfect others with our fear, or even with our love; rather, we perfect the principle of love in ourselves.. ... Do we love our children more if we allow our grief over them to destroy us? Do we love them less if we allow them their agency and establish serenity in ourselves? Can we actually detach ourselves from the tyranny of our grief?... I am learning that my rest in God is not dependent on others' choices, not even my children's." (pp. 72-3)
This was a really lovely book that took a while for me to read since I'd pick it up and savor it just a little at a time. I'm glad it came back into my life again recently since I'd forgotten it in the pile of books to read on my nightstand :). It was exactly what I needed to hear just when I needed it.
October 22, 2020
I just finished Chapter 6, Enduring Marriage. (interesting choice of words for chapter title - either we endure an unsatisfactory marriage - or we work to create an eternal, enduring marriage.)
Some things that stood out to me:
A great many divorces today do not arise from the gross unrighteousness of the partners; rather, they happen because one or the other fails to understand, or comes to reject, the nature and purpose of true marriage. What follows is to be understood in the context of two good people, not in the context of an abusive marriage. The initial love that prompts us to marry is a bit self-serving. This immature love may tend to wear off as the challenges of life assail the marriage. At some point in nearly every marriage, one or the other partner may think that he or she is falling out of love. Perhaps the other one is not meeting his expectations anymore; perhaps little obnoxious traits overshadow the once highly valued traits of the spouse. Perhaps she married in the first place looking for someone who would cherish her deeply and anticipate her every need. Whatever the mistaken notion, a spouse may start looking for someone who will better fill his or her expectations.
But the hope of making a better match is an illusion because, unless the other spouse is guilty of serious sin, the real problem is in the dissatisfied partner. His search for something better reveals a mistaken approach to marriage. He is focusing on what he wants out of the marriage (over which he may have little control), rather than what he has failed to put into it. He may think he has lost the "feeling" of love, but true love is not governed by feeling. The person who truly loves does so because he or she chooses to love. True love is a decision.
The Lord commands - in true marriage- that two people, imperfect, quite different from each other (no matter how much they may have in common), learn to triumph over their differences through tolerance and kindness, and learn, struggling together with spiritual principles, what it means to be one. Oneness, by the way, doesn't mean thinking and feeling the same way about everything; rather, it has to do with being dedicated to encouraging one another's spiritual growth, having reverence for one another's individuality, and coming together into oneness of heart with the Lord's purposes. True marriage is spiritually based.
What we need when we marry is to develop along lines we may not yet foresee. Thus instead of marrying a soulmate we marry a unique person and embark on learning to become a soulmate.
On physical relationship; sex can be a lonely experience when there are no other facets of oneness in the marriage. Instead, it is devotion to God's will that finally teaches the couple oneness; then all other aspects can come into harmony.
A successful marriage in the Lord's definition, that marriage which merits sealing by the Holy Spirit of Promise, is never a casual achievement or stroke of luck. It is always a triumph of spiritual principles, a product of selfless, sustained effort on behalf of both partners, a victory arising out of the will to love: the will to extend oneself to encourage one's own or another's spiritual growth. This victory comes often with the sacrifice of one's own convenience or desires.
God designed marriage as a refuge - two people tenderly caring for each other through life's experiences - but also as a tutorial in love. Each has something to teach the other, and the learning is usually not easy. If marriage is not seen as a tutorial in love, a preparation for living in eternity, Satan can rend the marriage by causing the partners to focus on what is unimportant and on the ever-dangerous goal of self-fulfillment. From a small seed of self-seeking-- diabolical discontent - an otherwise promising marriage can end in sorrow or limp along in misery for years. The misery is unnecessary, because, with right understanding, it is easy just to love and to bless. Our spouse was not given to us necessarily to satisfy us, but for us to love.
Chapter 7 notes.
Parenting - Love & Fear
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. (1 John 4:18)
In author's words... "I came from a family of wonderful people who nevertheless struggled with how to be happy. There were many things we didn't know about living in peace. We mixed our love with fear. What I experienced in my childhood family seemed to color my life with confusion. I joined the Church at nineteen. Though my conversion was real, many of my emotions continued to be out of harmony with gospel teachings, and I didn't know what to do about them. I was not at rest. As a young mother I felt that I was only barely keeping my distress from leaking out. But it did leak out. I struggled to be cheerful at home. I was too often tense with my children, especially as their behavior reflected negatively on me. I was perfectionistic. I was irritable and controlling. But I was also loving, patient, appreciative, happy; I frequently felt the Spirit of the Lord, and I did many parenting things well, but so inconsistently."
Sooner or later the crisis comes for good people who live in ignorance and neglect of spiritual law. The old ways don't work anymore, and it may feel as though the foundations of life are giving way.
If we don't learn consistent, mature love in our childhood homes we often struggle to learn it when we become marriage partners and parents. It doesn't matter what the manifest problem was in our childhood family. In a home where a child is emotionally deprived for one reason or another that child will take some personal emotional confusion into his or her adult life. We may spin our spiritual wheels in trying to make up for childhood's personal losses, looking for compensation in the wrong places and despairing that we can't find it. But the significance of spiritual rebirth through Jesus Christ is that we can mature spiritually under His parenting and receive healing compensation for these childhood deprivations.
Three emotions that often grow all out of proportion in the emotionally deprived child are fear, guilt, and anger. The fear grows out of the child's awareness of the uncontrollable nature of her fearful environment, of overwhelming negative forces around her. Her guilt, her profound feelings of inadequacy, intensify when she is unable to put right what is wrong, either in the environment or in another person, no matter how hard she tries to be good. If only she could try harder or be better, she could correct what is wrong, she thinks. She may carry this guilt all her life, not knowing where it comes from, but just always feeling guilty. She often feels too sorry for something she has done that was really not all that serious. Her anger comes from her frustration, perceived deprivation, and the resultant self-pity. She has picked up an anger habit and doesn't know how much trouble it is causing her.
A fourth problem often follows in the wake of the big three: the need to control others and manipulate events in order to feel secure in her own world, to hold her world together- to make happen what she wants to happen. She thinks she has to run everything. She may enter adulthood with an illusion of power and a sense of authority to put other people right, though she has had little success with it. She thinks that all she has to do is try harder, be worthier, and then she can change, perfect, and save other people. But she is in the dark about what really needs changing.
Author said... "I thought I would drown in guilt and wanted to fix all the people that I had affected so negatively. But I learned that I had to focus on getting well and leave off trying to cure anyone around me." Many of those around - might indeed get better too, since we seldom see how much we are a key part of a negative relationship pattern. I have learned it is a true principle that I need to fix myself before I can begin to be truly helpful to anyone else.
I used to think that if I were worthy enough and worked hard enough, and exercised enough anxiety (which is not the same thing as faith), I could change anything. My power and my control are illusions. To survive emotionally, I have to turn my life over to the care of that tender Heavenly Father who was really in charge. It is my own spiritual superficiality that makes me sick, and that only profound repentance, that real change of heart, would ultimately heal me. My Savior is much closer than I imagine and is willing to take over the direction of my life: "I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me, ye can do nothing." (John 15:5).
As old foundations crumble, we feel terribly vulnerable. Humility, prayer and flexibility are the keys to passing through this corridor of healthy change while we experiment with truer ways of dealing with life. Godly knowledge, lovingly imparted, begins deep healing, gives tools to live by and new ways to understand the gospel.
______________
Chapter 10
Spiritual Discouragement
I am not talking about the spiritual discouragement that comes from overt sinning but the kind that comes to the person who is aspiring to be a true disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. The truth of one's real condition, one's deeply fallen and lost state, is slowly unveiled to the person who is trying to become a true disciple.
As our discipleship to the Lord Jesus Christ deepens and our true condition becomes more apparent to us, our susceptibility to a particular kind of discouragement may increase. (Note: Our condition is not our "true nature", but a condition of living in a telestial environment - world.) The true disciple may be, in some ways, more subject to crushing feelings of discouragement and worthlessness than the natural man is. It may be that the harder the aspiring true disciple tries, the more discouraged he or she will become. Yet each of us knows that we cannot stop trying with all our might, mind, and strength, even while we feel so inadequate.
How patient we have to be at the slowness of our progress! The making of mistakes and the failing to measure up just seem to be beyond our ability to avoid. And the hardest thing about many of our mistakes is that they happen when we are trying our very best to do well the things that matter the very most: our family relationships, our other relationships, our Church work, our jobs, our schoolwork.
Maybe the hardest part of earth life for spiritually sensitive people is their very imperfection. Joseph F. Smith wrote: "I think that the spirit, before and after this probation, possesses greater facilities, aye, manifold greater, for the acquisition of knowledge, than while manacled and shut up in the prison-house of mortality" (Gospel Doctrine, p. 13).
Not only our fallenness causes us trouble, but Satan too gets involved. He and his cohorts are always combing the earth for people to trouble. He finds someone who is giving his or her all. Satan's name in Greek is dia'bolos, which means "hurler of accusations." He hurls accusations at us and gets us to beat on ourselves. He stirs around in our miserable feelings and seeks to shut us right down - that is, if we can get discouraged enough, if we just stop trying, if we come to a dead standstill on the path and say, "I've had enough" - he has us where he wants us.
Part of enduring to the end may have to do with just keeping on trying against feelings of overwhelming inadequacy - knowing they are part of discipleship (of motherhood).
A person may think that his feelings of hopelessness reflect his true condition, but they do not. These feelings are a smoke screen, or maybe mists of darkness, generated by a true sense of one's fallenness - but with which Satan has connected. With our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, we can kick Satan out.
Nephi cried out, "O wretched man that I am! yea, my heart sorroweth because of my flesh; my soul grieveth because of mine iniquities. I am encompassed about, because of the temptations and the sins which do so easily beset me." (2 Nephi 4:17-18.)
In the middle of that psalm, apparently, Nephi figured out that Satan, the enemy of his soul, was making trouble for him. He said: "Yea, why should I give way to temptations, that the evil one have place in my heart to destroy my peace and afflict my soul?… Awake, my soul! No longer droop in sin. Rejoice, O my heart, and give place no more for the enemy of my soul." (2 Nephi 4:27-28.)
It helps me to know that the greatest spirits among us fight discouragement - today, right now.
Elder Spencer W. Kimball is an example of one who never seemed to feel adequate in his calling, at least in the early days of his apostleship. He seemed always to feel that he wasn't measuring up. After his first General Conference address after being made an apostle, "As I took my seat I felt I had failed and continued to tell myself that I had failed." Soon thereafter, in his journal one day he wrote: "I have been depressed all day - I feel so inadequate. It seems that I am not succeeding with my work as I should like. It has been a hectic day. Everything seems to have been disturbing and disappointing. Received a long letter of severe criticism from one of my friends - and everything seemed to be at cross-purposes. Maybe I need further humbling."
Then he wrote four days later:
"Oh! I am so happy today. To see just a little fruit of our labors is encouraging." (Edward L. Kimball and Andrew E. Kimball, Jr., Spencer W. Kimball [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1977]
Clearly discouragement is the means by which Satan tries to get us to stop trying. He knows that if we keep trying we're going to connect with the Spirit of the Lord, which takes us out of our narrow self-preoccupation and unveils a rich resource of power and capacity.
Our reaction to our heightened feelings of fallenness is important. One thing that seems to help is humility. It is a paradox that, when we feel so everlastingly valueless, the thing that could bring relief is humility. But discouragement may reveal a weakened connection with the Savior, a blurred focus. We can sharpen our focus by humbling ourselves to the depths before Him. Then He offers us a sip out of the cup of His Spirit and our perspective changes, and we know that in His strength we can go on and even feel a measure of success.
The depth of our self-doubt is the beginning of the measure of our need for the Lord Jesus Christ. Ultimately our woeful feelings will be displaced forever with His sublime love. Until then we must press on.
President Howard Hunter illustrated the model for us:
As special witnesses of our Savior…. it is required of us that despite age, infirmity, exhaustion, and feelings of inadequacy, we do the work He has given us to do, to the last breath of our lives. ("To the Women of the Church," Ensign, November 1992.)
Some things that stood out to me:
A great many divorces today do not arise from the gross unrighteousness of the partners; rather, they happen because one or the other fails to understand, or comes to reject, the nature and purpose of true marriage. What follows is to be understood in the context of two good people, not in the context of an abusive marriage. The initial love that prompts us to marry is a bit self-serving. This immature love may tend to wear off as the challenges of life assail the marriage. At some point in nearly every marriage, one or the other partner may think that he or she is falling out of love. Perhaps the other one is not meeting his expectations anymore; perhaps little obnoxious traits overshadow the once highly valued traits of the spouse. Perhaps she married in the first place looking for someone who would cherish her deeply and anticipate her every need. Whatever the mistaken notion, a spouse may start looking for someone who will better fill his or her expectations.
But the hope of making a better match is an illusion because, unless the other spouse is guilty of serious sin, the real problem is in the dissatisfied partner. His search for something better reveals a mistaken approach to marriage. He is focusing on what he wants out of the marriage (over which he may have little control), rather than what he has failed to put into it. He may think he has lost the "feeling" of love, but true love is not governed by feeling. The person who truly loves does so because he or she chooses to love. True love is a decision.
The Lord commands - in true marriage- that two people, imperfect, quite different from each other (no matter how much they may have in common), learn to triumph over their differences through tolerance and kindness, and learn, struggling together with spiritual principles, what it means to be one. Oneness, by the way, doesn't mean thinking and feeling the same way about everything; rather, it has to do with being dedicated to encouraging one another's spiritual growth, having reverence for one another's individuality, and coming together into oneness of heart with the Lord's purposes. True marriage is spiritually based.
What we need when we marry is to develop along lines we may not yet foresee. Thus instead of marrying a soulmate we marry a unique person and embark on learning to become a soulmate.
On physical relationship; sex can be a lonely experience when there are no other facets of oneness in the marriage. Instead, it is devotion to God's will that finally teaches the couple oneness; then all other aspects can come into harmony.
A successful marriage in the Lord's definition, that marriage which merits sealing by the Holy Spirit of Promise, is never a casual achievement or stroke of luck. It is always a triumph of spiritual principles, a product of selfless, sustained effort on behalf of both partners, a victory arising out of the will to love: the will to extend oneself to encourage one's own or another's spiritual growth. This victory comes often with the sacrifice of one's own convenience or desires.
God designed marriage as a refuge - two people tenderly caring for each other through life's experiences - but also as a tutorial in love. Each has something to teach the other, and the learning is usually not easy. If marriage is not seen as a tutorial in love, a preparation for living in eternity, Satan can rend the marriage by causing the partners to focus on what is unimportant and on the ever-dangerous goal of self-fulfillment. From a small seed of self-seeking-- diabolical discontent - an otherwise promising marriage can end in sorrow or limp along in misery for years. The misery is unnecessary, because, with right understanding, it is easy just to love and to bless. Our spouse was not given to us necessarily to satisfy us, but for us to love.
Chapter 7 notes.
Parenting - Love & Fear
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. (1 John 4:18)
In author's words... "I came from a family of wonderful people who nevertheless struggled with how to be happy. There were many things we didn't know about living in peace. We mixed our love with fear. What I experienced in my childhood family seemed to color my life with confusion. I joined the Church at nineteen. Though my conversion was real, many of my emotions continued to be out of harmony with gospel teachings, and I didn't know what to do about them. I was not at rest. As a young mother I felt that I was only barely keeping my distress from leaking out. But it did leak out. I struggled to be cheerful at home. I was too often tense with my children, especially as their behavior reflected negatively on me. I was perfectionistic. I was irritable and controlling. But I was also loving, patient, appreciative, happy; I frequently felt the Spirit of the Lord, and I did many parenting things well, but so inconsistently."
Sooner or later the crisis comes for good people who live in ignorance and neglect of spiritual law. The old ways don't work anymore, and it may feel as though the foundations of life are giving way.
If we don't learn consistent, mature love in our childhood homes we often struggle to learn it when we become marriage partners and parents. It doesn't matter what the manifest problem was in our childhood family. In a home where a child is emotionally deprived for one reason or another that child will take some personal emotional confusion into his or her adult life. We may spin our spiritual wheels in trying to make up for childhood's personal losses, looking for compensation in the wrong places and despairing that we can't find it. But the significance of spiritual rebirth through Jesus Christ is that we can mature spiritually under His parenting and receive healing compensation for these childhood deprivations.
Three emotions that often grow all out of proportion in the emotionally deprived child are fear, guilt, and anger. The fear grows out of the child's awareness of the uncontrollable nature of her fearful environment, of overwhelming negative forces around her. Her guilt, her profound feelings of inadequacy, intensify when she is unable to put right what is wrong, either in the environment or in another person, no matter how hard she tries to be good. If only she could try harder or be better, she could correct what is wrong, she thinks. She may carry this guilt all her life, not knowing where it comes from, but just always feeling guilty. She often feels too sorry for something she has done that was really not all that serious. Her anger comes from her frustration, perceived deprivation, and the resultant self-pity. She has picked up an anger habit and doesn't know how much trouble it is causing her.
A fourth problem often follows in the wake of the big three: the need to control others and manipulate events in order to feel secure in her own world, to hold her world together- to make happen what she wants to happen. She thinks she has to run everything. She may enter adulthood with an illusion of power and a sense of authority to put other people right, though she has had little success with it. She thinks that all she has to do is try harder, be worthier, and then she can change, perfect, and save other people. But she is in the dark about what really needs changing.
Author said... "I thought I would drown in guilt and wanted to fix all the people that I had affected so negatively. But I learned that I had to focus on getting well and leave off trying to cure anyone around me." Many of those around - might indeed get better too, since we seldom see how much we are a key part of a negative relationship pattern. I have learned it is a true principle that I need to fix myself before I can begin to be truly helpful to anyone else.
I used to think that if I were worthy enough and worked hard enough, and exercised enough anxiety (which is not the same thing as faith), I could change anything. My power and my control are illusions. To survive emotionally, I have to turn my life over to the care of that tender Heavenly Father who was really in charge. It is my own spiritual superficiality that makes me sick, and that only profound repentance, that real change of heart, would ultimately heal me. My Savior is much closer than I imagine and is willing to take over the direction of my life: "I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me, ye can do nothing." (John 15:5).
As old foundations crumble, we feel terribly vulnerable. Humility, prayer and flexibility are the keys to passing through this corridor of healthy change while we experiment with truer ways of dealing with life. Godly knowledge, lovingly imparted, begins deep healing, gives tools to live by and new ways to understand the gospel.
______________
Chapter 10
Spiritual Discouragement
I am not talking about the spiritual discouragement that comes from overt sinning but the kind that comes to the person who is aspiring to be a true disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. The truth of one's real condition, one's deeply fallen and lost state, is slowly unveiled to the person who is trying to become a true disciple.
As our discipleship to the Lord Jesus Christ deepens and our true condition becomes more apparent to us, our susceptibility to a particular kind of discouragement may increase. (Note: Our condition is not our "true nature", but a condition of living in a telestial environment - world.) The true disciple may be, in some ways, more subject to crushing feelings of discouragement and worthlessness than the natural man is. It may be that the harder the aspiring true disciple tries, the more discouraged he or she will become. Yet each of us knows that we cannot stop trying with all our might, mind, and strength, even while we feel so inadequate.
How patient we have to be at the slowness of our progress! The making of mistakes and the failing to measure up just seem to be beyond our ability to avoid. And the hardest thing about many of our mistakes is that they happen when we are trying our very best to do well the things that matter the very most: our family relationships, our other relationships, our Church work, our jobs, our schoolwork.
Maybe the hardest part of earth life for spiritually sensitive people is their very imperfection. Joseph F. Smith wrote: "I think that the spirit, before and after this probation, possesses greater facilities, aye, manifold greater, for the acquisition of knowledge, than while manacled and shut up in the prison-house of mortality" (Gospel Doctrine, p. 13).
Not only our fallenness causes us trouble, but Satan too gets involved. He and his cohorts are always combing the earth for people to trouble. He finds someone who is giving his or her all. Satan's name in Greek is dia'bolos, which means "hurler of accusations." He hurls accusations at us and gets us to beat on ourselves. He stirs around in our miserable feelings and seeks to shut us right down - that is, if we can get discouraged enough, if we just stop trying, if we come to a dead standstill on the path and say, "I've had enough" - he has us where he wants us.
Part of enduring to the end may have to do with just keeping on trying against feelings of overwhelming inadequacy - knowing they are part of discipleship (of motherhood).
A person may think that his feelings of hopelessness reflect his true condition, but they do not. These feelings are a smoke screen, or maybe mists of darkness, generated by a true sense of one's fallenness - but with which Satan has connected. With our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, we can kick Satan out.
Nephi cried out, "O wretched man that I am! yea, my heart sorroweth because of my flesh; my soul grieveth because of mine iniquities. I am encompassed about, because of the temptations and the sins which do so easily beset me." (2 Nephi 4:17-18.)
In the middle of that psalm, apparently, Nephi figured out that Satan, the enemy of his soul, was making trouble for him. He said: "Yea, why should I give way to temptations, that the evil one have place in my heart to destroy my peace and afflict my soul?… Awake, my soul! No longer droop in sin. Rejoice, O my heart, and give place no more for the enemy of my soul." (2 Nephi 4:27-28.)
It helps me to know that the greatest spirits among us fight discouragement - today, right now.
Elder Spencer W. Kimball is an example of one who never seemed to feel adequate in his calling, at least in the early days of his apostleship. He seemed always to feel that he wasn't measuring up. After his first General Conference address after being made an apostle, "As I took my seat I felt I had failed and continued to tell myself that I had failed." Soon thereafter, in his journal one day he wrote: "I have been depressed all day - I feel so inadequate. It seems that I am not succeeding with my work as I should like. It has been a hectic day. Everything seems to have been disturbing and disappointing. Received a long letter of severe criticism from one of my friends - and everything seemed to be at cross-purposes. Maybe I need further humbling."
Then he wrote four days later:
"Oh! I am so happy today. To see just a little fruit of our labors is encouraging." (Edward L. Kimball and Andrew E. Kimball, Jr., Spencer W. Kimball [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1977]
Clearly discouragement is the means by which Satan tries to get us to stop trying. He knows that if we keep trying we're going to connect with the Spirit of the Lord, which takes us out of our narrow self-preoccupation and unveils a rich resource of power and capacity.
Our reaction to our heightened feelings of fallenness is important. One thing that seems to help is humility. It is a paradox that, when we feel so everlastingly valueless, the thing that could bring relief is humility. But discouragement may reveal a weakened connection with the Savior, a blurred focus. We can sharpen our focus by humbling ourselves to the depths before Him. Then He offers us a sip out of the cup of His Spirit and our perspective changes, and we know that in His strength we can go on and even feel a measure of success.
The depth of our self-doubt is the beginning of the measure of our need for the Lord Jesus Christ. Ultimately our woeful feelings will be displaced forever with His sublime love. Until then we must press on.
President Howard Hunter illustrated the model for us:
As special witnesses of our Savior…. it is required of us that despite age, infirmity, exhaustion, and feelings of inadequacy, we do the work He has given us to do, to the last breath of our lives. ("To the Women of the Church," Ensign, November 1992.)
October 24, 2014
I read and saved an article she wrote in the Ensign from 1993 that had such a powerful effect on me that it literally changed the direction of my parenting. So I looked up anything else she'd written. This book is an expansion of that article and is as powerful now as it was for me then. I'll read and review this book often because of its depth and insight into personal relationships and how the Savior's grace changes everything. I highlighted so many passages, but this one seems to sum it up:
"It is spiritually lightening to realize that in most cases the actual details of the elements of our lives matter less than what we choose to become in the midst of them."
This book truly does provide spiritual lightening.
"It is spiritually lightening to realize that in most cases the actual details of the elements of our lives matter less than what we choose to become in the midst of them."
This book truly does provide spiritual lightening.
December 15, 2014
This was one of the best books I have read (outside the scriptures)to give me new ideas for improving my life and spirituality. It is about making your life happier by changing yourself rather than those about you. It is spiritually Lightening. The author is a professor at BYU and very honest and open about how her life.
Recommended by 2 daughters. I am so glad I read it and underlined it. I will begin to reread it tonight.
Recommended by 2 daughters. I am so glad I read it and underlined it. I will begin to reread it tonight.
February 3, 2012
I read this book as a recommendation from my mom. Sometimes it's difficult for me to "get into" spiritual books, but this author had a way of expressing her ideas (taken from years as an LDS teacher) that really touched my spirit and made sense. It's deep and meaningful and has inspired me to be a better person. I will read it again in a few months.
February 23, 2016
Catherine Thomas is one of my heroes. She is a brilliant gospel scholar. I loved this book - basically a group of short essays on some very relevant topics for those of us who struggle with what the Lord would have us do and when.
December 27, 2009
This little book could be the most insightful and beautifully explained treatise on how the gospel works that I have ever read. It is marvelous!
November 28, 2014
So much brilliance and depth and truth in this book. Don't judge this book by its cover. It's not at all fluffy stuff. It's full of powerful nutrients.
May 24, 2018
I found many enlightening parts of this book that applied to me. A good way to learn if areas where improvement is needed. I have the Desert plus bookshelf app so I can get an unlimited amount of ebooks or audiobooks each month. This is one of the books I’ve been reading. I will read more of her books. She is well informed about the gospel and can explain doctrine in a way that is easily understood.
October 24, 2020
This book took me a while even though it’s not very long. At first I was reading a couple chapters a week, highlighting and making notes - learning so much. Then life picked up and it sat to the side for a little while. Recently I felt compelled to pick it up and found the remainder of the book was very pertinent to what was currently on my mind and happening in my life. I know I will return to my notes and this book again. I’m grateful for Thomas’ insight.
July 20, 2017
I love Sister Thomas's writing. Much growth and many answers to prayer have come through these chapters. All for paying $1 at DI! Favorite chapter (right now): "'The Doer of Our Deeds'"
Quote:
"In the courtship process...the major question must be, given these initial qualities, Is this a person I want to love by nurturing him and compassionately seeing him through his development and problems, whatever the course of time may show them to be?" (p. 60)
Quote:
"In the courtship process...the major question must be, given these initial qualities, Is this a person I want to love by nurturing him and compassionately seeing him through his development and problems, whatever the course of time may show them to be?" (p. 60)
August 13, 2008
A great book from my BYU professor. This book speaks clearly about dealing with difficulties in life without over simplifying or falling into the easy trap of cliche etc. Something I reference on occasion and always seems to have something worthwhile to offer. It was out of print for awhile so the fact that they started reprinting it speaks volumes.
October 22, 2012
One of the deepest, but best LDS books I have read. It changes the way you see yourself, your relationship with the Savior and those around you. I will be reading this over and over again.
Hard to find. Out of print at Deseret Book, but found it on Amazon.com.
Recommended by Wendy Townsend.
Hard to find. Out of print at Deseret Book, but found it on Amazon.com.
Recommended by Wendy Townsend.
October 17, 2014
Loved it! Thomas has a really great way of integrating scripture with each point, which had a very powerful effect. She did a great job challenging the reader to improve without condemning him or her for where he/she currently is. I would highly recommend this book to anyone, especially those who are looking for some added help in turning their lives over to the Lord.
October 4, 2022
Phenomenal! I can't say enough about this book. I love the way the author expresses extremely complex, heart-felt concepts in accessible ways. I've turned to this book several times since finishing it to recall specific passages I found comforting or fascinating. I look forward to reading it in its entirety again -- something I never do -- because I hope to glean all that I can from it.
January 28, 2008
I really liked this book. It is hard to read more than 15 pages at a time because it is packed with enlightening concepts. I read this at a job when I worked at 4:30 a.m. That was rough...I don't recommend reading this if you are tired. Pretty interesting thoughts. (This is a church book).
May 12, 2016
Other people have really enjoyed this book, but it took a lot of energy for me to actually pick it up and read it. It didn't interest me at all. I only finished it because I hate quitting a book in the middle.
August 30, 2011
This book communicates the author's spiritual journeys and the wisdom she has gleaned from them. She challenges us to sacrifice and submit, to gain strength and comfort from the spiritual. Good reading for thinking disciples.
May 26, 2013
This book was given to me by a dear friend because it really affected her life..... as it did mine! So many poignant thoughts that really helped me with certain situations I am currently going through! Loved it!
June 6, 2015
This book is simply amazing and one of the best gospel books I have read in a long time. M. Catherine Thomas gives so many insights with sound doctrinal backing. This book has really shifted my perspective on various gospel related topics. Must read for all Latter-day Saints.
February 21, 2008
Loved this book. Gets into doctrines not frequently talked about. Helped me understand things better.
August 3, 2008
How to use the Spirit to "lighten" our souls in times of grief, adversity, emotional and difficulty. Wonderful counsel.
April 6, 2008
For someone who is searching for answers about the church a good book for missionaries or any one seeking.
December 2, 2008
Fantastic!! I'd recommend it to anyone! It's very interesting and gave me alot to think about.
August 19, 2009
Life changing. I have read and re-read this book over the years. It has changed the way I think, feel, respond, interact, etc.
January 19, 2010
I loved this book. I went and bought myself a personal copy so that I could read it again and make comments in the margins.
January 5, 2010
Great insights!
September 13, 2010
This book was wonderful. I loved the insights I received from reading the book. Very uplifting.
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February 2, 2010THE best spiritual book I've ever read next to the scriptures. Could possibly be considered the fifth standard work. Just a thought... :)
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