Covenantal Love

        I have written many times regarding the insurmountable nature of trauma that our body holds onto. Yet, for those who have not experienced such trauma, it continues to appear incomprehensible. While I could attempt to explain myself or I could attempt to prove that my feelings are justified, I have learned that is a losing battle. Talking about hardships and struggles doesn’t get you anywhere (despite what the victim narrative of the current world would have you believe). Therefore, I will not be rehearsing all the painstakingly agonizing heartbreaks I have endured over the past week, few months, or even years. Instead, today I wish to express the relationship I have had with the Atonement of my Lord, Jesus Christ over the last 15 years.

            Some years ago, as I was desperately crying, in my mother’s loving nature she expressed that she wished that she could take my pain from me. My immediate thought was, “absolutely no, you would not, not if you had a clue what this feels like.” However, because of my deep, thoughtful nature as I contemplated more on this interaction, I began to consider that Jesus did know how painful it would be. Yet not only did He take on that one instance, He took on every instance, for everyone. Indeed, 1 Nephi 21:16 says “I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands.” And He did it willingly!

           He did it for the same reason my mom expressed her desire, out of pure love. Love that transcends pain; love that supersedes inadequacy; love that replaces fear with faith; love that turns anxiety into comfort; love that is whole, perfect, and infinite because of Jesus Christ. Since I had that realization, I have seen the sacrament differently. Rather than simply a renewal of covenants or reviewing the week and observing where I need to do better, I take it as an honor to be able to take His name upon me, because He engraved my name upon Him! I choose how much I hold His name to mine every day, but He already chose me.

            Over the years, after the heartaches, the mood swings, the tears, the minor rejoicings, the tug of wars, the dissociations, the post-traumatic-stress attacks, etc. I have concluded that I am engraved on far more than the palm of His hand. He engraved my entire soul, not just my afflictions, but everything into part of HIS. In the garden of Gethsemane, in a way that no human being will ever be able to comprehend, Jesus Christ went through and suffered for each and everyone of God’s children, individually. In that garden, He took my soul and allowed it to become a part of His soul. This further allows Him to be my advocate with full, 100% empathy and understanding. Therefore, there is nothing that I go through that He does not understand. He understands not only from an objective perspective, but also from my personal perspective. He is there to hear every uttered plea, every silent prayer, and even moments when words won’t come. He sees us in our heartache. He feels our frustration. He cries with us. Even in the moments I have felt the most alone – the moments I can’t even feel my Heavenly Family - I still cry out in desperation. I know He hears, even though nothing changes. Nothing changes because of a higher, more perfect plan. Yet I still know He hears because He loves us with the love that transcends pain; love that supersedes inadequacy; love that replaces fear with faith; love that turns anxiety into comfort; love that is whole, perfect, and infinite, because of Jesus Christ. And I have felt that love – not often, but enough to fight with vigor to return to feel that love every single second of eternity.

            That is not all. The first great commandment is to love God with all our hearts, souls, strength and mind. This is by no accident. Without full purpose of all we have to love God, everything else can fall by the wayside. Most importantly, we lose sight of the Love that the Godhead has for us. We become distracted by things of this world and take our eyes off Him as did Peter when he walked on water to meet Christ. We are not faithful in the covenant we made at baptism to always remember Him and take His name upon us. He will always stay faithful to the covenant, after all, He engraved my name, and your name, into His very soul. But these are nice words that we don’t often know how to apply. So let me tell you how I have applied them.

            Repentance is a word we hear often, but for a long time, it was a dirty word to me. I have learned however, that repentance is not just about making up for mistakes I have made, it’s about turning to Jesus and saying take me into your embrace, just hold me, and help me become more like Thee. Help me love my neighbor; help me be gentler with myself; help me see what you see; help me process my emotions; help me get through this terrible thing; or simply help me, please, just help. By doing this over and over again, Jesus begins to engrave His soul into our countenance. As this occurs, despite all our flaws, mistakes, or imperfections, the covenant that we made with Christ will fill in all of those gaps at the final day of judgement. Not only will this magnificent Jesus Christ be our perfect advocate, He will also be the finisher to our perfection. When God Almighty looks to judge us at the last day, if we have stayed faithful to our covenant, Heavenly Father will not see our flaws. He will not see our mistakes, because Jesus has already covered them. Jesus is in relentless pursuit of each and everyone of us because He has already done the work. If we do what we can, by turning to Him, and choosing Him every day, we will not have to worry.

 

The Prince of Peace

 Ever since the accident I've made a habit of receiving priesthood blessings. On Thursday, I received a blessing with some pretty direct instruction; start praying consistently with full power of heart for the pure love of Christ. To be honest, I wasn't sure how capable I was going to be considering the majority of my prayers recently had been "Heavenly Father, just help me."  But, it was very clear and very direct, so I took it upon myself and tried it. 

On Friday, the most amazing thing happened! I gained an entirely new perspective on life! It was incredibly POWERFUL and SO AMAZING! Every terrible trial that I go through yes, does anguish the Lord, but he allows them to happen because He can see the whole picture. I can't always see the good out of some things even in hindsight, but He knows how it shapes me to be more prepared, more resilient for what's ahead. I am put through the refiners fire in a way I've never understood before. To be pure and clean in His sight, I must be tried in every possible way. I've learned that it's more than just trusting or relying on the Lord (although definitely those two as well) it's a concept I've never understood - let Him direct you in all things; live in the world, but not of the world, You can be informed of what's going on, but do not let your mind dwell on it. 

How the heck can you do that though? How can you bare the most difficult challenges and struggles? Jesus Christ. He is the Answer. He is ALWAYS the answer, He is the ONLY answer. But how can you redirect your anxious mind? A lot of deep, sincere pleadings and focusing on the bigger picture. Try to remember that what you are going through will soon pass and you will come back brighter, with a more sure testimony, and a stronger, mightier warrior for Christ in these last days! How grateful we must be to be able to stand and fight for Him! He is Christ! The Great King Emmanuel, the Lord of ALL the Heaven and Earth. I know this to be true, His love is God's love. With it, mountains can move, minds can be fixed and most importantly, hearts can be healed. When we are fully overcome by His love, the pain ceases. The memories do not, but the pain does. When we allow His love to envelop us, the chaos in the world no longer matters. He is hope. He is light, He is truth, He is the way, He is our advocate with the Father and He is the Prince of Peace. 

How I #HearHim

 

Given that today is Sunday, I wanted to take special time to talk about the Savior, after my traumatic brain injury. I need to mention that in a (TBI) warrior’s mind, everything is pre- or post- injury. So, before my accident, I remember feeling spiritual moments often. I believe that I felt the Spirit in many ways: through peace, comfort, prayer, angels, scriptures, church, temple, happiness/joy, gratitude, love, occasional tears, etc.  

After my accident, I felt those connections to deity had been severed. Truth be told: that telephone line was cut and would not ever return. However, the Grace of God is magnificent! As with all brain connections after a Diffuse Axonal Injury (DAI), it takes a lot longer for the same result. It took me a whole heck of a long time to realize that I do still hear Him, albeit quite different than before.

About 3-4 years after my accident, I finally decided that God had not abandoned me. I tried to find some way that He would still communicate with me. I prayed...felt nothing. I searched the scriptures…got nothing. I went to church…gained nothing… except more anger!

Initially I had only found His direct words to me through priesthood blessings. So, lo and behold, I began my journey of asking for lots of blessings. (Which I still do – very beneficial.) Motivated by recent prophetic counsel, I treacherously searched for personal revelation. I had to reevaluate what “feeling” the spirit meant. I had associated feeling the spirit with an actual feeling, as per the word itself. Now I understand that when it comes to the Spirit of God, ‘feeling’ is a relative word. Feeling can also refer to a greater understanding, or to an opening of your mind leading to a greater knowledge of truth – what I call ENLIGHTENMENT. I wasn’t totally aware of how or when this would happen, but I knew that there were times when it did. I would come to great awareness of something I had never thought about after taking time to reflect upon it.

I was still a bit disheartened that I had lost so many ways of spiritual communication. I was feeling really, really despondent and utterly hopeless. I had received 2 priesthood blessings in the last 12 hours and was still feeling awful. I was at my parents’ house talking to my cousin, Andrea. We started reading some of my old Tender Mercies journal entries. Offering an outside perspective to my written thoughts sparked discussion. We continued to talk, bounced ideas off one another, and I learned more ways that I hear Him! One of which is just that, through discussion which leads to uber synergy. Additionally, I have always loved my music, because I feel uplifted when it fills my ears. I have a gift of pondering – which leads to this “enlightenment.”

This is how I #HearHim: discussion, enlightenment, music, pondering. These are NOT ways that I am used to. It is NOT the way that you “feel” something. LoL. It sometimes takes other people who are willing to pay attention to Him as well. But, it is in some ways, possibly more direct. It is potentially more pure. It is maybe more Holy, more like Him.

Shannon as a Temple

This was how I celebrated my birthday this year. Here is my speech. 

As a 16-year-old, my life was beautiful. Of course I had struggles, but I knew where to turn when I was feeling overwhelmed, anxious, lost, sad, or alone. Growing up with two sisters with disabilities, being so much younger than the first 2/3 of my family, always expecting myself to be the absolute perfect child, paired with my intolerance for peers to be left alone, to struggle – academically, emotionally or spiritually, and wanting to bring everyone back to the fold of Christ, you can imagine how often those feelings would occur. Yet somehow, I loved my life. I had a zest for everything and I couldn’t wait for the next thing to happen – even when it would cause extreme anxiety.  

 I believe the only way that any of that could be the case is because of my eternal perspective and my love for the Savior. I had an excellent, righteous plan for my future. I was going to graduate high school, get my bachelors degree before I was eligible to serve a mission and then serve a full-time mission for the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints. I was so excited. This was me. This is me. I am the kind of person who works hard in school (maybe I need to mention that I was getting 4.0s all throughout high school) and I am a missionary. I want all of Heavenly Father’s children to realize their potential in the light of Christ with the most joy beyond any of our understanding. This. Is. Me. So when this was taken away from me 2 weeks before the end of my Junior year, I was PISSED.  

In the beginning, I couldn’t understand why I was unable to do simple tasks anymore and why I got overly exhausted all the time. By the time I finally began to understand that this was my new life, I got really angry. In my head, I was still capable of doing everything I once could. Besides that, why would God want to take away such a wonderful plan from me? So while I never denied His existence, I believed whole-heartedly that He did not care about me.  

 I kept trying though. I had a deep-rooted testimony and I was determined to be able to cling to it once again. There are a few things that one must be steadfast and immovable in to be able to stand strong when life hits you hard. I imagine these are different for each person, but there are 3 things that I have done that have saved my life – both spiritually and physically. The first is simple yet so fun. My music is of the most uplifting quality and I do not listen to anything else. The second is my tender mercies journal; when President Eyring suggested (in 2008) we take a moment at the end of each day to consider how the Lord has been in our lives and make note of it, I took that as a call to action and went to work on it immediately. Recording what I am grateful for each day and being able to go back and reflect on it has been extremely powerful. Finally, ever since the first day I could step foot in the temple, I made a resolution to go to a new temple at least every year on my birthday. That brings us to today.  

I haven’t felt very worthy at times. I haven’t felt very loved. I have felt very unloved. I have felt very broken. I have felt very demolished, beaten, defeated and like a pile of ashes. I have felt like the burnt tabernacle in Provo. I have felt like the destroyed Nauvoo temple. I had not ever made that correlation until I was sitting in the dedication for the Provo City Center Temple in 2016. As one of the speakers began describing the Provo City Center Temple’s history – being once sacred then burned, destroyed, having much sadness surrounding it, and then after much thought, deliberation and inquiries of the Lord deciding to make it even holier – it sounded like he was describing me. I remember shuffling through our things as the tears began, trying to find a piece of paper so that I could draw the similarities. This was it. I finally discovered why I had always had such an affinity towards the Nauvoo temple. Because I am the Nauvoo temple, just like I am the Provo City Center temple.  

Everything that I once knew was destroyed. I continue to learn that I’ve been doing all sorts of things wrong since the accident. Small things like walking, standing, or sitting, all of these things I do incorrectly. My brain couldn’t process academics the way that it always had. All of my friends walked away. My hair was shaved and even when it grew back it was growing back a darker color! So, like both temples, there wasn’t a whole lot leftover to work with. However, there was still a strong foundation of my family and my Savior. It was going to take a whole lot of work and a whole lot of time – longer than the Provo City Center but hopefully not as long as the Nauvoo temple – to get back to and holier than before.  

Let me make note that I am no where near close to being finished. I am very much in the construction stage and it feels like I’ve been pounding the same nail, for the last 10 years. However, Cherie Call often reminds me through her music, “when I feel like just a teardrop in the rain, [God] sees the ocean in me.” I have also asked some of my close friends who have been with me throughout all or almost all of the last ten years to help explain the progress that I cannot see.  

Like I mentioned earlier, it has been a tradition for me to visit a new temple on my birthday every year. Unfortunately, COVID makes that impossible. Coronavirus also destroyed the thoughts and plans I had about my 10 year anniversary earlier this year. So in lieu of both of these significant events, we decided to talk about my connection to these unique temples instead.  

Building the lego temple proved to be a long, intricate process. Even in the very beginning there were some pieces that were confusing and I didn’t understand what the point was of having them there. I later found out that those exact pieces were some of the fundamental foundation pieces to hold the insides together. But, despite having placed them exactly where the plan had said to, when I put pressure on them, many of them still collapsed. Building the Provo City Center temple lego set reinforced the similarities with my life. Friends, academics, extracurricular activities, dreams, plans, etc. had all been put exactly where they were supposed to be, yet when pressure was applied, they collapsed. Unfortunately, my life isn’t as easy as picking up the lego piece and replacing it.  

As I began the roof, I noticed something wasn’t quite right. So I had to back track a number of steps. This reminds me of just about everything I have to do now. For example, I used to play all sorts of musical instruments, I was a fast speaking debater, I loved calculus, rollerblading was my outlet, so on and so forth. In order to rollerblade again, I had to regain balance. In order to play any instrument, at the most basic level, I had to go back and learn where middle C is. I still can’t speak fast or do advanced calculus but you understand what I’m saying.  

My spiritual connection was one among many things that was severed in my accident. It is very hard for me to feel His spirit or know that what I am doing is in accordance with His will. Because of this and many other symptoms regarding my traumatic brain injury, I ask for priesthood blessings like it’s nobody’s business. This is something that has helped me rebuild my personal temple.  

Discovering my love for learning and my passion for the brain has also been an aid to rebuild my temple. Grieving the fact that family are the only ones that really matter has supported this construction. But finding the joy that family brings has enhanced the process. Finding ways to serve little children – whom I adore – adds stones to this temple. Serving people I’ve never met in the Philippines and bringing them to Christ, rebuilding my body and how it’s supposed to function, creating strong relationships with therapists and receptionists, living my life in the weird, contorted way that I can now, are rebuilding this temple. I don’t know what it’s going to look like. I don’t have the master plan. I don’t know what the next step is. But I trust the one who does. It has been a long, hard ten years, and I am no where close to being the finished product, but I can firmly say that I believe in Christ. With him, come what may, because I can do anything with Him by my side.