Another Start

My goodness ... how many times will I start and stop this stuff?

Well, as many times as it takes to get it right, I suppose. The problem has always been a "perfection paralysis" ... every effort I make must be exactly perfect like only my own personal thought process can determine (which, mind you, is like nothing on earth or in heaven). If it is not absolutely perfect, then it cannot be done.

For all my knowledge of and counsel to others about "Reality Is," I certainly get wrapped up in other peoples's realities ... specifically my own. Oh, and Satan's ;-) Let me explain.

The only reality I should be living is God's ... He's in control of Reality and whatever happens should have happened because it did happen (perfectly easy to understand that one, right ;-). If you believe that God is capable of miracles like Phillip's and Nephi's, and He is the same yesterday, today, and forever; then it follows that if you didn't get moved, pushed or smacked into a different place, whatever crappy stuffy (or great stuff) happened to you is just as it was supposed to happen. The Present is the only place where we live in Reality. Therefore, if we are making stuff up in our own pathetic little mind about ourself or someone else, we are not anywhere near Reality! The Lord wants us to not only know a principle, but take action on it.

And Satan want's you elsewhere, too ... the Past is okay, because we can try to re-live it (good and bad), but there is an element of truth that cannot be swept away too lightly. The Future is completely unknown, and a great place to divert attention with worry, dispair, even misplaced hope. But for me, the best tool Satan has found is to paralyse me right in the Present with an irrational need for perfection.

If I cannot do it ALL, I will not start. If I cannot do it "just so," I push it aside. If I cannot get it right the very first time I try, there usually is not a second time. I'm ready and willing to try alot of different things, and have been pretty lucky that I'm good at some of them, too. There are so many great things that Satan has convinced me that I am not able to do because I screwed up some "thing" or "other" in the past. Who did I tick off? What did I forget?

I read a recent month of posts in my journal (not immediately recent since I stopped writing -- another story for another day, but recent enough to remember the period of time). Every. Single. Freaking. Entry included something about Satan ... Satan this and Satan that ... are you kidding me? You would have thought he was my boyfriend and I was 13 again! That's when I realized ... and I think he might have realized ... his undoing. He (and his minions) made me too aware of him/them. (See The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis)

So now, I'm working on doing the small and simple things ... this blog/journal is one of them. I picked up my bedroom today before work ... made the beds, put the extra dirty socks in the laundry basket, put shoes and clean clothes in the closet (glad the door still shuts ;-). Scripture reading today is another. I decided to do it online, so I could slow down and really listen to the words. I was going to start reading the Book of Mormon again. I clicked the link online and hit The Pearl of Great Price ... wait a minute, that's not what I wanted. I decided to go with this "Reality Is" thing ... that must have been what I was supposed to do because it happened.

It was PERFECT, gloriously perfect. I really rejoiced to realize with Moses that I am nothing and God is everything -- I don't have to be perfect!!!!! (And, I can only be "perfected" though Him.) Better still was the absolutely, laugh out loud ridiculousness of Satan ... how simple it was for Moses to SEE that Satan was less than nothing, especially the moment when he realized that he still had a portion of the Spirit with him to discern Satan's nothingness.

So, if I post everyday ... bonus ... but I'm not going to sweat it. I might even try things twice. And if IT happens, IT happens ;-) and I'm going to relish in the Reality of it.