The only weakness

Alright, beware this is a serious post, but some things have been on my mind lately and so of course what do I do....... blog about it. I have a friend who is a new member to the LDS church, the church I belong to. My friend is the only member of her family who belongs to the church. A few months ago my friend stopped coming to church. I did not really know her very well, but I missed her and was worried about her. She has been through a lot in her life and she is an amazingly strong person, but she (like most of us) has some self image issues, ya know, not skinny enough, cute enough, all those ridiculous things us girls always think even when it is totally not true. My friend some times gets really sad. Any ways, I was worried about her, some of us friends tried to call her, but we could not get a hold of her and when we did, she would not say much. I decided one day to just show up randomly at her house, but I was scared, scared for a lot of different reasons: I was a little intimidated because I did not know her family very well, I did not want her to think I was invading her life and I did not really know her that well, but thought for some reason she would be mad that I came to see her (which makes no sense, but that is how I thought) I pulled up and she was outside with some friends. I walked up to her with a smile and gave her a big hug and asked her how she had been. She smiled back and looked happy to see me. I asked her if we could go for a drive and catch up. We started driving and I eventually asked her why she didn't come to church any more. She said it was because of what some one had said about her that was not true and also that some one else had offended her by something she had said in reference to my friends family not being members of the church. I told her the only weakness with the church is the people. Because people are not perfect and make mistakes. One of the worst ones is passing judgement on others, but we all are guilty of it. I told her to not let those people have that kind of power over her and not to miss out on something great for her just because of what others thought about her and her family. I told her I went through some of the same things. I worry about what other people think about me too. When I was 9 or 10, my dad was ex-communicated from the church. It seemed everyone knew. I remember asking a certain friend if she could sleep over and she always said no, I could sleep at her house, but she could not sleep at mine. Finally she told me the real reason was because my parents were divorced and my dad x-communicated. It hurt. It also hurt when my sisters and I found out there were certain people in the ward who would not ask us to baby sit because of the same reasons. I felt out of place and like everyone was judging me and my family because we were not your perfect LDS family. We had problems. Now I realize everyone has problems, no family is perfect, back then everyone knew about ours though. I told my friend that in General Conference there was a talk given that in it said, " there is not a sign on the door that says, 'perfect people admitted only'." Yet sometimes it feels like (or maybe we make ourselves feel ) that the church is only for perfect people only. Perfect people who don't swear, don't drink caffeine, don't dress immodestly, don't watch bad shows like, Sex and the city or Desperate house wives, people who go to church every week and read the scriptures every night. And it is defiantly not for people who have even bigger problems than that, those people are just a lost cause. That is just NOT TRUE! We are not expected to be perfect not even close. I taught a young women's lesson recently on obedience. In it, it asked the question, why do you think heavenly father has given us so many rules and commandments? The answer, he wants to control us and for us to live miserable lives. JUST KIDDING (wink) the answer, I think is he loves us so much he actually cares about what we wear, what we watch, what we put into our bodies, how we spend our time. He wants us to live happily with our families, free of addiction, free from hatred in our hearts, free from the guilt and torment that sin brings. Torment that comes from Satan. Satan, on the other hand will carefully lead us down to hell and imprison us with things like addiction, hatred, and loneliness. He will " kick you when you are down." My dad was excommunicated when I was little. For years he was bitter, bitter at the people for being Hippocrates, bitter at some business dealings gone bad, bitter at his family, bitter at heavenly father, but mostly he was bitter at him self. I saw what hell was like when I would go on long drives with my dad, when the smile faded and the truth of how miserable he felt. I watched him torture himself for YEARS. When all that time, if he would have asked and repented his sins would have been forgiven him. This last year the most miraculous thing happened, my dad had a change of heart, it had been happening slowly over the years. My dad lives in Seattle and here in Utah we prayed for my dad that his heart would soften towards the church, that he would forgive himself and realize he still had so much life to live. Our prayers were answered through some kind hearted church members up in Seattle. They loved my dad, they called him, one man in particular invited my dad over all the time and just simply was a friend. He said many nights this man would call my dad when he was haveing a particularly bad night, feeling lonley and depressed and sad about the way his life had turned out. Another miraculous and completely unexpected thing happenedm my dad's long time girl friend whom he had lived with for years one day told my dad she wanted to be baptized. She moved out and was later baptized. My dad was re-baptized in November. It was one of the coolest nights of my life. He realized the church is true with or with out it's members. I thought my dad was at the point of no return, he said " Heavenly father always, always has a return plan for his children" To me the only weakness in the church can some times be the people. But, it is also the way (through the people in Seattle) that my dad came back, he said he realized it only matters what Heavenly Father thinks. I think some times we get caught up in who reads what kind of books, or who doesn't attend church every week because they went boating instead, or who has a fridge full of caffinated drinks, when really we just need to be loving and kind and be a friend, that is being Christ like, and it is something I am working on. Sorry about that super long post. Have a fantabulous day!