Sometimes I feel like a unicorn. Like I am all alone and that no one else feels like me. Like no one else wants to be like me. Like I really am inside, not who I am as I try to fit in... I am a member of my church and I love the scriptures but no one talks about scriptures with me. It is church and home. And as much as I try to mix them, I feel alone in my efforts. I love the stories and lessons that are found in the scriptures but no one ever brings them up... I love the power of living the gospel of Jesus Christ but no one around me testifies to me or teaches me. Like I should know it all or like there is nothing to know... And I have felt very alone.
I feel like a unicorn. Kind of a freak here in Arizona. I have to admit that I felt much more at home in the south where I am from. There, people talk of Christ casually and often. Maybe too casually sometimes, but I found the frequent reminders comforting and reassuring. In high school, we would meet together as members of FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) and we would pray together as friends and team mates. We would pray for each other and share our faith. We would have bible study and youth groups where we spoke of Christ without embarrassment or awkwardness because it's not Sunday. We listened to Christian music with gusto and sang out our praises at the top of our voices (I can do a mean Amy Grant impression).
Then I got married to my sweetheart and moved west. I thought it was what I wanted, but I lost something. I lost the powerful feeling of testifying. Sure people testify, but it has seemed manufactured and hollow. Like people are afraid to speak of Christ so they testify of just about everything else. I don't know how to explain it but I can go for a month without hearing of Christ and a year without anyone mentioning the gospel outside church.
Teach me! Testify! Let me feel your strength! Let me feel that anyone else feels like me. Give me the pure gospel, straight from the scriptures. Let me know that I'm not crazy and that true is true and good is good and wrong is wrong. Living in a world that is so lukewarm has been killing me. Speak truth to me! And stop making me feel like a freak to be a believer when I am in the middle of believers.
blah blah blah... I had given up. Part of my frustration was being with the little kids at church every week for 7 years. Don't get me wrong, I loved it. Loved the kids and what I taught. We rotate every 4 years so I had taught Old Testament twice, New Testament twice, Book of Mormon twice and modern revelation once. I LOVE teaching from the scriptures! I felt the Spirit when I taught, I felt edified, and I loved my class but 7 years of feeding yourself left me longing to be taught by someone else.
Then I was released and I began to go to Sunday School.
I have an amazing Sunday School teacher. He filled me up each week. He testified. He called good, good and bad, bad. He taught pure doctrine and the Spirit filled up all the emptiness in me week after week. I needed to be taught, I needed to be testified to. I needed to have the fire in me rekindled so I could remember who I really am. Who I was, who I am, who I can be. And I needed to feel like I wasn't alone. Like I am not the only one who feels the way I do. There is someone else out there who sees the world like me. There is someone else fighting what I am fighting.
I felt like I found another unicorn.
I had seriously begun to doubt if there was ANYONE who feels the way I do. And there is! I hung on every word and it felt like home. The Spirit poured thru me during each lesson. I thanked God for him and begged God to give me a year in his class. If I could only learn from him for a year, I would be good. I could fill up my cup enough to face that aloneness again. 6 lessons later, he told us he sold his house and today will be his last day. I cried. Right in the middle of Sunday School. Not because I need HIM but because I need what he did - Speaking of Christ, testifying boldly of truth. I need people to teach me. To fill up my cup. To let me know I am not alone in the battles I am fighting. To give me reassurance that all the struggle is worth it.
It was a hard day. I am still sad. I need that but I am grateful that God at least allowed me to see it. And it fortified me. I can do this. I know I am not alone.
Unicorns exist.
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