Today I listened to a podcast with Jodi Moore from Better than Happy. The podcast was titled, "Obedience". She had just spoken at BYU Women's Conference, so she shared a recap of what she spoke about there. She talked about disobedience and how guilt is a motivator to change, but when we allow it to morph into shame, it actually holds us back. She told a story of how she was on a business trip and was at the airport and needed to head up an escalator. Their was a sign that said those with luggage should take the elevator, but once she saw others heading up the escalator with their luggage, she decided to go up too. She had two roll away bags, a larger one and a smaller one. As she went to go up, she got caught and fell backwards on her bags. Once she got up, she realized that the bags were larger than the entrance to the escalator. And when she was getting pulled backwards by the bags, she didn't let go of them. She held on tight. She related this to repenting. During this time she had been going through the repentance process and was not feeling the weight being lifted off her like she thought she could. As she thought about this experience on the escalator, she realized that the moment she had gone to her bishop to repent, that Heavenly Father had forgiven her. She was the one holding herself back, holding onto the past and not moving forward. She said the escalator was bringing her up from the basement into the light, but she allowed the bags to hold her back.
She talked a lot about shame and how shame makes us hide and do things in secret. It tells us we aren't worthy and makes us wonder about our worth. We think how could we make this mistake, why would we make a mistake. People don't do this.
I thought a lot about my past. I have often felt overwhelming shame. I have wondered why I would ever have made the mistakes I did. How does someone like me that had the knowledge I have, do the things I did? Thinking about these things has actually kept me up at night. As I listened to Jodi talk about these things today, I was moved to tears. I feel like the shame I have felt has kept me from moving forward. Satan keeps me down whenever I look backwards and dwell on who I was, not who I am.
Today was a beautiful day. The boys and I spent so much time outside enjoying the cool, sunny weather. We had a picnic, the boys road bikes and dug for bugs. We watched the landscapers redoing the neighbors yard. I chatted with Grandma Jones and Rashna. The boys went to Graham Knight's birthday party and Mason and I took a walk until it started raining really hard on us.
Tonight the older boys went with David to deliver flowers with the youth and then Mason and I joined later to play outside and eat cake and ice cream.
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