Better Than Paradise

 As I started to swipe my page to the right, updating to the new week of the "Come Follow Me" program, I stopped.  The art by Kendal Ray Johnson at the top of the page caught my eye...and then my heart.

The title was particularly arresting: "Better than Paradise." I paused.

I thought about the choice of Adam and Eve to make the hard choice to have children and, thus, leave their paradise garden.

I thought about the choices newly married couples make to have children and, thus, leave their "paradise garden" of more carefully structured lives, travel, freedom and finances--replacing it with the chaos and uncertainty that children bring.

I thought about the choices of millions of people to make family and relationships a priority and, thus, leave their "paradise garden" of carefully controlled isolation.  A "paradise" of perceived control.

Relationships and families are messy.  Having children brings SUCH heartache, struggle and disruption of a carefully idealized world.  Sometimes we have to create families or relationships that seem--at first--less than ideal through adoption or foster care or volunteering.  But I've never heard a parent or foster parent or volunteer say that it wasn't worth it to create those relationships.

Family relationships of any kind are completely worth it.  They are BETTER than paradise.

I hear of more and more young people making the choice to delay having children because they want to "finish this" or "experience this" or "get ready this way."  Family sizes are shrinking, often becoming non-existent in people's fear of leaving their personal Gardens to embrace the imperfection, uncertainty and completely real burdens that relationships and families bring into one's life.

But they are missing so much.

My joy, my heartache, my struggle and my sacrifice is so real, but I believe I have found a truer, deeper paradise in the middle of so much uncertainty and perceived imperfection.

And there is truly "no other way."

Better than paradise, indeed.

"Healing" not "broken"

 Ever felt "broken"?  More importantly, ever yearned for healing?

What is "broken"?

First, let's start where we're at.  Officially defined, "broken" means:

1. having been fractured or damaged and no longer in one piece or in working order.

"he had a broken arm"

2. (of a person) having given up all hope; despairing.

"he went to his grave a broken man"

3. having breaks or gaps in continuity.

"a broken white line across the road"

4. (of speech or a language) spoken falteringly, as if overcome by emotion, or with many mistakes, as by a foreigner.

"a young man talking in broken Italian"

5. having an uneven and rough surface.

"broken ground"

We can see ourselves as "broken" in many ways, but generally we recognize it when in relation to others or a feeling of "not quite right."

My son Hyrum's leg was broken. Unknown to us, he has a "bone bar" that was making it so one leg wasn't growing.  At all.  Over time he was becoming more and more knock-kneed but the change was so gradual, we didn't notice.  At one point, his leg started swelling up, his knee kept getting dislocated...we started paying attention. 

Several experts and several surgeries later--one including a deliberate break of his leg bone and inserting the wedge of someone else's bone--our Hyrum was on his path to ultimate healing.

What is "healing"?

Yesterday, speaking with a good friend, I spoke of my yearning to be healed, feeling it was always out of reach.  "It's a journey," she replied.  I instantly thought: a journey to where?

And it hit me. 

To be healed, is to align ourselves with truth.

We are going to constantly be in a state of "healing" until we are ultimately like our Father in Heaven, whose ways and paths are so intimately aligned with the truths of the universe that no "healing" is necessary.

When our bones are healed, they operate more truly.

When our souls are healed, the energies around us flow more truly through us and operate beautifully.

The take-home

I have despaired so many times in my pursuit of "being healed."  I keep thinking that if I can just figure out what is "broken" in my life, then finally I will be able to sit comfortably at peace.  And in a sense, that is true.  I keep arriving a plateaus of peace. But what if I am on an eternal journey of realigning my heart, soul, body and mind with truths?  What if I cannot identify certain truths until preliminary truths are identified?

I have seen myself as "broken," which feels so final.  So dismal.  And I despair.

But to see myself as healing is so much more hopeful!...to know that my healing journey is a discovery of truths that I can align myself with is a beautiful quest and not an absolute acceptance of being "broken."

I KNOW that as we seek to draw nearer to God, the truths that we are not observing will become more apparent.  We will know the next one in our soul--our personal readjustment.  God is the ultimate physician, the ultimate expert, and like the doctors in Hyrum's healing process, sometimes He needs to break us. Sometimes He puts others into our lives. Sometimes it takes several "surgeries."  But the resulting healing is beautiful.

In the end, our healing will include lives full of truth...coursing with truth principles.

And it will be beautiful, for we will be like God.  

For God is truth.