As I thought more and more about my current situation with addiction, I grew very angry, resentful, bitter, and indifferent towards God and Jesus. I also took on a sort of scoffing, "as-if-you'll-even-help-me" sort of attitude & mentality. Why? A single question was dominating my mind, consuming me with its unanswerable, needling torment. I couldn't figure it out!! The question was:
If God & Jesus really want me to live a righteous, sexually pure life, WHY AREN'T THEY HEALING ME FROM MY ADDICTION?!
Seems to be a fair question, right? Many of us in the LGBT Mormon community, for a multitude of different reasons, struggle with differing addictions. I do not claim any expertise on the subject; I have merely observed this reality as I have fought back against addictions myself. And many, if not most of us, try everything under God's heaven to recover, heal, find sobriety, whatever you want to call it. We try the Church's 12-step addiction recovery program, exercise, studying scriptures more, praying more, plunging ourselves into the depths of family history & genealogy, filtering apps and/or software, and more! Yet, so many of us are coming up short in the long term!! What does this mean for each of us? Does it mean that God & the Savior don't want us to find peace, healing, and wholeness of soul? All of this was whirling through my mind like some kind of cosmic spiritual storm in my spirit. And as I have indicated, I couldn't really do anything about it. At least, not until I grudgingly obeyed a prompting to go to the temple about a week and a half ago.
I arrived at the temple, my heart crushed and bleeding underneath the weight of sin, emotional distress from feeling like my faith was failing me, and both emotional AND spiritual distress from experiencing what surely felt like a realization that neither God nor Jesus would ever, ever heal me. But despite being mostly numb, I still grudgingly and only a little willingly left open the space for my Heavenly Father & Savior to work some kind of miracle. Or, at least to give me something to go on, as I was suffering quite immensely that morning. Donning my street clothes and backpack, I sat in my usual place - through the main entrance, to the right, and straight ahead to the yellow couch. I'd picked that spot because it's usually free of noise in that waiting room, which I need in order to concentrate & tune into personal revelation that I believe God wants me to write down in my journal. I'd been prompted before even leaving my apartment that morning that I needed to study in Jacob 5, which, for those of you who do not know, is the allegory of the olive tree. It essentially tells the story of a servant and his lord (representing Jesus Christ) who work very hard to take care of a great number of olive trees in a vineyard, which represent children of God who have accepted the true gospel of Jesus Christ. At first I didn't really get why I felt prompted to study there. I had an inkling of maybe why this was, but as I started to study, it became very apparent. Let me share with you some groundbreaking answers to my question above I received:
The allegory of the olive tree talks about plucking branches “whose fruit is most bitter”. The Savior didn’t want any other fruit buth the most bitter removed, which I take to mean the most rotten, or perhaps the most underripe. In my case, it sounds more like it’d be the first - not as a statement of self-deprecation, but rather as a factual, impartial observation of which symbolism most accurately represents what addiction looks like, at its worst The damaging, destructive nature of addiction that starts to especially harm others is the “most bitter” part of my addiction branches. But then comes the especially curious part, wherein Christ says, essentially, that He is doing that (removing the most bitter fruit) so that the tree (representing me in this vein of thought) doesn’t perish, speaking spiritually of course. But that’s not the whole reason - Jesus says that he wants to keep the tree alive to preserve the roots, for His own purpose.
- He goes even further with His servants, telling them to not plucky any wild branches except the most bitter, repeating & thus re-emphasizing the great importance of leaving all the other wild branches there. And then He tells them, “and in them (i.e., the wild branches) ye shall graft according to that which I have said.” In my life, answers - except the most-needed ones - have been withheld from priesthood leaders so as to keep the delicate spiritual balance in this spiritual grafting process.
- And this “spiritual grafting process” is so that “when they (the roots, representing my testimony & conversion) shall be sufficiently strong perhaps they bring forth good fruit unto me, and I may yet have glory in the fruit of my vineyard.” The help that Christ gives me isn’t Him putting Band-Aids on knife wounds. His help, while seemingly puny & unhelpful, inconsistent, or temporary in its effects, is only such if I consciously choose to view it as those things alone. Rather than this burdensome, gloomy perspective, I could see things for what they really are - a carefully orchestrated-by-Christ spiritual journey in which He is consecrating my addictions to my gain, by "clearing out the bad as the good shall grow" (see below).
- It isn’t necessarily true that Christ sees fit to set me free in the near future. Because He fully comprehends the complexity of my addictions, He consecrates everything He can about them to my spiritual profit for the future. As Brad Wilcox appropriately wrote in “The Continuous Conversion”, to paraphrase, “With our limited vision and understanding, are we really qualified to judge what is and is not a blessing?” While I believe that the Savior wants me to enjoy the blessings of His kingdom, like the priesthood & the temple endowment, those are special blessings that require much preparation and a significant change of heart. Perhaps the real blessing in not being healed of my addictions now is so that I can learn crucial lessons like how to become and stay converted, how to draw upon the grace of Jesus Christ for comfort, strength, perspective, and peace, and how it is that I will consciously, fervently choose day by day to stay true to my Savior regardless of the pull of my sexuality. Better to suffer lesser consequences because of lesser covenants, than to make & break higher covenants, perhaps setting myself back in the gospel quite a long ways.
And, I’m sure that there are other reasons to let me struggle in the place where I am, that I do not see, but that Heavenly Father and the Savior see… So, essentially, it could be that the Savior withholds healing not because He doesn’t want me to choose & have virtue, but rather because He wants me to retain virtue after choosing and having it. A crucial scripture in these verses for understanding this concept is when the Lord instructs His servants to "clear out the bad as the good shall grow". That is essential to retaining virtue after choosing & having it. And, as I’ve said, surely there are lessons of grace, strength, humility, and more that only the terrible chains of addiction can teach. Maybe it is only by walking through “the valley of the shadow of death” (Psalms 23:4), that I learn how to have spiritual life “more abundantly” (John 10:10). Speaking of Psalms 23, I’ve realized just how appropriate it is for casting light on this soul-rending, heart-wrenching struggle. The following points are insights from that passage of scripture: 1. Not once is deliverance or an answer to a single prayer mentioned in Psalms 23, hearkening back to the ability of the Lord to be present with me in my sinful addictions - just as He was with Nephi, and most likely with Paul as well (2nd Nephi 5, 2nd Cor. 12:7-10)
2. The phrase, “He leadeth me” is mentioned twice in this very short Psalm. Why, though? I believe it’s because the Lord wanted to show me that he isn’t compelling me, dictating me, forcing me, or immediately (or even anytime soon, really) delivering me from my addictions. A perfect leader is true to His title - He leads, He doesn’t tell me exactly what to do or where to go. That wouldn’t be real Love. Herein, then, is found wisdom again in Him, by deciding what a blessing really is for me. Jesus is letting me decide with my agency how to proceed, and is leading me to preserve my roots for “His own purpose”. He is also still preserving the integrity of my testimony & conversion at their core while doing this, with perfect wisdom and divine timing.
2. The phrase, “He leadeth me” is mentioned twice in this very short Psalm. Why, though? I believe it’s because the Lord wanted to show me that he isn’t compelling me, dictating me, forcing me, or immediately (or even anytime soon, really) delivering me from my addictions. A perfect leader is true to His title - He leads, He doesn’t tell me exactly what to do or where to go. That wouldn’t be real Love. Herein, then, is found wisdom again in Him, by deciding what a blessing really is for me. Jesus is letting me decide with my agency how to proceed, and is leading me to preserve my roots for “His own purpose”. He is also still preserving the integrity of my testimony & conversion at their core while doing this, with perfect wisdom and divine timing.
3. David wrote that though he walks through “the valley of the shadow of death”, he will “fear no evil”. I think it’s a HUGE mistake to only interpret this as adversity facing David, or honestly to interpret it that way at all. I think, given the circumstances of David’s life when he was writing this psalm, it would be far more accurate to say that this “valley of the shadow of death” was one of grevious sin that he walked into, not some terrible life circumstance that happened to him.
4. “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies”... to me, this means that, despite being hounded by my addictions, I will still be nourished by the Savior, like the allegory says.
And finally, as one last insight, in the allegory of the olive tree, a servant is speaking to Christ and asking, “Why camest thou hither to plant this tree? Behold, it was the poorest spot in all the vineyard…” And Christ replied, saying, “Counsel me not, behold, I knew it was the poorest spot in all the vineyard. But behold how it hath brought forth much fruit.” <3 <3 <3
4. “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies”... to me, this means that, despite being hounded by my addictions, I will still be nourished by the Savior, like the allegory says.
And finally, as one last insight, in the allegory of the olive tree, a servant is speaking to Christ and asking, “Why camest thou hither to plant this tree? Behold, it was the poorest spot in all the vineyard…” And Christ replied, saying, “Counsel me not, behold, I knew it was the poorest spot in all the vineyard. But behold how it hath brought forth much fruit.” <3 <3 <3
My friends, I AM THAT TREE! Immediately when I read those verses detailing that conversation, I said to myself, "I am that tree! I have been planted in the worst spot of ground in the whole vineyard of Christ - the whole Church!!" But what is the Savior's loving reply to the servant, to me, and to all of us?? To paraphrase, it was, "Don't give me advice on how to do my work and my glory of saving & exalting you. I knew that I was putting you in an infertile, terrible spot of soil, but look how much light, virtue, and goodness you have brought forward out of it!" From my perspective, my Savior KNEW that He was putting me in circumstances that would eventually influence & lead me into addictive behaviors and addictions themselves, despite the purely loving influence He would exert on me to the best of His ability, what this allegory calls "nourishing (me) all the day long". So, in His perfect love and wisdom, He decided to keep unconditionally nourishing me every day of my life, because He knew eventually I'd find healing and be all the stronger for it. I do not even slightly suggest that our Savior enables or allows our sin; I am saying that He works with what He can, given that He must honor our agency and work with our human frailties. <3 I testify that our Savior, Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father WILL lift us out of our addictions, and heal us by replacing them with far better and beautiful things and people. But, we have to submit wholly to their timing, and give up our own. After all, their timing is the only timing in which pain yields to peace, addiction to connection, and sin to holiness and perfect love. Until next time, my beloved readers & friends... :) :)
