Mary + Her Mental Health

Happy Birthday, Blog. It's called Mary + Her Mental Health. And I'm about to prove why.

I’ve been thinking a lot about core basics. I’m compelled to go back and re-establish a few things: Do I know that God exists and knows me? Do I know that He loves me? Do I believe in Jesus Christ? Do I have a testimony of Joseph Smith? Do I believe the Book of Mormon is the word of God? Do I believe that Gordon B. Hinckley is our prophet, called of God, to lead us back to our Father?

Going back to this every now and again is really essential, I think. I lose track. What do I really believe? The routine and lifestyle are so familiar now. I can’t just know once and that’s it. I need to know and re-know. You know?

Trials have a poignant (read: head-smacking) way of showing you what’s missing, what you need to go back and confirm about who you are and what you want to be. It’s easier to murmur about hard things which are required of me when I’m not tuned in to the basics, when I “know not the dealings of that God who had created [me].” (1 Nep. 2:12)

King Benjamin from the Book of Mormon loved the basics, and thank goodness they wrote his words down. Mosiah, Chapter 4, verse 9:

Believe in God; believe that he is, and that he created all things, both in heaven and in earth;…
I have read this one verse more times this week than I have in my whole lifetime.

…believe that he has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth;…
Basic principle, but so difficult to always accept completely, especially when life becomes unmanageable. Then he says this:

…believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend.

I wonder if King Benjamin knew at the time, 124 B.C. to be precise, when he gave this magnificent sermon, that in 2007 A.D., a young woman in Boston would wake up one morning and realize that in spite of her active church and temple attendance, in spite of paying her tithing faithfully, in spite of serving in her calling regularly, her daily prayers, in spite of what everyone else thought about her, she had somehow lost her desire for spiritual things. Underneath all the routine, the light had gone out. It really, really scared her.

She opened up the scriptures, truly expecting to receive nothing, when the thought “this is where you return to the basics” came. She turned to Mosiah, she read her patriarchal blessing, she prayed - - this time, a very basic prayer. Are you there? Can you help me?