I Analyze Myself Yet Again

I've been pretty reflective lately.  Any of you who read my blog probably picked up that I had a major rough patch a while ago (a loooooong while ago).  I had questions posed to me that I didn't realize I had answers to, and I got very very lost.  And lately, since it's been a while, I've been thinking (probably too much) about why I went through it.  I'm starting to believe that the whole thing was mostly unnecessary, at least the intensity of it.  I made a lot of big mistakes that I'm still struggling to forgive myself for, and it almost ruined a very good friendship.  Why must I be so silly?

Because I don't remember ever living a life that didn't include some major emotional crisis going on.  I was either ignoring it (though the effects were still felt), or trying to deal with it.  And those of you out there who have dealt with major depression know how catastrophic it can be when the reasons for that depression start surfacing.  I knew I was looking for something, so I created chaos, because that's what I was used to having around me.  And then I wondered what the hell was going on.

I was very spiritually lost, and it was entirely my own fault.  I had the answers in front of me, and I knew them, but I turned away from them because they were too simple.  I have a very bad habit of doing that.  If something is simple, than I MUST find something complicated instead.  I would have been one of the Israelites that turned from Moses' snakes on the staff.  Sadly.

But I'm at peace now.  And I always would have been if I had just listened to the counsel I had received in many blessings over the years in the first place (I still haven't followed that counsel, but at least I know where my answers lie).  It all has to do with the Atonement.  How wonderfully simple.  And yet, how wonderfully deep and compelling.  A simple answer does not mean a shallow one.  That is something I have always believed.  If it was complicated and difficult to receive, that answer was worth more than any other answer.

Now I just need to find a book or something about the Atonement that isn't B-O-R-I-N-G.

And I realize how blessed I was at the time to have many good friends who helped me to understand, and helped me to stay on the path that was best for me, even though I already knew it.  2 of them probably don't even realize how much they helped keep me on there, because they were having their own struggles at the time.  Two others had already come through some of those struggles and knew where they stood.  Both talked to me at length about things, and I have realized that I fall neatly in the middle of them. 

Most of my opinions haven't actually changed.  I've just realized that when the world is run by humans, when people are taught by other people, what is actually the truth and what isn't is very much left up to interpretation.  And mistakes are made.  But the answers for me lie in 2 very simple actions:

Pray
Read my scriptures

Will I do those 2 things nearly as much as I should? 
Not on your life.

But I will keep trying, and that's ultimately all that Heavenly Father has ever asked me to do.