Episode #284 - Can You Feel So Now

Sometimes the pruning we experience in life feels too much.  But the Lord knows what he is doing and knows what we need.

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Episode #284 – Can You Feel So Now?  I am your host Damon Socha.  Before I get started today I wanted to note that I have a book for sale that provides the podcasts in book form.  The book is titled, Depression, Anxiety, Bipolar – Living as a Disciple of Christ.  The first 109 podcasts will be available to buy through Amazon in the next couple of days.  The next 110 podcasts will follow shortly.  I have broken them up do to the length of the book.  I do hope that you will buy this book.  Not because I want it to be on the best seller list but because I believe that it will be valuable to those who do not listen to podcasts but still need help.  You can buy one for you struggling family member or friend.  You can but one for your bishop if you want.  Whatever the case may be I hope you do.  It will help me tremendously maintaining this podcast.  Now onto today’s podcast Can you feel so now.

We all pass through trials in our lives that change us.  These celestial trials seem to prune us down to our core emotional elements, rearrange the core and then allow us to grow again.  The pruning is particularly painful and disorienting.  I am not sure what we expected when the Savior said this in John Chapter 15.

“1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.

2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.

3 Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.

4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.

5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.”

I do not think that we often think about what it means to purge or prune the vine but I can tell you from personal experience and I think that you already know this.  It is a terribly destabilizing experience.  To say that you may feel a little disoriented or lost is an understatement.  I lived in an area of the US known for its fruit production, specifically cherries, apples and peaches.  I have witness firsthand what pruning means in the sense that the Savior discusses the vine.  More than once I have looked at a tree and said I think they killed it.  Seasonal pruning is not a simple “let’s cut off a few of the ends of the older branches”.  Pruning is somewhat of an art in the sense of providing for the best product.  It takes a knowing hand and an ability to see the fruit it will bear not concerning oneself for the scarring of the present.  If I were a fruit tree or in this case a vine, I would most certainly protest, rant and rave about all the good branches that were cut off.  But while the pruner cares he knows his business and he knows that the tree will produce much better quality and higher quantities of fruit if pruned in a particular manner.  So the master pruner hears the cries of the tree and sees the sap draining from its wounds and says “I see the pain.  I hear your cries. But if I do not prune and purge the branches, your fruit will diminish and you will focus more on growing branches than providing fruit.  Soon you will no longer be of value in the garden.  If I prune you not, you will eventually die and be cast away.  So while I hear your cries, I still must prune.”

That is a difficult lesson and even a more difficult experience.  To feel the hand of the pruner when the season has ended feels like more than one can bear.  During the pruning, the beautiful flowers that will come in the spring and the fruit of the summer are still a winter away and the pain of cutting and slicing of the blades is the only thing present.  The branches lie about in piles and we can only see what has been removed, not what will be.  And so our pruning is naturally disorienting and faith trying.  We will not see the fruit until a later date and while it will be wonderful when we do that joy is for a later date.  So often during this pruning process we find ourselves questioning the master pruner.  Are you sure you should be doing that?  I think that might be a little much on that branch?  Why do you have to prune so much?  Can’t I have at least a year off?  Why now, can’t we do this later?  We even regularly question if the pruning is even needed.  What is the purpose here?  Wasn’t the fruit enough this year? Why can’t I just do what I have always done, isn’t that enough?  Why so much pruning?  Why can’t I just be who I am?  I suppose that we ask several more questions and I have no doubt you have asked them.

My concern today is not so much about the pruning.  I think that anyone who has experienced mental illness has experienced about all the pruning they can handle at any one time.  And perhaps that is also true for other fiery trials we face in life.  But we know about the pruning.  We have experienced it.  My thoughts today are more about our relationship with the vine and the pruner. 

The Savior in his allegory noted that the Father was the pruner and he was the vine of which we are a branch.  This brings the principle to another level of understanding and it is this level I want to discuss in the light of mental illness. When Alma the Younger was sent by the Lord to Zarahemla to prune the vineyard, he asked several questions that are at the heart of our spiritual pruning.  In Alma 5, Alma asked these two questions.

14 And now behold, I ask of you, my brethren of the church, have ye spiritually been born of God? Have ye received his image in your countenances? Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts?

26 And now behold, I say unto you, my brethren, if ye have experienced a change of heart, and if ye have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, I would ask, can ye feel so now?

These questions and the others he asks in Alma 5 gives us the best explanation of the purpose and design of our pruning.  And that is important and good for our reflection.  What I want to focus on and where I tend to personally struggle is the final question of verse 26, “Can you feel so now?”  That phrase carries with it the idea that we feel our spiritual development and understand how the Lord sees us.  We don’t often “feel so now” during the pruning, though we may feel the sharpness of the blades.  We can often feel the sustenance of the vine from time to time meaning feeling the love and nourishment of the Savior.  But feeling loved and nourished does not necessarily tell us how we are doing on our personal journey.  More than feeling loved we need to know where we stand with the Lord.  We need to understand if the path we are climbing and the work we are doing is what the Lord desires.  We need to know how we stand with the Lord.  This is different from feeling loved.  This is knowing that we are in the path that leads to exaltation.  

I have found that for those of us who suffer with mental and emotional illness, this knowledge can be very difficult to find and more difficult to feel.  I have regularly struggled with knowing where I stand with the Lord.  I know rationally that I am doing reasonably well given my illness issues but it can be very difficult to feel spiritually.  I have found that this is true for many, many individuals who suffer.  They can feel the Lord’s love from time to time but can’t feel that they are doing enough or are enough.  This has been my acute experience over the last couple of months.  Desperately attempting to find out where I stand.  Given the Lord’s knowledge of me and my possible exalted future, how am I doing?  Am I where I should be in my development?  

I realize that the nature of mental illness is to muddy the waters of emotional balance and to know where we stand is a spiritual experience.  And so we struggle to see what is true through a very murky emotional and spiritual waters.  When you don’t really feel your standing with the Lord, you can feel very lost.  Do I do more?  What do I need to do?  How does the Lord feel about me and my effort? I think more than anything I have struggled to see myself as celestial material.  Part of that is certainly my illness and maybe a major portion, given that the symptoms of anxiety and depression are almost entirely opposed to feeling positive emotions and that knowing feeling.  But I have realized personally that I tend to very much minimize my efforts and emphasize my failings.  Yes mental illness tends to drive me down that road without my permission but I do tend to let it bleed into my spiritual life far too often.  I think that perhaps we all do.  We tend to let those feelings dominate our lives as we are emotionally exhausted from fighting the battle.

I admit that for me and maybe for everyone it would be far easier if the Lord would just simply come to me in a dream and say here is that path and here you are on the path.  You doing just fine.  Just keep moving forward.  But we seem to almost cause a stumbling block trying to make sure we “can still feel so now”, that we still feel “on the path”.  So what do you do?  I have found personally for me that I make an assumption about my standing before I even get to the Lord.  And my assumption is problematic.  When I ask about my standing with the Lord, I tend to assume that I need to make corrections, that I am not doing enough or enough of the right thing.  I tend to assume that I am not where the Lord expected me to be.  I also tend to assume that I am behind trying to catch up.  I think that for the most part, all of us do this to some extent.  We assume that we are not on the path entirely and that we need to make corrections. 

For those of us who suffer, this is made all the more problematic by the illness we possess.  Depression and anxiety are most certainly not going to tell us we are on the path.  They will cause serious doubts to occur in our minds regularly and daily.  And so as we work within the gospel lines we always feel outside those lines when in reality we are not. We too often start from a place of negativity when in reality we are very likely where the Lord expected us to be.  The Lord is all knowing and I think that I forget it far too often.  Nothing is a surprise to him.  He knew about our illness and the difficulties we would face before we even entered mortality.  And the Lord even likely taught us and counseled with us about it in pre-mortality.  He prepared a path that included the illness with all its symptoms, problems and effects upon our lives spiritually.  He took everything into account.

The real answer to the question about our standing is very likely to be that we are exactly where the Lord expects us to be.  If we are honestly trying to live the gospel and continue to learn then we are in good standing.  For me, I have attempted with some success to rewrite the question in my mind.  Instead of believing that I am not on the path the Lord wants I have attempted to see myself as on the path and simply listen and trust as best I can for any needed correction.  I realized from my own experience, listening for correction is also quite difficult but I personally believe that the reality of this life is that we are on the path and where we should be.  If we are trying, listening and doing our best, even if our best is only a couple of mites then we are on the path we need to be.  It is when we remove ourselves entirely from the nourishment of the vine or the Savior when we find ourselves withering away.  I have felt this deeply as I have pondered the struggles of mental health.

The Savior knew the path before we even started it and he has experienced it.  You will know when you walk away from the path.  The Spirit will make it abundantly clear.  Until then if you are doing your best then you are where the Lord expected you to be on your journey.  While it may be very difficult at any point in time to “feel so now”, because of our illness, we need not concern ourselves about the path if we are doing our part.  I have had many questions come to me from listeners about this subject of our standing with the Lord and I have felt the voice of the Lord fairly clearly in my own life regarding our standing.  He is pleased with your effort and my effort.  I think that you might be surprised to know that he is more than pleased with your efforts.  He knows the level of difficulty you and I face and the conditions upon which we attempt to live the gospel.  He knew the sins you and I would commit and what you would do given the illness and how you would respond to it.  If it were not for your salvation or it were detrimental to it, the Lord would not have allowed it.   

If I had to say one thing that I have felt most strongly as I have recorded this podcast is just how much the Lord loves those whom he has given this weakness.  And not just how much he loves those who suffer but how impressed he is with those who work to live the gospel under difficult circumstances.  For those of you listening, I believe that you are in the path.  I believe that you are doing enough.  I believe that your standing is good with the Lord.  However, I am certain he will tell you himself.  That is perhaps my message for today and this next week.  You are enough and in good standing with the Lord.  Consider yourself on the path unless otherwise told.  The Lord has great love for those whom he prunes.  If you feel the pruning then you are in the path where the Lord wants you to be.  May he bless you with this knowledge and with peace.  Until next week do your part so that the Lord can do his.