“Bitterness and love cannot live
together in the same heart. Each day, we must decide which one gets to stay.” ~
Dave Willis
Loneliness’
BFF is bitterness. Bitterness results from promises that have been made and are
seemingly forgotten. We’ve all read the scripture “For with God nothing shall
be impossible”[1] and
so we want everything, right now...and especially if we are exercising our
faith - shouldn't we be getting it? All of our righteous desires?
Between 2012 and 2014 I asked (and kept track of the answers) 218 of my God-believing friends/family “what kinds of things did you
expect God to bless you with that you feel you had to wait for - or are still
waiting for?” Here are a few of the common denominators. Some surprising, most
not at all.
The
biggest category was companionship and/or the lack of children.
●
“not being able to get pregnant”
●
“I felt like I had no value if I
wasn’t going to be able to be a mom”
●
“true love that doesn’t get me
ostracized from the church that I grew up in and love with all my heart”
●
“becoming a mother, infertility,
failed adoption placements”
●
“Marriage, children…”
●
“After my mission I thought God owed
me a husband.”
●
“A forever partner.”
●
“Children. Still waiting.”
●
“...to be able to have children.”
●
“True love.”
●
“A husband and children.”
●
“Someone to love and someone who
will love me also.”
●
“I had done all the things, checked
all the boxes, and expected to do the Mormon things and be pregnant on the
wedding night and rear twelve gloriously perfect children. It was a rough road
especially when teaching school and seeing all the mentally, physically and
sexually abused children and knowing I would be a more responsible caretaker
for His children. I took some time to realize my role was still to help raise
and guide - it’s just most of the children I was helping weren’t going to come
through me, but to me.”
Peace of mind/contentment was the
next biggest category:
●
“Peace of mind.” (Repeated 5 times
from five different people)
●
“Having more patience and peace of
mind.”
●
“I thought life would be more
peaceful, that if I worked hard, made good choices, that it would be smooth
sailing. I have matured and understand things differently now. But I ask for
peace a lot, I don’t ask anymore to understand.”
●
“Peace.”
●
“Contentment, joy, understanding.”
●
“I have learned that what I try to
make my life’s plan might be pretty amazing but nothing compared to His plan
for me. I just have to go with it and stop fighting.”
●
“The capacity to be content with His
timing.”
Several
answers gave me pause to ponder and I’m so grateful to those that opened their
hearts to me. I thought gathering a list like this would be so hard! Knowing
that everyone was struggling like I am helped me find new perspective.
Pause
to ponder:
●
“to have the strength to get back up
again and again and... again”.
●
“I know that I am blessed beyond
measure , but I still insist on pulling out my self-made measuring stick to see
how much my blessings don’t match my expectations.”
●
“I’ve learned not to expect anything
of Him. God works through Humans. Humans are fickle and inconsistent and I just
have to accept that. I can’t tell if that is a more healthy way to have a
relationship (one without expectations I mean) or less healthy. But that’s
what’s happened.”
●
“I guess all I really expect is that
He will keep His promises and even then I know His timing isn’t my timing and
extends into the next life. So I guess I don’t expect anything too specific,
but I sure hope for a lot.”
●
“My mind works in a transactional
way - I do the homework, you give me the grade. I do everything “right” and God
blesses me with my righteous desires.” But you know better than I do this isn’t
how it works. I’ve been working on my mindset and remembering that God blesses me no matter what I do, say, etc. His
blessings are perfect, no matter what I thought I was “supposed” to get.”
●
“I do not expect anything of Him
except love.”
●
“I work to not play the “I’ll be
happy when...” game. I’m choosing to be happy now, It’s a journey not an
event.”
And
my favorite answer:
●
“I just need a hug.”
It’s
an interesting conundrum then. We work to bring about blessings that we need to
feel whole, to feel like we are progressing, and when those blessings don’t
come about we tend to blame God for “holding them back” from us. I don’t
believe He holds anything back - but rather, we must wait for all of the
circumstances to align before our blessings can align as well. Consequently, “Righteous desires need to be relentless”[2],
because, said President Brigham Young, “the men and women who desire to obtain
seats in the celestial kingdom, will find that they must battle every day.”[3]
Nothing can be expected, just prayed for in faith.
My mission really solidified my
belief system. Which is great, but then for six or seven years after I came
home, I was looking for the next prophet to marry, but I was also working 65
hours a week....and let's face it, the pickin's got slimmer and slimmer. I
might as well have made myself a sign: "marry me and become an instant set
builder, lighting designer and father of 200." I did not make myself very
available. I did not separate work from life at the time. Was I working
relentlessly on my righteous desires? No.
But in my early 30's, my path
crossed with someone that bought into the set building and the high school
kids. He was an actor himself, what luck! He would GET me. We were great friends. We got engaged. I cut out a wedding
dress. Pictures were taken. I thought things were finally going to work out.
But...it didn't. He wasn't ready. Stunned silence. Ring flying. Doors slamming.
Ceremonial invitation burning (thanks mom!). I reacted in typical scorned woman
fashion and threw myself into a gall of unimaginable bitterness.
F...O...R.....F...I...V...E......Y...E...A...R...S.
I call this my Dark Ages. Those
years were almost Gothic in tone and style really. It was this time in my life
that I was figuring out who I was. I
didn’t do it in the teenage years like most people, I guess. For about a year
after I had thrown that diamond back, I wasted time on hate. I became a person I
didn’t like. I was scared to go into a grocery store for fear I would run into
him. I became a kind of agoraphobic and I stuck to my school and bedroom. I
buried myself in my work until I was a recluse. I ate every meal in my car.
Then as time passed, too much time, I clung on to the idea that he might
realize his mistake and return to me.
What I didn’t have the courage to do
was to empty my heart of him. In 1997, I produced 8 plays. One every six weeks.
No human should do that. At that point I had convinced myself that if he didn’t
like me enough to marry me, there must be something very wrong with me…
…as I suspected.
I guess this is my warning: the bitterness
of taking care of everything and everyone, eventually seeps into the cracks and
crevices of your good survival attitude especially if NO ONE is taking care of
you. Eventually, at least for me, depression sinks in and I didn’t take the
time to deal with it. No one fought for my sanity not even me. I had no love
for myself left because I let that event destroy my self-esteem.
I spent this season of my life
wrestling with my conscience, my self-image, my natural man. I fought my
religion, even my art was stale and canned. I fought everything and everyone
that tried to tell me what I needed to do to be happy. I was so lonely and I
could see my siblings little families taking off like wildfire which normally
would make me so happy! But soon enough I had a dozen nieces and nephews and I
was livid about it. Not with them, but with God. I built up a wall of
bitterness that could be seen from the moon. I built a house to manifest my
singular power. I thought that house would say “I can have anything a married
couple has!” But the house engulfed me in loneliness
further magnifying what I didn’t have. No one was there to take out the
trash but me. No one was there to get me an extra blanket if I was cold. No one
was there to rub my feet after a 16 hour day...oh wait...no one does that now
that I’m married. Well - can’t win ‘em all. I was in the pity pool up to my
neck and about to go under.
My strategy was to simply ignore my
pathetic life. I went back to school and got a Master’s Degree in directing to
further prove my prowess as a single person and I thought it would help restart
my creative juices. It might boost my self-worth at least. When I was finished,
with a 4.0, I was a top candidate for a theatre position at BYU. In the final
interview, I was summoned to the church office building in Salt Lake City for
my final interview. It was a polite interview, more of the same questions and
then…he asked me why I wasn’t married.
Gah! My heart stopped.
(This next part was a defining
moment in my life and that’s why I include it.)
He said “We prefer to hire married
women because we’ve had some trouble with our single faculty members…you
understand.” I did not, but I could assume some things based on his
eye-rolling. He asked me if I was dating anyone and I was, sort of, dating a
man I didn’t have romantic feelings for, but I sure liked him; I appreciated
him. I had dated a lot of men but did not feel the Spirit push me to pursue any
of them romantically. I wanted to say “Do you know what’s out there?” but
decided against it.
He then explained to me “perhaps you
have the mentality of the high school students you teach. Love isn’t about the
bells and whistles. You can fall in love with anyone over time…” This poor man
that had been asked to interview me…he didn’t know how bitter I was, and how I
was about to run screaming out of his office and out of the church. My head was
swimming and then the nail went shattering into the coffin: “Sister Shelton,
are you a Lesbian?” For the record I didn’t scream and go running out of the
church office building or the church. I held it together until I got to my car
in the parking garage and then I cried for two hours before I could even raise
my hand to turn the ignition. In hindsight I wish I’d have said to him “being a
Lesbian might be easier” just to see the look on his face. But I didn’t.
And for FIVE MORE more years it just
got darker and darker.
As the years went on I told people
“I don’t need a man to complete me.” The truth is, no man would have loved the
incomplete mess I was At that time. (In hindsight and ironically, getting
married didn’t solve the problem either. I still have the feeling that there
are large chunks of happy missing in my life…only the category is different.)
Well, it took me nearly a decade to
apply the old Buddhist adage “holding onto anger is like drinking poison and
waiting for the other person to die.” I
was positively poisonous when I turned 40. It was no wonder I was still single.
I think I was addicted to bitterness at that point.
Then there was the day I lovingly
call “black Sunday.” I saw a young family sitting on a church pew ahead of me
with three little kids sandwiched between them. My heart leapt into my throat.
I remained in my seat. I was determined to “grow up” and quit belly-aching
about what I didn’t have and think about my blessings. I have always been
blessed with a great amount of hope and faith. I just kept adjusting my grip to
the proverbial iron rod because I could not deny the testimony I have that I am
a daughter of God and that I am continually sustained by His angels around me.
So, after getting all of their kids
settled into coloring books and Cheerios, the dad leaned over with his arm along
the back of the bench and rubbed his thumb over his wife’s shoulder blade. They
turned, smiled at each other and locked eyes for a long time, their eternal
bond effortlessly projected right in front of me. I will never forget that
moment as long as I live.
I lost it.
I stood up and left the building.
I drove immediately to the nearest
LDS temple parking lot and just sat in my car. I promised God that if he would
take away my feelings of bitterness, I would serve him all the days of my
life. But I was not going to keep
searching for a man. I was done. DONE! He was going to have to drop one
in my lap.
The resounding answer I got, sitting
in the Timpanogos Temple parking lot, was that I was going to have to be okay
with myself first. I was going to have to be able to see myself as a whole
person and not some bitter “Lady in Waiting.” Waiting for what? There was this
tiny voice saying, “Who are you?”
I didn’t even know.
So for birthday number 40 I
re-acquainted myself with myself. I let go of all of the feelings of guilt I
had for not going to all those singles dances, I got rid of my account on
LDSsingles.com, I started consciously trying to expunge myself of the bitterness.
I had to recommit myself to studying the scriptures, I had to make time to
really study. I had to get to know my neighbors. I had to take visiting
teaching seriously - all things that I
wasn’t very good at. The wall of protection I had built up around me turning
into a strength. I was relaxing. I had finally stopped worrying about my
future. I was just taking one little day at a time.
A month after my 40th birthday, Hyrum
Smith, not the brother of Joseph, but the guy that invented the Franklin Day Planner,
came to my work and shook my hand. He said “come work for me at Tuacahn.” And I
picked it all up and left my students, my hometown, my parents, and my
bitterness.
And I started over by myself.
What a person doesn’t realize is
that you can do nothing by yourself.
The fact is, all these years I kept
going to church – for one reason: I needed a companion in my life and I could
not deny that Jesus Christ was that person for me during that time. I leaned on
Him. I felt His presence in my life. He was in my home, in my classroom and His
Spirit was all around me. I had no one else. Inadvertently, through those murky
years, I was crying out to my Heavenly Father so much that I was developing a
concrete relationship with my deity that would prepare me for a personal
Renaissance.
President Uchtdorf said, “Patience—the ability to put our desires on
hold for a time—is a precious and rare virtue. We want what we want, and we
want it now. Therefore, the very idea of patience may seem unpleasant and, at
times, bitter.”[4]
Well, at this point I had decided I
had waited long enough and life was unfair. I was going to be officially
disappointed so I built up a wall of bitterness to keep out...to keep what out?
Other people. Gee...what a great idea.
It was unsafe to get my hopes up. Faith in that path was gone. I didn’t
want to open my heart to anyone that would knock it around, so I closed it off
tight. Bitterness will do that.
So
I have learned over the years of being single and then childless in a heavily
child-ed church, to keep my ears shut sometimes. Let it roll off my back. If I
let it affect me every time there was a lesson on family in the LDS church, I
would simply never be able to go to my worship services! Heaven forbid I get
offended by the cute mom in church that comments "motherhood is fantastic!
I love it! It's eeeeeverything!" Those exact words came out of a woman's
mouth in one of my Sunday meetings last week. Did I get up and walk out? No. I
said in my mind: "Stay in your chair, Hunsaker. You know she doesn't mean
to offend you personally. She's saying it because it's true. You feel hurt by
it because you want what she has too. She doesn't know that. She's not thinking
about you. She doesn't have to think about you. She gets to say what she wants."
And then I said out loud, "SHUUUUUT
UPPPP you beast with the perfect ovaries and the precious baby slobber
on your shoulder!" And THEN I walked out.
JUST
KIDDING!!!! Ha! Had you for a minute didn’t I? I did no such thing. But I sure
did think about it.
Recipe
for Chapter 9 - Bitterness
No summer barbeque is complete
without chips and dip. But be careful! This stuff is addictive!
Shelton
Fam’s Bitter Dill Pickle Dip
1 8 oz. block of cream cheese at
room temperature
½ cup sour cream
2 large dill pickles finely chopped
1 T onion finely chopped
2 T apple cider vinegar
2 T pickle juice (or more to taste)
1 tsp salt
1 T dried dill weed
Couple of notes:
- Apple
cider vinegar is powerful stuff. You might want to start with half of this
amount and add more if you like it.
- You can
also add garlic powder if you like it.
- If you
like it really chunky - add another pickle!
Just double this recipe right from
the beginning. Get a bag of ruffled potato chips and share with a friend.
Homework
for Chapter 9
You know that feeling when you pull
a weed from the root - the entire thing comes out - and there is a sort of
popping noise that comes with it? That’s what needs to happen when we have
bitterness. It’s got to come out root and all.
1. Can you weed something today? Even metaphorically, is there something in your life you need to get rid of root and all? Even if it's only the old clothes in your closet, what can you "weed" today?
2. Think
of a bitter person that you may know. What makes them that way? Describe
what makes them so bitter.
3. Cynicism, jealousy, grudges, attention-seeking
and negativity are several states
of being that psychologists suggest
might be comfort zones for bitter people. These are horrible states of
emotional fragility. Can you identify these tendencies in your own mortality?
4. Praying for someone often makes
us feel like we are searching for the same things.
Want to have an uplifting
experience? Pray for someone who has harmed you. Someone cut you off in
traffic? Pray for them...Someone ghosted you? Pray for them. Someone lied about
you? Pray for them. We can get in the habit of praying for people instead of
cursing at them. (Ok, I admit this takes practice….) Try it! It’s homework!
Record your feelings here!
5. A
lot of health professionals will tell you that getting over bitterness requires
forgiveness. How is this possible? Is there someone you need to forgive?
[1] Luke 1:37
[2] “According to
the Desire of our Hearts,” Neal A. Maxwell, Ensign, November, 1996
[3] Brigtham Young, Journal of Discourses, 11:14
[4] Deiter F. Uchtdorf,
“Continue in Patience”, Ensign, May 2010
