I mentioned in a previous post that I still struggle with focusing to read for pleasure (except, funny enough, those letters and journal entries from when I was in college). Even watching TV feels hard now. The same applies to listening to things that require my careful attention, like audio books or podcasts (yes, I’ve tried – although I’ve noticed that things like that are slowly getting a little easier now that I’m regularly listening to a lot of Marco Polo messages). My focus issues have also made doing things like reading my scriptures challenging. I still open them and read each day, but it often takes a great deal of effort to really absorb what I’m reading. In truth, I think I would consider my time with the hymns over the past year and a half to have been more edifying than reading scriptures or even listening to Conference talks has often been (that’s not 100% the case, but is fairly accurate overall).
Music has been the one thing for me during all of this that will consistently “calm down” my brain. When Kendall was sick I realized that I needed to be very very careful with the type of music I was exposed to (and so would have playing in my head), that I needed to be very intentionally selective about any media I was consuming. I needed absolutely as much spiritual strength as possible to help get me through each day, each moment. I don’t know how to explain it, other than that my spirit felt very fragile and easily bruised by anything harsh or crass or unkind. I even made a point to make sure I viewed positive, uplifting, or beautiful things daily to combat the horrible things I was experiencing and seeing, so I brought pictures to cover Kendall’s hospital walls, or I changed the screen of my phone to a picture of the Savior, etc. I also often tried to keep up a running mental dialogue with Heavenly Father, trying to constantly look for things I could still thank Him for amidst whatever I was facing that day.
Back to the music, though. It’s almost like I now have a soundtrack for my life. I have music playing when I’m getting ready in the morning (the music then depends on my mood, but recently I had started playing upbeat make you want to move music and just dancing as I got ready – I’m a pretty terrible dancer, really, but it’s still been fun!), and in the car, and sitting working at my computer when I’m not with clients…pretty constant. I have music playing in the background right now, actually.
But I think the thing that has helped my brain calm down the most is the MANY hours I have spent playing and reading through the hymns. I started doing that when Kendall was sick and it is something I have continued. Over this time I have really gotten to know the words of the different verses for many hymns I had never paid a lot of attention to previously. One of those is the hymn, “Though Deepening Trials.” Can’t say that was one I was very familiar with before. Did you ever notice, though, that the instruction for this particular hymn says that it should be sung “cheerfully?” Really, with lines like “Though deep’ning trials throng your way,” or “Though outward ills await us here?” I don’t know that I find trials and ills and tribulation particularly cheerful.
This week has felt especially hard. No, not because of Valentine’s Day like you might expect. You can look back to my Meal Train posts from a year ago to see some (but only some) of the traumatic things I was experiencing then (and am working through and processing now). We also had a family friend pass away this week, and it has really brought up a lot of things for me as I have tried to be a supportive friend while my heart is absolutely breaking for what I know that family must be experiencing (and just generally some triggering things there have been with all of that). I also had what has been, to date, my most intense and emotionally grueling EMDR session. A lot of stuff came up that I didn’t even realize I had been harboring, feelings of anger (toward the doctors and the unbelievable pressure and burdens they put on me regarding so many aspects of Kendall’s care, things that simply were not fair to ask of another person), or guilt that I was carrying of if I had somehow selfishly prolonged Kendall’s suffering by fighting so hard to keep him here. (I know, not rational, but feelings I still had to acknowledge and deal with.)
It’s been a difficult week for me, emotionally and physically. So would it surprise you that when I was playing through “Though Deepening Trials” tonight that I DID feel cheerful as I read through those words? As I have internalized all of the words of this hymn, it is now one that never fails to bring a smile to my face, to help me feel uplifted and more cheerful than when I started. Because we have the promise of the resurrection day (“Ere long the resurrection day Will spread its life and truth abroad”), and I AM choosing to “press on, press on,” and this time (of struggle and pain) will not be long (“The time, at longest, is not long Ere Jesus Christ will reappear”) and I feel the call to “Lift up your hearts in praise to God; Let your rejoicings never cease.” Because we have the promise that “Christ says, ‘In me ye shall have peace.'” Truly “Jehovah’s purpose is not foiled.”
I know all of that is true. I realize what a gift it has been during all of this that I have never lost sight of hope, of the assurance that I WILL get through this (and be, I trust, even stronger on the other side), that God has an amazing plan for me and there can even be a beauty and purpose in this season of suffering and healing. Even in those darkest and most difficult of moments, I really don’t ever doubt that. And isn’t that really what the “peace of Christ” actually is? I’m grateful, and I choose to embrace this. All of this.
