Shaken by Insidious Fraud

I was raised to trust people, to help and serve them. While I had heard first-hand or read about many instances where evil people had preyed on the innocent and taken advantage of the less informed, I never wanted to believe that anyone within the circle of my influence, on the outskirts, or even those I had very little contact with would have hearts so filled with greed, avarice and inhumanity that they were even capable of being part of some diabolical plot to hurt others. But my experience of two weeks ago let me know that Satan's influence is alive and thriving in our world of deceit, anger and the war for men's souls.

Understanding the Savior's Atonement has been on my mind a great deal this year. I understood it on a certain level and just knowing that Christ died for my sins if I was willing to take advantage of the gifts of repentance and forgiveness was enough. But lately I have wanted to more fully understand what he went through so that each of God's children could return home to him if they truly chose to do so. To aid in my study and hopeful reawakening I was reading the book The Savior's Final Week by Andrew C. Skinner.

His insight and understanding awakened so many feeling in my heart as I read about our Savior's suffering that began in the Garden of Gethsemane and ended on the cross. To comprehend the magnitude and majesty of his suffering is impossible for the finite mind but as I found myself becoming more fully engaged in what he was going though, I felt my heart reach out to him in ways that seemed miraculous in comparison to previous experiences. 

Christ knows and understands every trial, heartache, fear or sin I have ever encountered because he experienced them for me long before I ever went through them. He knew the pain I felt as my heart crumpled in tears of aloneness, torment, sorrow, disbelief and uncertainty and I knelt on my knees, often for what seemed like hours at a time, so overcome with grief and near despair that I was unable to utter anything more than, "Please Help Me". 

It was during this time of spiritual renewal that I was tested in a way I had never imagined before--having someone steal through premeditated fraud all that I had been able to save for many years and put me in a place where I once again would be living paycheck to paycheck and having to reply solely on my heavenly Father in making it through whatever financial burdens arose. I had lived like that most of my of my life but during retirement had been able to squirrel away a little nest egg that allowed me to replace my roof and help my children when they were under financial difficulty.

Losing $7200, which may not seem like much to many people but was enormous to me since it was all I had in reserve, brought me to a very unrecognizable place I would not wish on anyone. But once I had met with my bankers, filled out police reports, had accounts frozen and new ones opened and basically remade as much of my life as I could after knowing that criminals had been able to dig up everything they needed about my life online to perpetrate a great injustice, my mind soon returned to a semblance of pervious calmness and I was able to put one foot in front of another again. 

Not that it was easy. I couldn't swallow anything but water and a few sips of a protein drink at a time for over a week and lost ten pounds. I also become so weak, unsteady and dizzy I could barely stand on my own. I felt violated and afraid to move for fear someone else would attack me when I was more than vulnerable. I felt defeated, sick at heart and not sure I would ever be able to smile or look at others without fear again. 

But I am finally beginning to see the experience as a lesson I needed to learn when it comes to truly understanding and accepting the Savior’s Atonement for me as an individual Daughter of God, not just one of the billions of persons who have to come earth and may be better or worse than I am. God could have intervened in what was happening but in answer to my very heartfelt prayers, allowed me to go through an experience--unlike anything I had ever been through before--to gain some of the understanding about the Atonement I had been praying for. 

He let me experience firsthand some of the awful things Christ's Atonement had covered for me like fear, anger, remorse, self-blame, stress, heartache, embarrassment and worry to let me know that my becoming a victim of someone else’s greed and inhumanity did not lesson my importance to my Heavenly Father, regardless of what it might cost me monetarily or through loss of pride and self-esteem.

He allowed me access to a place where my heart was finally ready to refocus on what mattered most and provided comfort so I could sleep when circular thinking and self-recrimination would not ease. He allowed clarity of mind to return and gave me courage to take each unfamiliar step as I tried to reorder and reclaim my life. He assisted in the compilation of a list of all the companies I would have to inform and get protection put on my credit so the perpetrators would not be able to use any of the information they had on me again. He even helped me draw up a plan on how I could cut back on living expenses and start saving again while not getting behind on any of my bills.

I have finally come to understand that Satan knows exactly when, where and how to most successfully attack and has plenty of time to plan those attacks with precision, pleasure and perfect clarity because he has nothing to lose. He has already lost everything of value and has been cast into a pit where fire and brimstone will be his for eternity and wants every mortal he can get to join him.

His delight in the downfall of any mortal—who has far more than he will ever have—is purely diabolical because in his twisted sense of reality it means that one person, who chose the right side in the beginning, can still be influenced and brought within his evil power. That was part of the plan for our moral probation too. Satan would be given the chance to turn heavenly Father’s children away from him. That cunning, evil one knows our weak moments of loneliness, fear, uncertainty, confusion, vulnerability, unbecoming pride or any other chink in our spiritual armor.

Satan finds great pleasure in seeing us unhappy and gleefully goes about making sure that desperation, pain and feelings of abandonment or unworthiness continue as long as possible after any tragic or humiliating experience. Fear, desire, uncertainty, pain and every other strong emotion can stop our ability to think clearly, muddy our intellect and cause us to do very uncharacteristic and stupid things. And once he has us in his clutches he proceeds to inflict even more pain by telling us how weak, stupid, unworthy and horrible we are for not catching on sooner and allowing someone else to use, abuse or deceive us. 

It is only when we turn to our Heavenly Father in earnest prayer, with a contrite heart and willingness to listen and accept responsibility for any part we may have played in even the worst situation, that we will find the help we truly need. That isn’t easy because our pride so often gets in the way. We may call it other things like shame, embarrassment or fear, but it is really just lack of faith and trust in God and not yet understanding the beauty and completeness of the Atonement. 

If we fully understood the Atonement we would not fight so hard before laying our sorrows, guilt and pain at our Savior’s feet and giving our Heavenly Father access to every part of our heart and soul. Sometimes I think we forget that our Heavenly Father and our Savior already know all we have gone through, what we are going through now, and what we will yet have to face before our life is over. He just wants us to come to Him.

He will listen for as many hours as it takes to lay out all our troubles and will never say, “I told you so.” “That was stupid.” “You should have known better?” Or any of the hundreds of other things we may say about ourselves because in our perverted and limited reality we might actually believe that is true.

Heavenly Father will give us all the time we need to accept his calming influence, even if we go back to him through prayer a thousand times with the same request. But once we are ready to tell him that we are willing to take any stripes necessary in this life to return to the path that will lead us back to his presence, the light that has been obliterated by misdeeds and the cruel actions of others will return and we will feel comfort, help and peace.

Even the most horrific of tragedies do not last forever and there is always a way out of any bad situation—with the right kind of help. I suppose one of the most important things I have learned about the Atonement through this experience is that Christ's Atonement covers everyone, and I do mean everyone, and not just those who are trying to live like him. Even the vilest of sinners are covered and my responsibility is to forgive every man or woman of their trespasses—especially against me. Christ is the judge and all will be made right one day.

How can we ever think our heavenly Father and our Savior do not understand? God knew what each of his children would have to endure once they began their mortal journey. He also knew the needed experiences each child would have to go through that would bring him or her back to his presence. He knew which of his children would struggle the most and how much longer it would take some of them to learn the vital lessons that must be learned. 

He gave us a Savior who would learn, through his own earthy experience, exactly what all the evils and sorrows of the word would hold. His suffering is unimaginable and when God’s spirit finally withdrew during his most difficult hour he was left to experience what true hell was all about. It was being with one of his own brothers, and all those who followed him, in a world of evil, anguish, gnashing of teeth and things few mortals will ever understand.

What we think of as living in hell because of sin, misdeeds or certain trials are nothing when compared to what he endured so each one of us would not have to go through the depth of deprivation he did. He suffered for everyone’s sins, heartaches and misdeeds if we would accept his priceless gift. He did for us something we could never do for ourselves. His gift gives us everlasting life. How we choose to spend that eternity is up to us. 

Those are hard concepts for most of us to grasp. Our experiences here are so brief and not one of us wants to learn lessons the hard way. But sadly that is the only way some of us can get it and we should not condemn God or anyone else for giving us opportunities to gain knowledge, grow and understand. 

If no challenges arose we would go blithely on our way enjoying life, doing what we wanted and never really thinking about the consequences our actions bring to both ourselves and others. We would give ourselves permission to spend our days and nights doing exactly what we wanted watching television, playing games, surfing the net or getting into all kinds of trouble—even if we are not aware of it at the time.

Because our mind was fixated on self-indulgence there would never be eyes to see, ears to hear, hearts to feel any of the pain, stress or heartache of others. There would be no time for loving and serving family, friends or strangers, doing charitable acts of kindness or developing the gifts God gave to us that have to be discovered so they can be enjoyed and shared. 

Perhaps our lives would still be filled with joy and we would feel complete, but we would have missed the point in being here. That is why Christianity is such a gift. Even though we do not understand everything, we know enough to see the connections between this life, the one that came before and the one that will come after. My heart actually aches for those who claim to be agnostics or atheists. What a truly unimportant and shallow existence it would be only believing that we are here by chance and when this experience is over—that’s it.

 

God’s beautiful plan that personally involves each one of us is glorious beyond belief because not a single thing has been left to chance. Agency is an amazing gift to be used for either food or ill. But even if misused, there is always a way back. Let me repeat that again. God will give us as many chances as we need to get things right, but if we refuse to take them then we will a price--the price Christ already paid for us had we been willing to embrace it. 

All the moaning, blame, anger, retaliation or inability to let go will not change anything. Only God can heal our hearts, our minds, our emotions and our bodies and give us the help, comfort and courage to go on when life’s tragedies happen. And no matter how many things we do that are careless, hurtful or wrong, Christ’s Atonement covers each and every word or action. He knows exactly how we feel because he suffered it before we did. 

How can we not turn to our loving, kind and Eternal Father whom we can contact any time we want to through prayer and receive the answers we need through the Gift of the Holy Ghost? And how can we turn our back on our Elder Brother, Jesus Christ, who willingly paid the price for everything bad we would ever experience and still hold our hand or carry us through any difficulty life brings?

Tears fill my eyes because I am finally starting to see how everything in God’s plan fits so perfectly together. We are given the challenges needed at the time and in the way that we will be most receptive to what it is we need to learn. By nature some of us are a little hard-hearted, contentious, ungrateful, rebellious, prideful, uncommunicative, unforgiving and uncharitable, but those are only stumbling stones, not roadblocks, to the eternal blessings we want. They are meant to slow us down, help us see more clearly and set us back on the path we should be taking. 

So while I still feel violated, unjustly abused and some of my security is gone, the blessings and understanding I have received during this unwanted time of trial cannot be discounted. We can lose everything of a monetary nature in a single moment but if our hearts are right with God and we trust in our Savior there is really nothing to fear. 

Perhaps I needed this experience to get me ready for what is coming. The world is certainly in a pivotal stage with everything in the Middle East in such commotion. So far only our fuel prices have been involved but if some of the leaders in our own country do not have a true change of heart things will get so much worse. It's up to each one of us to be prepared and I thank heavenly Father each day for the blessing he sends, even in the way of trials, that helps me more fully understand.

Feel Like Celebrating

 Ever had those days when you finish something big, on-going and stressful and wake up the next morning not knowing what to do with yourself? I had that experience on Saturday and have not gotten over the effects of it yet. Even working in my yard this morning was cut short because I feel so unsettled. Last Friday, I finished the final edit of my life history--over 500 pages--and then spent seven hours trying to get it self-published on Amazon in both Kindle and print form. It's been three years since I published a book and because this one had a few pictures in it, the layout issues those pictures brought by jumping from page to page on the Kindle version nearly drove me crazy. I finally resolved the problem by leaving any commentary on the them completely out. 

Now I hate not being able to do something so seemingly easy, but I figured the book was written for my family and I had several purposes for doing it--like helping my younger brothers and sisters know what it was like to grow up with daddy since he died when I was thirteen and my youngest sister was only thirteen months old. Next, I wanted my children to have an explanation of sorts as to why they saw such a disconnect between their parents and why my fear of my ex-husband stopped me from standing up for all of us the way I would have liked to do. Abuse in all its insidious forms can really mess people up--even to the point of imminent nervous breakdowns--especially if it has been lifelong events in one form or another. I also wanted whomever might read any of it to know that the only way I survived most of my life was due to my complete love and trust in my Savior and my Heavenly Father. (Autobiography- NOT SO BROKEN NOW by JS Ririe.)

It does my heart good to see Christians around the world working together in standing up for the principles Christ's earthly ministry taught, but even more important to my spiritual growth is coming to more fully recognize the value and scope of Christ's Atonement. I'm not sure I will ever fully comprehend its majesty, magnificence or all He suffered for the things I alone have caused or been asked to endure. But when I think about the billions and billions of people whose sins it covers, I truly stand all amazed at the love Jesus has for me. If you want to read an amazing book about the Savior's last week on earth look for The Savior's Final Hours by Andrew Skinner. He talks about customs of the day, the part of the Atonement that was covered in the Garden of Gethsemane and how He was able to make it through the final hours on the cross. He even talks about the importance of every word Christ uttered while hanging there.

My eyes filled with many tears just reading what I have and there is still half of it to go, but it helps me recognize just a little more how lucky I am to have been taught certain truths and know where I came from, why I am here and where I will be going once my mortal eyes close for good. It also helps me better understand the role I have to play during my final hours on earth and before our Savior's most triumphant return.

The past few months especially have helped me see more clearly how prophesy is fulfilled each day. I know many people condemn what is happening in the Middle East, but I see it as a glorious fulfillment of God's promise to His children in the Old Testament. Something major has to happen so the Jews can return home and rebuild their temple for Christ's return, even though they have yet to believe He has already been here. I pray for President Trump, all the patriots, members of the armed forces and those who want freedom so much they are willing to do anything necessary to have it. The gift our country is trying to give to people throughout the world is amazing, but it saddens me greatly that so many people in our country have been too blinded by hatred to see what a glorious time we are living in.

The things I have read and heard about during the past weeks with communist mayors, governors and members of congress are truly chilling. How can Americans who love liberty and understand even a little about our history be okay with flags of other countries and those that promote the killing of babies or mutilating our youth to fly in public places in their cities and counties? How can they chant death to the duly-elected president of our country and every Christian in our nation and feel like they are on the right path when nothing but hatred fills their hearts? Yes, we are a country of immigrants, but until the last twenty or thirty years those coming here had to be fully vetted, learn to speak English and take a test for citizenship before ever having that honor. 

They came here because the love of freedom ran so deeply in their hearts they were willing to give up everything they had to be free from the tyranny of the governments they were under. Most all my ancestors fall into that category. They left their homes, families, jobs and everything they held dear to come to America so they could build lives and fulfill dreams that were undermined at every turn in their countries of origin. My prayers of thanksgiving for their love, determination and sacrifice run deep because THIS IS MY COUNTRY and I stand by all they held dear because that's how I feel about America too.

While we have not be been perfect, we were founded on Christian principles and started out with the most divinely-inspired constitution on the planet. Our ancestors fought bloody battles on our own shores to keep despotic regimes and rulers who believed the common man had no rights at bay and give us more than any other people on earth. To see anyone rise up in open-opposition to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as free people and tout what they call the virtues of Socialism and Communism makes my nose tickle with tears that soon come. And all the those who shout Death to America should find some place else to live because if they love what their countries of origin stand for so much, then why are they here? 

And why have people who have been raised with every opportunity to learn, work and grow be willing to throw freedom away for some poultry sum of money that will only last as long as the evil men and women who want to be in charge of the whole world allow it? Why have our history books been changed to show America as being an evil entity when its only goal--despite some truly despicable leaders--has been to promote peace and personal freedom around the world? Why can people in other countries shout for joy when we step in to help them override evil rulers while people in our own country, who have received blessings too numerous to count, do nothing but say hateful things about the United States and try to persecute or prosecute anyone who opposes the New World Order they so vehemently defend?

It makes no sense to me, except when I remind myself that Satan will be given the chance to do his worst before our Savior's return. And I see evidence most everywhere of his evilness being accepted by numerous hosts of people everyday. My thoughts for hope as we help usher in our Savior's return always go back to complete belief and trust in my Savior and my God. They created this world and everything in it. They knew who would follow God's plan and who would join Satan's forces and yet their desire is for everyone to recognize the truth and turn away from sin. 

I listen to the news coming from the Middle East each day and try to remain calm because I know God is in charge. He will triumph in the end and I want to be on HIs side when the final battle comes. But like everyone else, I have moments of doubt, mostly because I'm not sure I will have the strength or courage to stand up and fight for truth and righteousness as I should. I'm not a fan of pain, displacements, ridicule or persecution and yet I know those days are coming. All of these masses of people who have come to America only to destroy will be unleashed one day and when they are the burning, killing, looting and destruction will be far worse and more widespread than anything we have encountered yet. Will any of us be able to stand in face of such evilness?

I believe we will if our hearts are centered on our Savior and our God. I look for the good around me each day because the bad is in my face all the time and it is easy to lose perspective. I even get scared sometimes because there is such a shortage of water here in the Rocky Mountains and we've had a hard frost that ruined so many of the crops this year. But I have hope as I have try to prepare for the coming challenges that I will be okay and still be able to help my family, neighbors and friends in the process. What a blessing it is to have been chosen to be here on earth during this marvelous time. Miracles are happening around us each day, even if we don't see them. But as I pledge my heart to do what I know is right, I feel a renewal of optimism that things are unfolding as they must and I can be strong enough to stand with my Christian brothers and sisters no matter where in the world they live. Our trials here might be harsh for a time but returning home to God will be glorious indeed.