Adam and Eve, the Atonement, and My Fresh Start

The reading that blew me away this week was from Bruce C. Hafen's Book, Covenant Hearts. We read chapter six this week, entitled, The Doctrinal Pattern of Adam and Eve: No Misery, No Joy. I sent copies of the chapter out to my family and I hope to add some of their responses in my blog post for this week.

It really seems that as a people, we seem to lack understanding of the doctrines taught in this chapter. Sometimes I have wondered if the phrase “if you keep the commandments, you shall prosper in the land” that is used over and over again in the Book of Mormon, isn’t one of the least understood phrases in all of scripture. We seem to read that and take it’s meaning to be, bad things won’t happen to good people. And we read it over and over again, and continue to believe that we understand it’s meaning, when we’re really failing to apply a basic understanding of the Plan of Salvation to our interpretation.

I think it must be proof of how competently the veil operates that we really hope for and expect life to be easy and uneventful! If we really remembered the whole plan, we would surely be more excepting of the reality that this life is meant to be anything but a smooth ride. We are here to learn things by experience. And that’s an opportunity that we couldn’t be given any other way, than to come face to face with painful opposition, disappointment, and pain. Bruce Hafen explains it very well when he says:

• “They taste the bitter,” the Lord explained to Adam, “that they may know to prize the good” (Moses 6:55). In fact, He said, “If they never should have bitter [experiences] they could not know the sweet” (D&C 29:39; italics added) In other words, sometimes the twists and turns of life are the straight and narrow path.

So when we come face to face with the trial of mortality and the effects of living in a fallen world, the last concern we ought to have is why God would allow these things to happen to us. Following that angle of thought winds us up into destructive circles. We came knowingly to a fallen world. And we came knowing that as long as we continued trusting in God, it would all be okay because central to the Father’s perfect Plan was His Son. Elder Hafen explains:

• The story of Christ’s life is the story of giving the atonement. But the story of Adam and Eve is the story of receiving the atonement. Especially in that sense, their lives and their marriage set a pattern for our own.

• Because they received the Atonement of Christ, Adam and Eve were able to learn from their experience without being condemned by it. “For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:17) 

I’m starting to finally operate my life with this understanding. I used to tell my Beehive class all the time, because of Christ’s atonement, we can learn from our mistakes. That’s the gift that He gave us, was the opportunity to learn without justice cutting us off from the presence of our Father forever.

• …because they accepted the Atonement of Christ, Adam and Eve, Lehi and Sariah, could all grow from their experiences without suffering irreparable damage. With their family life as their main place of spiritual schooling, they learned from both miser and joy, discovering firsthand that “God …shall consecrate thine afflictions for they gain” (2 Nephi 2:2)

• Adam and Eve didn’t understand all of this just by tasting the forbidden fruit. That fruit was by the beginning of a lifelong quest for meaning- not an event but an extended process, marked by having children and discovering misery, sin, goodness, joy, and the very meaning of eternal life.

 

Because this freedom that He bought us, we can actually look forward to better things that what we have ever known. When I read this next quote from Bruce Hafen, I think about our return to glory, and what a fantastic experience we will have earned in that return.

• After all of this, then when Adam and Eve returned “home” to God’s presence, being with Him in act three was very different from their having been with Him in act one. They didn’t simply return to the innocence of Eden, as if the Atonement wiped out their very experience.

• Rather, they progressed, until they reached the Lord’s presence. But this time they understood what they could never have known in Eden- now they knew what I meant to be there, with Him, and with each other. 

I think that I have experienced this to some extent in my own life. When we experience great loss, we quickly and deeply understand the meaning of what was once taken for granted. Losing the love and support of my husband and the dreams that I had for our relationship and our family was at moments more than I could bear. It was certainly more than I ever could have borne alone. I spent some time wondering how this could have happened to me, and why I was not protected from this, since I had always done my best to follow His plan and keep His commandments. I sometimes wondered, if keeping the commandments wasn’t enough to keep me from THIS, what was it really good for?

I still don’t know the end from the beginning, but some things have become clear. One beautiful truth that I am very grateful for is that hard work and faith combined can be potent enough to drum up a fresh start. I’m so very grateful for the fresh start that I’ve been given, ans I’ve also seen fresh starts occur in broken marriages that stayed and healed together.

A section of a poem by T.S. Eliot was shared in this chapter that has amazing meaning for the intrinsic rewards of our mortal experience, but it also has personal meaning to me as I look forward with courage into my fresh start.

• We shall not cease for exploration
• And the end of all our exploring
• Will be to arrive where we started
• And know the place for the first time.
• T.S. Eliot

Revett Lake, ID

 
One of the great things about my new relationship are the fun adventures that we go on together. A lot of the time that we have spent together has been out in nature, setting off down new paths and enjoying the experience of sharing the beautiful things we see and feel as we go. The tradition of exploring together that we have started is something that we both cherish and want to nurture. 

Because we have each loved and been disappointed, the beauty of this new chance has special value to us. In some ways it's like being sent back in time. Back to the task that we so earnestly pursued in our early twenties of finding a partner and an eternal companion. But even though we are back where we started we are not here at this point with out our experience. That experience gives us new eyes which realize the miracle of a fresh start. Miraculously, this fresh start seems to compensate for and make some sense of the pain of our education.

The Power of Heaven

 

My favorite quotes this week were these:

"We cannot steal the fire of love from heaven. We must buy it with soul-stretching payments."

 I like this one for both it's application in maintaining love in a marriage, and in building toward a marriage relationship. We can't expect love to be cheap, and we can't expect to build a lasting love if we try to build it outside of the sequence that God has ordained.

"Faith is the stubborn resolve to see God blessing us in all circumstances." 

I really believe that this is a crucial element to faith and reflects our willingness to trust Him always. I have a quote on my wall that says, "Give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way" which has a similar meaning. We have to trust Him always, even when it doesn't seem to make sense to. His love is always there for us, and working for us in the worst of circumstances.

"Passivity is not what God is after." 

Blind obedience is not what is expected of us. We are to be agents unto ourselves.

"To care about someone does not mean sacrificing one's time and energy for that person. It means devoting them to the person and taking joy in doing so; in the end, one feels richer for one's efforts, not poorer." Tzvetan Todorov 

This is such remarkable insight, and to me what makes the application of it remarkable is the idea that each individual in a relationship needs to be able to take on this understanding, and if they can, I think any relationship could be saved. I think it comes down to deciding what it is that we really want.

"Rather than looking at marriage as a skill issue, let's consider it as a heart matter. Most adults communicate quite well with other adults when their hearts are soft and they respect one another." 
Doug Brinley 

I love this because I've been studying A Heart Like His by Virginia Hinkley Pearce. Keeping a soft heart is important in all aspects of our lives, so of course it has great applicability to marriage!

I Am Enough

I wonder, honestly, if I will ever get to a point where I can read about what causes marriages to fail, and not launch into a self-examination of my role in the failure of my marriage. The compulsion to accept blame and assign responsibility is remarkably powerful.

I can see how the compulsion has changed in some regards though. It used to be driven by the resolve to fix things. I felt like if I could find the fault in myself, and weed it out, then perhaps I could keep the disaster from happening.

If I could be the problem, then I could fix it! The desire to fix it had my self-examination motor running to the point that I was stripped entirely of any sense of efficacy or confidence. I couldn’t even tell you the contents of my own mind, I was so insecure and full of self-doubt.

I’ve grown significantly since those days- thanks be to the heavens and to fabulous therapy- and I have become very comfortable letting go of pointing fingers of blame, and moving forward, even if I don’t have perfect answers about what happened.

As I look at moving forward though, I do worry about so many of the interactions that Dr. Gottman described in his book.

Dr. Gottman says that he can predict divorce with 91% accuracy by listening to and watching the way a couple interacts for as little as 5 minutes! He says he predicts the breakup of these marriages by looking for six signs: 1. the harsh set up, 2. the four horsemen (criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling), 3. flooding, 4. body language, 5. failed repair attempts, and 6.) bad memories.

The negativity that ate up my relationship is no where present in my current relationship, but my new relationship is very, very new. :) It's like a perfectly beautiful and innocent little baby. The idea of this baby growing up to become something as ugly as my 16 year marriage became because of things like criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling is a terrifying thought.

And so the self examination begins again. What did my actions do to contribute to the atmosphere of negativity that developed in my marriage? And how can I make sure that never ever happens again?

The real answer is that I can't.

I can't control the future. I can't control other people's choices. Strangely enough, trusting enough to make another attempt at love might have more to do with trusting myself than it does with trusting the man I'm involved with!

And you know what... I'm up for it! I'm not perfect. And I know I don't always do things right. But I'm good at loving. I've learned to be good at hope. And I've discovered that there is depth to my faith that makes me strong. I trust me to love him with everything I've got. I trust me to work with him to resolve the stuff that will come up. I trust that there will be help when I need it. And I trust that that's enough.
 

Legacy

In my dad's family, there are five children. I believe that I have 37 cousins. 

And most of those cousins have at least four children, some of them as many as eight. 
There are a growing number of my cousin's children who are married and having children
themselves now!  


At our last family reunion, which was about four years ago, we were 
looking at the masses that were gathered, and noticing how remarkable the percentage of 
temple marriages and missionary service seemed to be. The overwhelming feeling was that
we all felt the pull of gratitude toward our grandparents for those blessings in our lives. 

My grandparents were not the first members of the church in their families. In fact, on both 
sides their families have been in the church almost since it's beginning. And even though my
grand parents were never showy about their faith, and never served in callings of prominence, 
our feelings of commitment to the gospel almost universally turned to their example. 

One story that kept being referred to over and over again was the simple story of how 
grandma and grandpa were married. When they decided that they would be married, it was
in the middle of the winter, and there was deep snow on the ground. They were committed 
to being married in the temple, but the nearest temple at the time was in Logan, UT, which 
was a significant distance away from where they lived in Menan, ID. But because temple 
marriage was so important to them, grandpa hitched the horses to the sleigh, and the two 
of them made the long and cold journey to the Logan temple to be sealed for time and all eternity.

This story was beautiful and romantic to all of us, but many of us remarked how much 
more significant this story became as we studied further in our family history and realized 
that none of my grandparents siblings had been married in the temple initially. In my 
grandfather's very large family, none of his siblings were initially married in the temple. 
They were all married civilly first, and then attended to temple ordinances later. There is 
no doubt that because of the difficulty in traveling to the temple it seemed completely 
reasonable to wait for a more convenient time to make their commitments bound in 
heaven as well as on earth. 

But that wasn't enough for my grandparents. 

Their deep faith in the importance of those covenants, and their commitment to their 
eternal goals for the family they were creating pressed them to hitch up those horses, 
pile on the blankets, and head to Logan whether any family would accompany them 
or not. That story sunk deep into each of our hearts and informed our choices throughout 
our lives.

Ray and Ann Miller Legacy. Miller Family Reunion 2011.