When I saw the chapter title, my first thought was meekness, because I had a story about that. That was not one of the virtues that they covered, but I guess for the purposes of the story, it is kind of a combination of humility and love. I didn't get it exactly right.
I had mentioned earlier that is was possible for the Spirit to be there and for some people not to feel it, and to be closed off to it. I had this happen once with a companion. She was angry about something I did, and so though we taught a family, and it was great for that family, it was not great for her, and she was lashing out at me any time we were not with other people.
I did not originally know what I had done. When it came out, it was that she had kind of interrupted something I was getting to saying. My trainer had done the exact same thing to me, and at the time I think I had been embarrassed, but it hurt my companion deeply, which was probably related to some other things she had going on that I did not know about.
She did various passive aggressive and less passive things, and I tried some things that did not work, and finally I told her that if this didn't stop I was going to have to contact the mission president because we could not work this way. We had a big difficult discussion, and I basically accepted the blame and apologized, and we went forward.
I really had to put my pride aside, and I could tell it was necessary. I needed to create a safe place for her, and I somehow managed. That is the good side of it.
The bad side is that I really did not do a good job of it. I was left with a lot of hurt feelings, because she had really been vilifying me, and while I had my flaws, I did not deserve that. Swallowing that left me really upset, and I wanted to talk about that, and yet I felt like I couldn't.
I'll tell you another story. At one point I was working with two other missionaries, and we were having a hard time getting any teaching done due to people being reluctant to set up appointments in advance. I thought it made sense to make phone calls before we left, because same day appointments seemed to be working better. My companions decided that it was important to leave the apartment on time. If I remember correctly, they tried making some pointed comments about obedience, and then they agreed they would just stand outside the apartment door while I did my thing, I guess to be good examples to me, or to shame me.
We all wanted to do the right thing, but I felt like if we were working, but still in the apartment, it counted, and they did not. If we had talked about it, they could have expressed why it felt so important to leave the apartment on time, and I could have expressed my concerns about us basically spinning our wheels, and perhaps we could have found something mutually satisfactory. Instead, I felt like they were jerks, and judged unfairly. We were not as effective as we could have been, and part of that was being less united.
(I am afraid I am not making missionaries sound that good. We try, but we are human, and usually young.)
So, I worked with the missionary I had offended and then reconciled with for a while, and we were doing well, and then I got transferred back to Fresno. My companion then was the second one trained by the sister who came into the field just before me. Both of her trainees loved her, and felt like they must be exactly like her, and my style was very different. This one had a very hard time accepting me, and it wore me down. I hit a pretty black spell, and then suddenly I got my other sister back.
Maybe the unresolved issues had contributed to the black spell I was in. Honestly, I don't know why it is so easy to feel worthless. I did not know then how common it was, though I am pretty aware of that now.
Anyway, she really helped me. She was there for me, she worked with me, and helped me crawl out of that black hole. Maybe she had to hold some things back for me. The point is, we took turns helping each other, and we were better for it.
It was with her that we switched our focus to working with members, which I know was the right thing for that time, and which possibly I could not have done with any of the others.
Humility is not easy. Love sometimes is and sometimes isn't. I just know that we are fragile beings, and everyone is carrying around hurts and insecurities that you can't see. I also know that we can help each other. We need each other.
No comments:
Post a Comment