I am grateful to my dear friend for being willing and courageous enough to share the following with us. Out of respect to her in-laws she has asked to remain anonymous.
I’d like to bear my testimony of the Atonement and the power
it has to change our hearts and our lives. I’ve struggled for years with
anxiety, and it’s especially strong when I’m pregnant or nursing. With that
being the case, I’ve spent about 10 of my 12 married years battling severe
anxiety. My husband has been heroically supportive through my struggles, but
this mental illness has brought us many challenges.
One that’s been the hardest is that it’s strained our
relationship with my husband’s family. They’re good, kind, generous people. I
don’t think many people who’ve met them would understand how I could possibly
have felt the way I did. But trying to get to know them and become accustomed
to a family culture that clashed with mine when I wasn’t entirely myself
created a very dysfunctional relationship.
I don’t think they ever did anything intentionally to hurt
me. I really think they never realized that some of their actions came across
as thoughtless, disrespectful, or hurtful. Some of them I can even laugh at
now. How at my first Thanksgiving with their family, they brought up my
husband’s old girlfriend and how much they missed her. How when our first baby
was born and she was so beautiful, they would praise each beautiful feature and
tell me that they were certain they all came from their side of the family,
because she couldn’t possibly look like me. Or how when that same baby was born
and I didn’t want visitors in the hospital, they told me they didn’t really
think I should feel that way, so they were coming anyway.
My whole life, I’d been pretty good at giving people the
benefit of the doubt with stuff like that and just loving them anyway. And
maybe those things sound silly. But at the time, the things they did really
hurt. Anxiety disorder magnifies feelings like that, and it got to the point
that every time we were together, I was on my guard, waiting to be hurt again,
ready to see each potential offense. I kept my heart further and further from
them so it couldn’t get hurt again. We spent less and less time with them.
In the few years where I was neither pregnant nor nursing, I
would come more to myself and try a little harder to make a relationship, but
the next time I had a baby, I would lose all the progress I’d made. The fear
got so bad I could hardly speak to them. I struggled to even want to have a
relationship with them, though I felt guilty about that, especially knowing how
much I was hurting them by being distant. On some level, I think I realized I
was letting my anxiety be an excuse, a shield to protect me from them, but for
years the thought of getting past that anxiety felt truly impossible.
The Spirit guided me through little steps of progress, like
recognizing times that I had been unkind and apologizing for the things I’d
done, trying to stop myself from
thinking anything negative about my in laws, and trying to give them the
benefit of the doubt when they said or did something that could be taken in a
hurtful way. I believed I’d truly forgiven them. But I still felt afraid to
have a real relationship with them. To love them.
Then I heard Sister Beck speak to the sisters where I live.
She talked about being a consecrated disciple of Christ, and it felt as if the
Spirit burned in me a new heart. And I heard a talk by Sheri Dew, also about
being a disciple of Christ and the importance of loving and forgiving everyone,
with no exceptions. I knew it was time to step up and be a
disciple. So I went to my Heavenly Father and asked Him to forgive my lack of
love. I asked for the Savior’s Atonement to enable me to overcome the anxiety
and learn how to let go of the distance that had been my shield so that I could
learn to not just forgive but love those who had hurt me.
It was painful. It felt as if He opened a door in my heart
to a place that had been shut up and was full of dust and rot. It felt like
that place was scraped out fresh and raw and clean. And then I felt healed. I
felt love and peace where there had been none, where it had seemed impossible
for real love to exist.
That was almost two years ago, and I’m still in awe of the
completeness of the healing. I still have to watch myself so I don’t let old
habits of negative thinking creep in, but I can say in honesty that I love my
in laws and that I’m now working on growing a relationship with them. They’re a
blessing in my life. I’m so grateful for my Savior and His Atonement.
There are so many scriptures that come to my mind when I
think of this experience, and there were so many things I learned from the
scriptures and from conference that helped me to reach the point where I could
ask the Lord to heal me. One that I’d like to share is Luke 1:37, “For with
God, nothing shall be impossible.” I know that’s true. I know that through the
infinite power of the Savior’s Atonement, He can help us overcome any
challenge, repent of any sin, keep any commandment. He can help us to become
more like Him, and experience greater love, happiness, and peace as we strive
to be His disciples.
In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
