Hiding under a rock

When I was in 8th grade, I was singled out, with a boy named Jarett Conner, for a separate vocabulary list than the rest of the class. They worked on "status" and "fundamental" and we worked on "cogent" and "enervate". Jarett was a football player, tall, good-looking, and way out of my league. Under normal circumstances, I would have only endured his ignoring me, or suffered his taunting, but because of the time we spent alone in the hall together, practicing our vocabulary, we grew to be something like friends, if only in secret. Somehow a habit developed that when we would watch a movie in class, Jarett and I would play footsie under my chair (he sat behind me) and sometimes he would put his hands on my shoulders. One day a pair of girls who sat two rows over, blond, perfect, and inseparable, saw our indiscretions in the dark and after class, rushed out to tell the rest of the popular crowd. As I walked down the hallway at lunch, Rachel Mackenzie spotted me and yelled "There she is!". Kids poured out of the lunchroom - it looked like the whole 7th and 8th grade to me, though the group probably numbered 15 or so. And with tall Rachel standing at the front, they all stood and pointed their fingers at me, laughing, ridiculing my audacity at imagining that Jarett Conner could possibly want anything to do with me. I ran away, outside, and hid until lunch was over. I went home and told my aunt what had happened. She said "everyone puts their pants on the same way, one leg at a time". Her words were less than comfortless, they made me feel guilty that I cared at all what they said. Days later, Jarett maneuvered to stand behind me in the line-up to leave class and put his arms around me and whispered in my ear that he was sorry.

My humiliation utterly public, and his penance, my penance, utterly private, I was made to feel that not only was I not accepted by my peers, I was not a worthy human being, I did not deserve to exist. This scene is one that I vividly remember, but that experience and those feelings were common to many of my interactions throughout my school years. In the last couple of weeks, I have felt that way again, though not for any reason that I can discern. It is such a profound feeling of shame at my own humanity and imperfection, my inability to say or do anything just right, my suspicion that I am harshly judged by others, that I have described it to my husband as wanting to hide under a rock. But I am not a faithless child anymore and I recognize that these feelings are not a reflection of my actual worth or the actual perception that others have of me. I wondered briefly if these feelings are an effort by Heavenly Father to humble me, a chastisement for pride, but the chastisement of the Lord always comes with the comfort of the Spirit ("reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost, and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him who thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy" D&C 121:43) and this feeling comes with no comfort at all. I know that my Heavenly Father loves me and that I am of value to Him and to others. I console myself with these thoughts and I do not hide in the corner or crawl under a rock. I stand up under the weight of these feelings and I continue to push out of the relative safety of my silence. I try to remember to thank people for their kindnesses and to acknowledge their service. I try to find ways to serve others, even if all I can manage is to smile at them. My house is a mess, I say and do stupid things, my kids sometimes misbehave - I am entirely human, fallible, and imperfect, but I am a Daughter of God and I put my faith in whatever portion of my heritage is Divine.  And I press forward, knowing that eventually the adversary's grasp will loosen and I will feel less alone, less worthless, and much more like a city that is set on a hill, than a creature that should hide under a rock.

I end this passage in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ, because I know that only His part in the plan of salvation makes my faith possible.

In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.