A Few Journal Entries from Deep Within

I've had the idea for a long time to make a blog compiled of previous journal entries of mine. While I've never been diligent enough to record down every day of my life, I'd still say I'm fairly consistent at keeping one up, ever since my sister Alisha made me a journal as a child.

I try to be as honest and open to my journal as I possibly can, no matter how heart wrenching and shameful at times it may feel. So I think depending on how this goes I might do regular past journal entries as a post.

Mind you all this is shared at a great price. This is where the deepest most innermost underlying of my thoughts go. Please be respectful. I'm not looking for solace, or praise or encouragement. These are shared ONLY because I seek for understanding: for myself and to all those others out there who find themselves in me also. I'm in a much better place now.

February 21, 2013

I feel helpless, and scared to death. Wow, who knew that confronting my homosexual feelings would ever bring such emotional drama to my life. I’ve been so up and so down this past month and a half, I can barely focus or think straight anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I am so glad I have been more open to myself and others about this, but I can’t get over this spiritual  hurdle I feel I am in now. What do I do? What’s the right choice? Nothing is clear cut to me anymore, and I’m afraid of any and every step I take. However, I do also get this fearless moments where I feel like I could do or say anything. I’m so confused and so lost right now. Why oh why God, am I to go through such suffering as this?

I want to be strong and conquer this and set the example, but I just don’t know how to do that anymore. I feel like no one has the answers for me, least of all myself or God. I’’m not mad at God, just frustrated is all. I know he loves me, and I don’t regret anything I’ve done since I started coming out. I just wish I knew the path that lies before, and  how to gain happiness and peace.

Sometimes I feel like I’m suffocating and I can’t do anything about it. The world encloses on me and shuts me out. I can’t handle it. I don’t know how to. I’ve never been prepped for this before.

I feel like I don’t belong anywhere. I don’t belong with fellow members of my church , who have no idea what I’m going through, and tonight I felt was demonstrated by going to the BYU’s USGA meeting for the 2nd time(gay club for BYU students) that I don’t belong there also. I just felt out of place and awkward. Perhaps I didn’t give it enough of a try. That’s really most likely it. I just lose so much desire now to put myself out there, in anything.

I can feel this apathy growing in my soul, that terrifies me, and it’s spreading like the plague. Oh God, please bless me with charity. Purify my heart to do thy will. How am I to go on I don’t know, but I’ll take it one step at a time.

Thursday

September 12, 2013

The days all clump together in a haze. School in the morning, work in the afternoon. Despite semi exerted efforts to avoid monotony, it has place in my life. The future has been on my mind a lot, like where I’d like to end up in a career. Marriage has also been on my mind, as in who I will/should marry and then potential future kids. Death has also been on my mind a lot and that day that my life will end up this earth, and then where life goes from there. I believe in God. I’ll trust in Him. I need to. Amidst all these perplexing inquiries, I need faith in something, because otherwise there is no real substance in anything, or peace, or hope.

I long for a family today. I long for guidance in my life to know what to do. I long for the courage to do what I already know to be right. I’ve been thinking a lot about Derek today and how much he means to me. He has become an invaluable part of my world and I don’t want to imagine life without him. But as fears naturally do and as my moral inclinations persuade me to believe, I fear I must let him go. It tears me apart. This agony of mine is unlike any other I’ve ever experienced. Never have I ever experienced such torment of mind and soul. It is nearly more than I can bare. One step at a time Bryan. One step. I have to be strong, I must be. My name means strong after all, it’s in my heritage. Someday I hope to look back at all of this and feel gratitude I endured. I hope someone else might be able to see the same thing also. I’m doing my best.

 I want to understand why my relationship with Derek can feel so good and yet be so wrong.  He is the most wonderful, caring person. I also know I want a temple marriage and my own kids. I want to please God. I’m so far from it right now. My soul has been tender to say the least today. I’ve never felt more anxious about life, more fearful of my path and the eternal consequences of such. I am so scared and fearful. I can’t lose the people I love. And I want to be true to myself. This is where my trust in God must come in. I need Him in my life, now, this very moment and always.

I love my family. Peter leaves for his mission in less than a week and it’s incredible. I will miss him so when he is gone, and yet I am so excited for the experiences he’ll have. I miss my mission. I must make the most of my life now. Life feels so easy and so difficult at the same time. Today I choose to pray, to humble myself and to seek after righteous things.

My exercises have suffered lately, most especially the gym. I haven’t been in over a week. I intend on changing that after work tonight.

One Day at a time. One step. Abide with me dear Lord.

An Addendum to September 26, 2013:

I’m up late tonight. My night took a random turn on me by surprise, as it many times does. I came home from work to make oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for Derek, as they are his favorite treat and I wanted to do something for him to show my love and appreciation for him and all he does for me. He actually had made me brownies in a similar gesture. We feasted on sweets (me meaning I tried to have self-control by eating two cookies and a half a brownie).

I watched Parks and Recreation with Derek while we ate. I’ve been trying to focus more on pleasing God and less on my own pleasures. While watching it with him, I had to resist against a greater pull than I’ve ever felt to embrace him and unite myself with him. It was hard.

I was thinking about my grandma today and how she will soon be leaving this life soon. I thought about her wonderful life of faithful living and devotion to God. She has a multitude of angels to meet her and congratulate her at her arrival to the next life. She’s going home to God. I also thought about my own life and how my departure would be. I only saw sadness.

Peter sent me a personal email to me today telling me he wished I had all my heart’s desire. It was sweet of him and somehow still made me sad. What is my heart’s desire and why is it not known to be to follow God? No matter what way I go about it, I can’t shake this feeling that by embracing the inner homosexual in me, that I’m disgracing God. Even more so, that I’m a lesser person or choosing a lesser path. Is all this worth it more than living with my family, than being with God, or receiving the blessings of exaltation? Is a homosexual life (in the means of marrying a man) a lesser life than that of marrying a woman in the temple?

This was some of the wonderings of my heart tonight. I prayed sincerely tonight to God for direction, faith in every footstep and humility. I could feel His presence when I prayed, and it indeed did humble me. I got caught up looking at some of Peter’s pictures and thinking again about how I feel like I’m choosing a lesser path, or somehow not as respectable or Christ like a person in God’s eyes. If homosexuality really were to be embraced, then where are those faithful ones in relationships, in the church, doing all they can to follow God? I can’t help but see everywhere that every homosexual partnership, for one thing or another, give up a part of their spirituality, or distort it in some way to their own liking. I can palpate the difference between how it’s meant to be (from my own personal experience) and how it is for people.

I went on a late night walk tonight, not able to sleep and trying to soothe my soul with “Come thou Fount” and “Abide with Me Tis Eventide”. It helped some but I still needed a real connection with God tonight. I wanted to show him how willing I was to do anything for Him. So I got up from bed and I went outside in the rain and colder temperatures, to talk with Him.

I poured out my anxieties in prayer as I walked around my neighborhood. I quietly walked as I awaited and prayed for some kind of response or sign. I imagined God walking beside, helping me sort through this issue. But I didn’t feel anything. I then looked up at the cloudy mountains in wonder, begging what I was to do. I pictured myself becoming one with God and one with the earth, and in my mind tried to embrace them all. That was when I really felt something.

I so often feel like my heart tells me sometimes to build a romance and partnership with Derek, and then my head and logic tells me to get out, build a relationship with a girl and get married. But then I realized while on my walk tonight that it’s not so much a battle of heart and mind (that would be so easy), but rather a battle of heart and heart. My heart is tugging me in two different directions and I can’t decide or move, because I can’t give up my heart? Or can I, and if I were to, which part would I have to give up. A small part of me tells me I can choose. I can choose what I want. But when I go to a church interview with an authority, can I be considered worthy and respectable for being in a homosexual relationship? Can I go to the temple worthily being married to a man? Can I look into the eyes of my fellow being and say I fully support my homosexual partnership, indeed when the very confines of God and nature itself have formed man to be compatible with and procreate with woman?

I want to give my heart to it all. That’s just who I am. I can’t give up things for the life of me when my heart is invested. I also can’t live knowingly when I’m doing something wrong. This is where the nightmare comes in, because I don’t know exactly is the truly wrong part (disregarding the church doctrine and focusing on my own self). I read in Neil A Maxwell’s book today “The Path of Discipleship” where he said “a wrong that is common among people should not necessarily be accepted as respectable”. It really made me think, is homosexuality and its growing acceptance and influence in modern society one of those “wrongs” that should not be necessarily accepted as acceptable?

I’ve heard church leaders state many times that you can’t go too far to be forgiven and redeemed of God and come back to Him. I look at my recent past and feel like I’ve driven bombs and massacre through it all. I have a very hard time seeing a future from that. So perhaps part of my lack of trust lies in the fact that I don’t see how God can fix all I’ve done or re right all that I’ve done wrong. I pray for forgiveness, oh Golly I pray for it all the time, and to be made pure. I pray for God to help me clean up my way and show me how I can be valuable in this life, if I am truly of value. I pray for Him to help me make something of this wreckage that I’m in. And I want to see it, I do. I just can’t.  I’m lacking faith, I know. I need more faith. But then the issue comes in again, faith to what cause?

Sometimes I wonder if I’ve always known the right answer as to what to do with my life and how to go about it. Get married of course, have kids, do those things. So when I get all focused in on that and then go about making my life that way, I wonder, why does this not feel right? Why does it not feel right to me to give up something such as my relationship with Derek that can feel so good and so happy? How can something be so contradictory? I’ve never encountered a greater paradox in my life than a “Gay Mormon” and making the two work.

Oh I pray and hope I can leave this life and be proud of the life I’ve left behind. I pray even more that I can be with and abide with God, my dear grandmothers and my family. I don’t want to be counted lesser than them. I also don’t want to knowingly avoid the opportunity to live with them and receive all the blessings of exaltation that I can. Angels have been promised behind me and in front of me to lift me up. I want angels at my funeral for me. I want to be proud of myself and God to be proud of me. I want happiness. I can’t bear the thought of not having it. So here I am, 1:41 am in the morning, wide awake, past the emotions of feeling and now entering the realm of exhaustion and apathy. I have been tossed and turned and beaten down and tortured. I have been stripped of all I have previously held dear. And despite my escaping ability to stand strong on my feet, something deep inside still keeps telling me to stand a little longer. Be a little more patient. Look a little deeper. Be a little smarter and kinder. I don’t want to hear those things. I want a definite direction to my life and how it’ll turn out. I want to be happy. I want everlasting happiness. So God, I pray to thee tonight, abide with me, and strengthen my will to follow thee. I can’t turn aside from Him now, then I would lose the last thing that I have and hold dear.

October 8, 2013

Dear Jesus,

I am addressing my journal entry to you today. The scriptures tell us to pray always without ceasing, as they are also full of prayers to you, so I believe this is an appropriate thing to do. I need you Jesus.

I'm struggling. I'm scared. I'm confused.

I don't know what to do with my life. You said you would be there to comfort, to visit when I'm weary, and guide me to the path of true happiness and joy. You told me I was a child of God with divine potential.

Oh Jesus, why do I not feel any of these right now? Why is it in the crux of my life, when I seek for your guidance and approbation most, I feel the farthest from it? I want to be right with you. I want to follow you, and be the perfect person you see me for.

Oh Jesus, I'm scared. I'm scared I'm not enough. I'm scared I'm too imperfect. And I'm scared of deviating from your path that you've set before me to follow. I'm scared of losing you. I've lost many things in my life, but I can't lose you. I am nothing without you.

Please help me understand why you've given me these current trials in my life, and how they all work for my greater good. How can two paths, both based on sincere and pure love, both be so polarly opposing? How can I find peace to my life when it comes to a conflict of love versus love? How can I make sense of that? Tell me, do I trust to follow your own chosen vessels in this world or the voice you instill in me? Please! Tell me what to do, and help me do it.

I want to be humble. I would give all I have to you, in order to receive of thy love, peace and joy. Please don't give up on me Sweet Jesus. Please don't ever leave me! Please help me. Help me in my unbelief.

I'm so tired Jesus. I'm tired of feeling so much pain and disappointment. I feel beaten down. I feel raw and bloody from a bitter battle that has left me for dead. Exposed to the world and it's travails around me, and unprepared for it's oncoming advances. And still, I make one step forward. I don't know how much more I can do. Please! Lift me my dear Jesus. Do not abandon me. Not in this hour of my greatest need.

I will trust you. If you need me to continue to go on without direction, without peace of mind and without understanding, I will. It's hard for me, but I will. I know your thoughts are higher than my own.

Just please sweet Jesus, tell me all will be well in the end. Tell me I will be forgiven. Tell me that I'm worth it, and that your love for me never fails.

Please watch over my friends. So many of my comrades are struggling, giving up on you, and lost in a world of depression and self-loathing. Do not abandon them. Be with them and bless them with your richness of blessings, because you love them. They are beautiful, precious souls.

October 26, 2013

It was an emotional night yesterday. My grandmother, or Father's Mother, passed away yesterday afternoon. While we've know that her death was near, the news still came as a surprise to me. I was at work at the time in the middle of a call, and I had to take a moment to regain myself. I knew immediately after hearing it that my Grandmother was in a better place, and that it wasn't the end. I also thought about how she would be with Christ. I was listening to God be with you till we meet again, and after hearing the part of “till we meet at Jesus's feet” I couldn't contain myself. Never had such words penetrated me before. I hope to meet my grandmother, and my other dear family members, at Jesus's feet. I have made so many mistakes this year and screwed my life up so much. I want to be better. I need to be better. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is true.

Derek was kind enough to bring me food for dinner. We made homemade pizzas last night with the new pizza stone that I bought last weekend.

I wasn't planning on it, but after Derek kept prodding me about my thoughts, I ended up breaking up with him. He took the news much worse than I thought. He cried and I cried. And then we were up for hours mulling it over. This was after we started watching “Finding Neverland”, one of my favorite movies.

We were up so late that we ended up waking up late, and thus missing the half marathon we both were supposed to be running. Yes, we had costumes and everything ready to run the race this morning and we just missed it. I still feel terrible. I also woke up and I guess in my half sleep told Derek we should stay together for now. I wasn't in a full state when I said that but he took it to heart.

I know in my heart I need to let him go, but I also know in my heart I don't want to lose the happiness that Derek brings me, and that I find in loving him.

Work has been pleasant today. I only had two calls the whole time. Derek came over for my dinner break and we went to Costa Vida to get some chicken quesadillas. 

Derek also told me last night that he thinks I'm bipolar. It came as a surprise to hear him say that, since no one has ever told me that before. And after more thought I can see where he's coming from, but I think the difference between me and those who really are bipolar, is all my symptoms come from dealing with my faith and my homosexual feelings. That alone could drive anyone crazy, who tries to conquer it.