The Irony of Life

By Thomas Fullmer

Why do people sin? There may be several

reasons for this. They lack knowledge about
the gospel and God. They lack a love of
God and self. They lack a knowledge of self,
their true divine nature. They are deceived.
They lack faith. They are taught to sin. Why
do people sin? Because their spirits become
weakened. Why do their spirits weaken?
They lose faith in themselves, they lack self
love and are filled with self hate, sin is a
reflection of this self-hate. Sin is spiritually
pernicious, and will destroy the sinner in the
end. Why do they lose faith in themselves?
Because they become infused with
darkness, which is a product of self hate.
They lose sight of their true divine selves,
the light of the truth of self becomes
obscured by the darkness of self-hate, a
result of sin. It might help to understand
what sin is.

What is sin? Sin is to go against God and

our own divine nature as spirit children of
God. Sin is to rebel against Go, but it is also
to rebel against one's own divine spiritual
nature. Sin fills one with darkness, which is
spiritual poison. When we sin, we hurt
ourselves more than anyone else. It is a
rejection of self, and is a reflection of a
spiritual self-hate. We are all starving or
spiritual food, nourishment, nurturing,
edification. Spiritual self-hate is the rejection
and the attempt to destroy our divine spirit
natures by sin.

All babies are pure and innocent before God.

Where do they get their first dose of
darkness and self-hate? The irony of life is
that they get it in the same place they get
their first dose of light, spiritual self love, in
the home, from their parents. Evil is a
product of sin. It is darkness, or spiritual
poison. Since little children are not evil by
nature, they must learn to be evil. Evil then
is a learned behavior which is learned in the
home first, and that is the irony of life. In
other words the same place we as innocent
babies are to learn self-love, is the same
place we learn self-hate; i.e., in the home.
The home is supposed to be the very
foundation of love and goodness, a safe
haven for all whole dwell there. But instead
of just learning self-love by being loved
properly by goodly parents, the child also
learns self-hate from those same parents. It
is given over from parent to child in the form
of self hate, reflected in shame, abuse,
criticism, guilt, control, lofty expectations,
neglect, indifference, lack of
positive/constructive self discipline, too lax
discipline, over indulgence, perversion (the
erotic form of self-hate), intimidation,
impatience, rudeness, deceit, selfishness,
fear, doubt, distrust, needlessly broken
promise, needlessly shattered dreams,
needlessly broken commitments, spite,
jealousy, bad mouthing, belittling,
discouragement, negativity, poor examples,
and any other negative feed back parents
give their children.
So the sins of the parents are passed down
upon the heads of their children unto
subsequent generations. Evil then is
transfered from parent to child, the parent
having received it from their parents. This
process we could refer to as transference of
evil. It is a very spiritually pernicious cycle.
This continues until someone has enough
insight, self-love, and courage, usually
learned from else where outside the home
since it is not taught in the home. We can
call these courageous people chain
breakers. They break the chain of abuse
and self-hate. Chain breakers break the
vicious cycle and choose to respond
differently from their parents, and all of their
parents' predecessors.

The process of transference has two sides,

the flip side of hate is of course love. Love
in its ultimate form is to spiritually nurture
self or another to help them gain eternal life.
Eternal life is the kind of life our Heavenly
Father , God, lives. It is the ultimate
expression of love to obtain eternal in and
through the atonement of Jesus Christ.
The transference of love involves: long
suffering, gentleness, meekness, love
unfeigned, kindness,virtue, all of which
comprise charity, which is the true form of
self love. Charity is the pure love of Christ
and is only given to those who are true
followers of Jesus Christ.

It is important to note that we can to give

what we do not have. We can not teach that
which we do not know. Therefore, to teach
self-love, to give our children self-love, we
must first possess self-love, otherwise it can
not be done. All true love, charity,comes
from God, from our Lord and Savior Jesus
Chris, who is the author of our salvation. The
greatest desire of our Heavenly Father and
His son Jesus Christ is that we all gain
eternal life. "For this is my work and glory,"
He told Moses, "to bring to pass the
immortality and eternal life of man." It stands
to reason that this is His ultimate expression
of love for all of us.

The Savior's ultimate expression of love is

wrapped up in the atonement, where he bore
the burden of our sins for us if we would but
repent and come unto Him with full purpose
of heart. It also stands to reason that this is
the ultimate expression of love we can show
each other and ourselves. Therefore, true
love is to spiritually nurture another to help
them gain eternal life. In this way we serve
the Lord's purposes, each other, and
ourselves.

By nurturing others we also nurture

ourselves. By teaching self-love, we also
increase our love for self. We need to
acentuate the positive as much as possible,
whenever possible, both in ourselves and
others. If a person or people becomes
thoroughly evil though, the only way to deal
with them is now the Lord has dealt with
them in the past, to bring them to a
knowledge of their awful guilt, not to accept
their evil, but to bring them to a knowledge of
who they really are and how they are
destroying themselves. Sin besides being a
form of self-hate is also a form of self-
destruction, and in the Lord's time and by the
Lord's will they will be destroyed, if they don't
end up destroying themselves first, unless
they repent.

The world is starved for spiritual food.

Those who have that food to give, true
followers of Jesus Christ are obligated and
have the opportunity to nourish the souls of
others. When we nourish the souls of
others, when we spiritually nurtue them to
help them gain eternal life, the we do the
same for ourselves.

Remember, self hate is anything we choose

to do, say, think, believe, or even feel that
interferes with our eternal progression, that
hinders our obtaining eternal life and
interferes with our relationship with our
Heavenly Father, which feels us with
darkness instead of light. Whereas, self love
is nurturing oneself in order to gain eternal
life. As said above, we are all starving for
spiritual food which is nurturance, edification,
it is up to us to feed that need and then to
feed it to others if they will but accept it from
us. Many are so full of self-hate and
darkness that they are closed to all of this.
First we must obtain self-love by becoming
true followers of Jesus Christ, through
unconditional love as we define as charity,
the pure love of Christ. Then we need to
teach this love to others mainly by loving
them unconditionally the way the Savior
loves us. In its ultimate form, this self-love is
turned into selfless love for others. When
we have this self love we will no longer do
things to spiritually hurt ourselves or others,
we will want to do those things which edify,
nurture, and nourish our spirits in order to
gain eternal life, obtained through the
atonement of Jesus Christ, the ultimate act
of His selfless love.

Everyone gets a mix of self-hate and self-

love from our parents to varying degrees. In
psychological terms to as positive and
negative reinforcements, or light and
darkness. We could also call it truth and
lies, good and evil. Our society is reluctant
to label evil evil and good good. Too often it
labels evil good, and good evil. The
scriptures say woe unto those who do this
because they are ripening for destruction, in
fact they are destroying themselves. Good
can not be evil and evil can not be good.
Those who embrace evil, perversion,
darkness, etc., and let it become their life,
can not do good, but even though at times
they appear to be benign, they are very
dangerous, they are ravenous wolves in
sheep's clothing, and a society that
embraces such is ripening for destruction, in
fact it is destroying itself.

Too often our society cares little for the

spiritual welfare of its denizens,which may
be one of the greatest evils ever perpetrated
on mankind. In fact, society seems to be a
vehicle for the spread of evil/darkness, with
its focus on temporal things. So we learn
self hate from our peers, teachers, clergy,
neighbors, society our culture, strangers,
and eventually even our spouses. We also
learn some self-love, which helps to
compensate. But it all begins in the home
with our parents. Many suffer more than
they shold because of this.

People outside the home can have both

positive and negative influence on us.
Hopefully there are those out there whom
the Lord sends to us with compassion in
their hearts to compensate for what we get
in the home, or don't get. As President
DAvid O'Mckay once said: "No other
success can compensate for failure in the
home." It is where our focus needs to be
first and foremost. The gospel of Jesus
Christ is the cure for all of society's ills and
short comings, especially when applied in
the home with Christ like love.

Unfortunately, in marriage you have two

people coming together who have been
taught their own version and mixture of self-
love and self-hate. Hopefully, we marry a
companion who fills in our blank areas, who
compensate where parents, family, peers,
and society as whole have failed. It is a sad
truth that usually this is not the case. So we
find increased divorce rates. With married
couples who want a quick fix and are
unwilling to do what it takes for spiritual
healing to take place.

More evil has been done in the name of

marriage, family and religion perhaps by any
other means. This doesn't mean that we
abandon these institutions. What it does
mean is that we must repent and utilize
these institutions for the righteous people for
which they were designed, to bring to pass
the immortality and eternal life of man and
woman; which is God's desire for all of us
and comes in and only through the
atonement of Jesus Christ as contained in
the gospel of Jesus Christ.This is where true
spiritual healing takes place, but we need to
help one another to obitain that, to find our
way. We can not do it alone, nor were we
meant to.

There is a void in all of our lives we fill with

either darkness or light, sin or righteousness.
Evil creates this void which we try to fill with
temporal things, but also with sin which fills
us with darkness and eve more self-hate and
an even larger void, in an ever increasing,
spiritually destructive pernicious cycle of
self-destruction. The only way to reverse
this process is by repentance, which is
turning away from darkness to the Savior
with full purpose of heart. This is so we
might be filled with light and truth, healed
and made whole by the blood of the Lamb,
to become pure in heart. We need to
become pure in heart so we can become
one heart and one mind with those who
been made pure through the blood of Christ,
true followers of Jesus Christ, even Zion. In
this way, as we come unto Christ, to know
Him, we come to know our own true divine
spirit natures, as sons and daughters of
God, heirs to the kingdom of our Father in
Heaven. In this way we become part of
Christ, even as he becomes part of us,
having purchased us all through his blood.

We need to keep ourselves as pure in heart

as possible, pure from all spiritual darkness
and evil, which comes from sin and pursuit
of temporal thing s which are illusions and
cannot fill our most dire needs. The Savior
offers spiritual healing through His
atonement. All temporal things have a
spiritual analog, and vice versa. For
example, the great disease/pestilence
spoken of in the scriptures that will infect the
earth in these latter days could very well be
sexual perversion, and its temporal analog
could very well be AIDS and any other
venereal disease known to man. Gaining
physical weight could be a reflection of
gaining spiritual burdens, losing spiritual
burdens could very well help on e lose
physical weight, or at least give someone the
desire to do so.

Marriage is meant to edify and nurture, and

not to punish or degrade. Yet, too often it is
used for the latter and not the former
purpose. So the most divine institution on
earth is twisted in such away as to serve the
purposes of darkness and hate, becoming a
tool of evil and not for the good it was
intended for. This can become so bad that
the spouse becomes a big negative in your
life, especially spiritually; and there appears
no hope for the future.

If this is the case then it is time for a change.

It is up to the individual, and where possible
the couple, in counsel with the Lord to
determine what that change should be.
Sometimes it might even require that we
leave the abusive spouse and seek healing
elsewhere. No one should endure abuse, it
is not part of God's plan for us. His plan is
one of joy and happiness, while abuse
breeds misery and degradation. President
Kimball says the ting we should do is repent,
do better, seek forgiveness, heal the
wounds, be more Christ like.

But what if one spouse refuses to repent?

What then? That is a very difficult situatgion
to face, and in the extreme may require
extreme action, even leaving an abusive
spouse that would destroy us eventually if
we don't do just that. God does not expect
us to be martyrs for marriage and remain in
an abusive marriage with no hope of the
abuse ever ending. In this case we need to
take seek the Lord's guidance in humble
prayer, and follow the inspiration of the Holy
Ghost. We don't need to continually subject
ourselves to the evil machinations of a sick,
perverse spouse. We should counsel with
the Lord in all our doings and he will direct
us for good. He will show us the way out of
a bad marriage or send an angel of earth to
help us find our way out, and back to him.

One thing all married people should do when

they have marital problems is to ask the
question: "Lord, is it I?" In other words, what
am I doing to help create the problem in the
marriage. The proactive question to ask is:
"What can I do to solve this problem?"
Sometimes the only answer is to leave the
abusive spouse and seek help in healing
elsewhere. Sometimes marriage counseling
will help. Always, no matter what the
solution is, we need to draw nearer the Lord
and seek healing in his tender care.
Sometimes he might send one of earth's
angels to help us do what he knows we must
to escape the abuse.
In marriage it is seldom one spouse that is
the problem, most problems involve both
spouses, even adultery, which is often an act
committed by a spouse who is not getting
what is needed or wanted at home. The
degree of responsibility is different for each
marriage, but rarely is it one sided. In the
circumstance where abuse is involved and
the abuse is destructive to one or both, often
the only thing that can be done is to leave,
and that is sanctioned by the Lord. God
loves us, and does not want his children to
endure the abuse of a spouse who can not
or will not love us the way God has designed
in marriage. But even if the only solution is
to leave an abusive spouse we still have a
responsibility to forgive the abusive spouse.
We don't need to endure their evil behavior,
as it may end up destroying us. But God
says we need to forgive, not just for the
spouses sake, but for our own spiritual good
health and healing. We need to rid
ourselves of our own bitterness towards the
evil, abusive spouse so that our lives are no
longer poisoned by the abuse. But if we do
nothing to end abuse where it occurs, then
we have become part of the problem, and
change is necessary for our mental,
emotional, and spiritual good health. God
can expect no more of us than to leave an
abusive relationship when all hope to heal is
lost.

In this case there is a responsibility to the

abused to do what is necessary to end the
abuse. If the only thing one can do to end
the abuse is to get out, then do it. Do not let
yourself become the target of someone
else's excessive outward expression of their
own self-hate. Don't let their self-hate be
transfered to you. Don't believe the lie they
bought into. Seek the truth, preserve your
temporal and spiritual well being by getting
away from danger, and then seek spiritual
healing at the hands of the Savior, through
his perfect love, by the blood of the Lamb
that was shed from every pore for us.

We all need to forgive our spouse, even if

we can no longer live with them and feel
safe, we must forgive. This is more for our
own sake than theirs. But we do not and
should not endure their abuse. Sometimes
this takes the form of praying for a
dangerous, pernicious, erring spouse. The
abused would do well to learn that they
should not allow someone else's self hate to
be the basis for their own. There is a
healing power and magic in forgiveness that
transcends pain and heals wounds.
Sometimes we need to seek strength from
the Lord to do this. Repentance does this
too. All spiritual healing comes in and
through the atonement of Jesus Christ, who
descended beneath all things and suffered
all we did and more. He knows our pain,
and if we but turn to him he will ease our
pain and heal our sorrowing hearts and
make us whole again. The atonement of
Jesus Christ makes us one with Christ and
also one with our own true divine spiritual
natures. It is to embrace the reality of Christ
and self that makes us spiritually whole
again and heals our deepest wounds. That is
what we all need to seek. For in the Savior
we will find true spiritual healing. We will
find eternal life. We will have eternal joy.
That I know and testify of in the name of
Jesus Christ. Amen.