Guided By The Holy Ghost

Virtue #2

When we keep our covenants we are promised the blessing of the Gift of the Holy Ghost who can act as a guide and warning voice to us in our lives. The journaling part asks me to write an entry of a time I felt guided by the Holy Ghost. I have written that for another entry. I think for this one, I will write about a time I was specifically NOT guided.

I feel like I am fairly aware of my standing with the Lord on a daily basis. I am pretty good at sensing when I am close to Him and when I am further away. While this varies hour by hour to some degree, I don't stray too far from a general vicinity. I can feel it when I do something that offends the Spirit and it withdraws. I am so used to feeling the Spirit as my companion, even if only subtly in the background, that I am sensitive to it's withdrawl. It is a terrible feeling to me.

So I know that back in the summer of 2008 I was not too far from the Spirit to not hear Him warn me. I had felt His warning promptings about things in powerful ways not long before that fateful day in June. And yet THAT day - the day my daughter drowned. There was no warning voice. It wasn't that the Spirit withdrew from me. It was just a silence from the heavens.

I sometimes have dreams that later happen. I had a dream the night before that Camille drowned. But I totally forgot the dream that day. It didn't come into my consciousness until I saw her floating in the hot tub. In that moment the dream from the previous night came rushing back. The details were different but the drowning the same.

I guess I choose to share this because knowing that, while I wasn't living perfectly, I was close enough to Spirit to be warned, and feeling a total SILENCE and a blockage of my memory of dream until after I found Camille, well that helped me. It helped me to cope with the guilt because it helped me believe that this was all part of some greater plan I could not see.

I won't lie. There is still a lingering sense of ... I am not sure what to call it. It isn't exactly guilt and remorse isn't really the right word. All I know if that when I think of what I would say if I were to see Camille again the very first thing that comes to mind is "I'm so sorry." But not I'm sorry for what I did to you kind of sorry. It's the I'm sorry you had to go through that and that I wasn't there to save you or be with you or that I failed to sufficiently protect you. I'm sorry you didn't get to grow up and I didn't get to watch you grow up. I'm sorry we had to be seperated. I'm just ... sorry.

So knowing that I was worthy and NOT guided to do something that would have prevented that tragedy helps me cope. I hope always to live closely enough to the Holy Ghost to be warned and so I may know if I am unwarned about a trial, it must be one of those necessary for my development.