My Life: Mucky and Mired

My Life: Mucky and Mired
Robert Haggard

Here is what should have been said yesterday, a day that in time fades, but at present is pertinent to life. Yesterday, one of the greatest and woefully dreaded days, marked one year since being back from my mission. Time has been kindly cruel and cruelly kind to me over the past year. Joy, bitterness, discovery, loss, glee, sorrow, hopeful, despairing, jovial, miserable, monumental, minuscule, and before draining the dictionary, it has been fantastic! Inevitably the day would dawn where life continued past the point of imagining, where the prospect of infinite dawns is now shadowed by yet another span of eternal mystery before us. Yesterday was a marker of something unimaginable upon my departure, and yet as of today it was just another day. A seemingless unimportant day in the week, a Wednesday, the middle of someone else’s work week, someone’s birth, someone’s death, someone’s crisis, someone’s happiness, a beginning, an end, and for me, it was my monument.

Iconically it stood as the epitome of accomplishment, that I had served the Lord, that I had made it this far and had put my shoulder to the wheel. Dismally it marked the path of what was behind and made the journey look difficult and long ahead.  Once more, it was just another day. I worked, I played, I stressed, I loved, I overcame, I submitted, and I once again made it through to the next day, today. Despite all the troubles that befell me during my mission, despite the sewers of the world that figuratively and literally I must wade through, I stand here once more. I stand on the precipice of another day, another life, another eternity, another beautiful testament to my Heavenly Father’s love for me. All of this because I have pressed on.

The MTC taught me a few things, or more than a few as the roots rested firmly in the soil of my soul and mind, but it taught me an inside joke as well in the Referral Center of new missionaries as they are being dropped off into the wild world of the Missionary Training Center, the joke, “Day One.” A marvelous sight beheld by us veteran as the new missionaries embark on an adventure around the world, but for some odd reason, they are lost in the few acres that reside in Provo, Utah. All the mysteries, awe, excitement, faith, and miracles that await them around the world marred by the fear that encompasses them in those first long hours.

A pillow soaked in tears for the loss of home and family, eyes affrighted when you know not where the bookstore is, and minds bewildered when the languages of the world collide about you. So, once more, “Day One” was something I had learned, experienced, mocked, and embraced, but it was never something I imagined would happen again on September 16th, 2014 as I left the terminal in Los Angeles. There before me was the world, a whole new world, a new fantastic point of view. Fear seized my soul, terror shrank my heart, and I set out to find out who Robert would be this time around.

You see, the funny thing about it all is that I would never have imagined the joy and love that would soon fill my life. I had returned to a place that I would never have dreamt of being home to me, back to the filth that had always been my dread. Anger, hostility, irreverence, disdain, ignorance, and discontent accompanied by the profane rants that echoed the corridors. A spiritual high, the land of bountiful as my mission was, to the land of desolation as my new home was to be. Now I was to remain along the edges of the tranquil moments to transcend the mortal buffetings to once again commune with my Father whom I so longed to receive counsel and direction from.

I began to write a book, one that would emphasize the plan of happiness that Father created for us all. I explored the depths of my understanding to figure out the purpose of life, the meaning to our being placed upon the earth, the requisites to achieve the eternal destiny promised each of us, and where I was to trek next in this temporal sphere. I made some progress, but the tempests and whirlwinds of life distracted me from accomplishing that book. One of my goals in life is to write and publish a book, a book that is my testimony of the living word of God, and allow others to know why I believe. It saddens me to know that I haven’t finished that book, but it also helps me realize that a book has an ending, perhaps now isn’t the best of times to place my testimony as a “finished work.”

I fell in love. I met the girl of my dreams, and the girl I continue to dream about day in and day out. My soul was coupled with one so sweet and tender that I decided to marry her, and I will be marrying her for time and all eternity October 3rd. She sustains me, she uplifts my spirit, and she is one that I will strive to be worthy of and to love endlessly. There is a longer story of pursuit of that love, but she tells it a bit differently than I. She encourages and uplifts those around, she testifies through word and deed, she expresses love for Heavenly Father in ways that would astound you. I am lucky to be her companion throughout the obstacles and hurdles that so often befall us here on earth.

So you see, in the year since I have been home I have learned one simple principle that I will continue to teach others, obedience to our Father brings us joy and hope. I have had many moons to regret any disobedience on my mission, an even greater amount to regret any disobedience in youth, and now I am collecting my moons to testify that as you listen to God’s voice you will become perfect. You will taste of Christ’s perfect love for each of us. You will gain an appreciation of the everlasting and infinite atonement wrought by our Savior. You will understand that He lives, that Jesus is the Christ, and that there is ALWAYS a brighter and better day ahead.

With all of my heart I know that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the only path on which we can stride to return to the presence of Heavenly Father. With open arms our Father awaits us, tearfully and joyfully the obedient will inherit the long awaited reunion, and we will become joint-heirs with Christ.

The title of this post is “My Life: Mucky and Mired” which is misleading. My life, the beautiful and precious gift that it is, is one that will be washed and cleaned if I continue to love the Lord through my actions, thoughts, and desires. Obedience isn’t solely avoiding the bad, it is striving to do the good in the face of enormous opposition. The world would bind us and lie to us, but know that God would lead you in light and love until the day we overcome.