God Can Be Found In The Gray Areas

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I am reading the book Silent Souls Weeping by Jane Clayson Johnson, and I recommend it.  Today I was reading about someone named Kara who struggles with perfectionism and depression.  She said:

"Perfectionists, we deal in the black and white.  There's no gray area.  It's all or nothing.  And that's Satan's plan.  Heavenly Father wants us to live in the gray areas where there's mercy and love, compassion, charity."

Those of us who struggle with perfectionism can feel like we should be able to be perfect right now, but Heavenly Father always knew that we would need a lot of practice.  Growth takes time.  Learning takes time.  I've often had the feeling that surely, if I just think hard enough, I will be able to figure out how to never mess up.  I want to be like the child prodigy who can play the piano perfectly without the hours and hours of practice usually required, except I want to be like that for all of life, and I sometimes have felt like a failure when I couldn't do it.  In these moments, I am forgetting that Heavenly Father did not mean for life to be that way.  It is through our imperfections that we learn and find that God provides help, strength, knowledge, capacity, forgiveness, mercy, and all good things.

The quote above reminded me of a discussion I had years ago with someone who was struggling with his faith.  He said he had always thought things were black and white but that he felt things were more like Billy Joel's song that says, "Shades of gray wherever I go, the more I find out the less that I know."

There are many, many people who struggle with questions, who feel stuck in this gray area where they can't quite see what is right, and what to do or think.  They feel alone, and might even feel ashamed for struggling and having questions.  But it is in that very struggle and working through all of those hard questions with faith that we gain strength, and can eventually find, and come to know God.  In all of life it is in those gray areas, in those daily struggles of life, and in the real challenges we have, that we can best find the God of mercy, love, compassion, and charity.

***Used by permission from churchofjesuschrist.org