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An Open Letter to My Fellow Mortals, Caught in Addiction or not:
May I conclude by sharing with you the text of a letter originally composed and shared with a fellow mortal concerning your true nature—what you were like before you took on this challenge of mortality with all its distractions and detours (temptations to replace God with something or someone else as your source of hope and strength.)
Your mind has a direct link to the same Being who created the Universe—even Jesus Christ. (D&C 93:2). It is your truest, deepest (premortal) nature to long for this connection with Him and to follow Him. In fact, even as Lehi was shown, you came into this “dark and dreary wilderness,” by following the Lord into mortality (1 Nephi 8:5-7). Cry out now, as Lehi did (v.8.). No matter how long you’ve wandered in darkness, the Lord longs to bless you with His perspective—His Faith, His Hope, His Peace, His Counsel, His Comfort.
You must look to Christ as the personification of the answer to your every prayer, the fulfillment of your every need. Ahead of your spouse, your friends, your professional counselors, . . . ahead of any other living soul. Only He has the words of Eternal Life (John 6:68.). His words are as one with the Father’s own mind and will and words. Know that your Father in Heaven is answering your prayers through His Son Jesus Christ.
Faith in Jesus Christ (not just faith in general, not just faith in anyone or anything besides Him) opens your direct access to His Light and His grace—or in other words, to His revelations and His power to carry through with living by those revelations—can be drawn on with complete certainty. When we follow His counsel, accept His comfort, seek His word and His power to obey His word (revelations to us), then all gifts from the Father through Him, including the Holy Ghost (John 14:26; John 15:26), will be ours as is expedient in His will (D&C 18:18.)
As we head into this conference weekend, I pray that we will all come to realize that we must—without exception, addict and family member of addict alike—work out our own salvation in only one way—by coming to Christ and being perfected in (and by) Him.
~Colleen H.
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