He told me his whole back story that led up to the situation. He was at the lowest emotional point in his life (key point here) and he believes this 14 yr old boy gave him a renewed sense of hope. His wife at the time was an alcaholic. He started having one on one time with this boy. This boy's father ran off and has no contact with his kids. This boy was a nerd and bullied at school. My friend and this boy would go to sports events and shopping and out to eat. All with the permission of his wife and the boys mom. This one on one time started out as a nephews friend tagging along to sports events. Then my friend thought he was being a father figure to this boy. Soon they were calling each other son and a spanish word for father. All with the thought he was being of service to this boy and all with permission from his wife and this boys mother. Now an out of town sports event was coming up and my friends nephew and this boy were invited to go with him. The day before they were to leave the nephew was not able to go. So my friend had a decision here, cancel or go ahead and go alone with this boy. He asked his wife and the boys mother and both said it was ok. So they went on a road trip with 2 nights. They had a great time nothing happend. The town gossip found out and started to spread rumors. The wife called the police and filed a report. Everyone was questioned, computer was confiscated, but no evidence was found. The wife finally asked for a devorce. My friend is still in contact with this boy, but they no long have their "activities". I told my friend, this is why the church has the 2 deep leadership policy and that policy should be enacted outside of the church as well. I then asked him would he make that same decision if it came up again with the same cercumstances. He said he would. Which disturbs me greatly. You cannot say because you're an old man, married, have permission or a high priest that you are immune to temptations. My friend cried as he talked about how much he loves this boy like a son and wouldn't be able to continue the relationship. I told my friend this is how the adversary works, waits for the most vulnerable time in his life when he felt no love from any adult or from God. Then orchestrates these situations. On this earthlife it is innapropriate for an adult to be alone with a non family child, period. Does not matter who you are. Does not matter if intentions are service oriented. The outcome either way is a win win for the adversary, because if nothing happens, you're destroyed by rumors and are outcasted by everyone, until you give up. Now my friend told me before all this happend when he was at his lowest point in his life, he felt no love from any adult or from God and he said he quit praying, reading scriptures etc. but kept going to church. Now, this is a key point to remember because my hubby felt the same way, even tho he had so many that loved him, he could not feel the love and acceptance from anyone. I suspect my hubby quit praying also. When you are in this dark hole of dispare you are very vulnerable to the adversaries tricks. I claim this as very unfair. But it's a sad fact while on this earth. My brain has been spinning these thoughts around and around. Why do we constantly seek love and acceptance from others as our only way to be happy???? I know we all crave acceptance and when we don't measure up, we fall into this dark hole and become easy prey. So, what do we do? What can be said to these people who thrive on the love and acceptance of others to be happy? As I ponder this thought, I can only come to one conclusion, we have to first love and accept ourselves, we have to be our own best friend. The most important commandments are
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, this is the first and great commandment.
“And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. What does the "as thyself" part mean? Could it mean that if we do not love ourselves first, how can we appropriately love our neighbor? or even God for that matter? Love God, love thy neighbor and love thyself. These 3 elements are vital to our happiness on this earth, they are intrinsically intwined and one cannot exist without the other 2. If we hate ourselves, we cannot serve our neighbors with the right attitude and we can't fully love our Heavenly Father. So when we find ourselves caught in this vicious cycle, what to do to get back on track? It's not our neighbors fault nor God's fault when we don't feel loved. How do you love yourself? Do we as parents really teach that to our children? How to love and accept themselves? So if you grew up not feeling loved or accepted as a child, how do you break that? or maybe it was the opposite. You grew up feeling loved then somewhere along the way didn't feel that anymore. How does one learn how to love themselves? Because it cannot come from the outside. You can't love yoursef because someone else loves you. That may work for a little while. But people are not perfect and will fail you and if your self worth was hitched on their love and acceptance of you, you will fall. I don't have an answere. Personally I have written on my bathroom mirror. I Like Who I Am and Heavenly Father Loves Me. I read it everyday and I believe it. In my oppinion the order should be love Heavenly Father, then love thy self then love thy neighbor, which I think is what the as thyself means, but not really noticed, because it's a play on words. Love others as much as we love ourseves, so we should love ourselves first right? Now to tell my friend this without making it worse. He needs to know that what he did was wrong and to never do it again.
