Making Hard Decisions

Interesting morning.

I announced my Vanguard "RENEW" retreat back in September-ish and have kept it in the back of my mind ever since. I have gone over it and planned out...or tried to.  I have certain things that are firm, but it occurred to me this morning that I cannot plan out the details until I know who is coming. I know it will be awesome. I know it is inspired.  It is the same kind of feeling when I started Vanguard.  The same kind of feeling before I went to Hungary.  It is right. It can just be a little daunting, inviting people to pay $500 on something I am putting together.  God and I are putting together.  Wait.  It is okay. It is right.

As I pulled up the internet to move forward with planning for it, I was touched by the series of videos brought to my attention on the side "line-up."  Even if you don't watch all the videos, look at the names of these videos:
"Having Courage and Trusting the Lord"

"For Such a Time as This"

"Bloom Where You Are Planted"

"You have to work. You can't just expect it to come."
"I've done all that I can.  I've studied. I've prayed.  I have asked the Lord to help me prepare. I've put it into the Lord's hands and I've put forth my effort. And He is going to take care of the rest of it."
"He builds us to accomplish His work."
"We're not doing it for ourselves.  We are doing it for others.  That is what the Savior wants."

"Living Beyond 'What If?'"

"God Gave Them Knowledge"

"You Never Know How Much Good You Do"

"The Impossible Dream"

I suggest that you stop feeling guilty about any insufficiency you think you have... Rather, pray “to stand as [a witness] of God.” This is a much stronger motivation than guilt.

"Finisher's Wanted" by Thomas S. Monson
I guess it is time to move forward with faith.

Joyous Noel

My heart is so full this morning.  I have had a beautiful week with Quinn's parents visiting us.  It has been full of peace and joy and memories.  I am going to miss them so much when they go. It has been a perfect lead up to one of the most sacred nights of the year.

Yesterday, I woke up sick.  Laying in bed all day helped me evaluate my priorities on that day. I spent some special time wrapping presents in a bedroom with my dear second mother while we talked, laughed and cried together.    We spoke of the joy and magic of children rising on Christmas morning and the joy that comes from the process of giving and receiving gifts.

I went back to bed for a few hours and got up in time to watch a little bit of George C. Scott's "Christmas Carol."  We had finished reading the story from Dickens a week ago and had been looking forward to watching it.  Towards the end of the film, the missionaries came to our door.  We welcomed them in and decided stop the video and re-enact our traditional nativity right then so they could be a part of it.  We separated into parts, Grandpa was our narrator and we began.  Hava was a beautiful Mary and we had the manger right in front of our big pile of presents. The location was beautifully symbolic of the ultimate gift given that Christmas night so many years ago.

At the part where we read about the angels coming to the shepherds we played the world's largest Hallelujah Chorus, one of my all time favorites.

You could almost imagine seeing these people as the angels singing in praise and glory that night of the Savior's birth!

We finished up the nativity, sang some songs, closed with prayer. It was beautiful.  Hava told me later that night that the story hadn't been really that special to her until that night when she was able to be Mary.  "It was so beautiful, Mommy!  It is so special!"  Yes, sweetie, it was.

I laid back down soon after that, pretty weak from sickness still.  I was able to watch the kids one by one head to bed.  As Drew passed towards the end, he told me about a youtube video that captured the whole meaning of the night, Josh Groban's nativity video.

Merry Christmas and joyous new year,... new life because of what happened that sacred night so many years ago.

Visiting Teaching: A Window to God's Love for Me

I just had a tender epiphany with regards to visiting teaching.

I was praying for each my sisters, by name and out loud...something I don't do very often, sadly.  As I did it, the challenges that were either before or within each sister came to mind.  As I prayed about one sister in particular, I reflected as I have so often on how similar the two of us are in areas that I am particularly weak.  The seemingly frustrating shortcomings that I see in her (the motes) I have come to see are huge beams in my own personality.  I have seen in the past how loving her despite those traits have been gateways to loving myself despite those same weaknesses; loving her (and myself) while she has the weakness and not just after she conquers it.

As I reflected on that this morning once again, my mind's eye opened and I saw those challenges of my sisters (bitterness, busy-ness, independence, frustration with limits, etc.) were all reflections of things I struggle with.  Immediately the Spirit brought to my mind the scripture shared by the missionaries in our home last night:

Moroni 7: 47 But charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him.

 48 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as he is pure. Amen.

It came to my mind last night as we shared this scripture that as we seek to love like God, truly love others as He would, we will feel His great love for them.  And as we feel this great love, we will not approach the throne of God with fear and trembling but we shall look up at His face and see that same love for us that we felt for others, that same love that:

...suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things...(verse 45)

 We shall be eager to see our God, knowing how much He loves us in spite of our many weaknesses, just as we have shown an imperfect version of that love to our fellowmen.

I saw a connection with those I visit teach!!  When I come to love and reach out and accept those who struggle with those same things that I struggle with, I will be more accepting of my Father's love to me in those same scenarios.  I felt immediate confirmation that those sisters that I am called on to visit were truly and incredibly and perfectly inspired for me, individually.  As I come to love them, I will come to understand and see more clearly God "for him as he is,"  a merciful and loving God to all those who seek His face.

Visiting teaching?  Do I have time for it?  Now more than ever.  Is it important? Again, in more ways now that ever before.  For I am not only reaching out with the Lord's hands in love to others but I now realize that I am coming to understand more fully God's love for me.

The One Needful Thing

The Lord's Prayer in Luke starts with "Thy will be done."  Maybe the other accounts do as well, but this struck me. Some of our family members end with "thy will be done" or include it in the middle of a prayer after asking for something that could be beneficial or harmful (weather, healing).  But to put it at the beginning of the prayer, before you have even asked anything?  Hmmmmm....

So this morning, as I prayed, I inserted that phrase first and really thought about it.  What is the Father's will for my life today?   All of a sudden a few questions that have been floating around in my mind came together.

That is the one needful thing!  Not to help my children come to know God, learn more, to serve my neighbor...although those are all part of it.  The one needful thing that Christ was suggesting...could it be to come to know God?  I mean, if we know Him, really know Him, we will know what He would do.

That kind of connection is when you attain that oneness that is between the Father and the Son.  That kind of knowledge is the one necessary as found in John 17:3: This is life eternal that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.  How do we come to know someone?  Well, by studying about them and then by doing what they would do!  It is that phrase "WWJD" that we saw on all the necklaces and t-shirts a few years ago: What would Jesus do? because Jesus is the one that we (as humanity on this earth) saw as the living embodiment of what God would have done if He were walking the earth.

Elder Holland has a great talk about that, the "Grandeur of God," where he talks about how one of the missions of Christ was to come down and show us how God would act and how God would love and how God would forgive if we could see Him.

To know God enough to know what He would do and then to do it?  Wow.  That is a whole new question and phrase of prayer.  That automatically includes all the best things: loving family, forgiving, serving...even cleaning up the house, painting and doing family history and making gifts!  God does all of these things in one sense or another.  The key is knowing when is the right time to do it...the inspired, non-anxious way (although we are to be anxiously engaged in a good cause, but then maybe that kind of anxious doesn't include our modern plague of anxiety?).  Anyway...it left me thinking and I would welcome any thoughts or insights others may have, as always :).
 

Finding Joy Amidst the Thorms

I was just kneeling down to pray and I felt God ask the question again:

Mary, what is it that you really want?

My answer felt immediate: to have my children come to You and know the joy that is found there.

His response? Have you found the joy?  How can your children know of the joy if they don't see any evidence of it in your own attitude?

It made me think: God promises us that our burdens will be easy and light in this life.  It doesn't mean that they won't exist.  Troubles, trials, privations, testing...they are all a part of this existence.

But if we were truly to turn to God in each and every one of those instances--through praying, scripture study, etc.--I can't think of an example in which turning to Him wouldn't make it better, wouldn't give us more peace and perspective.

We can have peace and joy now.  If we want our children to walk the path to joy through obedience, really want to, the most effective way is to show that joy ourselves.

And stop worrying about being perfect!!!!  God's promises of peace, joy and rest in this life are never based upon our level of "doing things right."  The only thing we have to do is get down on our knees, be humble and as Gordon B. Hinckley put it, "Try...but you have to really try."

I can try. I can recognize my faults.  Why is the tricky part falling on my knees more often and then just smiling when life goes as it has gone every day for the past 40 years, full of unexpected set-backs, sudden messes, and emotional instability?

If I want my children to find the joy, maybe I should spend more time thinking about my own search and spend less time hustling them on their way with urgency...rather lead like a shepherd. Joyfully and confidently.  If we know there is joy at the end of a trial-ridden path, why do we doubt?  Why do we fear?  If we know we are supposed to be tested, why do we look on those tests as marks of our inadequacy rather than opportunities to learn and grow?