The Staff Has Been Raised

Yesterday, at the end of the day, I was having so many negative thoughts:

-I can't get ahead

-I am not meeting the needs of my kids

The mud room was still torn apart from my "cleaning"...without inspiration on how to put it together again. Liesl was screaming after a day of shortened naps so I wasn't able to focus on anything, particularly the phone call with Tova that I was trying to have with a sore ear. I just felt dark and negative.

Then I realized that I had been here emotionally before! For years when I was a young mom, I would say to Quinn, when he came home from work, "I have had a long day." I was back!

Last night, in the middle of the night, as I struggled with these demons of depression, the message from last conference struck home: read the Book of Mormom; say your prayers; so the basics. I have been mulling over this in my mind. Tova's devotional covered the same message yesterday at college. I feel like the serpent has been raised on the staff and we are all dying around it because of the easiness of the way. So, last night, in the middle of the night, demons raging, I lay on the floor on my kid's floor and by the light of the nightlight, I read 1 Nephi 17.

In that chapter, Laman and Lemuel are complaining again despite the many miracles that have been demonstrated in their lives. I was gently rebuked, reminded that God can work miracles in my life and in fact has worked them around me currently if I open my eyes to see them...and here I was murmuring like Laman and Lemuel! "What I have is not enough!"

In that chapter there is a series of verses where Nephi challenges the disbelief of his brethren and the words rang true for me:"And now after the many miracles that have been wrought in your life, how can you murmur against the marvelous visions that God has promised for us in this life? If God said that I could make this valley a mountain and dry up the sea, I could do that...so why can't He not bring peace and joy into your life?" (Greatly paraphrasing and personally adapting...)

So how to find this joy?

I am going to test this. Every time I feel discouraged, sad, overwhelmed or depressed, I am going to turn first to God and "look at His staff," the word of God. The seed is planted.

Hair in the Drain

I thought I would be transparent as to the content for those whose stomachs roil at the thought of such delights as are in the title (Dad :D...)

A few years ago I was on a "date" with Quinn, which essentially means that we are together with no children. :D  He was doing an appraisal at the time and I was wandering around this beautiful little property in town.  The random thought came to mind: "All things testify that there is a Christ."

And, good Christian that I am, my thoughts replied: Oh yah?  Right.  I am a little bit of a challenger/skeptic when it comes to, well, pretty much anything that isn't from a source I have tested and tried (like the prophet, church, etc.) and I thought I was carrying this literal interpretation a little too far.

So I tried it.

And I found Christ-centered application to Gospel principles in everything I saw: from the spring buds on the plum tree to the grass growing through the cracks in the sidewalk.  As my mind pondered in wonder, the thought came: "You are just contriving these."  Well, the fact was that the truths are certain--uncontrived--and if cracks in the sidewalk remind me of God's love for me? That can't be bad.

This morning, I was dealing with my usual struggle during "doing my hair": hair breaking off all over the place.  The nature of my thick naturally curly hair to break off has remained through all kinds of hair treatment experiments so it is just the way it is. 

Unfortunately for my drains.

It is crazy how just a few strands here and there, innocently washed down the sink, can catch and hold further down and really stop things up later.  As I carefully caught the loose strands entwined in my fingers before I rinsed my hands, throwing them in the garbage, I wondered at how something so little can be so annoying later.

It's kind of like sin, Mary, came the thought. Just a little bit, seemingly innocent, can really "stop your drains" later.

Truths of Christ testified in all things, indeed! was my chuckling internal reply.

Alma 30:39 Now Alma said unto him: Will ye deny again that there is a God, and also deny the Christ? For behold, I say unto you, I know there is a God, and also that Christ shall come.

40 And now what evidence have ye that there is no God, or that Christ cometh not? I say unto you that ye have none, save it be your word only.

41 But, behold, I have all things as a testimony that these things are true; and ye also have all things as a testimony unto you that they are true; and will ye deny them? Believest thou that these things are true?