This one is for you...

Last week, we had our monthly second meeting in Medina.  Yes, that means we not only go to our usual three hour block of worship from 10-1 in Lockport, but we also gather with many of the same saints and go to two hours of church from 5-7 and then have a "linger longer."  Five hours of church.  I don't mind it, but the little ones start losing it a bit.

Well, for that second meeting, the first hour is a fast and testimony meeting with a few specific invited testimonies and a closing testimony by one of the priesthood leaders.  This last week, I was invited to share and I was excited! I love sharing my testimony and really only don't do it every time because I want to make sure other people get the chance.  Even then I do it pretty regulary.  There is such a rush that comes with bearing testimony of God and his wonders and miracles, being something of an imperfect mouthpiece and watching Him work His wonders through me.  I love it.

Well, this Sunday I felt prompted to share part of Uchtdorf's talk, "You Matter to Him":

This is a paradox of man: compared to God, man is nothing; yet we are everything to God. While against the backdrop of infinite creation we may appear to be nothing, we have a spark of eternal fire burning within our breast. We have the incomprehensible promise of exaltation—worlds without end—within our grasp. And it is God’s great desire to help us reach it....

What mattered to Him was that I was doing the best I could, that my heart was inclined toward Him, and that I was willing to help those around me. I knew if I did the best I could, all would be well.

The Lord doesn’t care at all if we spend our days working in marble halls or stable stalls. He knows where we are, no matter how humble our circumstances. He will use—in His own way and for His holy purposes—those who incline their hearts to Him.

I spoke of Enoch, in the Book of Moses, who hesitated to work in the name of God: "Surely you don't want me, Lord.  I am slow of speech and the people hate me!"  I testified that it doesn't matter our weaknesses.  God will work His wonders through us...and will make it work out  beautifully.

As I looked around the congregation, I saw dry eyes.  Nodding heads, smiles...yes, but not the  "I've been moved" looks that I have felt blessed to see in the past.  Hmmm, I thought.  Something is missing.  Something is different.  Did I err? I silently pled with Father above. No, He said.  You will see.

Friday rolled along and I sort of lost it.  I felt like I wanted to really push the rooms upstairs and get some done.  Let's throw some paint on those walls! I rejoiced.  And then it just didn't get done.  It was a day, it felt like, of just "not getting things done."  Now, I know that things are not going to go as fast as you plan on. I knew that from the start.  I have seen that as we are still not completely done on our bathroom and just barely had a shower as of last Saturday. If anyone says "projects like this always take longer than you plan on" one more time, I will hopefully not scream or shoot daggers through my eyes at them, but it will be hard!!  However, these hurdles just seemed to be the final straw...at least them most recent "final straw." :)  I was angry. I was frustrated. No matter what I put my hand to, yesterday, I felt an obstacle and inability to move forward, from trying to get a quote for car insurance (flopped online with "need to call an agent for this complicated of a quote" and then "after hours" message on the phone even though I was calling during business hours), to mudding and sanding our first "almost done" room upstairs.  I was just missing things or not perfect enough to get the job done the way it was supposed to be done.

I felt bound by invisible cords and no matter what direction I tried to move in to get something done, it felt like moving through hardening cement and then immobility.  Ach!  I started walking in circles pushing the stroller with the three babies around and around, the circling symbolic of the circles I felt like I was going in in my life.  So mad!  So frustrated.

Then my talk came back to me: "I am able to do My work, through and despite your imperfections." His work.  Helping us settle in New York.  Sharing the gospel.  Having a home that we can share it from.  Creating a home where we can feel peace...or at least a place where I can get out our books and read them!  A place where we can eat without dirt under our feet.

As I write this, I realize my ingratitude.  How many humble homes throughout the world are like this, with families happily and contentedly living out their lives in "less than desirable" conditions.  He can do His work...it doesn't matter what resources I think I do (or don't) have.

This talk was definitely for me.

Macbeth and Emotions

To be able to not only recognize emotions and pain but to acknowledge them openly and seek to identify what is really happening is a powerful skill...one I am still working on.

It is interesting how God works with us.  For the past few nights I have awakened for a 4 am feeding with the baby unable to sleep. Powerful thoughts and emotions course through my mind and body as I struggle with an ongoing situation in my life.  I am awake for a few hours, catch a little more sleep, but spend too much of my days in a daze as I wage this inner, emotional war seeking for truth and resolution.


Well, this particular morning after feeding my wee one, I went out into the family room to download all my emotions onto my personal journal pages--seeking in the process a little more clarity, refinement and understanding of the maelstrom within.  As I pulled up my gmail to log-in, I felt drawn to the most recent article by Stephen Palmer: "Man Up." (Click for the link...worth the read.)

This article reminds me of one of my favorite scenes in Macbeth:  Macduff has just discovered that Macbeth, in retaliation against Macduff for fighting against him, has slaughtered everyone in Macduff's castle, including his wife and children.  Macduff is beside himself with grief and his new leader, Malcolm, basically says, "Buck up.  Be a man.  Let's go fight like men and be revenged." Move on, Malcolm is urging, and leave your womanly emotions behind!

Macduff's response touched me when I saw the performance on stage.

"I shall do so; But I must also FEEL it as a man."

Let me mourn, Macduff is pleading!  Let me feel these powerful emotions that course within me!  Let me identify them.  And in the process of acknowledging and identifying my pain, it will make me stronger to do what I must do.

The emotional warfare in my soul this morning is just beginning, but I hope it will be worth it.

--Da Vinci, "War"

NEVER underestimate the strength that comes with being able to acknowledge and deal with powerful emotions.

------------------------------------------------
(Here is the actual, cool Shakespearean version from "Macbeth" :)...)
ROSS    Your castle is surprised; your wife and babes
    Savagely slaughter'd: to relate the manner,
    Were, on the quarry of these murder'd deer,
    To add the death of you.
MALCOLM    Merciful heaven!
    What, man! ne'er pull your hat upon your brows;
    Give sorrow words: the grief that does not speak
    Whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break.    210
MACDUFF    My children too?
ROSS    Wife, children, servants, all
    That could be found.
MACDUFF    And I must be from thence!
    My wife kill'd too?
ROSS    I have said.
MALCOLM    Be comforted:
    Let's make us medicines of our great revenge,
    To cure this deadly grief.
MACDUFF    He has no children. (Love that line!  Amen!) All my pretty ones?
    Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?
    What, all my pretty chickens and their dam
    At one fell swoop?
MALCOLM    Dispute it like a man.
MACDUFF    I shall do so;    220
    But I must also feel it as a man
--
ACT IV SCENE III Macbeth, Shakespeare

What the Lord has in store for us...

I love the scripture I just read in the Book of Mormon and wanted to share:

And the Lord would not suffer that they should stop beyond the sea in the wilderness, but he would that they should come forth even unto the land of promise, which was choice above all other lands. (Ether 2:7)

Sometimes the Lord doesn't let us stop because He knows there are incredible vistas ahead.  Keep building those barges.  Don't give up.

And here is an amazing follow-up quote I read soon after that scripture:

"With mortal eyes, we might be tempted to envision that a more fitting path for such a man and such a moment would be a path of greater ease, efficiency, and acclaim. In recognition of the earth-shattering events about to happen as a consequence of this boy entering this town at this time, could not the Lord, who so carefully orchestrated the placement of the golden plates over a millennia earlier, have provided a straighter, more comfortable and heralded path of arrival?

Yes, He surely could have, but He did not.

There was no prominent, prophetic anointing of Joseph in his childhood (see 1 Samuel 16:11–13). There was no directive dream pointing him to a promised land (see 1 Nephi 5:4–5). There was no curious Liahona to help his family avoid missteps along the way (see 1 Nephi 16:10; Alma 37:38). And there certainly was no open-air limousine traveling along a sunny, streamlined parade route with cheering masses providing a triumphant welcome.

Rather, for Joseph and his family, there was a wildly meandering trail of sorrow marked with bad luck, ill health, poor judgment, natural disaster, crushing pain, callous injustice, continuing obscurity, and unrelenting poverty. This is not to suggest that the Smith family lived in one continual round of abject misery; they did not. But the path to Palmyra was anything other than direct, prosperous, and publicly notable. Lame, limp, and bloodied, the Prophet literally had to be carried to his unparalleled rendezvous with destiny by a nameless stranger.

Remember this as perhaps the first lesson of Joseph’s life and the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. In spite of failure, mishap, and bitter opposition—and in many cases precisely because of those things—Joseph Smith got exactly where he needed to be to fulfill his mission. So, if now or on some future day, you look around and see that other perhaps less-devoted acquaintances are succeeding in their jobs when you just lost yours; if major illness puts you on your back just at the moment critical tasks of service seem to come calling; if a call to a prominent position goes to someone else; if a missionary companion seems to learn the language faster; if well-meaning efforts still somehow lead to disaster with a fellow ward member, a neighbor, or an investigator; if news from home brings word of financial setback or mortal tragedy you can do nothing about; or if, day after day, you simply feel like a bland and beaten background player in a gospel drama that really seems made for the happiness of others, just know this: many such things were the lot of Joseph Smith himself at the very moment he was being led to the stage of the single most transcendent thing to happen on this earth since the events of Golgotha and the Garden Tomb nearly 2,000 years earlier.

“But,” you may say, “my life and earthly destiny will never be like that of the Prophet Joseph.”

That probably is true. But it is also true that your lives do matter to God, and your eternal potential and that of every soul you will meet is no less grand and significant than that of the Prophet Joseph himself. Thus, just like our beloved Joseph, you must never give up, give in, or give out when life in general, or missionary work in particular, gets utterly painful, confusing, or dull. Rather, as Paul teaches, you must see that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28; emphasis added).

Just as He did with young Joseph Smith, God is shaping and directing you every single day to ends more glorious than you can know!"

My Shepherd in the Valley of the Shadow of Death

This scripture takes on new meaning as I move forward to put on a series of homeschool presentations today...with potential contractions all day long:

1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

 2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

 3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

 4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

 5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

 6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

Gratitude, healing and farewells

I really don't know where to start.  It has been so long and so much has happened.

However, I feel I need to express the gratitude in my heart for the many lives that have touched mine and continue to bless me.  As we prepare to move to New York, I have had the chance to spend some meaningful times with many of the people that make my life beautiful, that have inspired me throughout the years through their words and lives and some who continue to serve me and my family.

This has been particularly meaningful due to some recent experiences I have had, which I would like to share to preface my gratitude....

I went through a time in the past year where I felt people pull back in a period of my life where I felt I needed them the most.  I have spent a great deal of time over the months since then evaluating what my expectations are, what my part is, and how to move on and have healthy relationships with them.  These are people that I love, relationships I cherish...which is why it hurt all the more.  Whether the pulling back was real or imagined, the feelings I had were deep and real and needed to be addressed and dealt with for me to seek resolution and peace in moving forward...for I believe that relationships grow or die depending upon how we treat them.  And I knew the choice was mine...as "victim" as I felt.


I sought my ownership in these situations, knowing that my initial decision to just pull back and distance myself from them was not the answer. I had some people tell me that, in order to protect myself, perhaps I should just throw up walls and have a more casual interaction with them.  This did not feel right for my particular situation, as appreciated as their love and advice was for me.

I felt like I forgave these people mentally, knowing we are all human, but felt unable to move forward with love towards them.  Why...when it seemed pointless? It was as if it didn't feel like they loved me enough back to deserve the time and energy it took to give them my love and attention....crazy, but that was where I was at.

It was a selfish, dark, and most likely untrue place to be, but it was the reality of my thoughts and I felt stuck.  I knew I needed to change, but was unsure how much God expected of me or wanted of me.   It just seemed unfair.

It was not an easy process.  God never let me feel validated or content in my self-pity or perceived offenses.  During one particular Sacrament service, as I prayerfully sought for comfort and direction in the quiet moments my kids allowed me, I had a distinct answer: "It is not your love you are withholding from them, but Mine.  Charity, the pure love of Christ, is the love that you need to give them, the love that they need, the only love that truly lasts, and by withholding your loving actions and outreachings from them, you are sinning by withholding My love that they need to feel through you.  You are in the wrong, my child."  Like I said, it has not been an easy time.

However, in the process I have learned so much, much like the beautiful analogy I heard in Sunday School today of the moth.  An Imperialis moth struggles intensely to emerge from its cocoon to emerge as one of the most beautiful moths in the world.  A sympathetic biologist, watching the struggles of one such moth, sought to ease the transition by helping it out of the cocoon.  What emerged was malformed and unable to fly.  As he studied this magnificent creature more, he learned that it was in the process of the struggle that the moth's body was strengthened to enable it to emerge ready to fly.  We, too, need struggles to emerge.

One of the most important lessons I learned in this process was through a story shared from the Bible in the book "The Peacegiver" by Farrell.  I found an article that summarizes the story well:

Abigail: Life-Changing Symbol
I’ve read and heard the Old Testament story of Abigail’s offering to David many times over the years. (See 1 Samuel 25.) Still, I’d totally missed the deeper meaning that James L. Ferrell pointed out in his book The Peacegiver. You remember the story: David, who had recently done a great service to Nabal by securing his flocks, sent some of his men to request sustenance. Nabal “rails on them” and turns them away. David and his men, seething at the injustice, determine to march against his household and slay all the males. Abigail, Nabal’s wife, becomes privy to the plot, gathers great stores of food, and hastens to intervene. She approaches David, offering to make up for her husband’s affront to the men.
I always thought Abigail was being a really brave and loving wife to intercede with David in hopes of securing her husband’s safety. But there is so much more to it than that. Ferrell explains the symbolism as Abigail kneels before David and his men, and says, “Upon me let this iniquity be,” offering, as Christ does, to take another’s sin upon herself and, in her case, atone for it by offering many times the goods David had requested of her husband. But here is the kicker: Abigail’s concern is not only to save her husband and the men of her household, but to save David from doing this great wrong, to keep his previously unsullied soul safe. She said, “Please accept of my offering, that this shall be no grief unto thee.”
Inexplicably, she says, “forgive my trespass,” claiming the sin as her own. Abigail asked David’s forgiveness not because she needed it (she, like Jesus, had done nothing wrong) but because David needed to forgive instead of multiplying Nabal’s sin with his own. Through her merciful act Abigail created the most forgiveness-friendly environment possible. She offered to compensate for the sin David was raging against, full measure, running over-much more than he had originally asked for.

As Abigail Did for David, So Jesus Does for Us
Farrell explains that Jesus does the same with us in every situation where we are wronged by another; thus Abigail is the perfect “type” of the Savior’s merciful dealings with his children. 

 
There is a beautiful excerpt of the book quoted here that is quite lengthy and analyzes the situation perfectly, but in my own words, Abigail came out to pay the price that David demanded be paid.  David, at first, wanted Nabal to pay it...for wasn't that "fair"?  But Abigail paid the price in full, offering it to David.  Was it right for David to demand more?  If all that he desired was before him, was it right for David to demand it was Nabal that paid it?

I saw clearly in my mind that that Savior is offering me all the love, nurturing, friendship and support that I desire...and more, in fact.  Just because it is not coming from the people that I felt should be giving it to me, fully aware mentally that perhaps they were not able to at that time because of one thing or another, was it right for me to demand more?  Could I look the Savior in the eye and say, "What you are giving me is just not good enough"?  He has paid the price for any sin, perceived or real, that others may do to me and offers everything I need and more if I will but accept it...just as David had the choice to accept Abigail's offering.  If I didn't, just as would have happened if David had moved forward to extract "justice" from Nabal, I would have the sins of vengeance and unrighteously-enacted "justice" upon my own head.

After reading this story, each time I would feel those negative ugly "justified" feelings, I would see this story in my mind, with the Savior reaching out, offering me the peace, support and love I craved and see my own part in accepting or rejecting his sacrifice.  Who was I to demand more than the incredible price He has already paid?  The peace that came was incredible and inexplicable...much like at the time of my dear Isaak's death: truly a peace that surpasseth understanding.

In the days and weeks that have followed that experience I have felt peace and a renewed ability to love and open myself up again. I have been blessed by the Savior's offering as he blesses us so often--through the actions and words of others :).  I have had lunches, phone calls, service rendered, conversations and emails, filling my cup to capacity and more.  To feel the contrast with the time when I felt so alone has truly helped me appreciate the dear friendships I have...the Savior's offering to my broken, lonely heart.

I have seen my own pride, my own imperfections, my own false judgment laid bare and have sought repentence and perspective to not retrace those mental tracks that were so lonely.  I have not been the martyr.  I have not been the victim.  For whatever reason, it was a time for me to emerge from the chrysallis of judgment, of bitterness to fly above my previous mental state.  It was time for me to realize yet another aspect of Christ's infinite and powerful atonement and how it can truly allow Him to take my burden upon Him and for mine to feel light.

Since then, in these recent interactions with friends and family, I have been blessed to be able to reflect on the many beautiful and wonderful people that have been a part of my life.  I feel it is a time of temporary farewell, but more permanent than when we went to Hungary.  My heart swells with love as I see so many imperfect wonderful people reaching out to, loving and serving imperfect me...in spite of my own short-comings and ways I have surely offended them.

During this time between when we have sold our house here in Utah and are ready to get into our house in New York, we have been blessed to stay with my parents, with Quinn's parents, are now staying in the basement of a dear friend while her family is on vacation (brave soul!), and will then go to visit another dear friend in time to give birth to the newest member of our family.  We have had so many random and planned meetings with good people that I feel more complete in our saying "farewell for now" to our time here.  I thought the saying below particularly appropriate:

Oh, how much I appreciate these dear people as part of Christ's offering to heal me.