"Let them walk all over me?! NEVER!"

"Oh," I answered the teacher. "I just had an ah-hah!  I think that God wants us to come up and love at His level and drop judgment and just love...unconditionally."

Our Sunday School teacher had just shared with us the definition of "agape," the highest of the four forms of love identified by the Greeks:

the highest form of love, especially brotherly love, charity; the love of God for man and of man for God, what some people call "unconditional love."

I was thrilled!  This matched with everything I had just been thinking about and learning about in my own journey towards letting God fight my battles and truly praying to just love others after watching War Room.

"Most of your answer was good," came his cautious answer, "but we must make judgment and we must not let ourselves be walked all over by another."  Good point.

Now, I have heard this answer all my life, and I believe there is some truth to it.  However, I am beginning to believe that this mentality can also be a huge hurdle to truly having charity, this perceived need of "self-defense."

My thoughts that follow are still a work in progress. I am seeking for the truth of it, and, as with many truths, I am sure there are times and seasons for different applications of this truth.  Yet what I am seeking right now is an idea that is very elusive and feels...different.  Different from my programmed in response and different take than what I took from my Sunday School teacher's answer (he could have meant something different altogether).  We shall see.

"Judge but not Condemn"
Back to my story, the teacher's response left me wondering.  I have pondered this answer of his, this "don't let your guard down" mentality.  This morning as I prayed in my mini war-room over the garbage cans in the corner of my kitchen, I was praying to love a particular person with fervor and this Sunday School teacher's response came into my mind.  "We must not let people walk all over us or hurt us.  We must still make judgments."  I believe some of the spirit of what he said lies in my husband's beautiful and succinct answer to this age-old dilemma of "when to judge":

We always make judgments.  We just must not condemn.

I feel that this is part of the answer...this difference between condemnation and judgment.  However, I think there is more.

The Right Enemy
There is a line in "War Room," where the main character throws out this problem to her mentor: "Do I just back off and choose to forgive and let him walk all over me??"

 This whole scene is something I need to watch over and over again, but I love her mentor's response: "God is a good defense attorney.  Then you can turn your focus to the real enemy.  The one that remains hidden.  The one that wants to distract you...to deceive you.  To divide you from the Lord and your husband.  Satan comes to steal, kill and destroy....You need to get your heart right with God and you need to do your fighting through prayer."

God doesn't ask us to stop fighting.  He wants us to fight the right enemy.  I fear that too often I allow my "judgment," my "protect myself" attitude to become an armor that is keeping God's love out and keeping Satan in.

Lay Down My Weapons?
This concept of "not letting down my defenses" led to me to an experience shared in the Book of Mormon:

Their submission at first seems ludicrous...but they are victorious in the end.  I guess it depends upon what we consider a "victory"?

Maybe some effective questions to ask ourselves in a given situation are:
--when I put up my defenses, who am I defending myself against?
--do I trust God enough to fight my battles for me, to be my defense attorney?
--have I truly "battled in prayer" and do I fervently pray for God's love for the individual I am contending against or "protecting myself from"?
--is this a case when I need to "lie down my weapons of war for peace" as the Anti-Nephi-Lehis did or a case when, like Captain Moroni or General Washington, when I need to take up my weapons and defend my people and fight with them "for their houses, their wives, their children and their freedom"?

We are commanded to love our enemies.  We are commanded to forgive 70 times 7...or eternally. We are counseled to let God fight our battles for us There is a reason for these commandments and this counsel and why they come out a lot more in the scriptures than instructions to fight.

Times and Seasons
There is a time and a season for everything...but have we tried fighting God's way before we shore up our heart and throw up our defenses?

 1 To every thing there is a ^aseason, and a ^btime to every purpose under the heaven:
 2 A ^atime to be born, and a time to ^bdie; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
 3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
 6 A time to ^aget, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
 7 A time to ^arend, and a time to sew; a time to keep^bsilence, and a time to speak;
 8 A time to love, and a time to ^ahate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Through my own insecurities, I feel sometimes like my answers aren't "right" or "don't fit" what what my teachers have in mind.  I feel shut down. I feel insecure. I feel even attacked sometimes. Sometimes I just feel like I shouldn't keep going to classes (yes, this has been a battle over the years with many teachers...must be my problem, eh :)?).  Will my "protection of myself" in these situations be a victory for me and for God or for Satan who does not desire my good or the good of anyone in that classroom?

I believe the answers to these questions are personal and to be sought on a situation by situation basis. However, the principle that "forgiveness, love, trust, mercy, grace and God's power are sufficient to make us happy" is universal.

Sometimes, God;s defense will be His call for us to pick up "our weapons of war for peace." Sometimes He uses us to help fight His battles...and sometimes He asks us to lay down our weapons at the feet of those who are fighting us to win the greater battle.  Whew.  That will take a lot of prayerful discernment and trust.  And a lot of "fighting in prayer" as I seek to fight the right enemy.

As my wise husband so often counsels, we need to be careful of universal applications and rather take each situation case by case to determine which action for that specific situation will be best.   Perhaps these series of questions will help me decide which unique answer will be mine in any given situation that God will do His will in my life that Satan, the true enemy, will not win.

So I return to my original question: "Let them walk all over me?! ...well, maybe if God is doing my fighting and the victory on the other side of submission is sweeter.  Let me pray about it."

Putting Background Music to Scriptures

Have you ever noticed the powerful effect that music has on our experiences?  Picture the most powerful, moving scene you remember seeing in a movie and I guarantee there is music involved...unless it is the absence of music that makes it powerful.  Either way, the impact of music is undeniable.

This morning, I had a "movie moment" while reading my scriptures...try it!

Listen to the following while reading 2 Nephi 31:14-21 in the Book of Mormon:

14 But, behold, my beloved brethren, thus came the voice of the Son unto me, saying: After ye have repented of your sins, and witnessed unto the Father that ye are willing to keep my commandments, by the baptism of water, and have received the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost, and can speak with a new tongue, yea, even with the tongue of angels, and after this should ^adeny me, it would have been ^bbetter for you that ye had not known me.

 15 And I heard a voice from the Father, saying: Yea, the^awords of my Beloved are true and faithful. He that^bendureth to the ^cend, the same shall be saved.

 16 And now, my beloved brethren, I know by this that unless a man shall ^aendure to the end, in following the^bexample of the Son of the living God, he cannot be saved.

 17 Wherefore, do the things which I have told you I have seen that your Lord and your Redeemer should do; for, for this cause have they been shown unto me, that ye might know the gate by which ye should enter. For the gate by which ye should enter is repentance and ^abaptism by water; and then cometh a ^bremission of your sins by fire and by the Holy Ghost.

 18 And then are ye in this ^astrait and narrow ^bpath which leads to eternal life; yea, ye have entered in by the gate; ye have done according to the commandments of the Father and the Son; and ye have received the Holy Ghost, which^cwitnesses of the ^dFather and the Son, unto the fulfilling of the promise which he hath made, that if ye entered in by the way ye should receive.

 19 And now, my beloved brethren, after ye have gotten into this strait and narrow ^apath, I would ask if all is^bdone? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; for ye have not come thus far save it were by the word of Christ with unshaken^cfaith in him, ^drelying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to ^esave.

 20 Wherefore, ye must press forward with a ^asteadfastnessin Christ, having a perfect brightness of ^bhope, and a ^cloveof God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and ^dendure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have^eeternal life.

 21 And now, behold, my beloved brethren, this is the^away; and there is ^bnone other way nor ^cname given under heaven whereby man can be saved in the kingdom of God. And now, behold, this is the ^ddoctrine of Christ, and the only and true doctrine of the ^eFather, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, which is ^fone God, without end. Amen.

Left me with chills and in tears!

Dedicated to the Fighters

Fight.  Anger.  Rage.

I am a fighter.  I am intimate friends with those three "little" words.

However, I am also one who craves peace in my heart and for years I have had this battle raging within me...feeling the need to fight for peace.  Only, the crazy thing is, that I very seldom "win."

I watched a powerful movie last week:

It was nothing like I thought it would be.  It has changed my life.  It has shown me what a fighter I really am.  And it has shown me how to fight where I can win every time.

(I will give parts away...so please stop here and watch the movie first if you don't want anything given away from the movie.  I will try to just include a few transitional parts and lines to save the movie as much as possible, but feel compelled to share my thoughts.  It is at "Red Box."  Check it out.  Best $1.63 investment anyone could make right now.)

I admit that when I first saw it was about "prayer," my little skeptic wheels started turning in my head.  "Sure," I thought.  "It may be a 'good-feeling' kind of movie...but...." and left it there as I began to watch it.  Little did I know how I was going to change.

In the movie, the woman is struggling to find peace in her marriage.  She and her husband fight. And fight.  And fight.  At one point, her older mentor suggests, "Yes, you fight.  But do you ever really win?  You need to stop fighting the wrong person.  And you need God to fight for you."

You watch a woman filled with frustration and anger, seemingly justified frustration and anger, change her "battle plan."  She knowingly confronts Satan, the true opponent and pleads with God to fight for her.

I felt so much empathy for this woman. I am a fighter too, willing to "fight for what's right."  I do it more often than I realized as I truly took this message to heart:  how can I set up a new strategy, a new plan of action through prayer and truly win?

Change in Tactics
Over the next couple of days, whenever I found myself getting in "fighting mode," I would pause, think about fighting Satan instead of whoever was in front of me, and plead, plead, plead with God to fight that battle for me.  I wish I could communicate this more passionately through writing!!  It has changed my life.

I used to "put up my dukes" when any conflict or situation would come up that I wasn't ready for, to defend myself, or prepare myself,...or something. I would bully my way through to "win" what I wanted, but you know...I always left feeling a little sad.  A little defeated.  A little like, "that didn't go very well."

It's funny because in the movie, the woman in conflict with her husband questions her mentor: "What am I supposed to do, just lay down and let him walk all over me?"

"Trust God," her mentor pleads, "He is the best defense attorney there is.  He will protect you.  Trust Him."

So I did that.  And when I didn't feel that I could trust Him enough, I plead with Him to help me trust Him...plead with Him to help me trust Him enough to not only protect me, but to love those who I felt had wronged me and then I plead for Him to fight that battle.  My causes were good. My intentions are good. My tactics have just been very screwed up.




Victory is Sweet
You may find the sudden change of heart in the movie unrealistic.

Try it.

I can name three specific instances in my own life where battles that have been raging in my heart have already been won in the three days since I watched that film.  One time I plead with God for over 20 minutes! "Please help me love this person...and please fight this fight for me!! Change them and the situation!!" 

Every time my thoughts of frustration and anger towards a particular individual and situation would arise, I would plead with God, "Take this from me!  Fight for me!  Please let this person change what they need to and help me love them!"  In every one of those situations, I have already seen drastic miracles.   These are situations that I have struggled with for years and am fully aware that my "tactics" haven't been working.  Applying my new strategy, over the past couple days I have prayed in my heart often while speaking to people I had been emotionally on edge with, pleading with God to change my heart that felt so unchangeable, pleading with Him to shore up my faith in His ability to do so, pleading that He would fight for me!  

You know the funny thing?  Every time, my prayers would start with more of  "fight this fight for me!" than "help me love this person."  Every time, by the end I would be pleading more "please, please, please help me love this person more."  I guess that is where the true battle lies?

These situations were real.  They were important.  They were not worth "backing down." I just changed my "battle plan."  I still fought. I just fought through prayer. I fought the real enemy. I fought Satan and through the course of those battles, I have discovered people worth loving and fighting with and fighting for.

Fighting my Baby?
Yesterday, I realized there was another battle that I hadn't even realized I was fighting. I was fighting my baby as he got up at 10:30, 12:30, 3:30 and 5:30. I was frustrated. I was bitter. I was full of self-pity.

Then, I recognized those "battle feelings" and realized what I had been doing with my baby!  "God," I plead.  "Help me fight the real enemy here and please, please, please fight this battle with me."

...and then He sent the song to me yesterday that I wrote about in the previous post.  He changed me and the fruits of victory are already tasting sweet.

It is amazing how empowering and peace-bringing this strategy has been!  In the past couple of days, whenever I feel those old swellings of frustration, of anger, those battle feelings, I stop and think, who is the real enemy here?  And then I start pleading with God again.

As they say in the movie "God's Not Dead": God is good. All the time. 

Making the Battle Personal
Next battle plan: myself and food.  I have been fighting the battle of eating for comfort, eating to "give me energy" when I am tired...and I am tired a lot!  I have not only kept all the weight gained during my pregnancy but have started to gain and it scares me. I know that it is not good, but for any of those who have struggled with weight, "knowing" and "doing" are not always the same thing :S.  If only.

Already I have seen progress as I have realized that my self-control is not the only enemy. Satan would love for me to lose any self-control I can show over this temple God gave me: my body.  God, on the other hand, can help me win this battle of mastery and wants me to. It is not outside of His interest or capacity. I have just been fighting with myself and that is an ugly battle.  Time to change tactics!

The Cost
Sometimes battles will be long.  Sometimes they are bloody. We are just starting our study of the Civil War and it was the bloodiest war in US history.  "The numbers of Civil War dead were not equaled by the combined toll of other American conflicts until the War in Vietnam." (civilwar.org)

This struck me with a powerful parallel.  The battles we face in our own families, in our own homes, often have the highest toll.  There was another interesting quote in the article about the Civil War:

A "casualty" is a military person lost through death, wounds, injury, sickness, internment, capture, or through being missing in action.  "Casualty" and "fatality" are not interchangeable terms--death is only one of the ways that a soldier can become a casualty.

How true. How tragically true. And now I have a way of "fighting" for things that are truly important in a way that those I love dearest are not the casualties. 

Could a thousand sleepless nights really bring me closer to God?

My mind is so full...need to write.

Our devotional yesterday included the song, "Blessings":

I have probably highlighted it before here, but yesterday it took on additional meeting.

What if those blessings we crave, those things we yearn for, do indeed come through raindrops...would we ever want it to stop raining?

What if healing really came through tears...would we fight crying?  Would we "be strong" longer? Or would we find humility faster?  Would we find that broken heart, that contrite spirit...and then heal?

What if 1,000 sleepless nights was really what it takes to "know God's there"?

All of a sudden, my seemingly endless stream of nights up with my baby took on new meaning...

What if it was those very nights that I am enduring, that I have longed to have behind me are the very things that will bring me a sure knowledge of God?

Flip side of the question, how will that change my attitude every time my baby wakes up and how will that change my attitude when I wake up in the morning after a restless night?

Instead of, "oh, man!! what a rotten night!!!" could it really become, "my children!  last night I drew closer to God!"?

What if...

Makes one think.

Rice and Charity

Sometimes I show up at church with a bunch of baggage: stuff at home, stress of inadequacies, feeling sapped.  While I know people are looking for healing, love and acceptance, it can feel so hard to get to church with all my munchkins...let alone smile at anyone or even just smile in general!

This last Sunday, as I walked down the hall and through my mind rushed all the people whose names I had forgotten, all those things I hadn't done and the ways people should and could despise me, --thoughts that usually cause me to shrink within myself--another thought drifted into my consciousness: "Think rice, Mary...love the rice."

I did. I pictured those silly little jars of clean rice marked "love" and transferred that love to every person I passed.  It is crazy how something so small can make such a difference.  All of a sudden I was seeing people I loved and it was easy to smile. I felt such joy, such gladness at simply being there with people I loved. Sometimes I get so pre-occupied with all the stupid and offensive things that I say or the ways what I say could be taken, I get caught up in a little ball of stress that doesn't want to say or do anything with anyone.  This jar thing has been miraculous at helping me.  It is amazing how when you just feel love for others, your pre-occupation with self and your own limitations disappear.

Jars of rice.  Seeing people with love...pure, unmerited, unearned love...love that doesn't need to be merited, love that doesn't need to be earned.

You know something? I have been doing the same thing when looking at myself in the mirror in the morning too, and that has been kind of crazy.  I am becoming more and more okay with myself, who I am and what I do.  I am human.  I make mistakes, but I am also lovable and happy and kind.  I try really hard and I do love people.  Silly how our deep love and concern for others can take a twisted turn and become a burden and a challenge.  The pure love we can direct at others through this process of just visualizing love is beautiful. 

Maybe this love we feel is the gift spoken of in Moroni 7, just after the passage on "charity":

Wherefore, my beloved brethren, ^apray 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^bfollowers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall ^cbe like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be ^dpurified even as he is pure. Amen.

Best gift ever. :) 

Giving people more time to learn

I woke up a couple Sundays ago thinking about how much I love my kids.

You know, there is something about kids that makes them so lovable, despite their obvious "shortcomings": picking their nose, not washing their hands, not speaking "correctly," unique clothing styles, needing naps :).   As I thought about this more, this "unconditional love" people generally show toward children, I realized we don't really consider them "shortcomings" when they are little...we just realize that there are certain things they haven't figured out yet and give them latitude (for the most part).  We just love and support them and figure that they will "get it" eventually.

But somehow we have put a time-limit to how long we can tolerate this learning process.  When adults--or even older teenagers--exhibit weaknesses (bodily noises, grooming patterns, behavioral peculiarities, deficiencies in education or experience), they are no longer cute.  Somehow, we stop loving the person quite as completely as we would a child in that same state and we judge.  "Surely," we think, "they should have learned this by now."

Why is that?

This realization has caused me to consider more deeply the admonition to "be as little children"; perhaps it could be extended to loving others completely, not "in spite of their weaknesses" but not even seeing their weaknesses?

45 And ^acharity suffereth long, and is ^bkind, and ^cenvieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily ^dprovoked, 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.

 46 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, if ye have not charity, ye are nothing, for charity never faileth. Wherefore, cleave unto charity, which is the greatest of all, for all things must fail—

 47 But ^acharity is the pure ^blove of Christ, and it endureth^cforever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him.

It is so easy to be comfortable around children.  They accept you for who you are. They forgive quickly.  Their needs are met simply.  Their thought processes about others is not complicated.  We could learn so much from children: to be more like them and to love others as they do.  Let's stop putting a time-limit on when people should be "done" progressing, stop making a point at which our incomplete learning is now a short-coming.

Now, perhaps the hardest part is allowing this extended learning period for ourselves?  "I just haven't got it yet" sounds a lot better than "this is a weakness I have" or "I am just so stupid! Everyone else..."

The Painful Side of Growth

One of the most powerful moments in "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" is missing in the movie.

It is the part where Eustace changes from a dragon into a boy...with the significant help of Aslan.  If you will remember, Eustace was turned into a dragon after succumbing to greed and putting on a magic circlet on his arm.  He is miserable as he realizes this selfish, sinful choice has possibly separated him from humankind forever.  He cries himself to sleep one night, resigned to this awful fate and then has the following experience.  This is in his words as he retells it to his friends:

“Then the lion said — but I don’t know if it spoke — You will have to let me undress you. I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.

“The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was jut the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off.  You know — if you’ve ever picked the scab of a sore place.  It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” said Edmund.

“Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off – just as I thought I’d done it myself the other three times, only they hadn’t hurt – and there it was lying on the grass, only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me – I didn’t like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I’d no skin on — and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I’d turned into a boy again. . . .”

I read these books several times in my youth and the imagery of this scene has always remained with me, the painful peeling off of layers to the tender, smooth, delicious self.

Through the past few months, as I have struggled with facing the probing question "what lack I yet?" and God's merciful yet often painful answers, to my mind has come this image: “The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was jut the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off.  You know — if you’ve ever picked the scab of a sore place.  It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.”

The process has been painful--it hurts like "billy-oh!"--but has been such fun to see it coming away. I am still peeling and know I have far to go to be like my Savior, but the layers underneath are looking beautiful.  I am so grateful for my Savior who is doing the peeling...who knows just how much I can handle and who sends me refreshment to restore me through the mercy and forgiveness of Him and others around me, others whom I have hurt or offended.  I pray He will remain with me to shape me into the tender, new creature that is His.

Stillness

It has been quite a learning curve these last few days.  This "what lack I yet" personal question to God has had some pretty  deep answers:

-I need to treat my husband not only as my friend, but as a real person...not a wall to lash out at when things go wrong.
-I need to start treating my oldest son more consistently as an adult.
-I need to be still.

I see my children move around, in constant motion, and have felt to ask them to learn the art of stillness.  However, yesterday, I started seeing myself reflected in their busy motions.  We need to be more still.  My children need it. I need to stop planning things for a while, stop getting our family in motion to do, do, do.  I am not that kind of person that necessarily enjoys busy-ness, but I feel compelled to do it as I see many needs around me and the many desires of my children to do different things.

As I have reflectively observed myself and my intentions, I find that I do seek to be busy, equating busy with valuable, with productive, with "being my best."  It is true that I am busy doing awesome and meaningful things.  However, the lesson right now seems to be to learn stillness.  To learn gentleness. To learn quiet: quiet of spirit.

I have seen that I am really a gentle person underneath all those layers of brusque-ness and initiative and drive.  Maybe I have felt that I have had to fight this gentle person within to be what God wants me to be.  Maybe I am wrong...maybe.

What's the point...

"What is the point?"

This question has been at the forefront of my thoughts lately, and I almost feel myself going through my days as a third-party observer as I ponder the point and direction of my days.  My musings about time go ever onward or ever deeper...I am not sure which.

Time.  God exists outside of our human limitation of 24 hours, and yet He has us live with this limitation.  Why?

I wonder if it is because when we are resurrected and eternally progressing, without the limitation of time constraints, we need to have already established what is important...what are we going to be doing with that existence: that Time without Time.  No 24 hour cycle.  No minute to minute demands.  No schedule?

Maybe that is part of what this life is all about: to help us decide what matters most. To allow us to feel, through trial and error, what makes us happy and what would we do with our limitless existence?

I have been thinking about this as I schedule a day full of items...and miss the mark with much of the timings.  How much does it matter, I wonder.  How "structured" do I need to be?

As a homeschooling mom, I have a lot of autonomy.  While the burden of stewardship over my children's education is ever-present, I am at my own discretion as to how to best conduct it.  I have been experimenting with being strict with time and with being looser in my strictness with my schedules...to no satisfaction. I am afraid the "times and seasons" rule still applies and, as my dear Quinn would put it, I must decide that on a case by case situation.

I always have a loose structure of my time, something in my homeschooling circles called "Structure Time, not Content": I schedule basic breakfast time, morning ideas, lunch time, afternoon quiet time and ideas, dinner time, and any officially scheduled items in the day.  Some of my children panic when they wake up and see nothing on the board for the day...or, worst yet, the schedule from four day ago still up on it.

But I digress...

What is the point?  What is the most important thing for my kids to learn?  What is my role in all of this? Am I a home-improvement expert?  Am I a homeschooling goddess that spends her day from sun-up to sun-down teaching and inspiring my children?  Am I an environment creator, producing amazing and healthy meals and protecting the spirituality of our home?  Do I schedule meaningful field trips? Do we invite others to join us, to bless and be blessed by us or do we cherish quiet times alone?

I am sensing a pattern in all of this as I write this. I am too much an "all or nothing" kind of gal. I like to "pre-program" my life: make the decision for the week on Sunday and then move forward on automatic pilot. Maybe this is because of the barrage of suggestions, questions and comments that I get from my darlin's all day long :).

I also continually toss around in my mind "good, better, best": evaluating and then second-guessing every stinkin' choice I make with my day...and it gets exhausting!

The other day, as I stood up from one task, doubting my choice in doing it and over-analyzing the next one, I berated myself for most likely not doing enough.

"Father!" I cried out. "I cannot do this any more!!! I am so tired of feeling like I am not enough!  Like I am already behind and can never do enough!  Please help me and tell me what to do next!!"

I stopped. I listened.  

"What if I told you that you have already done everything I wanted you to do for the day, Mary?"

Shock.

It was only 12:30 pm.  What?

"Mary.  You have already done everything I wanted you to do for the day.  The rest of the day is yours."

I broke down, in tears, as peace washed over me...a hugely unreal and unusual feeling for me.

This experience has really made me wonder how much of my "frantic doing" is necessary and how much God really wants me to do. I feel more and more that He wants me to chose, to figure things out, to start making those awesome decisions of how I will create and how I will spend my time and who I want to become.  And then enjoy it :).

Whatever it is, I have been really considering what I should be engaged in doing, how I should be thinking, serving and loving.

Tonight, I had a little "music therapy" while I pondered in a deliciously quiet house...and fed my adorably pudgy little six month old his evening dosage of solids. I included the songs just in case someone else could benefit from my "line-up."

I was having a hard time with loving someone and realized that I needed to love them for them...and show them true charity..."what love really means." Is this not what I want for myself?  What does that kind of love look like?  This is a huge part of why we are on this earth.  Relationships. Helping others come to Christ.  Really loving, accepting, and helping others on this earth to fulfill their destiny...and just feeling loved.

What would I do tomorrow if I knew that I was dying?  

Cool thing: I don't think I would change anything...makes me think.  

I am having a "picnic" with my little girls, playing Monopoly with my "middles," taking a walk with my girls and babies after lunch, enjoying St. Lucia's Day courtesy of Avot (her last time before her mission...darn it and good all at the same time!).  Friends are coming over for dinner...which they are bringing, and my husband works at home so I get to see my best friend all day long. I have an adorable baby, kids to snuggle and a house that keeps me warm and dry and in which we are making progress (drywall almost done in the dining room!).  Lek just finished his ACT and has big plans for mission and college, just completing an awesome and inspiring talk in church today. 

The Goob makes me laugh...and everyone else. (After that episode above...you know, the crying one?  He came bounding up, going on about some delightful Drew-ish thing or another and then saw my face.  He stopped mid-word and his blue eyes widened, "What's wrong?!"  The dramatic pause of it all made me burst out laughing.  "Oh, I am so sorry!  What did I do?!" he apologized.  I just kept laughing.  Love that guy.) 

Liliputian nurtures and loves me and everyone around her, Pipalicious is just delicious, Hava is a warm, snuggly bundle of joy, Papaya brings life and light to everything, not to mention her ability to play longer with her baby brother than any Energizer Bunny, and Spooner is just a doll.

Heaven, right?  Why am I still grumpy sometimes?  Is it enough to just sit and enjoy this bounty? What about all those Christmas cards--spreading love and joy, those last-minute presents I haven't finished, the messes, the laundry, the dishes...the poor, the needy, the dear ones that are suffering all around me?

Enough, Mary.  Back to calm :).

I can only imagine...what it would be like.  It really puts everything in perspective.

I am living.  Every day.  It means something: to sit, to snuggle, to love, to reach out, to share, to weep, to laugh.  I am living.

And one for my little angel in heaven:

Good night, my friends and family.  Thanks for bringing beauty to my life. If for nothing else, I am looking forward to heaven when I get to sit down with all of you and "catch up." :)