How Building Community is Like Walking on Water

I feel that the message to the Lord lately can be summed up in a passage I read in the scriptures this morning:

Will ye persist in turning your backs upon the poor and the needy, and in withholding your substance from them?

I don't feel I can take a lot of time to do this, but I have had some pretty life-changing thoughts in the past few days and want to capture them as quickly as I can, so please forgive any un-clarity in writing (like that made-up word I just used :)...).

Where to begin...

A dear friend recommended a book, "More Than Happy: the Secret to Amish Parenting," that has been quickly become one of my few all-time classics.  So many truths.  One thing the author points out as being a key ingredient to the peace and content that the Amish feel is their "connectedness." (That should be a word.)  She says it stems from the idea that every decision is made with the mind-set: how will this affect the well-being of our family?  Pretty powerful.  It is made on an individual level and as parents and I have pondered about the impact this mind-set would have on our society.

Imagine if, on an individual level, people made decisions for themselves based upon the premise: is this for the best of society? I am not talking about the government making that decision for individuals, but an individual recognizing their performance, their actions have an impact on society on the whole and how are they going to govern themselves accordingly.

Back to the smaller scale, how can our actions best bless our community, and in turn our family?  A family is more health-fully raised in a community that supports it.  To do that, you need to build and support the community. The benefits of this mind-set are best captured in the every day application you read about in this book among the Amish.  Each child knows that they are loved, cherished, protected and blessed by their community through the connectedness, the service, the intent to interact and bless that is exemplified among the Amish in the book.  They would be the first to admit that they are not perfect (in fact they would be horrified that anyone would think that they would pretend to be perfect!).  Yet, they live in a supported community that brings this peace and joy and happiness...this more than happiness through their connectedness and focus on what is best for the family unit.

I tend to draw back "protectively" or selfishly from over-commitment socially.  I think each person must make their own call on what is best for them.  But for myself, I have felt that I need to share my substance-- my children, my family, our resources, the peace that is within our home and our hearts,--with others.  The more I have thought about this, the more I have realized that this will also create that community. It is worth the dinners, the messes, the increased numbers to connect with people, have them connect with my children, work together, clean together, pray together, fail together, cry together and build anew together.

This idea has always been very overwhelming to me. I love the peace and quiet of my home and the overall kindness and stability that reigns in our tiny walls.  As I sit down and plan my day in the morning, I almost always pray that the Lord will guide me where I need to go, where I need to serve, and the Lord does...only I haven't recognized it up until now.

Those "interruptions," changes of schedules, last minute arrangements that I have so balked against in the past are actually the Lord steering me where He wants me to serve and to be.  Of course at the beginning of the day I will not always have a clear picture of what His will is for me...so He works with me throughout the day with nudges, requests, "catastrophes," etc. I wonder if I would panic if the Lord showed me what he actually wanted me to do during the day :).

Deep breath.  Pray and seek for the peace of the Spirit.  Eyes on the Savior.  Act.

I love the gaze of the Savior in this portrayal of Peter walking on water. I have envisioned Christ gazing at me as I struggle to come to Him and not be overwhelmed or tossed about by the storms around me or the depths below me..."Don't doubt," I hear him say. "Keep coming, Mary.  You know it will work out as it always has when you trust me, follow me.  Wherefore couldst thou doubt?"

After All We Can Do and Missing My Daughter

Poem from my darling Avot...she shared this with me as she was preparing for her mission, immersing herself in all sorts of awesomeness.  She couldn't help spilling some around and I got to enjoy the fruits of the experience:

After All We Can Do
By Robbie Pierce

I had been in that hole for a very long time-
In the dark and the damp, in the cold and the slime.
The shaft was above me; I saw it quite clear,
But there's no way I ever could reach it from here.
I could not remember the world way up there,
So I lost every hope and gave in to despair.


I knew nothing but darkness, the floor, and the wall.
Then from off in the distance I heard someone call:
"Get up! Get ready! There's nothing the matter!
Take rocks and take sticks and build up a fine ladder!"
This was a thought that had not crossed my mind,
I started to stack all the stones I could find.


When I ran out of stones, then old sticks were my goal,
For some way or another I'd climb from that hole.
I soon had a ladder that stood very tall,
And I thought, I'll soon leave this place once and for all!
I climbed up my ladder, a difficult chore,
For from lifting those boulders, my shoulders were sore.


I climbed up the ladder, but soon had to stop,
For my ladder stopped short, some ten feet from the top.
I went back down my ladder and felt all around,
But there were no more boulders, nor sticks to be found.
I sat down in the darkness and started to cry.
I'd done all I could do, and I gave my best try.
But in spite of my work, in this hole I must die.
And all I could do was to sit and think, Why?


Was my ladder too short? Was my hole much too deep?
Then from way up on high came a voice: "Do not weep."
And then faith, hope, and love entered into my chest
As the voice calmly told me that I'd done my best.


He said, You have worked hard, and your labor's been rough,
But the ladder you've built is at last tall enough.
So do not despair there is reason to hope,
Just climb up my ladder; I'll throw down my rope.
I climbed up my ladder, then climbed up the cored.
When I got to the top of it, there stood the Lord.


I've never been happier; my struggle was done.
I blinked in the brightness that came from the Son.
I fell to the ground as His feet I did kiss.
I cried, "Lord, can I ever repay Thee for this?"
He looked all about. There were holes in the ground.
They had people inside, and were seen all around.


There were thousands of holes that were damp dark and deep.
Then the Lord looked at me, and He said: "Feed my sheep,"
And He went on his way to save other lost souls.
So I got right to work, calling down to the holes,
"Get up! Get ready! There is nothing the matter!
Take rocks, and take sticks, and build up a fine ladder!"


It now was my calling to spread the good word,
The most glorious message that man ever heard:
That there's one who is coming to save one and all,
And we need to be ready when He gives the call.
He'll pull us all out of the holes that we're in
And save all our souls from cold, death, and from sin.

So do not lose faith; there is reason to hope:
Just climb up your ladder; He'll throw down His rope. 

So proud of you, my daughter.

Here is a song that I am listening to now that reminds me of her:

Weeping a little.  I think it is hitting what the reality of her not being her means.  Don't take it for granted, Mary, this precious time you have with your other darlings!

After all that I can do...what a hopeful message as a very imperfect parent. I look on my little baby and see myself making some of the same mistakes I made with Avot...but a little gentler.  I am changing but it sure takes this stubborn heart a while with some things :). Did I do enough?  Did I love her enough?  Did I show her enough the potential I saw within her, the glory that she has already become?

"Again??"

My son was doing Seminary the other day and he was a little frustrated and tired.

"Mom, Seminary is supposed to be fun.  I already know it all and the kids that get online for our Friday meeting are all tired so we don't have fun there either."

I felt sympathetic, knowing he was a good young man and knowing that this is one of the hard things of the Gospel: keeping going when it doesn't feel "fun" or when it just feels repetitious.

"Well," I said, drawing on something I had read or heard lately, "Maybe it is because we know it with our heads but are we doing what we know?  Maybe we just need the reminder?"

He shrugged and carried on but I can tell this answer was not one he wanted.

I have thought about this conversation since then and was folding my bedding up this morning when something hit me.  I ran into where the Goob was resting in bed after his early morning Seminary session.

"Hey!  It's like a weight lifter or a swimmer!  They go through the same strokes, again and again, or do the same exercises again and again, but each time, like the weight lifter, they add more weights. Only the process is spiritual and it is God that is adding the weight, creating that deeper strength as we do those repetitious exercises.

"Two people can sit in the same Sunday School lesson (do the same exercise) and one can be really pushing themselves to put on the "extra weight" or really humble themselves and open themselves up to what they can get out that lesson and the other is just going through the motions.

"Hey, that's cool, mom," the Goob replied thoughtfully.  "I really like that analogy.  Thanks."

As I left he called out, "You should share that with the world."

Here I am.  As sharing as I can get :).

I can open up my scriptures (picking up the bar or getting into the water) and then pray, ponder, study and apply (put on weights or add those flippers to create speed and strength) or I can just go through the motions (lift an empty bar...doggy paddle).  Which one will create that deeper spiritual strength, that increased capacity to discern spiritual truths?  Which one will make me ready to stand on that spiritual Olympic platform to inspire millions or prepare me for my part in the very real spiritual war that is raging even now in the hearts of men?

Do it.  Go to those classes, Do those ceremonies.  Read those scriptures and get on those knees and exercise those spiritual muscles. The world needs you.  Your family needs you.  I need you.  We all need each other.  No light is so small that, if it is shining, it does not have the capacity to light the lamp of another...

I met a stranger in the night, whose lamp had ceased to shine;

I paused and let him light his lamp from mine.

A tempest sprang up later on, and shook the world about,

And when the wind was gone, my lamp was out.

But back came to me the stranger—his lamp was glowing fine;

He held the precious flame and lighted mine.

He Comes To Us

God doesn't wait for the darkness to leave the sinner or for the struggling one to leave the darkness...He penetrates the darkness.

 7 Behold, he changed their hearts; yea, he awakened them out of a deep sleep, and they awoke unto God. Behold, they were in the midst of darkness; nevertheless, their souls were illuminated by the light of the everlasting word; yea, they were encircled about by the ^abands of death, and the ^bchains of hell, and an everlasting destruction did await them.

8 And now I ask of you, my brethren, were they destroyed? Behold, I say unto you, Nay, they were not.

 9 And again I ask, were the bands of death broken, and the ^achains of hell which encircled them about, were they loosed? I say unto you, Yea, they were loosed, and their souls did expand, and they did ^bsing redeeming love. And I say unto you that they are saved.  

How I Test

When I was in high school, I was a pro at the system. I knew how to cram for a test and get A's.  Success, I thought.

However, deep down I knew that I hadn't really learned all that much, or much of what I had learned had gone in one ear and out the other.   At the time, I didn't realize that the true way to succeed was to actually learn what was being taught.  I had endured late nights of cramming and hours of grief and stress...for what?  A grade?

My husband, on the other hand, not only seemed to remember so much of what he had learned, he actually knew how it applied.  It was amazing to me.  Sure, I may have jumped through enough hoops to get A's, but as far as acquired intelligence, I envied my husband and his actual knowledge that he came away with.


This morning I gazed out the kitchen window as I prepped a turkey for Sunday dinner, thoughts tumbling with the rays of sunshine.  For a moment, I felt myself see my own situation from a different perspective.  All the problems, worries, doubts and concerns shrunk as I remembered, this life is not the end.  There is eternity and this life is just a test.

Just a test.

That phrase brought me back to my own experience of education and I thought, "I wonder if I am just doing enough to get the A, or am I really learning?"

For most of my life, I have been guilty of the previous...old habits die hard, I guess.  The talk by Renlund at General Conference reminded me that when we are closer to the giver, the tester, to God, the less we feel a sense of entitlement, the more grateful we are for what we have been given.  I have been scraping by so often, going through those motions, allowing myself to feel picked on when things don't go just right.

Time to trust, Mary.  Time to let this test change me so I can really learn.  Otherwise, I will just end where I began, with a lot of tests taken, a lot of grief endured, with nothing to show for it.  Ouch. 

Turning Away From Anger

Once again, a transformational moment for me was captured in a series of videos.  Perhaps it is because that so often when I am confronted with changes, dilemmas or truths within me or in the world around me, I seek to share the experience with my children in a meaningful way.  I have found the most effective way to share it with them is through a teaching environment that involves art or music in some way...art, that beautiful medium of communication that touches another on so many levels!  Perhaps it also lends beauty and meaning to my own experience to re-live it with them.  Whatever the case, the moment was sweet and I feel I must share.

So, to record this moment, I will just take you through our devotional the moment following one of my "Thousandth Nights"...

We began with "Two Truths and a Lie" from Studio C...humor is a great way to crack open or wake up a mind :).

We are surrounded by truths and lies, and the key is to keep our mind open to the Spirit so he can teach us those truths.

I had all of the kids grab a piece of paper and a pen or pencil or crayon and write or draw anything they could have experienced recently that "wasn't fair" or made them upset or was just downright frustrating.  Giving them a few moments, the initial comments gave way to the silence of scratching pencils.  I am with them. It always seems that there is so much we can complain about :).

I then had then share (if they wanted to) one or more things off their lists, which ranged from the humorous to the significant:
--"I have to work all day long" (this from Hava, age 7)
--"I didn't get a second bowl of cereal this morning" (Avot, age 19, laughingly shared)
--"My baby didn't sleep much last night"
--"My siblings bug me!"
...just a few examples. (Try it.  It is powerful.  Whine away on paper...)

I then asked, "What if these very things are what God is allowing to shape us and can each be looked on as a positive thing in our life?" As they thought about this, I played the first verse and chorus of "Blessings" with the words available so they could really follow along:

I asked them again, "What if our blessings were really coming through these very things?" After I allowed them to think about it for a minute, I began.

The night before was not a good night.  Baby Zsa was just not going to sleep.  After an hour of half-hearted to genuine attempts to help him go to sleep (despite a day of only one short nap!) he was still not going to sleep. It defied logic!  I got more and more frustrated, storming around cleaning up while he screamed in the other room, hurting for my child, upset, mad.  The other kids gently offered to help and I abruptly shushed them, caught up and wallowing in my own tired frustration.

Unfortunately, when I get whiney and full of self-pity, I tend to blame God. "Why?!  Why now? I know you could fix this?!"

Illogical.  Pathetic.  Real.

When my frustration reached its peak, I took that baby downstairs and plopped him down on the kitchen floor so he wouldn't keep the other kids awake at least and headed to the mud-room to put something away, knowing that the last thing he needed right then was a frustrated mommy. (I am a firm believer of staying away from kids when we are really upset.)  I came back in moments later to find him in Daddy's arms.  My patient, good husband was there and was determined to help, despite my protests (he had been working on appraisals and still had a bunch more to do, despite the lateness of the hour).   The guilt I felt washed over me and I stormed into the mud room again, ranting about everything from the mud to the unfinished house...anything that could possibly be complained about and then some!

The baby went to sleep after a while in Daddy's gentle arms and I sulked upstairs and read a book, theoretically to calm down, but more to protest the gentle reasoning of heaven that I needed some sleep.  Yah.  I was a piece of work :).

Later that night, I woke up to a gentle crying.  It was one of Baby Zsa's "are you there, someone?" little cries, almost more of a question than a cry.  Sometimes he just goes back to sleep, so I waited for a moment. When he kept it up, I quietly went it to see what was going on.  As I poked my head in the room, the odor of vomit washed over me and realization sunk in: he had been crying because his little tummy ached!  Poor little dear!  And all mommy could do was feel sorry for her-self?

I picked him up carefully, gathered his bedding, got it washing and then bathed my little boy.  Snuggling with him in the towel afterward, I walked down the hall. I had the distinct feeling of God's presence, God watching, waiting...me needing to change and grow.  I felt Him there and knew that this was a moment when His intervention would have kept me from a blessing I needed...a transformation, a turning closer to Him.

I rocked my baby back to sleep, penitent.  As I did, the words to the Blessings song drifted through my head, "All the while, you hear each spoken need, but love us way too much to give us lesser things." I have allowed myself to get angry at all these little things over the years, feeling justified or that "it is just a little thing."  Not any more, God is telling me.  It is time to give that anger up. I will no longer just "make it work out," my child.  It is time to change.

"I felt so horrible," I told the kids. "I had felt so justified in being angry at Baby Zsa and here he was, hurting.  I had been so wrong.  I am determined to never get frustrated with helpless babies again!"

I reminded them of their own lists and challenged them to consider how their hardships could each be turned into something to learn from or something to be grateful for. As they were thinking about this, I played the following video:

"Men must trust God no matter what happens."

More than a commitment to not get frustrated with babies, I felt a remorse at my habitual "blaming to heaven" mentality, those thoughts of "why me?" or "this is too hard!"  I am so often like Job's friends and, well...that's not who I would pick as my hero of the story :).

Thinking about "blessings come through raindrops," all of a sudden the new Mormon message has new meaning:

We watched the rest of the video,

...and then I bore my testimony.

What if our blessings really do come through raindrops?  God asks us to give him our old tattered cloaks, our old tattered selves, to give us new ones.  Why is it so hard to give up our old selves?  We are certainly comfortable with those mental paths...but those are not paths that lead us back to God.  Do we trust Him?  I wish I were more like Job.  Just imagine!  Somehow, thinking of his story has helped me over the past few days.

I might fall again, but my heart has changed.  My direction is different than it was before, closer to where it needs to be.  May I trust God more.  That seems to be a common thread of these posts :).  Maybe that is what it all boils down to...just trusting Him.