This has been my view for the last nearly 11 weeks, so can you blame me for not wanting to put him aside to hold a boring old computer?
What a blessing it has been to hold him, to experience his first smiles, just to feel his sweet spirit, and get to know this little creature. What an honor and a blessing it is to be his Mother.
It's been a lot of work trying to keep our little world spinning. It takes all of my time, all of my concentration and planning and continual work to move our family toward what resembles the best routine for our now family of eight. There are a lot of needs, but I find peace in slowing down to carefully consider and meet them all as best I can in the quiet moments. I am finding peace in being patient in responding to each child...and not forcing them to go at my pace or to respond immediately in the way I want them to, but waiting for them to willingly comply or not. This feels right. When I am able to do it, it feels like what God wants me to do.
After the tumultuous year we had in 2017, I was eager to turn the page and looking forward to setting and working toward some goals I personally wanted to achieve for myself in 2018. 2018 was going to be MY year, so I thought, until 2018 actually arrived bringing with it one of the hardest challenges for me yet.
What was it someone said in conference in recent years...if it were fair it wouldn't be a trial?
That's how I would characterize the trial I've been staring in the face during the first two weeks of 2018. Unfair, hard-hitting blind-side, personal. Also, basically, out of my control to fix, undo, or erase.
I realized that a funny thing happens as soon as you decide you want to grow in a particular area. The Lord is more than happy to send you situations that will help you grow...but you might not like it.
And I really haven't liked it...at all. I would have much prefered to have an easy start to 2018, but easy wouldn't have taught me what I now understand much better than I did before.
As I was going through it, I just kept rolling around in my head how unfair it was, and I kept going back and forth between being sad and being mad.
Luckily, I was realizing that being sad wasn't helping me, being mad was definitely going to hurt me, and being proud was going to keep me from moving past what had happened.
So, my first thought today was the need for me to accept what had happened without feeling the need to retaliate or right the wrong that had been done to me. I needed to be humble. I remembered that Jesus Christ was wrongly accused in his life, he suffered for things he did not do, but he humbly accepted it. I began to see that my small suffering could be a blessing to me, if it allowed me to understand the Savior more.
My second thought was that I needed to forgive, because holding on to my bad feelings was only going to prolong my own suffering, so I've been praying for that as well.
But it wasn't until tonight when my husband and I were studying President Uchtdorf's talk "Three Sisters" that I heard all of the words that would help me really reach the peace I wanted to achieve.
This first quote helped me to put myself in context and realize that I had an all-powerful Being on my side ready to help me through:
"If you find yourself worrying about what other people say about you, may I suggest this antidote: remember who you are. Remember that you are of the royal house of the kingdom of God, daughters of Heavenly Parents, who reign throughout the universe.
You have the spiritual DNA of God. You have unique gifts that originated in your spiritual creation and that were developed during the vast span of your premortal life. You are the child of our merciful and everlasting Father in Heaven, the Lord of Hosts, the One who created the universe, spread the spinning stars across the vast expanse of space, and placed the planets in their appointed orbits.
You are in His hands.
Very good hands.
Loving hands.
Caring hands.
And nothing anyone ever says about you can change that. Their words are meaningless compared to what God has said about you.
You are His precious child.
He loves you.
Even when you stumble, even when you turn away from Him, God loves you. If you are feeling lost, abandoned, or forgotten—fear not. The Good Shepherd will find you. He will lift you upon His shoulders. And He will carry you home."
This second quote helped me to learn that demonizing my opposition was making it harder for me to forgive and move on.
"“When someone opposes or disagrees with us, it’s tempting to assume that there must be something wrong with them. And from there it’s a small step to attach the worst of motives to their words and actions.
Of course, we must always stand for what is right, and there are times when we must raise our voices for that cause. However, when we do so with anger or hate in our hearts—when we lash out at others to hurt, shame, or silence them—chances are we are not doing so in righteousness.
What did the Savior teach?
“I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
“That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven.”4
This is the Savior’s way. It is the first step in breaking down the barriers that create so much anger, hatred, division, and violence in the world.
Yes,” you might say, “I would be willing to love my enemies—if only they were willing to do the same.”
But that doesn’t really matter, does it? We are responsible for our own discipleship, and it has little—if anything—to do with the way others treat us. We obviously hope that they will be understanding and charitable in return, but our love for them is independent of their feelings toward us.
Perhaps our effort to love our enemies will soften their hearts and influence them for good. Perhaps it will not. But that does not change our commitment to follow Jesus Christ.
So, as members of the Church of Jesus Christ, we will love our enemies.
We will overcome anger or hate.
We will fill our hearts with love for all of God’s children.
We will reach out to bless others and minister to them—even those who might “despitefully use [us] and persecute [us].”
It's funny how quickly peace was restored to my soul tonight upon simply re-reading and listening to these words of truth.
I received the answers I was searching and praying for simply by looking to the words of our dear church leaders. And I now know how to proceed. Two weeks in and I can already tell, this year is going to be a doozey!
P.S. Thanks to the reader-friend who emailed me out of the blue words of encouragement and support last week. Whenever you guys do that for me, I know that you are following a spiritual prompting and your words come to me just when I need it most and do so much good. So thank you!!!
