News flash! I've got flaws, and lots of them. I'm a work in progress. I'm not very kind to myself about all that I want to work on and lack patience. I have to remind myself constantly that it's about the journey.
In trying to work on a miraculous healing for myself this year I find that I am handling the "journey" better than I have before….all hope is not lost on me being able to accomplish this "enjoying the journey" thing :0) I suffered a pretty big set back this week. All I did was hold someone's baby at church. Now, he was awfully cute and he was flirting majorly with me- he's about 3 months old-I think. Anyway, he was happiest when I would lift him in the air and make sweet happy faces at him. He would smile big and laugh. It was killing me with cuteness…..and apparently half the ward that was sitting behind me. The bishop told me after sacrament that he enjoyed watching everyone being entertained by it.
My husband is blaming my selfishness with the baby for the setback I suffered because of all the lifting. He apparently wanted to hold him or something, but I contend that he never motioned to or told me that he wanted to hold him…at least that's my story. In my defense…I did finally hand over the baby to him….once my body gave out….and he got grumpy :0) Anyway, I knew right away that I was going to suffer because of it. Sure enough I had the worst headache for 3 days. This time I had the presence of mind to realize that as soon as I went into the dr, I would be put right and feel much better. But, this is how pitiful my life has become. Things like holding a baby or a purse do major damage. It also confirmed to me that all the feelings of wanting more children and feeling like a wimp because I didn't think my body could handle it were spot on.
With the major headache I was having a hard time focusing on much of anything. I did manage to get started on my "sanctification" study. This process is not for the faint of heart and not for someone with a major headache. I did discover that the times when I haven't been doing as much reading or comprehending what I am reading- I had a pretty legit reason….I've got to start piecing together things happening in my life better. Headaches and reading, not a good combination.
So far I've got every single scripture in the topical guide under "sanctify, sanctification" copied and printed out. I can't remember how many pages it ended up being but there were 79 scriptures and I haven't looked up any of the "see also" scriptures yet. I cut them all up and started looking for different things to mark and them put them into like categories. I just did a little at a time. The copying took me 2 days and then a day later I cut them and marked a couple and then another day later I finished marking them and putting them into categories. Now I need to go through them again more specifically. My head was hurting too bad and the process was getting too overwhelming. No major epiphanies yet, but definitely some things to think about. They are still sitting on my table waiting for me to come back.
Interestingly enough, the day before I started copying all the scriptures down, I ran into this quote on my fb feed. There's no watermark, so I'm not sure who made it. But, talk about freaking me out the day before I start this serious study. Ummm, maybe I changed my mind?
Let's see. There are many many ways that are a work in progress and I need to do better about making the journey more enjoyable for everyone around me. I have a nasty habit on focusing on what we aren't doing or aren't doing well instead of what we are. Everyone thinks I'm some kind of awesome family history person and my kids are awesome too. Truth be told, a- I'm not awesome and b- my kids never have time to do it with me. I'm not sure how Jared got on this kick but he decided to look up our last name to see if there was a crest. Yes indeed there was and apparently it has something to do with stone hedge. He spent an hour in our room trying to find evidence of the Keltics in our family history and then he got off on another tangent thinking he could prove we were related to Churchill. Nate's side of the family have all kinds of pictures of everyone in their family tree and I've got 0. He was having fun looking at everyone's pictures. He definitely was focused on the "hearts before charts." So, we have moments of awesomeness. Hopefully we can string enough of those moments together to reap the benefits and the blessings---same with every other thing we do perfectly….in moments….
In an effort to keep me humble and remind me that I'm not as smart as I think I am, I frequently have encounters of the blonde kind. We had our New Beginnings night on Wed and our President had been out of town for a week and then her grandfather passed away so she couldn't attend. We found this out Tuesday night. We managed to get into her house and gather all the supplies and decorate and pull the evening together. I was on day 3 of a headache that was so bad I felt I was going to vomit. I managed to squeeze an hour into my day to go and decorate at which time I found out I was conducting. No biggie, there's a program to follow and I didn't have time to think about it. As Jordyn would say right here "dun, dun, dun…"
I had other appointments after decorating and had just enough time to make it home to throw on my dress, load the kids in the car and try not to forget everything. I also had time to say a quick prayer that I wouldn't throw up on anyone and it wouldn't be noticeable how much pain I was in.
Here's the sad part. I welcome everyone and introduce them to the theme for the night - I can't remember what it is though. Excellent. The stake president is giving me the stare down and I've got nothing. My brain is completely void of thought. Hopefully this little incident helped the Laurel class president feel better about the fact that she forgot it was church dress even though I heard it from her own lips on Sunday as she made the announcement and then it was confirmed that she also said it every morning in the announcements at seminary. She's not the only one suffering from a dead brain :0)
I made all those darn blocks with the theme on them.
I decorated the room beforehand.
I taped a yellow brick road to the entire gym floor.
I'm staring at all the decorations while my mind is blank and still nothing.
How do I forget what the theme is?
If that wasn't bad enough, my piano player and prayer disappeared after I started the meeting to which I had forgotten the them, so I had to stall. Looking like an idiot in front of people is a gift I have acquired and I'm going to embrace. If you're going to enjoy your journey it may as well be comical and you better learn to laugh at yourself and invite your friends to laugh at you as well. While I stalled I talked about and showed a picture (on my handy electronic device of love) of the olympian who is getting a lot of attention right now and who wears her yw in excellence and yw torch necklace - it was pretty good for being on the fly. I also managed to pull my thoughts together well enough to incorporate the paths/yellow brick road that led to each of the 8 value tables. Emma was in charge of virtue so she decorated her table (pictured) and then shifts of girls came by and she talked to them about the value.
Last week I was reading about "entering into the rest of the Lord." This has always conjured pictures of cloud sitting and harp playing. The lure of finally not having to work so hard. Yeah, not what that's about, I'm afraid. I don't know how I ever indulged such thoughts because I know there is tons of work to do after we have died. I also know how God feels about idleness, why would he suddenly be ok with it once we live with him? Entering into the "rest" is a rest from the constant battle of temptation. The constant pull of what is right and what is wrong. What you should or should not be spending your time on. How dedicated you want to be to the Savior and your covenants. Those are the things that we will rest from and it won't be taking up your energies.
In the meantime while we are here and unable to enter into that rest, we need courage to make it through this journey towards perfection. There are lots of areas that require our courage.
The courage to take on a serious study of sanctification when you know what your going to go thru to achieve it.
The courage to wear your yw medallion for the world to see. To be unafraid of putting yourself out there.
The courage to focus on the positive when the stakes seem so high and the time so short.
To look like an idiot when you haven't properly prepared yourself
The courage to march on and do what you've committed to do even though you feel like there is no way you're going to make it through
To slow down and be patient ( I broke 4 canning jars this week because I was trying to rush the process)
To have the courage to tell someone that you'll do something that you're not sure you're capable of (I accepted a position as a committee chair of a charitable organization-not church related - that I didn't seek out- it came to me- I'll talk more about that later)
The courage to hope when you can't seem to find a reason to - whether it's health or otherwise (I've still got this dag gone rash and my neck and back problems are slow going with some setbacks and I've added another specialist to my list to go see…I'm starting to wonder if the only thing left is to commission the collection of shark pee for a miracle cure)
The courage to be able to accept the things you don't understand ( my friend has a patriarchal blessing that says she would be blessed with good health - she has been suffering for years with debilitating vertigo - we had a great discussion about it after going to the temple on wed)
The courage to stay true to what you know.
The courage to go to the temple, church, your scriptures, etc even when you don't feel like it.
The courage to keep trying even when it feels like you're failing and never ever give up because that is exactly what the adversary wants.
The courage to do a lot of things that are too long to list here, but you get the idea. I haven't even touched politics or theology ;)
Hmmmm, I'm beginning to sense a theme in my posts….:0)
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