Having a Bad Moment

Ever have one of those days where you come home from church and say, "well, the verdict is in, I suck."  It really was great and I took down some notes a few times which doesn't happen as often as it should while I'm at church.  The thing is - my to do list started building and then I started comparing myself to others.  While helping my husband make dinner something happened that formed all my thoughts into a, ripe for the popping, pimple.  I said something like "and there's the reason right there, we will never be called to serve as missionaries in a presidency.  I suck too bad, there's no hope!"

I decided to come up with a list of the top 10 reasons why we won't be called to serve as mission presidents.

10.  I can't get the basics down with my own family.  I'm not the "my life is complete because I'm a mother" type of person.  I realized today that I am most definitely a 'glass half empty' kinda gal.  What a bummer!  I watched an inspirational video during 3rd hour and came away feeling bad about myself.  That's jacked up!  You know- when you realize that you've got like zero problems compared to some and you are still living below average- especially when it comes to being a mother.

9.  Doing things I don't want to makes me grumpy.

8.  I don't want to do most things ergo - I'm always grumpy.
"That's my secret Cap, I'm always angry!" ~Hulk
I have gotten better about doing things I don't want to do.  It actually becomes easier when you change your heart.  The thing of it is that the changing of ones heart doesn't happen overnight and I have certain character traits that I'm up against.  I'm the person usually saying "fine!" while I storm off to do what it is that I don't want to because I know it's the right thing to do.

7.  We're not independently wealthy.  We love to get the church news and see who all the mission presidents are and how old they are and what they did for a living - then we always talk about our plan to be retired in a few years.  Fingers crossed that the economy holds out long enough to pull it off.  It's not looking good for that, but we can dream.

6.  I haven't rescued droves of people- probably not even 2 ( I know, I know - I'm doing saving ordinances for my ancestors so the count is higher than 2, but I'm not in the mood to be consoled).  There are just some people that are good at being the person who is always inviting someone to church or having the missionaries in their home teaching someone.  Or just really good at seeking out those needing service and providing it.  I can be way too wrapped up in myself- most of the time.  I live in my head a lot.  I like to think and therefore I like alone time to do that - even it's in a room full of people.  When judgment day comes along and all the witnesses line up to advocate for me - it will be like the scene from "Ever After."  I will be looking around seeing no one and have to say " a lot of people seem to be out of town."  And the sentence will be off to outer darkness with me.  Then the only advocate that I will have will be the Savior and he will spare me from being shipped off and instead send me to do a little more working on myself in the eternal laundry room.  (do you think there is laundry in the eternities?  How do they keep all the white robes white? maybe there's no dirt?)

5.  When we hit retirement and put in those mission papers - we are going to be the couple that gets called on a mission to scrub toilets somewhere.   We will be the best darn toilet scrubbers around.  It's like I tell my son - just because you're learning Mandarin - you will probably be called to speak spanish or english somewhere.  Just because Nathan has medical training we will probably be called to scrub toilets.  The principle of humility is always being driven home to us in our family.

4.  I haven't taught our kids to speak 3 languages.   Ok, see- I told you I was having a bad day.  I was reading about a General Authority that just got called that is like 2 years older than me and they are converts and they've taught their kids 3 languages.  I can't even speak pig latin.  My husband just said "what is pig latin?"  HA!

3.  I'm selfish!  My husbands answer to all of these was "Boom!  Blows it up!  Whom the Lord calls, he qualifies, so all those negatives are blown up and don't matter."

2.  I'm anti-social.  Again my husband chimed in with "Boom, blows it up - gone."

1.  I am writing this list.  I obviously heed the nonsense of the destroyer.

The good news is that I stopped writing and went and had scripture study and prayer with the members of my family that were home tonight.  So, I'm not completely selfish.  Before my 2 youngest go to bed we have to tell each other what our favorite and worst part of the day was.  I told them that my worst part of the day was letting myself feel bad about myself.

Some days I just feel like the children of Israel and say something like "I'm sick of eating this mana." I'm pretty sure that if I'd been there I would have been one of the ones causing Moses so much grief.  You know, the kind of grief where he begs God to just kill him.  It's found in Numbers 11

14 I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too^aheavy for me.

 15 And if thou deal thus with me, kill me, I pray thee, ^aout of hand, if I have found favour in thy sight; and let me not see my wretchedness.

It's not funny, but it's kinda funny because I can totally see it.  We have the same problems today that the children of Israel had.  The little list I just made is proof positive of that.  We all struggle and have bad days but we've got to keep moving forward.  Lucky for me, I had a husband loaded with a nerf gun that shoots at me whenever I start talking nonsense.  Today was one of those days and I've left permanent evidence of it here.  

Quote of the night - when my husband saw what I was doing and asked if I was writing about my tales of inspiration and miracles and I told him that I was actually writing about me being a poo head he said "oh brother, you're only a poo head when you are being a poo head."  Oh really?  That was deep! hahaha