Coming to Christ As We Are

Some random musings for a rainy/snowy Friday:

Have you ever had someone say something that just made a lot of sense and seems like something you’ve known forever but just never really thought about that way? I’ve had two of those this past week that are kind of connected and it got me thinking so I figured I would write it out before I forget and share with hopes that maybe it would help someone else too.

The first thing I heard someone say was that we shouldn’t wait until we’re perfect to come to Christ but that we come to Christ as we are and He helps perfect us. I think I’ve done a lot of this – thinking that I have to figure something out or be good enough before I can have His blessings. It’s just not true. He loves us as we are right now. Yes, sins will keep us from being able to receive certain blessings but we overcome those sins as we bring them to Him – not on our own. That’s what the Atonement is all about.

The second thought that I heard was just a mental image of our relationship to God that I thought illustrated the first thought beautifully. We’ve all either been or known little children who wake up in the middle of the night and need their parents. Sometimes it’s for a bad dream, sometimes it’s just because, but those little children don’t hesitate to call out or seek out their source of comfort and safety – that place where love makes it all ok again. They don’t worry about if they’ve been good or kind enough that day or if it’ll bother their parents. They just react on an instinctual need to feel that love and comfort. Christ calls us His children. He and Heavenly Father love us more than we can understand, even more than the sublime love of parents who after all is said and done are only human and have to deal with things like sleep deprivation! We shouldn’t hesitate to turn to them when we need that love and comfort or encouragement – they’re going to be there for us with open arms to provide whatever safety and refuge and renewal we need no matter what else may have happened that day. It doesn’t mean that it won’t take time or effort to calm ourselves and find that solace we seek but we don’t give up seeking it.  

3 Nephi 9:14 “Yea, verily I say unto you, if ye will come unto me ye shall have eternal life. Behold, mine arm of mercy is extended towards you, and whosoever will come, him will I receive; and blessed are those who come unto me.”

Matthew 11:28 “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Mark 3:23 (JST) “And blasphemies, wherewith soever they shall blaspheme, shall be forgiven them that come unto me, and do the works which they see me do.”

Moroni 7:34 “And he hath said: Repent all ye ends of the earth, and come unto me, and be baptized in my name, and have faith in me, that ye may be saved.”

Ether 4:14 “Come unto me, O ye house of Israel, and it shall be made manifest unto you how great things the Father hath laid up for you, from the foundation of the world; and it hath not come unto you, because of unbelief.”

Mark 1:17 “And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men.”

God continually is calling us to Him. He knows that we will only find the comfort and peace and love and encouragement we need to grow and improve and overcome our sins as we are humble enough to answer the call and allow His Spirit to work within us.

My Two Cents: Overcoming the Tragedy of Hate

A few thoughts have been running through my mind since I found out about the murders in Orlando this past weekend. Although every time situations like this happen my heart twists in agony for the suffering of those involved, this one hit close to home since I grew up just outside Orlando and many of my friends still call it home. I was so thankful that Facebook has a new “check” where people in the area can let their friends know that they’re safe. I’m saddened beyond words that such a feature is needed but such is the world we live in.

Social media also has been great at proving just about everybody’s got an opinion on it. The right to free speech is letting them share and share they are. I’ve seen quite the range of comments and opinions and information about a variety of mostly related topics. Even though it’ll likely get lost in cyberland for the sake of my own peace of mind I’m adding my two cents for whatever they might be worth.

My first thought is that I think unfortunately we’ve gotten really good at trying to treat symptoms instead of actual problems. I may be wrong but I don’t think this is about guns and I don’t think it’s even really about the LBGT Community or Muslims or any of that. Those things all play into it sure, but there are plenty of Muslims that wouldn’t condone the actions taken, there are people that are part of the LBGT community that own guns and fully support freedom of religion, unfortunately there are Muslims that have attacked other groups of people using other kind of weapons, and even more to the point- there are many other people that have committed other atrocities that aren’t related to any of these things. What it all comes down to really is hate.

We’ve gotten more intellectual about our hate and we hide it well but it’s still there. We may not go to the extremes that that were involved in this instance but we still have it lurking beneath the surface. We hate the people that would do this sort of thing. We hate the people who have allowed this to happen. We hate the laws that didn’t stop it. We hate the way the reports have covered it. We hate that we can’t do anything about it. We hate that the world is in chaos. We hate that everyone’s prayers for the people involved haven’t changed what’s happened. We hate a lot.

I want it over with. Please don’t misunderstand me, I don’t condone the actions that were taken or want to in any way seem like I want to justify the choices that someone makes to harm anyone in any way. I just don’t want to live with the hating and blaming any more. That may seem overly naive but I’ve lived through the terror of tragedy that struck too close to home. I’ve been within feet of a classmate that decided to act on their hate and took the life of someone and changed his own forever. I know from experience that we can hate things and people all we want but it only perpetuates the cycle. It just makes us more bitter, more divided, and more afraid at times when what’s needed is more compassion, more unity, and more courage.

I really believe that unless we can remove the hatred these tragic events are not going to stop. Why would they? We can talk about gun control all we want but people with a desire to harm are still going to find a way to do it. We can legislate and debate back and forth with PC hogwash keeping us from admitting the basic fact that we’re all human. When we start putting labels on ourselves and others it keeps us distanced from them and throw in a dose of hate and it becomes us versus them. I have many friends in the LBGT community – do I love them because they’re part of that community? To me that would be ridiculous and shallow, I love them because they’re my friends and I treat them like I do all my other friends. Same goes for any other labeled group. It doesn’t mean I don’t acknowledge that people are different and face different challenges based on certain things. It just means that I know deep down that everyone has a story and a struggle and is worthy of compassion and understanding and space to work out their own crazy life in their own crazy way. I have enough problems of my own, why would I assume I can “fix” everyone else’s?!

I know I don’t have all the answers to what to do. I do know that Christ taught us to pray and that we should love our enemies. Sometimes that’s hard, Christ knew about that too though and He never put any conditional clarifiers on it which to me makes me think He probably meant it just the way He said it. So I’ll keep praying for those who have lost loved ones that somehow they’ll be able to find some measure of peace. I’ll also keep praying for those whose hearts are becoming lost to their hate.  I’ll pray for those of the rising generation that are growing up in fear of an unknown future. I’ll pray for love to come to all of us and fill us up where hate and fear have emptied and hardened us. Then I’ll keep trying to follow Christ’s example in taking those prayers and putting them into action. I’ll try harder to love deeper, I’ll try to look for the best in others so that they can see it in themselves, and I’ll trust in Him to help me know who might need an extra hug or helping hand. Though so far I'm incredibly imperfect at it and it hasn’t changed much, it has started to change me. Maybe with some time I won’t be so quick to judge. Maybe I won’t be so quick to take offense. Maybe I won’t be so caught up in my own story that I miss pages of beauty that could have been added by those around me. Maybe I’ll appreciate more the unique gift that each and every one of us are to the world and the greater story of history. Call me crazy but it doesn’t sound like much room left for any hate if I can manage all of that. Maybe I can’t change the world but I can change me. It may sound altruistic or downright corny but maybe when all is said and done that’s really all that matters – how much we’ve filled our hearts with love and how much we’ve shown that love to those around us.  

The Ultrasound that Changed Everything and Nothing: My Experience with Miscarriage

This is Tiger's ultrasound. It was a magical moment when we got our first glimpse of our baby to be. I still remember that day vividly. EC, Monkey and I all gathered in the tiny little ultrasound room anxiously wondering what would see and if we would be lucky enough to find out gender etc. I remember Monkey's disappointment (okay outright denial) that it was going to be a boy, my fear at the idea of trying to raise a boy and all of that.

Fast forward to July 2011... we were back at the hospital anxiously awaiting again. This time Tiger was with us. I'd been prepping Monkey for the week she'd known about the pregnancy that it could be anything - a boy or a girl (she had been hoping for twins... just as long as it wasn't two more boys) my specific words to her were "you know it doesn't matter what it is as long as it's healthy."

The kids happily bounced down the hall to the little room, even more joyously crowded this time. I anxiously and excitedly held hubby's hand. Finally the technician began. I knew something didn't look quite right but I told myself that maybe it was just the prep pictures and I just didn't remember anything but the cute ones they sent home with us. Then the technician broke the news... there was no heart beat. The fog of denial began and I tried to convince myself that it was no big deal... so what if there's no heartbeat, maybe it was just too early for that,  maybe it wasn't a good picture, maybe the machine was broken...maybe...

As I began to realize the full significance of the moment I clung desperately on to the few remaining lifeline strings of my sanity. They were this:

1. I knew that whatever I was going through was something that lots and lots of women have gone through... and worse. I've been so blessed by all those women that have shared their pain prior to my own experience... maybe not in the details of the events, that would probably be too much to handle, but just knowing how many wonderful women I knew that had been through what I was going through was a huge uplift beyond description. It's also interesting because the doctor's told me that about 20% of pregnancies end in miscarriage. That doesn't really sound like a lot but it's one out of every five pregnancies. I think most of the women I know have either miscarried, miscarried multiple times, had a still born baby, a baby that died in infancy, or have had difficulty conceiving. Considering that it's also not something most women feel comfortable sharing there's probably others that I know that I just don't know about.

2. My family. Instantly I realized that I couldn't change it and since I couldn't change it I shouldn't dwell on it. After all, I had a great husband and two wonderful children. I also still had my overall health to be with them. How ungrateful would I be if I allowed this one loss to consume my life.(like I felt could so easily happen if I even momentarily walked that path).

3. I'd already been through trials and loss that year and been forced to come to an understanding deep within myself that even when I didn't understand why something was happening that it was all part of the bigger plan. For whatever purpose or reason, Heavenly Father was still in control and as long as I allowed Him to stay that way, I would be able to sometime find peace and joy that would overcome all those other moments of pain and loss. In the middle of everything I came across a quote in the June 2011 Ensign Magazine from Elder Richard G. Scott that helped give me a bit of perspective- "Trust in the Lord... Just when all seems to be going right, challenges often come in multiple doses applied simultaneously. When those trials are not consequences of your disobedience, they are evidence that the Lord feels you are prepared to grow more. He therefore gives you experiences that stimulate growth, understanding and compassion, which polish you for your everlasting benefit. To get you from where you are to where He wants you to be requires a lot of stretching, and that generally entails discomfort and pain."

That isn't to say it was easy. The baby had stopped growing a few weeks before the ultrasound. It wasn't until a few weeks after that I finally miscarried. The whole time I felt like an anxious ticking time bomb and didn't understand why my body would do this to me - why I wasn't strong enough to carry the baby through the pregnancy and why it now couldn't even pull it together enough to recognize that something was wrong and get it all over with. I bounced around all over the grief cycle for a long time and those fears didn't all magically go away when we finally found out that would were expecting Bear - having suffered loss before made me that much more worried about what could happen. Even still looking at my family I thank Heavenly Father for each day I have with them because I know intimately just how precious it is.

Looking back I can see how much certain things that people did or didn't do really helped as well. Thankfully the few people we talked about it with were amazing. Most of them simply asked "How are you holding up?" and let me share whatever I was ready to share.  One family brought over dinner. Another family invited the kids over for a few extra playdates. After I sent an e-mail blubbering about not being sure of how to handle Primary (I was the Primary President at the time), our wonderful Stake leaders made a special trip to take care of sharing time. One of our friends even let me borrow a copy of a book that had just come out and as soon as they had finished so I wouldn't have to wait for it to become available at the library.

It's funny but I was amazed at the impact of those little gestures. I didn't necessarily need to talk about it with everyone, or get the 3rd degree about what had happened. What I needed most was time to pull myself together and gentle reminders that I wasn't alone, that I had a lot of wonderful people who loved me and cared about me.

Unfortunately all women aren't so lucky.  One of my friends miscarried a few years ago and someone who meant well ended up saying the wrong things and ended up making the experience much harder. I know she isn't alone. Often it seems people in their rush to say something consoling just don't think before they speak so in my experience and opinion here are some things that you might not want to say.

First, it is NEVER okay to start making guesses at why it happened. The only thing that does is bring pain. The mom at that point doesn't need to hear from anyone that that maybe if she had just done things differently then it wouldn't have happened. That's between her, her husband, and her doctors - no one else. (Please also remember a lot of the time it's simply a fluke of genetics and nothing could have changed anything.) As for "it's all part of the plan" response - that's something once again the family needs to come to peace with on their own - the only thing hearing it from another person does is make them resentful.  "You can try again" just negates the hardship that the family has been through and places more weight on the ability/timing of trying again - to the point of making some women unhealthily obsessed with it instead of just allowing time to heal the wounds and take its course.

Those are just some of the experiences that stood out to me, I'm sure that other well meant words could be taken just as poorly. Still, everyone also has a different experience. As one friend said she had seen someone that bounced back the next day and another that pretty much couldn't leave her bedroom for over 6 months. And just in case you're wondering no, I don't think it's because some women are "stronger" than others, it is all just still a part of pregnancy - there all sorts of hormones and physical pain in addition to the emotional pain that goes on with all of it and there's also a lot to be said about personal circumstances and experience before it happens too.
 
I will go one step further about all of this- this is hard on the Dads too. My guess would be that pretty much the same rules apply to them as well- watch your words, remember they're likely to be pretty protective of their wives at this point and even though they're generally not as free to grieve openly over the loss, it's still a loss for them.

October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month and I had been debating if I should share my story since it's been a while and then my dear friend lost her little one only a few weeks into the pregnancy. I can't take away her pain or even claim to know what she is feeling right now. What I can do is offer up my support and encouragement and say you're not alone. 

The Danger of Conspiracy Theories

I know that this is kind of extremely random – especially because I haven’t been able to write anything for a while but here goes. Over the weekend I had to take some down time to try and fight off a cold. I found myself on Facebook scrolling through random things because honestly Facebook is great when you feel like you have to do something besides just lie there but can’t really do much more.

In my scrolling I came across many tributes and articles about the Sandy Hook shooting that took place in Newtown, Connecticut two years ago. Although I don’t spend large amounts of time dwelling on it or researching it, it has been a hard story for me. It just hits too close to home. First of all, it’s only a few hours from where we live. Second I had just given birth to Bear a few days before it happened so my maternal instincts were a little on overload when I got the news and like 9/11 I will always remember that moment. Third because I had two children off at school that day – I had kissed them goodbye and sent them off on the bus, trusting in the simple fact that I’d see them that afternoon. Tiger was the same age as many of those children who lost their lives. I wept for the parents who had done the same thing I had that Friday but had their world shattered. Lastly because I’ve been where those Sandy Hook families have been. I’m pretty sure it was even a Friday when my middle-school went on lockdown because a student shot and killed another student. It shattered our innocence forever and that was when I was 12 and there was only one victim.

As I read through the comment sections of the Sandy Hook articles I knew I had to say something. For anyone who is blissfully unaware there are many people now who are completely convinced that Sandy Hook never happened and is completely a government run hoax. Those people are troll-like trying to take over the comment sections of articles related to what happened and prove their superior intelligence – convinced that the rest of us are mindless fools. Sometime after the first anniversary I read an article full of what it described as “proof” – it was full of the most ridiculous non-sense I could have imagined. The parents were called actors because they didn’t “look like” they could have been in a relationship with one another and they “weren’t grieving enough”. They dared to complain that we haven’t seen the pictures of the bodies on tv or had more film footage. These people never pause to consider that maybe the media for once is respecting the fact that this is tragic enough to where they should back off and respect those who died instead of showing gruesome footage (that no one sane really wants to see and for that matter these same people probably wouldn’t accept as authentic) and focusing only on the most distraught people as they interview (which I can verify from personal experience that they do). The idea of the conspiracy theorists was that it was all just a farce to strengthen evidence against gun laws or even homeschooling.

There’s another similar story I heard recently about Malaysian Airlines flight 117 – people who believed that it was another tragedy that never happened. The idea was that the plane was actually the Malaysian Airlines flight 370 that had earlier crashed into the Indian Ocean. This is another one that struck close to home as we have good friends who had just visited with a longtime friend that was going home on that plane. Their grief is real. They lost a good friend who only a short time before they had laughed with as he played with their little children.  

The idea behind conspiracy theories can be interesting. It feeds off of the concept that we know is true – there is always more to a story than meets the eye. They are especially tempting if we can believe that we know more about what really happened than the person next to us and can either engage that person’s belief or start a good debate. I’m not going to say that we shouldn’t question the reasoning behind tragic events and want to find out the whats and the whys and get our information straight so we can find ways to prevent further suffering. What I am saying is that at the very least we can be decent enough to the people that are mourning to admit that they happened. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to have strangers asking for the pictures of my child or grandchild's tortured corpse so that they can prove that she actually existed. Those who do are no better than the people trying to convince us that the Holocaust never happened and deny us the chance to search for real answers.

And for all of you people still desperately searching for a conspiracy - how about this one – how about a group that goes around coming up with random judgments and outright lies that make us stop believing that these horrible things really are happening. That to me seems the most potentially harmful and frightening one of all.