Musings on Gratitude

***Please note that these musings are not intended to be a lecture or sermon. They're definitely not intended as a sign of how "good" I am or as evidence that I've got the craziness of life figured out in the least but are often for my own self as I ponder the person I hope to be. I just hope that maybe by sharing them they might help someone else along the way.***

“Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

Life has always had a lot of ups and downs. We all have them. It’s just part of being human. Sometimes we may look around at all the platitudes of perfection that are on social media or the covers of our favorite magazines and wonder why it seems like we’ve unfairly received more than our fair share of the downs though. After all, why can’t we have a fairy godmother come and make everything work out? Wouldn’t that just be so much nicer? I know I’ve spent more than my share of hours wishing for just such a thing.

The thing about wishing for what we don’t have though is that it doesn’t allow us to think of just how blessed we are. One of the memes I saw recently that really struck home said something to the effect of while we’re busy wishing for all the things we wish we had someone else is wishing for the things we have already been blessed with. Definitely something to think about when we start whining about things that really won’t make a difference 5 days from now or even 5 years.

We may never know why things work out the way they do but dwelling on the what might have beens or the way we wish things were only brings us down. If instead we think about the things that we do have to be grateful for we realize that each of us has been given so many amazing gifts that we can’t even really begin to start counting them.

This lesson really hit home for me when someone was discussing how gratitude affects our prayers. They suggested considering how long we usually pray for and then taking that amount of time and trying to write out as many of our blessings as we could think of. When the time was up review the list and then ponder what life would be like if you woke up the next morning with only the things on your list.

I’m definitely not perfect at it, even though I tend to think of myself as a fairly positive person I’ve realized lately just how often I let the bad take control over the good and start in on the whining and complaining and dreamily wishing. Now don’t get me wrong, wishing is fine but we’ve got to be willing to put some action behind it and make it happen. When we start going down those empty negative roads we just end up feeling even more negative and it snowballs on itself but when we stop and intentionally turn ourselves towards gratitude it’s like a whole new world of joy opens up before us.

Like I said, I know we all go through things though and sometimes it really is just ridiculous little stuff but sometimes it’s hard - really hard. As I gain more perspective on life I realize that even in those darkest of moments when I’ve felt like there’s nothing but me and the storm there have been blessings and lots of them– blessings of strength, comfort, friendship, care, and so much more.  I can realize looking back that I really wasn’t as alone as I felt and I know that I wouldn’t change any of those moments because they have taught me so much and helped me become the person I am. If that’s true than when moments of wind and hail come I probably need to focus on the lessons I’m learning and the growth I’m achieving if I want to keep moving forward in the future and trust and have faith that things will continue to work out as I do so. 

I’m so thankful for this time of year when we can all take a little time to ponder our gratitude and allow it to help shape us instead of allowing pride and jealousy destroy the beauty all around us. My wish is that it will help us all find a little more joy and a little more love and realize amidst all the false enticements and notions of "reality" the things that matter most.

Ready and Able to Serve: Filling up Our Treasure Chests

The other day I was helping someone. An extremely sweet sister that I hadn't met before who had suddenly found herself in a hard place and time and needed help desperately and on short notice.

It's not the first time I've gotten those calls. Sometimes I haven't even gotten an actual call but had a prompting or passing request- either way as the “calls” come they have resulted in a variety of different things. I've brought meals, watched children, driven people to places, helped people move, picked up groceries, took care of animals, and just sat and chatted.

I've always loved the opportunity to serve others. I've never once regretted going and doing (although I have unfortunately regretted plenty of times when I've missed that opportunity for one reason or another). I've often found that I was blessed even more than the person I was trying to help. I love getting to know people better, lifting someone's day, and for my tiny part knowing that the world is brighter because I did something to help.

I hope that doesn't sound conceited or trite because I wasn't the only one who answered the call in this case and it was amazing to see how each of us were able to be there and what we were able to bring in the way of help and how each of us were needed. In the midst of my pure exhaustion that followed I had a thought - What if I hadn't been able to serve? What if I was too busy with other things? What if I didn't have the physical/emotional/mental/spiritual/temporal resources available that she needed? Would she have suffered because I wasn't able to serve? What would I have missed?

I almost broke down in tears of gratitude to my Savior. I thought of all the times I wanted to help but didn't or couldn't and I was so thankful that at least this once I had been prepared to be able to help. I'm not sure I could have done what I did even just a few months ago and the thought was painful to me. Maybe someone else could have been there and everything would have been fine without me, it probably would have. Maybe they could have helped better than I did. But maybe not. Maybe I was the only one who could have done what I did and that small bit for whatever it was worth would have been left undone.

The Lord has blessed me with a treasure chest. It's my job to take care of it and fill it up with the things I need though. If I want to be able to help I have to have the knowledge and strength and resources to be there. I have to be busy filling up my treasure chest so that when others need something I am ready and able to share. It's just logic that you can't give what you don't have.

Now I don't think that God expects us to have everything right today that someone may ever possibly need from us or that we alone have to save the world. He gives each of us different gifts and different needs and what I'm expected to be able to give now will be different than what I might be expected to give 30 years from now. But God knows what we're capable of doing and I think that He wants each of us to be doing our very best. I don't want to have to get to the eternities and realize that I missed opportunities to serve and love and bless because I was too busy or lazy and hadn't prepared myself or didn't even realize that there was a need. The prophets have taught to get out of debt, provide for the future, take care of our homes and families, to take scripture into our hearts, to learn all that we can, and stay close to the Spirit. I think those are all things that I can work on bit by bit each day to help fill my treasure chest so I won't have to come up empty handed and can be satisfied that I truly did give all I could.

I am just so thankful that I was here, I was ready to answer the call and I was able to serve because of what I've been blessed with largely because of promptings that have come through the Holy Ghost. That means so much to me. I still have a lot that I can be doing to fill my treasure chest up but the other day I truly felt like I could not have been more blessed.

Family Forever

Once upon a time I was a stupid teenager. I had some things happen that I let damage my self-esteem pretty bad and ended up with a crowd of friends who although not ill-intentioned, simply did not have my same standards. Although I never committed any "serious" sins there was a short time when I was not worthy to enter the temple.

That may seem a bit strange or harsh to people not of our faith but we believe that the temples are the most sacred and holy places on earth - we believe that they are the House of God and the scriptures say "that all men, everywhere, must repent, or they can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God, for no unclean thing can dwell there, or dwell in his presence" (Moses 6:57). If we want to be in God's House, if we hope to dwell in His Presence we must be clean and worthy.

So there I was, unable to enter the House of the Lord. All my life I grew up knowing how special temples were and it was devastating to me not to be able worthy to participate in those sacred experiences. My top priority became repentance and taking hold of the blessings of the Atonement so that I could return. I remember a special blend of feeling joyful and humble when I was able at last to enter in again that I now feel each time I enter. 

It was soon after this time that I found my favorite Primary song - I had always loved music and especially the church songs but this one took on special meaning to me.

I have a family here on earth.

They are so good to me.

I want to share my life with them through all eternity.

 Families can be together forever

Through Heavenly Father's plan.

I always want to be with my own family,

And the Lord has shown me how I can.

The Lord has shown me how I can.

 While I am in my early years,

I'll prepare most carefully,

So I can marry in God's temple for eternity.

 Families can be together forever

Through Heavenly Father's plan.

I always want to be with my own family,

And the Lord has shown me how I can.

The Lord has shown me how I can.

 

If there was a blessing in all that I went through, it was that I appreciated temples and eternal families like I had never done before. I knew with certainty that I could never settle for anything that wasn't forever. I wanted my family to be eternal and that I would have to continue to make sure that I was worthy and focused if that was going to happen.

Fast forward a bit and I knelt across the alter from my very best friend and made sacred promises with him and the Lord that no matter what came our way we would stay focused on eternity together. When I look at my husband, my children, when I think of my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents - I feel an indescribable joy and overwhelming gratitude for how very blessed I am. I am so grateful that the priesthood was restored and that temples are once again on the earth and that we can be sealed together as a family forever.

 

In our ward during April we focused a lot on temples and families. We made a ward goal for everyone to try and get their families to go to the temple together - at least to walk around the grounds and feel the Spirit there. We were able to go as a family to both Boston and Montreal and see the temples there. 

 

No my kids weren't the most reverent while we there, yes it was a difficult thing to get everyone together and do the long drive. Would I do it again? Of course! Even though it was challenging and I imagine it will remain so no matter what the future brings, having our family together at the temple, teaching our children that they are part of our family forever, showing them how much we love them and God loves them are some of the most treasured moments of my life. 

 

I hope that by helping them focus on the things of eternity so they will be able to remember who they are and where they are going and know without a doubt that they are children of a Heavenly Father who loves them, and wants to keep the commandments and be clean not only so that they can be happy in this life but so He can bring them home to live with Him again to live in his eternal joy with all our loved ones together forever. 

my greatest blessings

Remembering Septemeber 28, 1995

I still remember it almost as vividly as I remember yesterday, in some ways it's even more vivid. It was a pretty average September day for me in 1995. I was running late for 7^th grade as my parents helped me put the finishing touches on a Social Studies project. I felt awful that I had procrastinated (yet again) and missed the bus, forcing my mother to drive me all the way out to school – a good twenty minutes or more out in the rural countryside and the opposite direction from her work.

As the first class change came that day I was showing my project to a friend and walking slowly, far behind everyone else and bound to be late for our next class when another girl we knew came racing around the corner of the building. I can still remember her strawberry-blonde curls flying out behind her and the panic stricken look on her face as she raced past us screaming that someone had been shot. At first I thought it was some sort of bad joke, convinced that things like that only happened in the movies, not in real life and certainly not in towns as small and close-knit as I thought ours was. Her words were confirmed moments after in the look of terror on our school secretary’s face as she screamed for everyone to get inside the classrooms.

We waited, locked in the classrooms for what seemed like an eternity. The only thing we knew for sure was that there was a gun and someone had been shooting. The teachers tried desperately to keep things as “normal” as possible. For the students that were in the right place that meant a few poorly timed jokes followed by some busy work. My two friends that were with me tried to work on homework. I wasn't so lucky and there was nothing for me to do aside from wait so I began to write and pour out my heart on paper writing a poem that still to me captures the tumult of emotions I was experiencing. 

After what seemed like hours the official announcement came that there had been a shooting. Nothing more was said then but everyone was gathered to the cafeteria and in the days before everyone had a cell phone the few that were found were eagerly passed around as we all tried to contact our parents and arrange to be picked up.

By the time we left the outside world knew more about the situation than we did. As it turns out, a 14-year-old boy brought a gun to school and fatally shot another student who had only been 13. I had been within 30 or 40 feet from the end of the building where I would have been a first-hand witness. At first the investigators said it might have been a personal grudge or even a racist attack. There was some strong suggestions of gang-activity. In the end it seems like it was just a tragic case of a youth who was mad at the world finally reaching a breaking point. 

As the students and staff of the school tried to pick up the pieces amidst the grief counselors, television reporters, and instructional sessions from police I thanked my Heavenly Father for the blessings that He had given to me through all of it. As I look back now I am even more grateful for the things I was able to learn even in the middle of all the turmoil.

The first thing I learned is that we can never show too much love or kindness to someone else. As I sat waiting to know what happened my first thoughts were for my classmates and friends. I didn’t know if I’d see them again. Were my last words to them words of kindness and love or had I been mean and rude? Would I ever get the chance to let them know what they meant to me?

I learned that we never know who is hurting inside and needs our help. I rode on the same bus pretty much every day as the boy who brought the gun to school. As often as I had seen him I had no idea that he was capable of such violence. Others that were closer to him knew a little more of his aggressive nature and struggles with drugs and the like but from a distance I only saw an average 14-year-old boy.

I learned how much we all need to understand the plan of salvation. I went to a lot of the grief counseling sessions with my friends. Many of them were much more traumatized by what had happened than I was. They had questions and desperately needed the answers that the gospel provides. I still remember getting a tear-filled phone call from one of my friends one evening. We drove out to her house and my mother sat with her and tried to explain what happened to our spirits and our bodies after we died. I don’t think I had realized before then just how fortunate I was to have grown up knowing that we can live again with Heavenly Father.

Today as I read an article from the newspaper back home that marked 20 years I also learned that as adults we can make a difference. Shortly after the shooting the schools began a program for school resource officers. The idea was that they would work with the students and form a relationship with them so that they would feel more comfortable going to someone if there was a need for help. I never realized that the officer that came to our school day after day and befriended everyone with the perfect blend of authority and approachable humor and kindness was one of the officers that had arrived on scene to help apprehend the shooter and then been the lead investigator in the case. He decided that he would do whatever he could to help prevent this from happening again and made a very real difference in the lives of many of the students there.

Perhaps the greatest lesson for me in all of it was simply that God knew me and He loved me. I was just a little 12 year old girl but on that day there were so many things that happened to protect me and show me that He was in control. A few of them might be able to be explained away by some people as lucky coincidences. Others simply can’t be explained unless you believe in His all loving power.

Each of us faces trials and challenges every day. In the months that followed there were four more untimely and tragic deaths from our school. Since then we’ve seen Columbine, 9/11, Virginia Tech, and Sandy Hill. We’ve also seen local police and military officers attacked, innocents suffer, and devastations from war and natural disasters around the world. Then there are the thousands of personal struggles that we each experience in our own individual lives. Many of them, like this, have the power to change us forever. Heavenly Father has told us though that all our trials will work together for our good if we can trust in Him. I know that this is true. I may have lost a lot of my childhood innocence that day and had to struggle for a time with feelings of fear and uncertainty but I learned so much more. 

Looking back I can say with absolute certainty that because of my own trials and experiences I know that God will bless us even when things look darkest if we can have faith in Him and keep looking for the good.