Things God has been telling me lately

Some moments don't even feel close to real life.

This is one of them.

In a few days, I will be released as a full-time missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I have a lot of complicated emotions going through my heart.  Pain and sadness and gratitude and happiness and love and awe and just about everything else.  My mission has meant more to me than I could ever express in words, so I'm not going to try.  Instead I'll attempt to cover the biggest lesson of my life in one blog post.

God has been teaching me a lot of things in the past 18 months, but mostly He has been teaching me about happiness.  Now let me define "happiness" because it's something we talk about a lot, and there are shelves dedicated to the topic in bookstores everywhere.  When I say "happiness" I don't mean stuff-happiness or relationship-happiness or achievement-happiness.  I'm talking about deep-happiness and inside-guts-happiness and in-spite-of-anything-that-could-ever-go-wrong-happiness.

People told me all my life that happiness is a choice, and it always bothered me.  It just never seemed that simple to me.  I would try so hard to be happy anyway when my kitten died or I fought with my sister or was stressed at school.  I would sit very still and "choose" happiness, silently screaming my choice to the universe and demanding it right then.  It never worked.  I figured I didn't deserve happiness yet so I would try harder to be the very best.  I would be close to happy when things were going well, and I felt that I was succeeding, and I would spiral into sorrow when real life happened. And I ended up just resenting everyone who said I could control my emotions or my life because everything felt so very out of my control which only increased my need to control everything.

About 9 months into my mission, my life imploded.  I found myself for the fifth Saturday in a row crying on the bathroom floor over the figurative pieces of my life.  It seemed that my lifelong battle with perfectionism had ended at 22, and I was and forever would be a failure.  I had done good things, but I felt they could never make up for all my weaknesses and imperfections.  I felt abandoned by God and cut off from His love.  At the bottom of the deepest hole, I cried out to my Heavenly Father, "Is life supposed to be this hard?  Am I supposed to feel this way about myself?"  The answer was sweet and clear.

"No.  You are My Daughter, and you are not supposed to feel this way."

And I finally chose happiness.

Not by sitting very still until my "choice" of happiness settled over my life which had been my previous method.  This time, I chose to meet with a counselor and figure things out instead of hating myself forever.  I wasn't happy instantly, but that choice led to other choices.  I chose to pay attention to and change negative thinking patterns.  I chose to let myself take quiet time to think when the anxiety had my heart beating out of my chest.  I chose to learn how to accept my imperfections as normal.  I chose to believe in and trust the grace of Jesus Christ to help me gradually overcome the parts of me I don't like.  Finally, I chose to love myself and set myself free from my own unrealistic expectations.

I see now that happiness isn't one choice; it's a series of choices!  When I wake up, I choose happiness by communicating with my Father in Heaven!  I choose happiness by studying His word, by serving others, by enjoying the beautiful creation of this earth, by doing the things that my Father in Heaven asks me to do!  I choose happiness by living the gospel of Jesus Christ: exercising faith, repenting, keeping covenants and participating in ordinances, listening to the Holy Ghost and doing the best I can with every day!

I have found the happiness I've been looking for!  It wasn't where I thought it would be.  I thought I would receive happiness as a reward when I finally learned how to be perfect.  But instead I experience happiness every day as I receive love from my Heavenly Father and learn how to send my love right back.  And it's the kind of happiness that sticks.

As a representative of Jesus Christ and as a human who's starting to figure this life thing out, I testify that when you live the gospel of Jesus Christ life gets happier every single day!!

"And it came to pass that we lived after the manner of happiness."
2 Nephi 5:27

The Wall

In the entryway of my family's home there is a very large wall that was white and bare for many years.  My mother eventually filled it with old photographs.  These pictures meant very little to me, but everyone seemed to be absolutely obsessed with them.  Every visitor would stand in front of these black and white faces and comment on their oldness.  I passed them several times a day without thinking of who they were or why they were there and tried my very best to dust their frames without sending them to a second, carpeted grave. 

I don't know when I realized who those people were, but it clicked one day.

That wall, those photos--they are a small sample of my family tree.  A now very out of date picture of my immediate family is in the middle and fanning out on either side are the McAllisters, Tanners, Maughans, McBrides, Johnsons, Fackrells, Pratts and all the et ceteras.






Looking at their faces and smiles is something of a scavenger hunt for my own features.  I can trace full lips and almond eyes, hip glasses and large teeth through the generations.  They are in me, and I am made up of them.  I am thus because so many of my ancients decided to get married and roll the genetic dice.



And so they are mine.
I cannot separate my life from theirs.  I have inherited the consequences of their choices and am living in the future of their dreams.  It is a great life they have created for me through small faith-inspired and hope-filled decisions.



And one day they will be more than just frozen faces in wooden frames.  God's plan for His children is eternal; families will be together forever. There are many faces on that wall whom I have never met.  One day, we will have eternity to talk about this weirdness that is mortal life.  And I will understand more then than I do now about what exactly they have done for me.




Until then, I will learn all I can about who they are and how I can be with them forever.



You can too.
familysearch.org
mormon.org
lds.org

Really Late Birthday Presents from the World's Best Dad

I've always felt that birthday presents are always better when they are late.  You can count on most of the populace to deliver presents punctually which allows me to give my presents a couple weeks or a couple months later.  A late birthday present says, "Everyone else in your life gave you a present on your birthday because they were culturally obligated to, but I waited to give you the best present on the day you absolutely needed to know that someone loves you and was thinking about you."  I think God agrees with me.  Let me explain with an experience that just happened:

My missionary companion and I were sitting in the church building today when suddenly she pointed out the window.

"LOOK!"

We watched two quail and 10 teeny tiny quail babies run by.  My first instinct when things are small and adorable is to get closer and make weird squealing sounds.  We watched them from the inside for a few minutes, but I was not close enough to really see how cute the barely 2 inches tall birds were so I opened the door.

This was a mistake.

The parents ran for it and the babies hid themselves in the shrubbery.  My heart sank.  I had separated these poor, tiny baby birds from their parents!  Probably, this morning when the two quail were discussing their day they mentioned their hope that no huge two-legged featherless monsters would try to see how adorable their children were!

Note: I am not a bird whisperer.

No matter how much I begged and pleaded with the baby birds hiding in the flower bushes to run across the parking lot to their parents, they wouldn't budge.  We tried chasing them and coaxing them.  We promised their parents were really close they just had to come out of the bush to see how close they were.  

The mother started coming over to us, so we hid behind pillars to watch the drama.  The mom squawked and called to her babies, but they remained hidden.  We walked into the building feeling like the worst human beings on the planet.  A few minutes later, we watched all the babies come out of the bush and follow their parents.  Because I'm a slow learner, I ran outside to see them closer and they all took off running around a corner to get away from me.

I've been sitting here trying to come up with a gospel principle I learned from this experience, and I've been drawing blanks.  God could have been teaching me about listening to His voice or avoiding temptations or running away from spiritual danger or the responsibility of parents to their children or any number of things.

Or maybe He just remembered that I'd never seen a baby quail up close before, and He knew I'd think they were really adorable so He sent a whole family of them my way.  He was right.  Those babies were some of the most adorable things I've ever seen!  That's called a tender mercy, but you could call it a really late birthday present from the Best Dad in the World.  This one plus all the other tender experiences throughout my life have taught me that God is real, and He is our very loving Father in Heaven.

Psalms 145:9 "The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works."

Not my quail...lds.org

What's a tender mercy you've seen in your life recently?

To All My Mothers

"One cannot forget mother and remember God.  One cannot remember mother and forget God.  Why?  Because these two sacred persons, God and mother, partners in creation, in love, in sacrifice, in service, are as one."

President Thomas S. Monson

As of yesterday, I have officially been on this mission journey for one year and one day.  It's a little unreal to think that it has been over a year since I've given my mother a hug or talked to her face to face.  She has always been my biggest fan, my rock, the believer of all my biggest dreams.  She listened to my crazy talk and nurtured anything and everything that is good about me.  In the past 366 days I have learned more about the importance of womanhood as I've felt my mother's love, prayers, and support from so far away.  

I've also learned more about God's goodness as He's blessed me with other mothers to give me the hugs and wipe away the tears my mom would have if she could.  Every woman who has befriended me and encouraged me has become one of my mothers.  A lot of them have been related to me, some have been younger than me, all of them have taught me about faith and discipleship.  They have shown me how to courageously follow Jesus Christ despite adversity, discouragement, and disappointment. 

I'm reminded of the story from the Book of Mormon of the young warriors that fought with Helaman.  They were young and had never fought, but they were fearless because they knew that God would protect them in their cause for freedom and to save their families.  In Alma 56: 48, they give the reason for their steadfastness in Christ, "We do not doubt our mothers knew it."

Today, I echo their words.  Because of the righteous influence of the wonderful woman who raised me along with the efforts of all the disciple women who have reached out to me throughout my life, I do not doubt God's plan, my mothers know it.  I pray that my Heavenly Father will always provide such earthly mothers to guide me in my journey back to Him.

Who are the women who have been important to you in your life?  What will you do to show your appreciation for them this Mother's Day?

motherhood.mormon.org

Because of Him All is Well

This hymn has always been a favorite of mine.  I used to sing it as loud as I could when no one else was home.  During times of trial, it was my anthem, my war cry, my hope that if I held on and tried to smile, one day I could say "all is well" and it really would all be well.  Then, I misunderstood adversity.  I assumed that happiness meant the absence of anything in my life that could cause me unhappiness. Experience has taught me that life is full of challenges, and that if we are waiting for these challenges to resolve themselves before we are happy, we will be waiting a very long time. 

I find instruction and hope in the promise the Lord gave to the prophet Nephi in the Book of Mormon: "I will also be your light in the wilderness; and I will prepare the way before you...and ye shall know it is by me that ye are led" (1 Nephi 17:13).  The Lord has prepared the way and the light by which we should travel, yet we still have to journey through a wilderness.  Our mortal journeys will definitely not always go the way we plan them to, but they will always go perfectly the way that our loving Heavenly Father has planned.  Our journeys through this wilderness are not pointless or hopeless.  There is purpose.  There are things to learn and experience to become fit for His home in the heavens.  There is only one path that leads there, and it cuts a straight and narrow way through a wilderness.  This truth neither limits nor overrides our agency.  Instead, it teaches us to rely and depend on the merits of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

As Elder David A. Bednar states:

"We are not and never need be alone.  We can press forward in our daily lives with heavenly help.  Through the Savior's Atonement we can receive capacity and 'strength beyond [our] own' ("Lord, I Would Follow Thee", Hymns, no.220).  As the Lord declared, 'Therefore, continue your journey and let your hearts rejoice; behold, and lo, I am with you even unto the end (D&C 100:12)."

This Easter season, I am overcome with gratitude for a Savior, a Redeemer, a "best and heavenly Friend" ("Be Still, My Soul, Hymns, no. 124). Because of Him, we can overcome weaknesses; who we are is not who we always must be, and we are never out of second chances.  Because of Him, no matter how overwhelmingly hard or long this journey appears to us, there is a power from which we can draw upon for strength.  I testify that because of Him, all is well.

  

Come and See

John 1:35-39 "Again the next day after John stood, and two of his disciples; And looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God! And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith unto them, What seek ye?  They said unto him, Rabbi, (which is to say, being interpreted, Master,) where dwellest thou?  He saith unto them, Come and see.  They came and dwelt with him that day: for it was about the tenth hour."

We are not given any details of what happened as these disciples spent time with the Savior in His home, but later one of those men said, "We have found...the Christ" (John 1:41).

The only way to learn about Christ is to come unto Him, to learn about Him, to follow Him.  Similarly, the only way to know about how members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints live is to spend time with us.  There's been a lot of crazy stuff said about us Mormons.  Whatever you've heard, truth or untruth, we believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior and Redeemer of the world. and we try our best to follow Him.  The only way to know this is true is to come and see.  And that's our invitation:

Come and learn.
Come and know how families can be together forever.
Come and worship with us.
Come and hear the words of a living prophet.
Come and find answers.
Come and help others.
Come and see how you can come closer to Him.

If you have come and are currently seeing the love of the Lord in your life, invite someone you love to come and see what we have.

If you have come and seen and have left us, come back and see again the beauty and simplicity of the Lord's way.

If you haven't ever come or seen, just come.  The door is always open.

Remembering Him

I don't know about you, but sometimes the new year is just a lot of pressure to come up with amazing, inspired resolutions that I'm not going to fail at.  Secret: it's December 31st and I don't even remember the goals I made 12 months ago.  I think forgetting is a very human problem that most of us suffer from.  How many of us have started a day by witnessing the most breathtaking sunrise in existence and think it's going to be the greatest day ever, but have lost that enthusiasm by 9 am because someone cut us off in traffic and we didn't have time for breakfast and a dozen other small inconveniences?  That sunrise is forgotten and lost.  Too often, January 1st is just like that sunrise.  We wake up on the first day of a new year absolutely determined to make it the best year ever!  But life happens and somewhere in the first couple months or weeks, we get get caught up in the small things and forget what goals and dreams we were working for.

I think forgetting is even more dangerous spiritually.  How often do we forget miracles and blessings from God?  How often do we tell ourselves, "OK.  This time I really am going to try harder to make Him a bigger part of my life!" and the next day we have forgotten that moment even happened?  The truth is that God is perfect and that includes a perfect ability to remember.

I love His promise in 1 Nephi 21:14-16 "But, behold, Zion hath said: The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me-but he will show that he hath not.  For can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee, O house of Israel. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me."  Jesus Christ keeps the scars in His hands and His feet to show us that He will never forget us.

This year, my only resolution is to remember.  To remember God's infinite love.  To remember His daily miracles. To remember the promises I have made to obey His commandments.  To remember the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. To remember to write things down on my to do list.  To remember to look at my to do list.  To remember to be kind to others and help when I can.  To remember to focus on the most important things in life.  To remember birthdays and really listen to what others are saying.  Mostly, I want to remember all the things He's taught me in 2013.  I invite you to write down the experiences and lessons from 2013 that you can't afford to forget.

I know that a miracle occurs when we remember to remember Him: life gets better, our days become brighter, we become more like Him, and it really can be the best year yet.