To Try Them

I need more patience!  I don't want to have more, but I really do need it.  I am doing better that last year, but still find myself impatient and grumpy way too often.  That is one attribute that is really hard for me to develop.  I am not sure why I am so impatient with things and people.  I find myself knowing what I mean to say, but having others misunderstand it.  Then everyone gets a little bit snappy. 

That is not what I want at all.  I find myself constantly having to explain what I mean so that people don't take it badly.  I am going to try and experiment.  I read somewhere, (I really wish I could remember where!) in the past couple of days about trying to turn your words around and making what you say come out as gratitude to the person listening. 

For instance, when someone complains, tell them thank you for bringing that to my attention, I am so sorry that you feel that way.  It is supposed to defuse situations and reduce misunderstandings.  Hopefully, if I can be successful at it, I will also be developing more patience to go along with the gratitude. 

Revelation 3:10 Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.

I found this scripture and it actually made me smile.  Who doesn't need help with temptations?  I know, right?  We all do, so if we keep the word of the Lord's patience, than He will keep us from temptation.  That is a promise that I really need in my own life.  I know that I certainly don't need more temptations! 

Every gift that He gives me helps me to learn and grow and to develop

even more patience with myself. 

Patience with my own faults and failings.

Patience in His word. 

Patience in His timing. 

Patience in suffering. 

Patience in His Grace. 

Being Negative

Being negative, 

only makes a difficult journey

more difficult.  

You may be given a cactus,

But you don't have to sit on it. 

 

Once, many years ago, one of the foreign exchange students we had wanted a picture of herself pretending to sit on a cactus.  I got out my camera, and she pretended to sit, I snapped the picture and she promptly fell on the cactus.  Then, in trying to get herself off, she ended up with many more stickers in her hands, arms and legs, than she would have had.  Hours of painstakingly pulling stickers with duct tape and tweezers later, she was finally able to move a little more freely.  It was one of those experiences that none of us will ever forget, especially her.  

Cacti are not fun to sit on.  They hurt.  Some of them have big stickers, and some have small, nearly invisible ones.  Both kinds hurt.  Both are hard to get out.  Both leave a lasting impression!  We all have difficult journeys.  Just because I am not going through the exact same thing that you are, doesn't make my journey any less harder for me. 

Life is not a competition against each other.  If you get to heaven, that does not mean that I won't get there too.  It is funny how people act that way sometimes.  Like I have to be better than you, or I won't have any chance.  I am so grateful that Heavenly Father doesn't compare us to each other, only to ourselves.  I don't have to be perfect.  I just need to be getting better at things everyday.  He loves me when I succeed, and He loves me when I fail. 

Being negative in our day to day lives, doesn't make our trials go any better.  They don't go away, they don't even get easier.  As a matter of fact, I would venture to say that being negative is a lot like sitting on that cactus.  It only hurts us more.  It leaves lasting impacts and none of them are positive.  When we dwell on the negative, our mind becomes filled with all that is negative around us.  I have learned that it only makes me more unhappy and miserable.  When I focus on the negative, that becomes all I see.  I can't see the blessings that might also be there.  I can only see what my focus is on. 

As I strive in my life to overcome negativity, I find myself more willing to acknowledge the blessings that are also there.  I find myself working a little harder to be just a little better.  I find that my faith increases and so does my humility.  As I focus more on the positive, I find myself more willing to acknowledge Him in every aspect of my life.  For me, that is so much better than a cactus!      

Finding Peace

“There is no need to go to India 

or anywhere else 

to find peace. 

You will find that deep place of silence

in your room, 

your garden, 

or even your bathtub.”

~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross~

I loved this one.  I am finding it to be so true.  A couple of weeks ago, I was privileged to go with two of my daughters to a Time Out For Women event.  It was amazing, inspiring and most of all, fun.  I found peace in a room with 1500 other women.  I found peace in the learning and in my time with my beautiful girls.  

Spending time with adult children is so amazing.  I have been blessed to watch them grow and have children of their own.  I get to see their joys and their trials and their overcoming of the hard parts of life.  

I love being a grandmother to their children, and I love the relationship I have with them now that they are grown.  I have found friendship and advice and love in this opportunity to get to know the adults they have become.

I spent so many years of my life wishing for things to happen.  Wishing that different things would hurry up and come, and that others would hurry up and be over.  I wanted the infant to be older so that I could, at last, get a full nights sleep.  I wanted my first daughter to go to school.  I wanted my son to play football.  I wanted them to hurry through the terrible two's and the treacherous three's.  I wanted them to grow faster, and than to not grow so fast after all.  

Mostly, I wanted them to need me and love me and understand me.  

Now, many years later, I understand the need to enjoy whatever part of life you are in.  Babies do grow, children do change.  The teen years really don't last forever (even though it feels like it!)  When it is over, you look back and it seems to have taken mere moments to pass.  You can't go back and hold your new baby again.  Now they are grown taller than you.  

For me, finding peace is learning to live, forgive, and love right now.  Peace is in knowing if I died today, I would not regret what I did or what I said.  Peace is relying on my Savior in ever single part of my life.  

I am seeking that peace.  Somedays, I even find it.  

Matthew 11:28-3028.  Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart:  and ye shall find rest unto your souls.30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

31 Days of Hope - Day 14

Sabbath Day Scribblings

"Don’t you quit. You keep walking. You keep trying. There is help and happiness ahead. Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don’t come until heaven. But for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come. It will be all right in the end. Trust God and believe in good things to come."

—Jeffrey R. Holland, "An High Priest of Good Things to Come", Liahona and Ensign, November 1999

31 Days of Hope - Day 12

Now, is one of my favorite times of the week.  This is my moment to sit, think, and write.  This is my time to be "real".  To be myself.  To write exactly what I am thinking in my own way.  Now, set your timer, clear your head, for five minutes to just write without worrying if it’s just right or not.

These are the only rules:1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.2. Link back over at Lisa Jo's and invite others to join in.3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community..

The challenge for this week is:

RACE.....

GO

Sometimes I feel hopeless, sometimes I feel depressed.  It is not that I want to feel that way.  It's not that I look for those feelings, or strive to keep them close to me.  It just seem like I can never get everything that needs doing, done.  So many days pass by in a blur of motion.  I work, I drive girls here, there, and everywhere.  I go to the school, I fight with the school, I lose to the school.  I take them on the three hour drive twice a month for specialists.  If I am lucky, and I actually get to wait for a moment or two, I read; pretty much everything that I can get my hands on.  My life is a race.  It seems as if I never sit still or be still or even feel still.  It is hard to find hope in the noisiness of living.  I am exhausted and struggling with the race that is so much a part of me.  Yet, as I sit here spilling out the pieces of me that are hard, I remember the council I was given a long time ago:  

"The goal is not to win the race; but to run it in honor and dignity, in testimony and worthiness".  Marvin J. Ashton

I think that Heavenly Father knew that we would race.  That these times would be fast paced, and seemingly never ending.  I think that He know peace would be hard to find in the chaos that surrounds us.  He has said to us:

Isaiah 40:31 But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

It is time for me to wait upon the Lord and stop my racing.  It is time for me to embrace His promise.  To run and not be weary; to walk and not faint.  Life is not in the race, it is in the hope and the waiting.  

STOP

Now, what can you write in just five minutes.  Give it a try and don't forget to go over to Lisa Jo's and join us!!