Be Still

I am in love with these words.  I have a very hard time letting go.  I never thought that he Hebrew translation was more than being quiet.  I think we have to be quiet to listen, and be quiet to learn.  But I love that the Hebrew of this means to Let Go. 

So many times, I cling to that which I think is mine to hold.  I feel like I have to hold it tight especially when it hurts and when I am failing miserably.  I feel like I will fail even more if I give it to anyone else to do.  Even if the person I am giving it to, is God.

How is it possible that in my mind, I can't hand all the grief, sorrow and pain over to Him?  How is it possible that there is even the smallest part of me that doesn't understand how much the Atonement of a loving Savior applies even to me. 

I know that He was sent, not only to forgive us and pay for our sins, but also to suffer our pains and heartache.  I know that He understands exactly what I am going through.  I know that He knows me.  He loves me in spite of my fears and my aching.  I know that He will take the burdens from me if I will just let Him in and let them go.   

The Reward

Some people find fault

like there is a reward for it.

Living in a small town is hard.  I love it though, although it can give me trials I never imagined.  Everyone pretty much knows your name.  They know your religion, they know your mistakes, they know when you are having problems.  And so many people love to gossip.  I know that it is the same in a larger city, but the difference is I didn't have to hear what they were saying about me.  I didn't have to realize the lies and the jealousy, and the mean-ness.  It was still there, but I could go home every night and escape into my own small part of the world. 

Here, when someone doesn't like you, I can pretty much guarantee that you will see them everywhere.  There are only a couple of restaurants in town, and only a few stores, and a few places to get gas or rent movies.  I can't move out of my house with out being reminded that there are those who do not like me.  

I have been snarled at, yelled at and even flipped off, all by people that I know.  That is hard for me.  I try hard to like everyone.  I suppose that I try hard to be a people pleaser, but that can be very hard when you see people at their worst every day.  I tease my girls that I always know their mistakes before they even get off the bus in the afternoon.  I am not kidding either.  Although there are days when I wish I was.  The hardest thing for me is when I hear things that aren't true coming from people that I thought I could trust.  

Over the past couple of years, I have had to really change who I trust and in what areas of my life I choose to give that trust.  I have had to realize that everyone does not want to be my friend.  Some people are not happy unless they do their utmost to make me miserable.  So, the only way I can survive is to pretend that I do not care, or I do not know what they are doing. 

Naiveté is bliss.  That might sound bad, but it get me through the roughest times.  Sometimes, you just have to act as if everything is fine and you don't realize that anything is wrong.  Sometimes, you just have to pretend that all is right with the world and everyone is good.  Some peoples greatest reward is succeeding in proving you are less than they are. 

So, it works to let it go.  To decide that it is not going to change you life.  To choose to not let it tear you down.  To believe that you are more than they could image.  Sometimes, you have to acknowledge yourself and not worry about what others think.  There is no reward for thinking the worst of any of Heavenly Father's children. There is no reward for finding fault.  The reward is in loving others in spite of that.  The reward is in treating those around you as His. 

Proverbs 11:9

"An hypocrite with his mouth destroyeth his neighbour:

but through knowledge shall the just be delivered".

I will be content to wait for knowledge. 

     

Monday Memoirs - Peace and Serenity

It's Monday again and I hope that you take a moment to write on your own blog something concerning the prompt in your own life.  There really are no rules, just something that you want to pass on to your family and friends.  Link up at the bottom and share with the rest of us.  

Where do you find peace and serenity? 

PEACE noun

1. The absence of war or other hostilities.
2. An agreement or a treaty to end hostilities.
3. Freedom from quarrels and disagreement; harmonious relations: roommates living in peace with each other.
4. Public security and order: was arrested for disturbing the peace.
5. Inner contentment; serenity: peace of mind.

SERENITY
noun (plural serenities)

1. The state of being calm, peaceful, and untroubled: an oasis of serenity amidst the bustling city

Once upon a time, I used to believe that peace was never possible. I had too many struggles in living to even think about finding peace. Church was a place that I went to, sat on a bench and tried my best to keep six little ones “sort of” reverent. I don’t know if I even got a single thing out of the Sacrament talks until after the majority of my children were grown. My ideas of peace have changed a lot over the years.

I used to imagine peace as lying next to the ocean or a lake or a river and just relaxing; spending time communicating with God, and learning to know myself. As I have gotten older, I have learned that peace and serenity both come from within and not so much without. Peace can be found in simple moments of life when there is no arguing or hostilities. In the case of our children, dinner time is not the time to argue. It is our efforts for peace in our world of chaos. Peace can be found in uplifting music, in reading good books, in studying the Scriptures and in spending time with my family. Peace doesn’t have to be quiet, (although that is such a nice minute or two to find), it just needs to fill my heart.
Serenity means something a little more difficult to me. It means to find myself filled, to know
that I am enough, to feel His spirit in my heart and in my soul, to really hear the answers to prayer and know that I am not alone. It truly does mean to find a place of calm within myself. A place where my troubles no longer are all I think of. For me, serenity is being free from worry and stress.
When I was young, I thought that you had to be old to experience either of those things, but as I have grown, I have learned to find them in the smallest moments and the wonder of the everyday blessings that are so much a part of my life. I have learned to see the tender mercies of the Savior in the world around me.
I find peace as I say my prayers, and mean them. I find peace as I help children with homework and kayak on a mountain lake. I find peace in the soaring of eagles and the beauty of a thunderstorm. I find peace when I see God’s hand in the world around me. I find peace when I quit looking for a quiet life and focus on amazing blessings. I find peace in the small, everyday matters of the heart.
I find serenity as I come to know my Heavenly Father. To realize that I am never truly alone and to find His promises are sure. I find serenity in the calm that comes after the storm. In the blessings that always follow a trial, and in the knowledge of His redeeming love.

Holding On and Letting Go

I've got 99 problems, 

and 86 of them 

are completely made up scenarios 

in my head that I'm stressing about 

for no logical reason!

After going through the past couple of weeks with animal injuries and Kitty dying, I am learning a lot  about problems in general.  I tend to be a worrier.  I worry about all the things that might happen, all the things that could possibly happen and all the worst case scenarios that I can imagine.   This is exhausting.

I am good in an emergency.  I can deal with blood and guts and screaming and crying with no problem.  It is before the emergency (or even after) that I am not so good.  I love the above quote, because in my case it is totally true.  I completely make up the worst scenarios in my head, you know, the ones that could never happen.  

The problem with that is that when something does happen, I am not prepared because it is not one of my own scenarios!

Take our poor dog Gracie.  She was attacked by a black lab about too weeks ago.  The lab did a lot of damage (600.00 at the vet).  She had cuts that took many stitches to fix up.  She had wounds to her abdomen and her chest.  However, Gracie never worries.  

Oh, she did attach herself to us a little extra careful for a few days, but now that the cone of shame is gone, the stitches are out, and she is feeling better, she is right back to barking and running and just loving everyone.

Now, I know that Gracie is just a dog, but she is teaching me an important lesson.  She is teaching me how to live with every fibre of her little being.  She romps and plays and loves and sometimes even drives us slightly crazy, but she lives in the moment.  She loves in the moment.  And if you scratch her ears, she lives for all the attention that you are willing to give her right now.  

Maybe, just maybe, I need to learn to let go to the 86 made up problems that I am stressing about and just learn to let them go right into God's hands.  My own "cone of shame" seems to be my willingness to get sucked into the stress.  Maybe it is time to take it off and let it go.   I need to trust that this moment, is the one I am supposed to be living in.  I need to learn to have a little bit of faith in His timing.  

Let It Go

-----Learn
-----to let things
-----you cannot control
-----go.

I have several children and grandchildren who love Disney.  We watch all things Disney in our home and probably own most of the movies.  The favorite this year has been the movie "Frozen".  Now, I have to tell you, that you have never seen the movie frozen until you have sat in a living room full of children all singing at the top their lungs (and just slightly off key), the words to the song "Let It Go".  I have grown to love it and it always makes me laugh.  

The message to the song is interesting.  I think that it is partly about pretending to be something you are not, and also about leaving everything behind.  Nether one of those things works for any of us.  We all have things in our lives that we wish didn't happen.  We all wish would could "let it go".  Unfortunately, it never completely goes away.  We learn to move on, we learn to not dwell on it.  We hopefully learn the lesson that we needed.  When we try too hard to pretend to be what we are not, eventually, we are going to not be able to keep it in.  Something has got to give, and usually, that something is us.  

There can be so much hurt in our lives, but there can also be so much sharing and giving and loving, if we will only open our hearts and let it in.  For me, that is the message of frozen, not to let it go, but to let it in.  

Let it go, let it go
Can't hold it back anymore
Let it go, Let it go
Turn my back and slam the door.

The snow glows white on the mountain tonight
Not a footprint to be seen.
A kingdom of isolation, and it looks like I'm the queen
The wind is howling like this swirling storm inside
Couldn't keep it in
Heaven knows I tried.

Don't let them in, don't let them see
Be the good girl you always had to be
Conceal, don't feel, don't let them know
Well now they know.

Let it go, let it go
Can't hold it back anymore
Let it go, let it go
Turn my back and slam the door
And here I stand
And here I'll stay
Let it go, let it go
The cold never bothered me anyway.

It's funny how some distance makes everything seem small
And the fears that once controlled me can't get to me at all
Up here in the cold thin air I finally can breathe
I know I left a life behind but I'm too relieved to grieve.

Let it go, Let it go
Can't hold it back anymore
Let it go, Let it go,
Turn my back and slam the door
And here I stand
And here I'll stay
Let it go, let it go
The cold never bothered me anyway.

Standing - frozen in the life I've chosen
You won't find me, the past is so behind me
Buried in the snow.

Let it go, let it go
Can't hold it back anymore
Let it go, let it go,
Turn my back and slam the door
And here I stand
And here I'll stay
Let it go, let it go
The cold never bothered me anyway...

If it is Buried, Let It Lie.

"If something is buried in the past, leave it buried. . . . Such dwelling on past lives, including past mistakes, is just not right! It is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. . . . In cases of marriage and family, . . . we can end up destroying so many others."
—Jeffrey R. Holland, "The Best Is Yet to Be"

Too many times, I want to dig up the graves of my mistakes.  I want to sift through the dirt and relive the moments of anger, shame, ridicule and grief.  In short, too many times, I make my own self miserable with my dwelling on my own past mistakes.  Forgiveness for others has always come easily for me, but forgiveness for myself?  Not so much.  I see with the gift of hindsight and think of all the ways that I should have changed that.   I wish with my entire heart that the mistakes would not have happened.  I am very hard on myself.  Reading this article, reminded me that I shouldn't be.  That Christ knew I would make mistakes and that He atoned for my sins.  I honor Him when I learn to forgive myself as well as those I love.  I revere Him when I love all those that He loves.  And so, today, my struggle is to let go.  I will believe the best is yet to be.  I will vow to live life anew.  Today, I will believe that it is well with my soul.

Sabbath Day Scribblings - Trust in His Timing

"First, everyone has worth because we are all children of God.  He knows us, love us, and wants us to succeed and return to Him.  We must learn to trust in His love and in His timing rather than in our own sometimes impatient and imperfect desires."  Cecil O. Samuelson Jr.

Five Minute Friday - Beautiful

We love to just write without worrying if it’s just right or not. For five minutes flat. All on the same topic.

Here’s how we do it:

1. Write for 5 minutes flat with no editing, tweaking or self critiquing.

2. Link back over at Lisa Jo's Place and invite others to join in.

3. Go and tell the person who linked up before you what their words meant to you.  Every writer longs to feel heard.

OK, are you ready? Give us your best five minutes for the prompt:

Beautiful…

START

“The power of finding beauty in the humblest things 

makes home happy and life lovely.” 

~ Louisa May Alcott ~

I love this chance to write about beauty today.  For me, beauty surrounds me.  I see it in the faces of my children, the gentleness of their father.  I see it in the flowers and the trees and that rain that finally washes away the dust upon my mountain.  Beauty is found everywhere I look, but I have to decide to see it.  I have to really pay attention.  Sometimes, it is only there for a fleeting moment, sometimes it stays in my heart forever, but it surrounds me if I will only open my eyes to find it.  I am learning that often, I spend too much time focusing on tomorrow, or on yesterday.  I don't see the beauty in today because I can't find it in the midst of my worries.  When we want to find beauty, we have to focus on this moment.  We have to see the positive potential.  I have daylilies in my garden.  They are beautiful, but the blossoms only last for that one day.  I have different blooms every single morning.  Some are red, some are yellow and some are purple.  They are all beautiful, but if I only focus on one, all the rest would be invisible to me for the next few weeks that they are blooming.  What a shame that would be.  For me, finding beauty is all about leaving the past behind, letting the future take care of itself and focusing on this one simple and beautiful minute.  This moment that God has given to me is a gift, a glory, a beauty.  I just need to open my heart and let it in.

STOP

Now it is your turn, don't forget to link back over at Lisa Jo's with the rest of it.  I can't wait to see you there!