It has been an interesting month. I went back in for surgery on both my arms. I just had to go to the hospital with "Santa". All the nurses and visitors just had to come and look. Everything went well, all the metal is out of my one arm, and the tendon in my other was also repaired, so for the first time in a very long time, I am nearly pain free. That is a good thing.
Just before my surgery, someone drove into my Post Office, literally. It made quite the mess and has taken a few weeks to clean up. The week before, the pipes burst in the attic. Two completely separate cleanups and four different crews of men. I never knew so many people in my small town could think so badly of me. It has been hard. I have been flipped off, sworn at, yelled at, complained about and pretty generally dished all around.
It has been hurtful and disappointing to say the least.
I have actually been surprised about how angry people can be over a situation that was not our fault in the first place. Yet, we live in a society where inconvenience in a real anger issue. I have really had to work on believing the best of myself and also of not getting angry back.
It has been a loooooong three weeks.
Finally, today, nearly all the work is done and the building can be opened again after hours so that people can get their mail all day long.
I have had some experience thinking about the difference between what God thinks of me and what the town thinks of me. My Heavenly Father knows exactly who I am. He knows my name, He knows my weaknesses, He knows my strengths. He knows how I respond, who I am right now, and even who I want to be.
Sometimes, I think the hardest thing to do is to accept who you are and where you are within yourself. To recognize that you are not, and never have been, who others think you are. That their opinions aren't what is important as you live your life. The One whose opinion matters most of all, already accepts you and loves you for yourself. He will mold you, lift you and magnify you if you will only hold your head up, your arms out, and walk with Him.
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.
"When you take the path that climbs, that harder path of the Savior, there are rewards along the way. When you do something right, when you resist temptation, when you meet a goal, you will feel very good about it. It is a very different kind of feeling than you have when you violate commandments--an altogether different feeling. It brings a measure of peace and comfort and provides encouragement to press on."
Howard W. Hunter said,
"If our lives and our faith are centered on Jesus Christ and his restored gospel, NOTHING can ever go permanently wrong. On the other hand, if our lives are not centered on the Savior and His teachings, no other success can ever be permanently right".
Helen Keller once said, "The marvelous richness of human experience would lose something of rewarding j.oy if there were no limitations to overcome. The hilltop hour would not be half so wonderful if there were no dark valleys to traverse."
Think about that for a moment. How many of you have traveled a great way through valleys and forest, struggling to make it to the top? When you get there, you sit down and feast your eyes on the wonder of being in such a place. You thank your Heavenly Father for the opportunity that put you there. You choose to remember the blessing instead of the struggle to reach it.
Being a parent can be tough! It is not the midnight feedings, or the many times they crawl in my bed, or the whining, crying, fighting, biting, pinching, or screaming that have brought me to that decision. It is the teenage years! Don't get me wrong, I love my kids, I just wish they went from cute to grown-up without that extra step thrown in.
I have found that one of the hardest things to do as a parent is to let your children struggle. They need experience in making decisions when they are young so that they know how to make them when they are older. I try and give them lots of decisions, and pray that they make some bad ones so that they get a little experience behind them. I really love to watch them when they make good decisions. They are so proud of themselves! They can't wait to tell you about it. They just blossom under the praise and appreciation for their accomplishments.
Sometimes, I struggle with letting them learn to do things. I can vaccuum twice as fast as they can. I can do the dishes without grumbling, fighting and complaining. It takes so much less time to be a bad parent! Now, if I could just get them to do the laundry and clean their room! I suspect that it is time to bring out the trash-bag and "help".
I hope today, that you help your children learn one important thing. I hope that you remember that after the struggle comes the blessing. Help them to learn to hang on until the blessing comes. Help them to learn what it means to be a butterfly.
A man found a cocoon for a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared, he sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through the little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared stuck.
The man decided to help the butterfly and with a pair of scissors he cut open the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily. Something was strange. The butterfly had a swollen body and shrivelled wings. The man watched the butterfly expecting it to take on its correct proportions. But nothing changed.
The butterfly stayed the same. It was never able to fly. In his kindness and haste the man did not realise that the butterfly's struggle to get through the small opening of the cocoon is nature's way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight.
Like the sapling which grows strong from being buffeted by the wind, in life we all need to struggle sometimes to make us strong.
It is the struggle that turns us into the butterflies of life. Sometimes we just need to have a little faith and courage to get through the moment and into the blessing.
We are a very musical family. I have loved music all my life and never was able to learn an instrument. My abilities have all been focused on my singing and I have been able to participate quite often in activities with music. Sometimes I sing solos, and sometimes, I sing with my children. I think I gave all my older children nightmares when it came to singing.
I have always sang to them. From the time they were very small they have heard my voice raised in song. Most of them loved it, until they got to an age where I asked them to sing with me. I would gather the six oldest ones together, practice for several days and than have them perform during church or an activity or a meeting. They would all fight me on the practice time.
To start with, three of them were boys and they just had better things to do than go to someone's house and stand around a piano. Everyone of them can tell you about the times that they had to sing. But, much harder than the singing, was all the time spent practicing in order to sound good together. We have spent hours and hours as a family and individually, working on our music.
All of the children have spent time playing musical instruments as well as singing together. Each instrument has required hours of practice before the child was able to play it well. Practice is essential in order to play well enough for people to be glad they came to hear you!
The three youngest girls are no exception to the family music program. Miracle plays the flute, Kayla, the Cello and Anya isn't old enough yet to start her instrument, but she says she wants to play the violin. In addition to the instruments, they all sing. They have been singing with me in church since they were quite small. I love to sing with them. They're voices are so clear and sweet. Not only are they singing, (when mom tells them they have to), but I have put them each in piano every week. The youngest just turned nine, the other two are eleven and thirteen respectively.
Now, you should probably know that up until this point, playing music has been as bad as a trip to the dentist for these girls! It is not just the lesson itself, but the added practicing every day that makes it so not fun! It has taken me a year to really get them into a routine for the practicing. Finally, something has clicked into place over the past month. All of a sudden, they each have something they are working on that sounds great when they play it! For the first time, I don't have to beg, plead, and coerce them into a practice session. They are fighting over whose turn it is to sit at the piano! They are enjoying the moment when their fingers manage to play the notes that are written on the page. The are finding joy in the journey of learning.
Now, you might wonder why I am spending so much time on music (besides the fact that I love it!). Actually, music or more especially the learning of music, is a lot like this life we are living. If we want to be good at anything, we have to practice. If we want to play sports, we have to practice, if we want to be good drivers, we have to practice, if we want to be good speakers, we have to practice, if we want to understand the scriptures, we have to practice.
The 'practice makes perfect' motto can apply to literally every part of our lives, in the gospel and out of it. If we want to be good teachers, we need to practice! We can't pick something up and than ask Heavenly Father to do all the work. We are here to learn and grow. Sometimes, I think we expect way too much of ourselves! We are like my children who struggle with music for a long time until suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, it makes a joyful noise. But we want it right now! We want it without the struggle, without the pain, without the trial. We want it without the practice!
There is the story of a concert pianist that played for many people all over the world. After one of his concerts, a woman came up to him and said,"Sir, I don't know how you do that! I would give half my life to sound like you!" "Madam", the gentle musician said, "That is exactly what I have done".
Never forget that you Heavenly Father placed you here so that you could learn and grow. He placed you here so that you could become who He needs you to be.
"Practice means to perform, over and over again in the face of all obstacles, some act of vision, of faith, of desire. Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired." Martha Graham
"A day will never be anymore than what you make of it. Practice being a "doer"! -- Josh S. Hinds
We learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to sing by practicing singing or to learn to play piano by practicing piano, or to learn to live by practicing living. The principles are the same. My you continue to find joy in your journey through this life as you practice and learn.
