Are you Spiritually Fat?

I know there are scriptures that tell us to "feast upon the word of Christ."  That is exactly what I am suggesting here, but I am going to flip the metaphor to do it.

Let me give you some context.  As many of you know, I went on a diet in early January.  (No, not a new years resolution.  I have to mentally prepare myself in order to diet.  I wasn't ready until around January 10.)  In any case, dieting and exercise are the only way I have ever successfully lost weight.  I count my calories and I give myself credit for exercise.  In such a way, I lost the extra weight I had gained in 2014.  It took both work and dedication.  I think the most important component was consistency.  I had to make it a priority to work out every day, and I had to avoid places and things I knew would keep me from success.  

I discovered that if I didn't work out in the morning, despite my best intentions, I would probably not work out that day at all.  If I got a hamburger at Five Guys, I almost always ate some french fries, even when I was determined to avoid them.  I learned to always save myself a hefty chunk of calories for that glorious time after the kids went to bed, because I crave cookies around then.  

I made this diet a priority, and I got into pretty good shape.  I've been telling myself I should take some photos of me working out to put up in my home gym for a long time.  Whitney (my husband) finally encouraged me to do it just after the diet ended "because I was at my leanest right now."  He's probably right.  Now that I'm off my diet, I am back to eating a lot of cookies.  I am back to eating french fries with my burger and not worrying about it.  I am back to eating two muffins instead of one.  I am no longer tracking my calories and I am not watching my weight.  I won't be surprised if the scale inches up little by little over the next ten months until January 2016.  I will probably be right back where I started, on a diet again.  

I agree that we should all be feasting on the words of Christ (aka, reading the Bible) but I am going to use an inverse analogy.  In order to stay physically fit, you need to watch what you eat.  You need to exercise or it will slip away.  Similarly, if you're out of shape, you can't run to the gym and hop on a treadmill and knock back 10 miles.  You have to work up to that.  

Your testimony of Christ and your knowledge of His life and His plan for you is exactly the same.  

You need to set time aside every single day to work on it, to build your faith, to increase your knowledge.  You need to make it a priority.  If you don't you will backslide.  I have a few beloved family members who are telling me they "just don't have a testimony anymore."  Let me tell you precisely how and why that has happened.  They had strong testimonies.  Their testimonies were shiny and beautiful.  Then either doubt or laziness crept in and instead of really focusing on it, they didn't read.  They skipped church.  They didn't pray.  They let it go.

Now they are telling me, and they are completely right, that they don't believe in God.  They aren't sure if He lives.  They don't believe He has a Son and that Jesus Christ came to the Earth to live perfectly and die unjustly just to rise again and save us all.  "Think about it," they tell me. "It just doesn't make sense."

The best things in life do not make sense.  Other than the gospel, the best thing in my life is my relationship with my husband, and my kids.  My husband is a farmer and a physician.  I know nothing about farming.  I know nothing about medicine.  He loves to run.  I run only when chased.  He loves to research old cars and dreams of owing an RV.  He likes camping.  I think the idea of an RV is ludicrous, I hate old cars and I think staying at anything less than a Holiday Inn should qualify as camping.  And yet, I love that man to distraction.  We laugh, we work out together and I will never give him up, not even if I have to get down on a tattered blanket inside a plastic tent on the friggin ground where there are bugs and rocks and dirt and sleep there for the night.  I will do it because the things that don't make sense are the things that are worth it.

My kids are hanging on me night and day, whining and crying and mooching and making messes, ruining things right and left.  I swear they have a PhD in complaining and a Masters in destruction and they are the lights in my life.  Things that don't make sense are not always untrue.  I know in my bones that Jesus is my Savior.  I can see the truth of it all around me, and I can feel the Spirit testify to me that it is true.  That He loves me.  That He lives.

But you can't come to that conclusion in a day, and once you do, you can't sit back and expect that faith to persist.  Just like you can't develop a perfect body and then BAM you're done, you can't develop a strong testimony and then do nothing.  You must work at it every single day.

If you want to nourish your testimony, if you want to create one, or if you want to rehabilitate a flagging or debilitated testimony, here are my four parallels to gaining a healthy physique:  

1. Do It Every Single Day.  In order to get into shape, I had to work out and watch my food consumption every day.  Likewise, you must read in the scriptures and pray every single day.  If you go to church weekly as you should, you have heard this over and over.  You already KNOW you should be doing this.  The hard part is doing it!! I would recommend you pick a time (for me, I always worked out just after the kids left on the bus) and read and study and pray at that same time, rain or shine, school or not.  Make this something that matters.  Some days I had to cut my workout to just 30 minutes and some days you will have to cut your reading time to a few verses.  That's okay.  Just make sure you still DO IT and that you don't let your one short day turn into several.   If you're worried you won't remember, put a sign on the fridge.  Or enter "scripture reading" as a repeating event on your phone and make your phone ring and remind you every morning at 8 am.  

2. Avoid Bad Places and Things.  I could not go out to eat at many of my favorite places during my diet because I knew I'd consume my weekly calories in one meal.  I couldn't conceive of being set back that far because I didn't want to have to extend my diet.  Your eternal salvation is every bit as important.  Every single reader here has a favorite sin, or a particular weakness that was handcrafted for them.  CS Lewis wasn't wrong when he wrote the Screwtape Letters--Satan has certain sins in mind for each of us, the ones we like, the ones we miss, the ones we love.  Think of yours--it could be as big as adultery or as small as gossip.  If there is a place you go or a thing you do that makes it just a little easier to contemplate that sin, GET RID OF IT.  If you are an alcoholic, that's an easy one.  Stay away from bars or events where people are drinking.  If you're addicted to porn, put the computer out in an open spot and smash that laptop to bits.  Make yourself accountable.  My point here is that there are things you can do to either encourage good behavior or discourage bad.  

3. Prepare for Success.  I love cookies.  90% of the weight I gained in 2014 was from eating cookies.  My love handles smell like butter and flour and sugar.  Seriously. (Ok, maybe from my cookie scented lotion, but still...)  Before I started my diet, I had to get rid of my typical bags of frozen cookie dough (I make double batches and freeze the dough in big bags so I can just pop it into the oven and have warm cookies anytime.)  Instead, I made a few lower calorie cookies (small ones!) and froze them in bags of just one or two cookies.  This made it more likely I could keep within my goal range in an ongoing and realistic manner.  I also came up with a list of easy to eat diet foods that I liked.  Lentil soup (also frozen in single serve size bags), oatmeal with fruit, cottage cheese with fruit, eggs with salsa, the list goes on and on.  The point here is that I planned for a way to succeed.  You need to do the same thing with your salvation.  

What's keeping you away from church?  Kids are a mess?  Put together a church bag with toys, games, coloring stuff so that they can be excited to see these things.  If you're struggling with what to wear, treat yourself.  Head over to Ross or somewhere and get a new outfit.  If you don't enjoy reading the scriptures, skip the parts you dislike! Eli hates the Isaiah stuff and I let him skip some of it.  Go buy some contemporary church books about particular topics and substitute that every other day for the actual scriptures.  Having trouble making time?  Set your alarm back 15 minutes and use those extra minutes to read.  There are lots of things you can do here, only limited by your creativity. 

4. Get Support Lined Up.  I talked to Whitney before I started this diet.  I explained to the kids I would be eating a little differently.  They were pretty supportive and willing to eat a lot of the things I ate, too.  They actually loved my lentil soup.  You need to get your family and friends ready or get them to do this with you!  You can even commit to make this a priority with them, and both check in with each other.  You need to make sure you are not trying to do this on your own.  It's a lifestyle change and it's not temporary like my maintenance diet.  It's a permanent change and you'll need some help, some cheerleading.  But it will be worth it, because as nice as it is to have a healthy body, you need a healthy spirit even more.  Make that commitment and make sure you aren't spiritually fat anymore.

The great thing about this kind of commitment is that you really can feast on the word, and you won't gain a single pound. ;) 

Charity means serving people you don't like

When I was growing up, my family moved a lot.  We moved 12 or 13 times (I think) before I left for college.  One move was particularly difficult on me.  I remember crying when we left my grandparents in Midland, Texas and moved to Bakersfield, California.  Both places were oil towns, and both places were hot.  It shouldn't have been a big change.

It was.

I didn't have any friends after we moved.  To be fair to the good citizens of Bakersfield, I was very awkward and unattractive at that time.  Money was very very tight for our family, so my mom made my clothes (uncool!) and I wore pretty tacky glasses.  I had no idea how to do my hair and in general, I looked pretty ugly.  I was also very bookish and prone to speak my mind too much.  Add to that my tendency to suck up to adults, and I will admit, I was not easy to love.

However, when I moved, there was someone who should have been my dear friend, or at least nice to me.  She was smart, like me.  She sang in choir, like me. She was a swimmer, like me. We were the same age.  Perhaps most importantly, however, she was Mormon, just like me, so we went to church together.  For some reason, perhaps my clothing, perhaps my accent, to this day I still don't know, she took an immediate disliking to me.  She made fun of me, she ensured her friends and family despised me by telling them lies, and she went out of her way to make my life miserable any way she could.

In the face of all this inexplicable hostility, I did as I had been taught.  I hunkered down, became more meek, and more kind.  I picked her roses from our front yard and took them to her.  I made her cookies.  I made her cards.  I was unfailingly nice.  I can honestly say that I acted with unfailing kindness and charity toward her.

Basically I was a completely pathetic chump, and things only got worse.

Eventually, after two very long years, I got into high school, where the opinion of one person didn't matter so much.  A year later, we finally moved back to Texas and I closed that chapter in my life.

Where am I going with this story?  Well, I learned from Miss Hansen that sometimes we must love people, and we must treat them kindly, even when they do not reciprocate.  I learned that doing so can be hard, but it is still the correct path.  I didn't fully realize until years later that my dad had been struggling with a nearly identical situation at work.  He didn't take his boss roses, but he dealt with almost the same issues.  It would have given me a little extra perspective, that although it was exacerbated by my age, this same difficulty can recur over and over in any walk of life.  Of course, I was a teenager, so once I was removed from the terrible situation, I promptly forgot everything I learned.

Not too long ago, my parents had a friend I will call Tom Thumb.  This friend was a mooch in every sense of the word.  Tom had lost his job, his marriage and many other things and was in pretty humble circumstances.  All of those things generated a substantial amount of sympathy toward him, and my parents gave and gave and gave.  My husband and I had cause to come into contact with him, too.  We gave to him as well, and were rewarded by his complaints about our gift and then by his theft of cash we had not properly secured.  It soured us on Tom from that point forward.  As time went on, we watched him continue to siphon resources of both time and money from my parents any time he could, in any method he could contrive.

Before I continue, I should mention that my husband works in the Emergency Room.  He works nights, weekends, and holidays when most people are home with their families.  He has been punched, spat upon, puked on, bled on and kicked.  People swear at him every night.  People call him names, and yell at him and abuse him every which way.  I say this only to make it clear that Whitney is no stranger to being mistreated.

I had spoken with my mom, and heard of some new way Tom was taking advantage of my parents and I was grumbling to my husband.

"It's so frustrating for me to think," I said, "that our tithing and fast offering money that we give to the church with open hearts is going to people like Tom.  I'm happy to give to someone who has fallen on hard times, and who really needs it, but I don't want my money going to a good-for-nothing-sponge who just sucks up resources from everyone because he's made bad choices and is lazy."

What my husband said next was a (well needed) slap in the face for me.

"But that's exactly where our fast offerings go, and it's where they should go.  They go to people who made poor decisions.  They go to people who haven't planned and who aren't living frugally.  That's precisely why they need it.  Charity isn't about giving things to nice people who you want to spend time with.  It's giving it to the people who are unworthy, by very definition."

His words sunk deep into my soul.  I still think about what he said there, that day, because it is so simple, and yet so true.  Giving to people you like, or people with bad luck, or people the world has wronged, that's easy.  That's friendship, or at the very least, that's rewarding.

It is not charity.

Timothy 1:5 reads, "Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned:"

A pure heart doesn't judge the person receiving the aid and withhold it when it's the wounded person's fault.  A pure heart gives to the person in need, regardless of why he needs it.  I'm not saying we should throw our money away and just give away everything we have, but I am saying that charity is giving to anyone in need, regardless of whether they have clean hands.  

1 Corinthians 13 calls charity "the pure love of Christ", and explains that, "it endureth forever."

Forever, not until the person annoys you.  Forever, not until the person steals from you.  You don't get to revoke that love when Tom takes advantage of you, or you deem him unworthy.  You love him Forever.

It got me thinking about how I had been so faithful as a child, even in the face of great personal adversity.  I continued to turn the other cheek.  I was kind, to a fault, to a person who made my life miserable.

Then I thought beyond that, to a more perfect example.  Our Savior lived a perfect life and then sacrificed that life for all of us, even though every single one of us is patently unworthy.  Every single one of us sins.  That sacrifice is why His love is greater than all.  Most poignantly to me, the Savior, in the act of laying down His perfect life, was spat upon, mistreated, called names and abused.  He was forced to carry His own instrument of death.  When the world mourned for His death, when the winds wailed and the storms came, He cried out for mercy on his assailants, He asked His Father to forgive the men who killed him, for they knew not what they were doing.

So my prayer to you all today is to reach into your hearts, and find that charity, that love for the unlovable, and do a tiny piece of Christ's work by serving someone you may despise with a happy heart.  Give to someone who doesn't deserve it, because they are the ones who need it most.  The gap between me and those I perceive as undeserving is far smaller than the gap between Jesus Christ and myself.  He bridged that gap for me.  I don't think I can do any less than try to emulate Him on a smaller scale.  I hope we can all remember this and try to do the same, because in its simplest form, charity means serving and loving people you don't like.

Don't be a P3 Smoker

At my old law firm, there were three levels of parking.  The tenants of each floor received a certain number of prime parking spots on P1, the highest level.  You didn't have to be on the elevator as long, and when you came in to park, you just zoomed right in.  Most of the associates, like me, parked in the unreserved spots on the second level, P2.  I eventually became valued enough that when we expanded and got more P1 spots, I got one.  In my many years there, I almost never went down to P3.

One day, I can't even recall the reason, I drove down to P3.  I had wondered whether anyone even parked there, because as far as I knew, everyone parked on P2.  There was plenty of room there.  So why keep driving?  I discovered on that day that the people who parked on P3 were the smokers.  When I drove down, there was a group of them, all huddled up, smoking together.

When I went back to get my car, there was another huddled group, smoking.  They looked so sad.  They looked so twitchy.  It made me think.  They didn't want to smoke on P2, or P1, possibly because  people complained when they did.  The smoke from their habit bothered other people or embarrassed them, or both.  They went down to P3 to hide.

Today's topic is the "Word of Wisdom" and how rules create freedom.

Many years ago, Emma Smith complained to her husband that every time they had a meeting of early church members, her house was filthy afterward.  She had to clean up cigars, ash, and clear out the smoky smells.  This eventually prompted what we now know as the Word of Wisdom.  You can learn more about it out here. It basically gives a guide for how to live healthy.  It discusses eating healthy foods, in moderation, following good sleeping habits, and more.

It also says not to use alcohol or tobacco.

I can't tell you how many friends have said the same thing to me.  "You guys can't drink?  You can't smoke?  You can't have sex before you're married? (Ok, that's a topic for another post, but they do marvel at that one, too.)  Why are you part of a church with so many rules?  I just want to do what I want to do, and it's my body, so why shouldn't I?"

Because, in case you didn't already know, some rules, the right RULES, create FREEDOM.

If you don't know someone who is an alcoholic, you may not know this, but there are some people in the world who take a single sip of alcohol and then they cannot stop drinking.  They got hammered their first time drinking, and pretty much every time since then.  There are other people who say, "Oh it's not a problem, because I have it under control."

Alcohol is diametrically opposed to control.

Smoking and alcohol are both addictions and they both impact your body.  Satan uses these to chain you down, to hold you back and to limit your potential.

I have chosen, despite occasional and sometimes even frequent, peer pressure, not to drink.  I don't smoke.  I adhere to the rules of the word of wisdom, and by so doing, my body is healthy and strong. I am able to go and do and work and exercise and my life has more freedom, more options.  Things like smoking and alcohol, they tie you down to more smoking, more alcohol.  They control where you park, where you go, how you spend your money and they impact how your body feels.

Sometimes following some rules, sometimes choosing not to make bad decisions will give you more freedom in the future.  God knows this, and that is why He gives us these rules.  We always have the freedom to choose.  We can choose to smoke, to drink, etc, but if we do, our bodies, our strength, our lives will be limited.  We will be less free.

I still have that image in my mind, those people all huddled together in a cloud of foul smelling smoke, chain smoking together.  I thought of how they have to park below everyone else, hiding away, destroying their lungs together, and shelling out quite a bit of money to do it.  I hope that I will always have the fortitude to follow the rules a loving Heavenly Father has set out for me, to keep me free from the bonds of addiction.  I hope you can, too.  And I hope you can see things in a new light, and recognize that rules do not always mean you are tied down.  Sometimes they are intended to help you soar.

Dirty

Note: I wrote this last week, because we are travelling this week. I thought it would auto post but I guess it didn't so I must not have done that correctly!

This morning, while I was working out, my two preschool girls were sitting at the "playdoh" table next to my work out room.  They were (miraculously) playing happily.  I was pretty excited.  Around the mid point of my workout, I smelled something bad.

Someone had pooped.

I asked, like I always do, "Emmy, did you poop in your pants?"

"No," she said, eyes wide.  "I didn't."

"Tessa?  Did you?"

She shook her head really big.  "No."

I look back at Emmy.  "Was it you, Emmy?  Are you sure?"  (She had already pooped just a few minutes before so my money was on Tessa."

"No, mom.  It was Tessa."

Tessa started to run away then, so I figured it was her.

I grabbed wipes and a diaper and wrestled her to the ground.  I was surprised to find she actually hadn't pooped her pants.  Darn, I corralled the wrong kid.

It was Emmy all along, lying to me about being dirty.

While I washed my hands after dealing with the mess, I got to thinking.  Why do my kids always say they aren't poopy when they are?  Don't they want that sticky, stinky, nasty mess off their body and somewhere they don't have to smell it and deal with it?  They aren't even doing the cleaning up themselves.  I do it for them!! All they have to do is tell me they're dirty, lay down and let ME clean it up!

It makes no sense at all, right?

Except you and I do the same thing all the time.  I can't tell you how many times in my life I've thought, okay so that was a sin.  I should not have done that.  I know my Savior atoned for me, he did all the heavy lifting, and I don't even have to do anything hard.  All I have to do is confess my sins (either to God through prayer directly, or to the Bishop) and the Savior cleans it up for me.  I mean, it may not be a super pleasant experience, but at the end, you are clean, you are comfortable and you are all around happier.

I decided it's because we don't want to admit to ourselves or to others that we are dirty, as though we can just ignore it and it won't be true.  Except we can smell it.  We can feel it, and others sometimes can, too.  Whether we accept the existence of our sin, or try to deny it, it's there.

This is a short blog, and a short message.  Don't be like a toddler.  Admit when you're dirty and GET CLEAN.  You don't have to do the heavy lifting, that has already been done.  Just admit, accept and move ahead.  :-)  Your bum will thank you for it, and so will your mom.

The Atonement of Jesus Christ

I gave a talk today in church, and I am shamelessly using the same material here.  I know, I am lazy.

In case you are wondering what it means to "give a talk," I will fill you in briefly.  Unlike most Christian religions, Mormons have a "lay" clergy, which is to say that almost all tasks performed are volunteer.  Instead of having a "sermon" every week, people who are part of the Congregation are assigned a topic and asked to speak for anywhere from 5-30 minutes.  A week or two ago, a member of the Bishopric called and asked me to speak today on: Jesus Christ is my Savior, and He atoned for me.

I have been asked to give quite a few talks at church over the years, and some of those topics have been odd, boring or kind of hard for me to wrap my head around, but I have never had a topic I felt was so important, so all encompassing, and frankly, so overwhelming.  Where to even begin??

I decided to just try and follow in the footsteps of the men who have been tasked to be Special Witnesses of Christ.  See, we believe God restored the gospel to his prophet Joseph Smith and that we still have a true and living prophet today to whom God speaks and reveals/clarifies things.  We believe God can speak to each of us through personal revelation with the help of the Holy Ghost, but He has chosen one person to lead His church, and for now, we believe that is the Prophet Thomas S. Monson.

I thought I'd start with a basic explanation of that the Atonement is.   I pulled this quote from LDS.org.

The Atonement is the sacrifice Jesus Christ made to help us overcome sin, adversity, and death. Jesus’s atoning sacrifice took place in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross at Calvary. He paid the price for our sins, took upon Himself death, and was resurrected. The Atonement is the supreme expression of the love of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.

Then that same page linked me to a talk by our prophet, President Monson.  You can listen to, or read the whole thing here.  He spoke about the Savior's life and discussed that ever since Adam and Eve "fell", or left the Garden of Eden, two main things took place.  The first is that mankind is mortal, or subject to death.  The second is that mankind is "separated" from God by sin.  Both those things needed to be reconciled before we could return to our Father in Heaven, which is all part of God's plan.  So, we needed a Savior.  

Jesus Christ was born to earth to be that Savior, and he lived a perfect life, and began his ministry.  All of that is just full of beauty, wonder and so much learning for us, but I am going to skip over it today, and get to the beginning of the atonement, which took place in the Garden of Gethsemane.  Christ had to sacrifice, he had to pay the price of our sins, and He had to do that alone.  Elder Holland in a conference talk in April of 2009 discussed this concept.  You can listen to or read that entire talk here.  In it, he discusses several groups of people who left Jesus, one by one.

At the beginning, while Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane, bleeding from every pore, his own disciples could not stay awake while He suffered.  They had not left Him, but I imagine He felt very alone.   The first betrayal came from the Jewish leaders, Annas and Caiphas.  They sentenced Jesus to death.  The second came from the Gentile leaders, Pontius Pilate and Herod Antipas.  They refused to commute the sentence and although PP tried to "wash his hands" of the whole thing, the fact was, he knew Christ was innocent and he sent Him to His death anyway.  The third betrayal came from the masses.  The general public voted to save Barabas, a horrible villian, instead of Jesus Christ.  They spit upon him, and booed him and mocked Him during His suffering.  They turned their faces away while the Son of God was crucified.  The fourth, and certainly most painful up to that point, was the betrayal of his own Apostles.  Judas sold him for 30 silver pieces, and even Peter denied him.  Jesus knew that was coming, but it still had to hurt.

But by far the hardest, and the worst departure was by His Father.  Honestly, this is something I hadn't really thought much about in the past.  I will quote Elder Holland here, because what he has to say is so beautifully written and profound.

Now I speak very carefully, even reverently, of what may have been the most difficult moment in all of this solitary journey to Atonement. I speak of those final moments for which Jesus must have been prepared intellectually and physically but which He may not have fully anticipated emotionally and spiritually—that concluding descent into the paralyzing despair of divine withdrawal when He cries in ultimate loneliness, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”  

The loss of mortal support He had anticipated, but apparently He had not comprehended this. Had He not said to His disciples, “Behold, the hour … is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me” and “The Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him”? 

Oh how it must have hurt for Jesus, who had never been without His father's presence, because He always did what pleased His father, to be alone, to be without that constant reassurance.  Elder Holland continues and explains even a little more about the importance of this final departure.  

With all the conviction of my soul I testify that He did please His Father perfectly and that a perfect Father did not forsake His Son in that hour. Indeed, it is my personal belief that in all of Christ’s mortal ministry the Father may never have been closer to His Son than in these agonizing final moments of suffering. Nevertheless, that the supreme sacrifice of His Son might be as complete as it was voluntary and solitary, the Father briefly withdrew from Jesus the comfort of His Spirit, the support of His personal presence. It was required, indeed it was central to the significance of the Atonement, that this perfect Son who had never spoken ill nor done wrong nor touched an unclean thing had to know how the rest of humankind—us, all of us—would feel when we did commit such sins. For His Atonement to be infinite and eternal, He had to feel what it was like to die not only physically but spiritually, to sense what it was like to have the divine Spirit withdraw, leaving one feeling totally, abjectly, hopelessly alone.

Oh how grateful I am for a loving Heavenly Father and a Savior, Jesus Christ, who went through this difficulty, who died and then was reborn.  I am so grateful He was willing to endure so He could feel how I feel when I make mistakes.  

I have felt hopelessly alone.  

I have felt abject.  I have felt truly abandoned.  

Have you?  

Well, I will promise you that if you don't want to, you don't need to feel that way again, not for long anyway, not if you will follow Christ's plan and accept His gift.  There are two ways we can avoid this feeling. We can pray and invite the Spirit in, and we can also reach out to members of our church family.  There's a reason God restored His gospel, and established a church support system.  It's so that He can work through us to help the others around us.  So my point here is two sided.  Don't wallow in feeling lonely, but reach out to God and to your friends and family, and also, when you see someone feeling sad, lonely, or desperate, reach out to them.  Follow the Spirit and do what it tells you.  It's our duty as disciples of Christ to do no less.  

Now, my final point. (Phew, my talk was really long!)  I wanted to talk about how I have come to apply the Atonement in my life a little bit.  After Jesus Christ was betrayed, was left alone, and was hung on the cross, He forgave every single one of those people.  He forgave His tormentors, He forgave His disciples, He forgave His crucifiers.  Almost everyone has heard the famous utterance, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."  

So what does our Savior ask of us in exchange for this beautiful gift of forgiveness for all our sins?  Here's where my story comes in.  I was married before and it was not a good marriage.  I went through a miserable divorce and my ex-husband spent a lot of time talking to my brothers up in Dallas.  When I began to date my husband, Whitney, we made an effort to go up and see my family there.  Every time we went, it hurt my feelings to hear that my brothers were still in contact with him.  He would tell them things that weren't true, and he would insinuate things, hurtful things.  He was the quintessential manipulator. Later, my husband Whitney and I were sealed in the Seattle, WA temple.  Afterwards, we continued to make the trip to Dallas.  I wanted to build a relationship between my brothers and my husband.  I wanted our family to be strong and happy.  

No matter what I did, this same issue kept coming back.  I began to move from hurt and frustrated to angry.  My anger built.  One weekend, after a trip out there, things came to a head.  I had asked my brothers to stop talking to him to no avail.  They insisted he "needed friends" and they didn't feel they could, in good conscience, cut him off.  I called my ex and begged him to stop talking to them.  He refused.  I went to sacrament meeting with my older brother that Sunday morning, and on the way, Whitney and I talked.  We decided that it was making us too angry, it was hurting my feelings too badly.  We decided to stay away.  We would not come out to visit again until such time as they agreed to cut off contact with my ex.

In sacrament meeting that morning, I glanced down at my scriptures and began to read.  I was fuming, and I was hurt.  My feelings were raw and I wasn't in a very good mood.  Let me say here, that I have never been the kind of person who could have a problem, open the scriptures to a random page and find the answer.  Any time I tried to do something like that, my finger would inevitably land on the verse, "and they dwelt in a tent" or something equally unhelpful.  So imagine my surprise when the very verses I read that morning were from Matthew 6:14-15.  "For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."  

This was exactly what I needed to hear.  I am a sinner.  I need my Savior's atonement every single day and twice most days.  (Okay, more.)  All He required of me was this small payment, this small thing in return for His vast bequest.  I had to forgive my brothers (and everyone else in my life) and for that small thing, I would be forgiven.  I wrote the word, "quid pro quo" next to the verse to remind me that if I wanted to be forgiven, I had to forgive in turn.  I let go of my anger that morning, and I let it go again and again and again over the time that followed and I never let that issue turn into a stumbling block thereafter.  I won't say it was easy, but I am glad I did it.  

I didn't realize until this week that while I understood a small part of that verse so many years ago, I missed the most important part of it. I just didn't comprehend the point of it completely.  I thought that to receive the Savior's gift, He required something of me, a payment of sorts.  

That was so, so, so wrong.  

Our Heavenly Father, our loving Savior, they don't require that we forgive because we must pay for the gift Christ freely gave.  Not at all.  In fact, it's not for them that they require us to forgive.  My forgiveness only benefits one person.  

Me.  

When we let go of our anger, our resentment, our sense of mistreatment, entitlement, and frustration, when we forgive, we open our hearts and allow Christ's atonement to free us of our sin.  We allow our hearts to become purified.  In John 14:27, Jesus says, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you."  

It was for ME all along, and not for my Savior, that I was required to forgive.  This is not quid pro quo, but just another in a string that goes on throughout eternity, of gifts from my God.

I conclude my blog today with a promise for all of you.  If you will forgive, if you will open your heart, I promise you that Christ's atonement will work a miracle for you.  Don't wait.  Do it today.  All of this took place in my life in the Fall of 2006.  I let it go that day and over and over afterward.  

My little brother Jesse passed away suddenly in March of 2007.  

If I hadn't forgiven and moved on, I would have been deprived of the time we spent those last few months.  I would have denied my husband of the relationship he developed with my beloved brother.  Our Heavenly Father and our older brother Jesus Christ know us and love us.  They want us to have the most joy, the most peace and the most love that we can find in this life.  Don't wait.  Forgive today, and be forgiven in return.  

Not everyone has evolved to the point of owning a Minivan yet... and that's okay.

When I turned sixteen, many of the kids I knew didn't have a car of their own.  For quite some time, the kids in my family were among these ranks.  If I had somewhere to go, I borrowed a car from my parents to get there.  Many of our friends were in a similar situation, and consequently, we frequently rode around in the minivans owned by friends' parents.

My own mother drove a full size van.  It was definitely not cool, but my younger brother, Jesse, and I deemed it to be "slightly less uncool" because at least it wasn't "underpowered."  If you are a teenage boy, there isn't much worse than an "underpowered" car.   After lamenting about the fate of our poor friends forced to drive their parents' minivans, we wondered why anyone would ever purchase such a vehicle.  I mean, here are a few of the many reasons why a minivan makes no sense:

1.  It is the height of uncool.
2.  It is underpowered.  (See also, number 1)
3.  It cannot go quickly or turn efficiently.  (See also, number 1.)
4.  It is usually crusted with any number of gross family snacks, treats, and other garbage that has accumulated during its years of service.  (See also, number 1.)
5.  It's big, but on a car frame.  I am not sure why that was bad but I think it's still safe to say, see also number 1.

I could go on, but I think you get the point.  Jesse insisted we both agree on this point, and after hearing his logic, I didn't really have much of a choice.  I mean, see number 1!  What else could we do?  Jesse and I made a pact: we vowed never to own a minivan.

Years passed.  Jesse and I both got married.  I got pregnant, and so did his wife.  And then, my little brother passed away, before he even met his beautiful children.  He only had to honor this pact for 24 years, but I knew that at least I would be here to honor it for him.

I had my first baby.  No problem, I was rocking the Explorer.  Then I had my second.  My red Explorer was still more than enough for us.  Then I had a third and our family upgraded to the slightly larger Tahoe.  After I got pregnant with my fourth, we decided it would sure be nice to have something with an easy access back seat.  My husband insisted that I test drive a minivan.  Ugh.

I really did intend to honor honor our pact, Jesse.  I tried, I really did.

But after doing a little test driving, my husband compiled a new list about minivans, and it didn't leave me much room to argue either.

1. They are cheap.
2. They are convenient to use and easy for kids to access the back seats.
3. They are comfortable in the front and back, and designed for people with small children.
4. They are fuel efficient.  With gas prices above $3.50/gal at the time, this was a major consideration.
5. They have automatic doors, double TVs, light screens on the windows, and a remote, keyless start.

I broke my promise and we bought a minivan.

If I were given a job as a car salesman, and tasked to sell ONLY minivans, I doubt my sales skills would matter very much.  Honestly, people are either ready for one, or they just aren't that evolved yet.  It took me almost six years of being a parent, and four kids, to reach the point where I was ready.    I would guess that car salesmen could talk to someone for two minutes and know right away whether people are ready.  I would also submit to you that there's no way for them to know, without at least approaching and talking to the person, whether that person might be ready.  

Let me tell you how this is like the gospel of Jesus Christ.  We are all born of man, and we are all tempted to do bad.  We are all full of the desire to be good and an opposing desire to be bad.  (The natural man is an enemy to God and so on.)  In our lives, there will be times when we are very concerned about being cool.

Being a disciple of Christ is not cool.

In fact, Jesus Christ's teachings, throughout almost all time, have been closer to the antithesis of cool.  We can probably determine pretty quickly whether someone we meet is "cool," but we don't know many of the circumstances in the lives of people around us.  In fact, the state of the hearts of the people you know the best may still sometimes be a mystery.  It's easy to look and guess whether people are "ready" to be reborn as sons and daughter of God.  It may be simple to predict that someone with lots of tattoos, for instance, or someone drinking a lot of alcohol, or someone putting work before family, would not be interested in hearing about God.

It would also often be wrong.

Remember that when Christ was criticized for teaching people considered to be beneath Him, He basically said that it's the sick who need a doctor.  Similarly, it is those you think might not be ready who may be most prepared and most in need of selling their convertible and buying a minivan.

My point is this.  You are all surrounded by friends and family.  You know them and you love them, but you don't know, until you talk to them about it, whether they want to hear about the gospel of Christ.  You don't know whether their heart is ready to be changed.

I had a friend I was sure would not be interested in learning more about Christ's restored church.  For some reason, the Spirit prompted me, despite somewhat awkward circumstances, to offer to have her over, and sit with her while the missionaries taught her the basics of our faith.  To my great surprise, she agreed.  In fact, she was delighted to learn more and she was possibly the most eager, the brightest shining light of an investigator I've ever been blessed to see.  I am so glad I didn't judge based on my preconceived notions (she did not have tattoos or drink a lot, but she did have a grandfather she loved and respected who was a pastor in another faith, and she did regularly attend church at another congregation.)  She was baptized less than two months from the day we began the lessons and she continues to rock that minivan.

I am so grateful for the beautiful joy the gospel brings to my life.  I am blessed beyond measure through my faith and I am so glad when I find other people who want to learn more.  If you are already a Christian or other religious person, and you are not interested in learning about our faith, that's fine with me.  I hope you can take away from this a renewed desire to bring your friends and family to Christ's teachings.  But if you are interested in learning about being a mormon, if you have questions, or want to meet with the missionaries, please reach out to me, or another mormon friend you know, or look up the missionaries in your area on your own by going here.  Finally, if you're already a member, listen to the Spirit and take the time to find out if any of your friends have evolved to the point of wanting a minivan, too.  It might surprise you who has.

All My Sins

My kids wanted to give me gifts for Christmas.  They wanted to pick out something fancy.  They went and asked dad to buy something for me.  They also drew me photos.  None of these took much time or cost them any money.  So although they are sweet, they didn't mean so much to me.  One kid (okay, it's Dora, she's my most angelic child!) decided to do something nice and spent quite a bit of time cleaning up "my house" (the main living areas and my bedroom) a few times.  She told me her gift was cleaning up my home, and let me tell you, that gift made me beam because I knew it required something of her.  It wasn't easy, and it was from HER.

Now bear with me a moment, because these things seem disconnected, but they aren't.

I love the scriptures.  I love the old testament, especially the book of Job.  I love the New Testament, especially the stories of Christ's life.  I love Christ's teachings.  I love the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants and I love that we have a living prophet and receive ongoing revelations.  I love the stories, the admonitions, the parables.  I love almost all of it.  I tell you this so you will believe me when I say that for me, saying one verse is my favorite scripture of all time is a big deal.

So here it is.  This week I will share with you my favorite scripture of all time.

Let me set the stage.  In Alma 22 the four sons of Mosiah have left the Nephites to go visit the wicked, wicked Lamanites.  Ammon has had a lot of good luck and faith and been met with success in teaching King Lamoni, who happens to be one of the sons of the biggest baddest king of all the Lamanites.  Ammon meets the big bad King and after an altercation, Ammon promises to go see the big bad King (who I will hereafter call Big Bad) later on.

Ammon breaks his promise and sends his brother Aaron instead because he gets bogged down in missionary work.  Aaron is recently reprieved from jail and probably a little nervous.  He might even be scared.  He goes to meet with Big Bad.

Aaron starts very basic, with a few simple questions.  It turns out Big Bad is willing to take Aaron at his word that there is a God.  Then after seeing Big Bad's faith, Aaron lays it all out there.  He tells Big Bad about the fall of man, the coming of Christ, his atonement, the plan of salvation.  Big Bad takes it all pretty well and he makes a big offer.  He offers Aaron everything he has, his kingdom, and all his possessions to have the badness rooted from his breast and to have the joy of God replace it.  He begs to be born of God.

Aaron tells him it's simpler than that.  He just has to kneel down and pray, ask for forgiveness, and he can be forgiven.

Big Bad's prayer is my favorite verse.  Alma 22:18 O God, Aaron hath told me that there is a God; and if there is a God, and if thou art God, wilt thou make thyself known unto me, and I will give away all my sins to know thee, and that I may be raised from the dead, and be saved at the last day.  And now when the king (aka Big Bad) had said these words, he was struck as if he were dead.

I bolded the part I love the most.  If you believe in God, and you believe He made us all in his image, and you believe He blesses us, then you know that every time we do good, and we are blessed, He is repaying us.  Sometimes it's literally, sometimes it's something of spiritual value, but either way, He pays us for our work, our sacrifice, our love.  Thus, no matter what, our ledger is always red.  We never enter the black, we are never ever profitable servants.

We have one thing, one single solitary thing, to give to God.

I hope that this year you had a wonderful Christmas and enjoyed the time with your family.  I hope you gave and received some wonderful gifts.  And now, with this new year, with the time and blessings and joy you have been given, I hope you will take a moment and give God a special gift.

None of us are perfect.  I can think of several things I do wrong.  For me it's easy, for some of you it might be very hard, but I want you to think of a sin.  It could be a sin of commission (drinking--for non-members who don't abide by our word of wisdom, pretend I said, drinking too much--, lying, stealing, or something a little less dramatic) or a sin of omission (not doing things you should.)  It can be large or small, but think about your favorite sin.  That thing you do (or don't do) that you should change.  You should want to keep doing (or not doing) this thing.  It should be like me asking you to … gasp… give up cookies.  (I am so glad a eating a few cookies is not a sin!)  The thought of giving this thing up should sting, that's my point.

Now, give it up.

Don't just say you will, but do it.  That's the hard part, of course.  Then when you have made that a habit, or eliminated a bad one, give up something else.  That is the only meaningful gift we can give our Heavenly Father.  He probably smiles when we serve others, and He probably grins when we go to church, or pay a tithe to His church.  But those things are gifts from Him that we are merely returning to Him.  If you want your Father in Heaven to beam, then you know what you have to do.  Give up all your sins and then (and only then) can you know Him.

He wants all of us to know Him because He already sees all of us as we can be, if only we will follow His plan. Now all we have to do is get there, so get going already.