You're a Lazy Bum If You Have No Faith

Most of you have probably heard the phrase "faith without works is dead."  It comes from James 2:20.  But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?

I have been thinking of that sentiment a lot lately.  I recall the first time I really got jazzed about having "faith."  I had been taught at church that it was believing in God, believing in His power and in His ability to bless our lives.  Then I went to school one day, in Jr. High, and realized I hadn't studied at all for a test.  I'd forgotten all about it.  Darn.  I closed my eyes immediately and earnestly prayed from my desk that I would still get an A.  I had complete and total faith, the faith of a child, that God would help me.  I would still ace this test, I knew it.  

I got a B-.  

All things considered, I probably should have been pretty happy with that.  Haha.  But I will tell you that it really shook my faith.  I mean, I had prayed and believed God would help me.  I was missing a vital piece of information.  Without doing work, without doing anything, all you have is belief, not faith.  Faith without works is not faith.  If you do really well and you haven't worked at all for it, there's a word for that, too.  It's LUCK.  I really think the entire story of the first book in the Book of Mormon, first Nephi, could be summed up with one phrase: get out and work hard, or you don't have faith and you won't be blessed.  

For those of you not familiar with the Book of Mormon, of for those of you who are, but who are scratching your heads and thinking, "what is crazy Bridget babbling on about now?" let me explain.  In the first book (section) of the book of Mormon, you read about the story of a guy named Nephi (the hero) and his family.  His father is a prophet, and you get a fairly comprehensive understanding of the fact that being a prophet's son might not be completely awesome all the time.  Lehi, the prophet (also known as Nephi's dad) is living in Jerusalem, but the Jews are pretty wicked at the time.  He goes out to try and teach his neighbors and friends, but it doesn't go well.  To put this in a modern day perspective, let's consider.  

How would you feel about going door to door and pointing out the weaknesses of all your neighbors and friends?  I can imagine it going something like this.  "You, fine next door neighbor, you are an alcoholic."  Door slams.  

Next door.  "You, good friend, you spend too much money on things that don't matter."  Punch to the nose.  

Now, one more.  "You are spending too much time away and letting your kids rot in front of the television."  Spat upon.  

Oh fine, just one more today.  "You should not be having an affair."  Right hook to eye.  

You get the picture.  Lehi was a righteous guy in a wicked land and it was not a popular place to be, because no one really takes kindly to someone telling them they need to repent.  In any case, God tells Lehi he needs to relocate his entire family.  Jerusalem is being destroyed, and if they don't book it out of there, they will be destroyed, too.  God has a land of promise in store for Lehi's family, if only they have enough faith.  

At this point, Bridget (that's me) would be inclined to say, "But wait!! I've been faithful.  I am willing to remain faithful, here in my home, with my nice things, and my little fluffy dog and my car and my clothing and my swimming pool. Please reward my faith with a continuation of those blessings.  Let the storm pass over me and keep me and my family and my friends and my pets safe.  Thank you."  

I would be thinking, "Okay, it was hard, but I was faithful.  My neighbors hate me, but I've done my part."  

It was not to be.  

God was quite clear with Lehi.  Ditch your stuff.  Leave it all.  Wander around in the woods.  

Gosh, that would be hard.  I would like to be faithful from the convenience of my own sofa, thanks very much.  With air conditioning and a bug guy.  Yes, definitely with a bug guy, and a refrigerator.  

Basically, I would have failed test number one.  Nephi and his family pass the test.  They actually do leave.  They meander around lost in the wilderness for a while, but eventually they get to a big old ocean.  Well, crap.  Somehow we got here, and we're still not to that land you promised us, God.  This is where Bridget would have sat down and cried.  "I left it all, I am out here alone, bug bitten, having had two kids while wandering around in this filthy forest (can we say NO EPIDURAL!?) and NOW I am stuck in front of this ocean?  You have got to be kidding me."  

But then... that's when God says, "You need to get on a boat and cross the ocean.  Your end point is somewhere on the other side."  

"FINE," Bridget would say, "I will wait right here on this beach until you send me a boat."  I would plonk myself down and pray really hard.  God can do anything, right?  So have someone bring me a boat.  Or better yet, just poof one up for me.  I'm not picky.  I will literally take ANY color.  

Except, God didn't say that.  He told poor Nephi to get busy and BUILD one.  Egads, are you kidding me?  I have no idea how to build a boat.  Now wait, here's the great news.  God will tell you how to do it.  (I am not feeling like this is fantastic news...) And even better?? Step one is... wait for it... melt down some metal to make some tools.  

Nuh, uh, you didn't.  Are you kidding me?  Step one is MAKE TOOLS?  Which you then have to use to MAKE A BOAT?  Which you then have to hop into and ride on for like ten years??? At which point you will land in the middle of freaking nowhere?  Literally on a land that is uninhabited, but for bugs the size of plates and wolves and mountain lions?  

Pass.  

I would like a car service to take me back to Jerusalem please.  They may be destroyed soon, but at least until then, they have beds and stuff. 

Okay but folks, it gets worse.  While Nephi is out there breaking his back wandering around and then building tools to build boats, his brothers are whining and complaining and tying him up.  No, seriously.  They are literally tying him up and threatening his life.  

Of course, our hero does what anyone would do, right?  Prays for the strength to "burst his bands" and show those fools what power from God looks like!!! What does God do?  Oh, that's right.  He loosens them so Nephi can wiggle out and then reasonably explain to his brothers that they were overreacting.  

But where's the pizzazz?!? God is all powerful!  God can do anything!! Where is my jet to the ocean?  My cruise ship to the promised land?  Where is the magical answer to my problem!!?? When I pray for a new house, I don't mean, please help me get enrolled in school so I can get good grades and graduate and get an entry level job where I make nothing and then work for years until I earn a good living and I can buy a decent home.  What I meant was... I want a nice house, NOW.  I have faith, so please give it to me.  

Honestly, for years and years, I read the first book in the Book of Mormon and I kind of hated Laman and Lemuel (Nephi's complaining older brothers).  They are so whiny, they are so wicked, they are so lazy and worthless.  Lately, I've come to see that I resemble Laman and Lemuel much more closely than I resemble Nephi. (Sorry to say.)  They usually did the right thing, but they grumbled about it.  Check.  They had points where they weren't sure whether they wanted to do the right thing, to work super hard.  Check.  They made wrong turns and sinned.  Check.  Oh dear.  But I detest them, don't I?  

Around the time my third child turned 18 months, I started going to nursery.  (In the Mormon church, we have a one hour "sacrament meeting" that is similar to any other church, and then afterward we have a 45 minute Sunday School class and then a one hour meeting where we break into men and women.  During those second and third hours, the children go into a special class called Primary.  The kids aged 18 months to three years of age go into "nursery" where they are given snacks, they have singing time and they play with puzzles and toys.  It's basically a structured babysitting program for the babies.)   I wasn't called to (given the official assignment of) nursery, per se, but I was in there every single week because they were short staffed.  After a few months of this, I was asked to do it formally, as my church job.  We don't have paid clergy, so every member of the church has a "calling" or job to perform.  They asked me to work in the nursery.  That was now over two years ago.  

When we moved, they told me at first I would not be sent to nursery.  It's very hard to make friends and get to know people in a new ward if you are spending every single week babysitting for other people's kids.  And yet, after a few weeks of substituting in the nursery, they called me to work in the nursery. At the time, they reassured me that it was "temporary", and only for a month or two until they could get things all worked out.  I would then be released so I could get to know people in the ward, etc.  

When we had been in the ward for about three months, the time I should have been released came and went.  I am sorry to say my attitude about this was not very good.  I did not ask to be released, but I complained.  To my mom.  To my sister.  To Whitney.  To the man on the corner.  I was really struggling with being in nursery.  I dreaded every single Sunday.  It's not that I felt that it was beneath me--it's just that I felt I had done my time and then some.  I had tried to be good, but let there be an end!  Let me do anything else!  

It got to the point where I thought maybe I shouldn't bother going to church on Sunday at all.  I go to church alone most of the time because of my husband's work schedule.  It is hard to sit in church alone and watch your children, keep them occupied and quiet.  Then after that, I have to go watch 8-14 toddlers for two hours? If I stay home, I can save myself almost four hours of exhaustion and honestly, I could spend far more time studying church principles from home.  

It was a tempting thought.  Things felt very hard for me.  I felt very unloved.  If I'm being honest, I felt very very alone.  I didn't know many people in the ward, and I had moved away from my family.  

I decided to pray about it.  I decided to pray that God would remove me from nursery.  Surely He would hear the cries of his daughter and He would bless her.  

Here is the problem with what I wanted, and with my entire approach, with my obscured view of faith.  I looked at it growing up (and again recently) as something that I would believe in my heart.  I thought that then, I should be rewarded for that belief.  It was a feeling, rewarded by a blessing.  I pray and I believe, therefore I should be blessed.   

I was wrong because faith is not a feeling.   

God knows this, and I know it, but I needed to be reminded.  Faith is a belief that prompts an action.  I prayed to be released from this job and instead, I received the clear and strong reassurance that my Heavenly Father loves me.  That He knows of my needs.  That I would be released and get to move on to do something else, to serve in a different way, but that the time was not yet come for that to happen.  He told me I needed instead to change my heart.  

Because there is a reason why Nephi had to slog through the jungle.  There's a reason he had to put up with whiny brothers.  There's a reason he had to build tools, then hew down trees and cut them into a boat, and then sail across stormy and frightening waters.  We are not here on earth to receive blessings!! We are here to be shaped.  We are here to be molded.  

We are here to become like our brother Jesus Christ, to become like our Father.  We become like them by ACTION not by blessings, not by gifts.  God doesn't care about Nephi's boat making skills, but he cares very much about the strength of his heart, the willingness of his hands to do what is asked.  Unless we strive, we do not ever grow.  

I was blessed with the perspective I needed to see tending these little ones as an opportunity to be strengthened myself, as a chance to serve my God.  It became an opportunity to be humble, and to do what I was told to do, even if I didn't want to do it.  I count myself lucky that I wasn't asked to go camping for years. (I would die!!) or to build a boat, or to have a child with no epidural!!  It could be much worse, and my shaping process could be so much harder than God has made it.  

But my point, and I know I have taken a long time in coming to it, is that once I decided to love these children, once I decided to put some effort into nursery, and to do it with a smile, it got better.  I was able to feel edified through church attendance, even in nursery.  My kids behaved better in sacrament meeting so I got a tiny bit of enrichment from the speakers during that first hour.  I have increased study time each day with my children so I am learning more there.  God will bless you if you settle down and work for it.  

He cannot bless you from the couch.  He cannot bless you if you don't sweat first.  

If you are like me, and you are praying for something, wishing for something, hoping for something... stop sitting on the couch and hoping!  God will tell you how to do it, but get up and start melting that metal to make those tools!  Action will spur you on to greater action and before you know it, you will be the most faithful of God's servants.  I know this to be true, and I promise it to you.  

1 Nephi 16:29 sums it up beautifully: And thus we see that by small means, the Lord can bring about great things.

It's okay if you start small, because the Lord brings about great things from very small means.  

Update: Emmy decided, the week after my post, to "be a big girl" all the time and has not had an accident since then.  Yay, the "no fighting" worked!! :-) 

The Waves

We spent a lot of time in the water this past week.  All the kids loved it.  

One thing in particular stuck with me.  Eli spent an entire day at the beach bent on building a castle/fort right where the waves were crashing.  He enlisted my aid because it was a losing proposition.  With constant and unending efforts, we built a big sand wall that the waves could not quite erase, protecting about three feet of beach from the water's encroachment.  

I thought of a lot of parallels while we spent those hours protecting that little spot of beach.  I thought about the world around us, as heartless and unrelenting as the tide.  I thought of how we must be ever vigilant, of how we must work together as a family to keep our little spot safe. 

We enjoyed our vacation thoroughly.  Then we came home.  Whitney immediately went to work, and has been working all day (13 hours) every day since our return.  He is SO hard working and SO helpful and when he's been home, he has taken out garbage and unpacked and helped with everything.  He just hasn't been home much.  

Since our return, I have bathed the dog three times. (Combination of mud outside, upset tummy from being boarded and ducks outside upsetting her.)  I have changed the fish's water twice (because little sister keeps trying to "feed" him.  I have done load after load of laundry.  I have put clothes away. I have edited photos and cleaned and unpacked and ironed and made food, and cleaned up remnants of food.  

Today, after surviving three hours of church, two hours of which were spent watching toddlers, I came home and wanted, more than anything, to just collapse.  But Whit's working, so I had to get the kids changed, and fed, and the baby put down for a nap.  Once that was all done, I thought, "Oh good.  Now I can collapse."  

Only, I looked around and the house I had spent so much time cleaning was a total mess!! Tessa had gotten macaroni and cheese everywhere.  The morning pajamas were strewn all over the downstairs from the harried 'getting ready for church' drill, and dishes had piled up from both breakfast and lunch.  There was pink milk spilled on a new pillow, shoes everywhere, and the coats were taking over.  The dog had also gotten all muddy and pooh covered again and needed another bath.  The kids had let her in three times, and I had put her out three times, fussing at them repeatedly to leave her outside until I could clean her.  

I felt like crying.  I had just started to clean things up when the kids came in with a dozen requests.  

That's when it hit me.  Sometimes we DO need to build up that castle over and over to protect our small spot of sand.  

But sometimes, what we are doing is futile and pointless.  Sometimes our Heavenly Father is looking down on us fondly and saying, "Oh my darling Bridget, you don't need that castle.  That wall is unnecessary.  Stop worrying about something the waves will wash away in moments and spend your time on something that will last, on something eternal.  Walk away from your foolish efforts and pay attention to what matters."  

So I did.  My kitchen, family room, and laundry room may be a mess, but my kids know I love them.  

We never want to let Satan encroach on our piece of sand, but sometimes we are wasting our time. Step back a bit, and look at your life from the perspective of eternity.  Does what you're worried about really matter?  Are you protecting your beach from evil or are you just stressing out over a pile of sand the waves will wash away the second you leave?  

I am going to try extra hard this week to recognize when to redouble my efforts and when to walk away.  I think the Spirit will really help me sort those things out.  I know He will help you, too, if you ask for that help.  

Put up your Dukes

I'm a lawyer, which means I basically get paid to fight.  When I face a problem, or when my loved ones do, it has become second nature to hunker down for a big old fight.

Picking up kickboxing as a hobby might have made things worse.

In many different aspects of my life, my fighting instinct has been a blessing.  I recall about six months ago when two days before the sale of our home, the homeowners' association tried to tank our close because of neighborhood politics that predated our arrival.  I immediately freaked out.  I still recall the gist of the message I left on the voicemail of every single member of the HOA board after hearing the news.

"I have just been informed by my realtor that the HOA decided to interfere with the sale of my home.  Unfortunately for you, I'm a lawyer.  Off the top of my head, I plan to file a lawsuit against the HOA for tortious interference with my contract, for malicious disparagement, and for libel.  After that, I'll begin the lawsuits against you each individually.  You may have known I was a lawyer, but in case you didn't know that I am also a stay at home mom, let me fill you in.  This means I have nothing but time.  I intend to spend every single moment that I am stuck in this neighborhood making your life miserable in every way that I can.  Trust me, you want to fix this.  Call me back."

They fixed it that afternoon.

Sometimes the boxing gloves are exactly what I need to fix a problem.  Sometimes, they are not.

Lately, I have been struggling with my three year old daughter.  She is a miniature version of me.  Looks, personality, the whole deal.  She is happy happy happy until something doesn't go her way and then ... she is screaming at the top of her lungs because that girl wastes no time putting the gloves on.

I remember when she was a baby, she did not want to walk.  She could walk, she just didn't want to.  So, she didn't.  I tried everything.  Rewards, tricks, pleading, and on and on.  She would not walk.  I was worried she would never walk.  In fact, she was so adamant that she would not walk, she would shuffle everywhere upright, but on her knees.  She wore out the knees of every pair of pants she owned.  STUBBORN.

Then one day, she just decided it was time, and she started walking.  Everywhere.

Now I have decided it is far past time for her to potty train.  For months and months (almost a year?) she's been completely able to get on the toilet and pee alone.  And poop.  She can do it all just fine.  She just doesn't want to do it.  She will pontificate about why diapers are better.  She will tell you that her poo and her pee want to go into the diaper.  Good grief.

I have come at this from every possible angle.  I have offered her bribes of every shape, size and form.  She's been excited about all of them, until she just wasn't.  I have tried being sweet and kind, and encouraging and supportive.  I have asked for help.  I have let Whit try.  I have let babysitters try.  I have screamed and yelled and lately, I have been doing that more and more.  I absolutely positively must potty train her.  I mean, it's getting to the point where it's just ABSURD (and embarrassing) that I haven't, right??

I was reading in my scriptures not too long ago and I read about this story.  In the Book of Mormon, for those of you unfamiliar with the stories in it, there are typically two distinct groups of people.  The Nephites are usually righteous, and the Lamanites are usually wicked and bloodthirsty and murderous.  Well, in one part of the book, some Nephites go over and they preach to the Lamanites.  Many of the wicked Lamanites are actually converted to God's gospel and they bury their weapons of war in the earth to signify to God that they will never revert to their old ways.  They promise that if God will make them clean of their significant sins, they will never, ever, fight again.

Well, that was a wonderful, beautiful, symbolic gesture but they couldn't have anticipated what would happen next, right?  Their former brethren, the unconverted Lamanites, get angry about the conversion.  They are offended by this transformation and they decide to make their former brothers revert to their old ways.  They attack, expecting their brethren to defend themselves.

These newly converted men of God refuse to take up arms again and... more than 1,000 of them are literally hewn down and murdered by the unconverted Lamanites.  Think of the catastropic loss of life.  Think about the Lamanites, who attacked to bring their friends, their family, their compatriots back, and instead they saw them brutally murdered by their own hands.  If the story stopped here, it would be a pretty gruesome one.  What a waste!  Why didn't the men who had repented just pick up some weapons to defend themselves?  Why didn't they fight?  God would surely have understood!

But no.

They knew that the sacrifice of Jesus Christ to atone for their prior sins was a significant one.  They appreciated that sacrifice and their hearts had changed.  There was no longer room for any kind of anger, any kind of hatred.  They allowed their brothers to take their lives, and the miracle of that day is that their brethren were moved by the humility, and the faith of the converted Lamanites.  These ferocious, unrepentant murderers (who had previously ignored all preaching and attempts to convert them) had a change of heart that day.  The preaching of the gospel of Christ couldn't bring them to repentance, but the testimony of the men and women who died, and their unrelenting dedication and devotion, that changed them.  More hardened sinners came to Christ that day than the number of people who died.  And as we know, those who died went up to heaven.  This is still undeniably a tragedy, but for the converted, God understood exactly what they needed to be saved.

God knows that sometimes we are not supposed to fight.

I do not mean to imply that my day to day issues with my children are somehow on par with the death of a thousand people.  But God does love me every bit as much as He loves each of them.  He cares for me, and He is right here with me during my struggles.  Which means that I can learn from those bigger issues about how to handle my smaller ones.

After reading about that, I decided to pull the gloves off and try to be patient with my little fighter.  I still get angry and my blood pressure rises when she refuses to go on the toilet, but I try my very best not to fight.  The Spirit has been very clear with me that I am not to fight about this.  When other parents get judgy with me about my almost four year old being in pull-ups, I ignore it.  When Emmy has an accident, I don't yell.  I don't call her names or gnash my teeth.  I try to be patient and loving and kind.  And I can't say that she has miraculously changed, but it has helped.  She has gone on the toilet all day for seven days out of ten.  She has been keeping her pull-up dry almost all the time.  We are making progress very slowly, but we are making it.

Is there something in your life you have been fighting lately?  Can you let it go?  I promise you that if you will let the Spirit be your guide, you will know when it is time to lower those dukes.  Now just stop yelling for long enough to hear it.

Shame. On. You.

Being nice is an undervalued attribute.  I am not talking about being nice to the people who you work for, or to your friends, or to your family.  I am talking about being nice to the people who annoy you. The people who don't matter to you.  The people who serve you.  I will never forget that a dear male friend of mine was asked to be a date for a female friend of mine.  I told him all about my friend, including several of her attributes.  She's funny.  She's smart.  She's nice.  When I said she was "nice", his question was, "Wait, she's nice?  I know what that means.  How fat is she?"

All joking aside, being "nice" has become a catch all.  People say it without thinking.

Q: Do you like this vase?
A: Oh sure, it's nice.
Q: Do you like John?
A: Yes, he's nice.
Q: Would you like a cup of water?
A: Sure that would be nice.

It has been used so much that it has become almost meaningless.  It should not be code for someone being unattractive, or a fill in word you use when you can't think of anything else to say.  It should mean that you are kind.  It should mean that you have generosity and care in your heart.  It should mean that you behave in a proper and sweet way, no matter the circumstance.  It should be something that really sets you apart, if you are nice.

Sometimes I am not very nice.

I was waiting in line to get tacos from Jack in the Box on Saturday around noon.  Two tacos.  They cost $1.  I was sitting in line, in the warmth of my car, contemplating their non-meaty goodness, and I did have to sit for a moment.  The car in front of me was taking an above average time for a drive-in window.  My kids were whining.  Nothing new here.

Then out of the blue, I hear loud, loud honking, coming from an enormous backwoods, Texas-sized truck.  The guy honked... and then he honked some more.  It was jarring, disturbing and rude.  A moment later, as if the honking wasn't punishment enough, he leaned out his window and shouted at the Jack in the Box employees.  I won't repeat what he said, but the gist was that it wasn't "fast" food if it took too long.

When I pulled up to the window, I saw the guy who had been so polite to me over the ordering speaker when I asked for my $1 menu item.  He looked harried and concerned.  I apologized for the man behind me, not wanting to be mistaken as the rude customer.  I said the rest of us in line were not upset and we knew he was doing his best.  The man look ashamed.  He looked down and apologized to me over and over that we had to wait.  His humility and his shame broke my heart.  I wanted to slap the man behind me.  When I began to pull forward, Mr. Honky began honking again and started to yell.  I nearly slammed my car into park and walked back to pop the jerk in his fat face.

Maybe I should have.

I thought about it and realized it wasn't me, so I simply drove off.  In this day and age of smart phones, split second purchases, ordering online, take out, to go, and fast food, everyone is in such a rush.  People don't really think about the fact that we are all just people.  It's not just me who drives away and does nothing, and it's not just Mr. Honky, however much I'd like to demonize him--people in general aren't very nice anymore.

Lest you think that being rude to someone at a call center when they are annoying you is okay, it isn't.  Lest you think that being rude to a fast food person is acceptable, it isn't.  Lest you think lambasting the shopping clerk at the grocery store for a checkout mistake is acceptable, know that it is not.

A long time ago, there lived a man who was very, very kind.  He was the epitome of nice.  Jesus Christ was born to the earth as a babe and he lived here for over thirty years before mean men and women either crucified Him or let Him be crucified.  Compared to something like that, yelling at a slow fast food guy seems paltry.  Does it really matter?  It's not like you're really sinning.  I mean, they screwed up your hour.  Your day.  Your week.  Your month.  They deserve to know that they suck, right?

You're wrong.

Jesus is really clear in Matthew chapter 25.  He gives several parables but then He tells about something that isn't a parable at all.  He discusses what will happen when He returns to Earth in His Second Coming.  He says He will divide people into two groups--those that know Him and those that don't.  It's so simple, so clean.  The question is, while you're here on earth, how do you know which group you'll be in?

Those who knew Him did the following: they fed Him, they gave Him drink, they took Him in and they gave Him clothing.  When He was in prison, they came to Him.

But wait, the righteous ask, when did we ever do any of that?  We've never even met Jesus, not really, not face to face.  None of us would have crucified Him if we'd been there, right??  No way.  I have thought that several times.  Oh, I am just so different from those wicked men and women who crucified the Son of the Living God.

Jesus Christ Himself tells us how to make sure we are on the right side and His response should stop us in our tracks.  Matthew 25:40 reads: Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Those righteous people didn't actually feed Jesus.  What sane Christian wouldn't give Him food, drink, clothing, or visit God's son, a perfect being, our older brother, if He was hungry, thirsty, exposed or in prison?  Of course we would.  He tells us here that doing it to the least of his brethren is the same as doing it for him.  He doesn't say, "Judge whether they're worthy."  He doesn't say, "If you really want to," or "if they're important."   In fact, it's quite the opposite. The less the person can benefit us, the more valuable our service becomes to our Savior.

As I drove away yesterday afternoon, steamed about the 'incident', I thought it seemed pretty obvious that I should have defended that poor maligned fast food guy.  He was really working at the very best job he could get.  He was the definition of one of the 'least of these', and someone was picking on him, making him feel small.  I was so angry.

But then the Spirit stepped in and gently reminded me that there wasn't just one of God's children in bad straits on that Saturday, but two.  The angry man, the rude man, the jerk who I wanted to punch was the second.  He was probably every bit as needful of my kindness, and my Christian charity.  The rude, the jerky and the misbehaved are often those who were taught to behave that way by experience, by the treatment of others or through hard lessons in life.  I can't see into his heart.  I can't know what he is going through.  I would have felt completely different about him if I knew his wife had recently been diagnosed with cancer or his mother had passed away.  Or what if he had just lost his job?  Or his furnace went out and he couldn't afford to repair it?

I shouldn't have wanted to punch him.  I should have wanted to hug him, or you know, knit him a sweater.

Obviously we can't help everyone around us.  I had four kids with me that day and I couldn't stop and hug the jerk or spend a real amount of time building up that poor, beleaguered man like I wanted to.  (Also, hugging someone you don't know unsolicited is not a course of action I am able to recommend in good conscience in this day and age...) But I will tell you that in our lives we can find the poor in spirit, or the physically needy.  We can uplift our family and friends at every opportunity.  We can be unfailingly kind to those we meet or the people our lives touch in any way.  In fact, we have been specifically tasked to do just that.  If you want to know God, if you want to be lifted up at the last day, you have to walk as He walked and that means serving the least of His children, day in and day out.

My prayer is that I will try a little harder to remember His command that what I do to the least of His brethren, I am really doing unto Him.  I hope anyone reading this can remember that, too.

Ms. Fix It

My kids will tell you that I can fix anything.  Just the other day, my two year old brought me a ball of mashed together playdoh (several colors all inextricably mixed) and thought I could separate them.  HA!   But seriously, I am a mom, so I spend half my day putting toy pieces back in place, repairing jumbled puzzles, making cookies out of "ingredients", gluing things, sewing up torn pants, and on and on.

Even before I had kids, I fixed things a lot, even things I knew nothing about.

In the past 10 years I have taken apart two digital cameras, diagnosed the problem and repaired them. (The first time, I might have shocked the bejeebus out of myself three times, but by golly, I fixed it!  I still have this camera today!)  I have also taken apart a flat screen TV and aided only by You Tube videos and internet searches (and a pair of scissors, some glasses repair screwdrivers and duct tape) I repaired our 60" flat screen HDTV.  Yep, I feel like I am pretty resourceful when it comes to complicated repairs.

So tonight, when I realized my Sonicare toothbrush was no longer taking a charge, I was ready to jump on in and fix the problem.  I started with a q-tip and cleaned off the leads.  I did a little research on how the charging mechanism operates.

I was about two minutes away from taking the darn thing apart when I noticed something critical: the charger was not plugged in to the outlet.

Duh.

It got me thinking.  Sometimes we smart folks, yes, I am talking about you and me and almost all of my friends and family, we over think things.  We make things harder than they need to be.  We decide that we will apply our substantial, educated brains to a problem.  We mull it over, we ponder it, we might even rationalize it and justify it.  But in reality, there is a very simple, very clear solution right in front of us, if only we will notice it.

I have felt, at various points in my life, like I was on the verge of total failure.  I have been utterly without hope.  I have felt like I had no direction and no idea what to do next.  I have been devoid of joy.  In those moments, when we are preparing to disassemble the entire Sonicare, if only we would look up, we would discover that we are just disconnected from the source of all energy and power.

God loves you.  How do I know that for a fact?  Because I know that He loves me and I am flawed and damaged and broken.  He loves you too, every bit at much.  Don't try to repair something that isn't broken.  Just have the faith to plug in.

What do I mean by plug in?  Start small.  Read your scriptures.  Pray.  If you don't know how to do these things, ask for help!  I am happy to talk to you! Your friends, your family, your pastor, your bishop, these people are all dying to help you.  Let them in and let that power flood your life.  I promise you it will wipe away all the despair, all the lack of direction.  Your faith will return if you will just turn back to the source: Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost and your Heavenly Father.  It is my prayer that all of my friends and family who are feeling lost, dark and alone will make an effort to let Christ back into their lives.

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.