Striking a Balance: Things I've learned from ants...

A few weeks ago, my kids decided they needed ant farms.  My son brought me enough money for one, and I ordered it for him.  My daughter was also desperate for one, so she brought me money and I ordered her one, too. 

They arrived a few days later and the ants followed soon after.  These aren’t ant farms like the ones I grew up with.  Instead of sand in a very tall skinny ant farm, these are much thicker and shorter, and they’re filled with blue gel.  The gel is interesting: it is both food and water for the ants, and they can move it just like sand.  Lights in the farm, coupled with the transparency of the gel allow you to see the ants in their tunnels anywhere in the ant farm.  This means that when I dumped the ants into the ant farm, they immediately had both food and water.  They didn’t need anything else to live.  And yet, they immediately began to make tunnels. 

I thought over the next few days about our lives, and the parallels.  Many years ago, humans worked from daybreak until sunset in order to meet their basic needs.  In this day and age, most people can earn enough to meet their basic needs in just five days a week, roughly eight hours a day.  Life has grown easier.  Some people can earn a living in even less time. In fact, if we don't work at all, the government will make sure we don't starve.

But like the ants, humans need work to be happy.  There have been a lot of times during my life that I’ve thought I would be better off if I could only get a break.  I have been desperate for vacation, for recreation, or for some kind of time off.  That being said, I have always known that the break was beneficial specifically because I had been working hard.  Like those ants, we need to be working, building tunnels, being productive to find purpose in this life.  We may have food and water, but the human soul requires more. 

I thought this was the lesson the ants were meant to teach me.

I was wrong. 

As the weeks have passed, I have noticed something else.  The ants never take a break.  They attack the building of more tunnels with a single minded ferocity, dare I say, as though they have tunnel vision.  I do strongly believe that work helps us grow, and it shapes us.  It brings us joy.  However, I have also felt very strongly that we may all be as misguided as those little ants sometimes.  We can become focused on building tunnels to the exclusion of all else.  The type of tunnel we are building varies widely from person to person.  Your tunnel may be money, facebook, career advancement, notoriety, home remodeling/decorating, or acquisition of baby clothes. I have been struggling with buying too many baby clothes lately... HA!  There are so many, many tunnels we can build.  Only you can identify yours.

In my life, I’ve been building tunnels lately.  And missing out on time I could be spending focused on what matters most: scripture reading, prayer and time with my family.

The scriptures are quite clear on this point.  In the Book of Matthew, the Savior says, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” 

He doesn’t say that you can’t build tunnels, but we are instructed to build up the kingdom of God first.  In the same chapter, Christ also says, “Lay not up for yourselves treasure upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven…for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” 

This week, my point is very simple.  You need to work, and you need to be productive, but a balance must be struck.  Build tunnels, but leave yourself time for what matters even more.  To me, that means you go to church, you read your scriptures and say your prayers, and you make time for family.  You talk to your family, teach them the things of God and have fun with them.  These are the things that build God’s kingdom. 

Take a lesson from the ants.  Build those tunnels, but take a bit of time to thank your Heavenly Father for His help in building them, and spend some time enjoying them and the world around you, too.

Kids do such a great job at remembering to enjoy what is right in front of them.

Are you being a Brat?

We have a hard and fast rule at my house. If you want something, you must ask for it politely.  If you scream and throw a fit, I will not give it to you, even I would have otherwise said, "Sure."

This rule is applied frequently, because my kids whine and throw fits a LOT.

Once my children have thrown a tantrum, they must earn the right to have the item I would have GIVEN to them gladly otherwise.  Sometimes I put them in the corner, sometimes they need to clean up a mess, sometimes they need to issue an apology.  There is no set punishment, because no two situations are exactly similar, but my kids don't seem to realize that they are making their life harder with one thing: their own bad attitude.

We had some friends over for dinner on Sunday night and my friend Kendra's husband commented on this precise topic.  His daughter came in demanding something rudely, as all children do.  He made a face with which I am very familiar, a face that said, "What a brat."  Then he said, "I wonder if our Heavenly Father ever feels this way about us.  I hope he's more temperate than we are."

Of course he's correct that Heavenly Father is more temperate than we are, but He too is training us, teaching his children.  He, too, cannot simply give us something when we throw a fit about it.  I worry sometimes (a lot) that I am raising four kids so spoiled that they will not function well in the real world.  He is raising us, His children, to fulfill the measure of our potential, and that potential is so vast!! We can become something beyond our expectations, beyond our wildest dreams.  I think that very often, we are tremendously hindered by our attitude, just as my children are.

I think back on the Old Testament story of Moses.  He led his people, through many mighty miracles, out of enslavement in Egypt and on an exodus to a promised land.  When they were on the edge of that land, one member of each of the twelve tribes went to scout it out.  They all came back with the report that the promised land was beautiful, bounteous, and wonderful.  Ten reported that to go and take it for themselves would be death--the inhabitants were giants and would destroy them.  Two scouts said to go and take what God promised.

The people did not have enough faith.  They threw a tantrum and refused to go.  I imagine they looked something like this.

Maybe not quite as cute.

In any case, in return for their lack of faith, their bad attitude, and their poor behavior, God took away his promise for that generation. They were doomed to wander in the wilderness for 40 years.  Egads!

How often do we end up wandering in our lives, and how often do we place blame anywhere and everywhere but where it belongs: squarely on our own shoulders?  Don't get me wrong.  A lot of bad things just happen!! I am not saying if you are having trials, they are your own fault.  We will all have trials, because it is how we grow, how we change and strive and improve.  The issue here is how we handle those trials.

I went to a church meeting last night (Enrichment) and spoke with the Relief Society President in our ward.  What a lady!! She casually conveyed how she went from being a mom, to an airplane mechanic, with no prior knowledge or expertise.  The short story is that her husband passed away.  She had to find work, and someone offered to help her go to school to do something she knew nothing about and had no interest in.  It was hard, it didn't make sense and I am sure she wondered why she was bothering to learn something like this at all.  She was in the middle of her life, not at the start.  If I had been where she was, I would have been thinking, "Why me??"  She did it anyway, and when talking to me, there was not a scrap of complaint!  She is truly an example of someone with a uplifting and beautiful attitude.

I look around myself and see innumerable blessings.  I have a beautiful family, with the best husband on earth.  I have four healthy, active, busy children.  I have a lovely home, and we live comfortably.  We go on fun vacations, we live near family.  My husband has a job.  I have been blessed with a healthy body and a fine intellect.  All of these things are rich blessings.

Sometimes I get so caught up in the things that I want, and how long I feel I've been waiting or working for them, that I forget to be grateful for what I have and to keep my attitude in check.  Here is my reminder for all of you. Tonight, think about all your blessings, all your joy.  Think of all your Heavenly Father has done for you,  You will obviously have lots of things to ask for over your lifetime, and that's okay.  Your Father in heaven wants to bless you, just as you want to give good things to your children and family and loved ones.  But try and be patient with His timeframe, and try to be humble and grateful when you ask.

I think even God appreciates a good attitude, so let's fix ours, okay?  :-)

If you stumble... you don't have to fall

I didn't post on Sunday because I had just come away from General Conference (a two day Mormon event where all the "general authorities" give talks that are inspired and beautiful).  I didn't feel like I had much to add that anyone really needed to hear, especially in the wake of all the wonderful and uplifting things I had spent two days trying (due to small children) to listen to and absorb.

I have mentioned before that I have four youngish kids.  I say youngish because my youngest is two and on her way to being potty trained...Hallelujah!  Yesterday, after bath time, she was running in the bathroom and stumbled on a towel on the floor.  She would have landed flat on her face, but I caught her and helped her steady herself.  That one thing, that smallest event in my day, really made me think.

I think I have mentioned before that I have had a rash of family and friends lately who have either left the church entirely, or who have sort of faded in their faith.  Obviously this makes me really sad.  The interesting thing is that if you talk to them, if you really drill down with them to discover when this lack of faith began, it comes down to a careless towel on the floor every time, something small, something easy to remedy, something they could have reacted to in two very different ways.  Their reaction at the time made all the difference.

What in the world is Bridget talking about now?

I mean this: a tiny little thing is always the root of our own separation from God, at least initially.

If you're still scratching your head, let me try and explain.  I have a dear friend who went to BYU.  She met and married another member of the church.  She had a faith in God and a belief in our Savior Jesus Christ.  She was married in the temple, which we believe means she was married for eternity, and not just for the time she is here on earth.  I am not exaggerating when I tell you this friend of mine shone like a star.

Until one day, someone at church said something that hurt her feelings.  She didn't want to go back the next week.  Then she started a new job that had her working on Saturdays and she felt like she had no weekend time at all.  So she stopped going regularly.  Within a few months, she was going far less than she was staying home.  Her husband came up with excuses not to go, too.  After all, going to the lake was more fun, and his wife was going, so he should go with her.  They began spending more and more time with people who did not worship Jesus Christ.  They began to feel like they were missing out because they didn't drink alcohol, because they gave money to the church instead of spending it on themselves.  The rules of the gospel began to be a burden, they began to chafe.

And my friend wondered, why in the world was I part of this church anyway?  She and her husband both stopped going, and now they're not sure if religion is anything more than a myth society tells to explain away things they couldn't figure out on their own.

I have another person, also dear to me, who has a very different start to his story.  He is one of the smartest people I know.  He studies things out, he prides himself on his intellect, and rightfully so.  Although intelligence is a gift from God, you can choose to waste it, or you can work hard to hone and develop it.  This is a person who has worked very hard in honing his intelligence.  He has gone far in his education, and also in his career.

He heard something about the church that bothered him on an intellectual level.  He began to study the gospel from an academic perspective.  Instead of reading the scriptures to feel of the Spirit, and to receive an affirmation that God lives, that God loves him, he spent his time studying things written by man.  He began to search things out to determine whether they could have happened according to our scientific version of events.  He studied the story of Moses and determined that what the Bible says took place is a scientific impossibility.

He stopped spending his time praying.  He stopped believing that the people at church who had such a lower level of education than he did had something to teach him.  He began to doubt at every turn.  He now believes that the things he has studied prove, beyond a doubt, that the church cannot be true.  He believes that the gospel, that the doctrine of Christ, are mere niceties that we have taught one another to encourage proper social behavior.

Both of these people stumbled over something different.  Both of them wound up in the same place.  Flat on their faces.  Alone, without the uplifting hand of God, and the support of the Spirit, to keep them from pain, from sorrow, from despair.

Belief in Jesus Christ, specifically, the belief that He lived, that He led a perfect life, that He died, and that He lives again, is not something that you study in school, that you examine and that you determine logically is true.  It is actually a crazy story in almost every sense of the word.  You cannot take the flawed and mortal mind of a human and puzzle out the existence and nature of the divine, of the eternal, of the Holy.  It would be like my two year old trying to make pancakes alone: a disaster.  She has the capacity to do it one day, but only if she does what I tell her to do, if she listens closely to me as she grows, and if she trusts in what she can become by following my lead.

Our loving Heavenly Father has given us scripture, He sent us a Savior and He has outlined a way for us to return, and in doing so, to become more like Him.  But we must do it with our heart, following his directions and not relying on our own minds and our own abilities to do it.

I want every single person reading this to think of anything that might be bothering them, or that might be bothering anyone they know right now, large, or more especially, small.  For me, it could have been feeling like I was dealing with a calling for too long (I am over that), or it could be my reaction to someone who was rude to me.  It could be a struggle with a historical event, it could be a problem with the poor way in which you perceive your Priesthood leaders handled an issue, or continue to handle it.  Now think about that problem, all the hurt it caused you, all the problems you have with it.  I am going to (figuratively) reach out my hand to you now just as I did for my daughter yesterday, and I know the Spirit of God will bear me out.

Let. It. Go.

That problem is a wet towel on the floor.  It is small, harmless and insignificant, but it can cause you to trip, to fall flat on your face, if you let it.  It can cause you significant pain, and it can separate you from God.  Or you can reach up and take His hand.  You can let go of your anger.  If you've already fallen on your face, you can choose to look up, and take that hand now.  It is never, ever, ever too late.  His hand is always outstretched.  It may take the form of the hand of a friend, or a family member, but take it.

Even if you stumble, recognize that everyone does, because small things happen all the time.  But see that they are small.  They are minor, these things.  Do not let any single item, event or person separate you from your God, from your faith, from your family and friends who love you, or from the joy your Heavenly Father wants to bless you with.  Let us support you, help you and uplift you.  You won't be sad you took that step of faith to let it go, whatever it is.  You won't be sad you decided to use your heart to study out the things of God, instead of relying only on your mind.  I promise.

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.