On the Road

We're out of our old house and gathering our belongings to hit the road. The plan had been to leave yesterday after school, but a whole mess of reasons kept us here one more night. But soon (like in the next hour and a half) we will be on the road.

Wisconsin, here we come!

Weed vs. Fruit

Amid the chaos of last week, I made time to write my talk. More accurately, amid the chaos of Saturday night, I made time to write my talk. I had studied my assigned material and prayed, but inspiration did not strike until the night before I was to speak. I was thankful when it finally came.

This is the longest talk I've ever given. We usually only have two speakers in Sacrament Meeting in our ward, so I was told to prepare for fifteen to seventeen minutes. And I filled my time. So be prepared, it is not short.

Weed or Fruit

I’ve been a bundle of nerves for the last two weeks. Not because I’m speaking in church, but rather because we’re moving on Wednesday. It’s amazing how stressful a move can be. And when I’m stressed I’m more easily annoyed, I’m quicker to anger, and I tend to think that those around me are going out of their way to make me feel like a crazy person. And you know, it’s equally amazing how quickly my stressed-out attitude spreads to the rest of my family. My snippy answers to the boys result in snippy, disrespectful responses.

The Spirit of Contention is contagious. And it spreads most easily to those that are closest to us.

In his talk from the last General Conference “The Merciful Obtain Mercy”, President Dieter F. Uchtdorf said:

“Strained and broken relationships are as old as humankind itself. Ancient Cain was the first who allowed the cancer of bitterness and malice to canker his heart… I imagine that every person on earth has been affected in some way by the destructive spirit of contention, resentment, and revenge.”

I reach a moment in my anxiety and annoyance where I recognize that most of my anger is the result of things I think other people should be doing. Or things that I think I should be doing, not because of anything they’ve actually done. At these instances, my judgmental attitude slowly poisons everything I do. At this point, I need to make a choice. I can choose to pursue the unhappiness I’m holding onto, or I can take a deep breath and follow President Uchtdorf’s council from the same talk: Stop it.

He said, “It’s that simple. We simply have to stop judging others and replace judgmental thoughts and feelings with a heart full of love for God and His children. God is our Father. We are His children. We are all brothers and sisters… We must recognize that we are all imperfect—that we are beggars before God. Haven’t we all, at one time or another, meekly approached the mercy seat and pleaded for grace? Haven’t we wished with all the energy of our souls for mercy—to be forgiven for the mistakes we have made and the sins we have committed? Because we all depend on the mercy of God, how can we deny to others any measure of the grace we so desperately desire for ourselves? My beloved brothers and sisters, should we not forgive as we wish to be forgiven?”

When he says it like that, it seems like a simple choice. Why would I do something that makes me unhappy when all I have to do is stop and I’ll feel better? Why not choose to forgive the wrongs?

Imagine with me for a minute that you have a garden. Some of you actually do have gardens, so this won’t be hard. This garden has long, beautiful, straight rows. You’ve planted your favorite fruits and vegetables and you’ve watered eagerly, waiting for the first bits of green to poke through the soil. You’ve neglected one important detail, however, you’ve given no thought to weeding. You’re busy and decide that the weeds won’t do too much damage, so you let them stay and grow along with the carrots and peas and beans. If you’ve ever had a garden, you know that weeds like to steal nutrients from the plants nearby. The plants are left looking dull, withered, and tiny.

Now instead of a garden, imagine your heart and your mind. You choose feelings of kindness, love, happiness and plant those in those long, beautiful straight rows. You work to nurture these feelings. But then little seeds of anger, bitterness, and resentment creep in. You’re busy and those unwanted feelings aren’t taking up too much room, so rather than plucking them out, you let them stay. As time goes by you notice those dark feelings more and more until they have crowded out the uplifting feelings you had originally planted.

Speaking of Cain again, President Uchtdorf said, “He tilled the ground of his soul with envy and hatred and allowed these feelings to ripen until he did the unthinkable—murdering his own brother and becoming, in the process, the father of Satan’s lies.”

How do we pull out those weeds of contention? How do we forgive?

I remember a day before Bryan and I had kids. We had a disagreement, I’ve forgotten about what, and I was steaming. Some people eat when they’re mad, I clean. I filled the sink with hot, soapy water and went to work. After brooding about why I was right, I realized that I felt lousy and should go apologize, but I couldn’t make myself do it. So I grabbed my Hymn Book and set it on the counter so I could see it while I scrubbed. I decided that I would sing every hymn until I felt the anger melt away. Somewhere around hymn 59 I rinsed off my hands and went to say sorry to Bryan and to forgive him and ask for forgiveness. For me, the hymns of the church invite the Holy Ghost and help me to forgive.

Speaking of the hymns, look closely at the second verse of Did You Think to Pray:

When your heart was filled with anger,

Did you think to pray?

Did you plead for grace, my brother,

That you might forgive another

Who had crossed your way?

Refrain

O how praying rests the weary!

Prayer will change the night to day;

So when life seems dark and dreary,

Don’t forget to pray.

Prayer, sincerely offered can change our hearts so we are more inclined to forgive.

In Enos chapter 1 verses 4-6 we read that Enos dropped to his knees in prayer in the middle of a hunting trip and prayed.

4 And my soul hungered; and I kneeled down before my Maker, and I cried unto him in mighty prayer and supplication for mine own soul; and all the day long did I cry unto him; yea, and when the night came I did still raise my voice high that it reached the heavens.

 5 And there came a voice unto me, saying: Enos, thy sins are forgiven thee, and thou shalt be blessed.

 6 And I, Enos, knew that God could not lie; wherefore, my guilt was swept away.

Enos accepted the forgiveness, then went on to pray for the Lamanites. The Savior taught in the Sermon on the Mount, “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;”

Singing hymns and praying are two aspects of the bigger key to forgiveness. President Uchtdorf gives us that key. He said, “How is it done? Through the love of God … The more we allow the love of God to govern our minds and emotions—the more we allow our love for our Heavenly Father to swell within our hearts—the easier it is to love others with the pure love of Christ. As we open our hearts to the glowing dawn of the love of God, the darkness and cold of animosity and envy will eventually fade. As always, Christ is our exemplar. In His teachings as in His life, He showed us the way. He forgave the wicked, the vulgar, and those who sought to hurt and to do Him harm… The pure love of Christ can remove the scales of resentment and wrath from our eyes, allowing us to see others the way our Heavenly Father sees us: as flawed and imperfect mortals who have potential and worth far beyond our capacity to imagine. Because God loves us so much, we too must love and forgive each other.”

When I’m being judgmental, I’m focusing on the flaw and imperfections of people around me. I often especially focus on my own flaws and imperfections. It’s that unimaginable potential that President Uchtdorf spoke of that I ignore. Did you catch the end of that quote? It said, “Because God loves us so much, we too must love and forgive each other.” So because Heavenly Father loves us, he sees our flaws but doesn’t let them distract him from our potential, and we must do the same.

One of my favorite stories in the scriptures is the conversion of Alma the Younger. After working to destroy the church, he was visited by an angel and was left unconscious. Later in his life he taught his son Heleman about the power of forgiveness. Starting with Alma 36:17.

17 And it came to pass that as I was thus racked with torment, while I was harrowed up by the memory of my many sins, behold, I remembered also to have heard my father prophesy unto the people concerning the coming of one Jesus Christ, a Son of God, to atone for the sins of the world.

 18 Now, as my mind caught hold upon this thought, I cried within my heart: O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me, who am in the gall of bitterness, and am encircled about by the everlasting chains of death.

 19 And now, behold, when I thought this, I could remember my pains no more; yea, I was harrowed up by the memory of my sins no more.

 20 And oh, what joy, and what marvelous light I did behold; yea, my soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain!

 21 Yea, I say unto you, my son, that there could be nothing so exquisite and so bitter as were my pains. Yea, and again I say unto you, my son, that on the other hand, there can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as was my joy.

Alma tells us that being on the receiving end of forgiveness is a sweet and exquisite joy. Why then, would we want to withhold that joy from anyone, even if they have done something to wrong or offend us?

In Doctrine and Covenants 64:9-10 we are taught

9 Wherefore, I say unto you, that ye ought to forgive one another; for he that forgiveth not his brother his trespasses standeth condemned before the Lord; for there remaineth in him the greater sin. 10 I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men.

We are not just encouraged to forgive, or gently reminded to forgive. No, we are REQUIRED to forgive.

Go back to the analogy of the garden. This time, rather than ignore the weeds, you see them, and you pull them out. But one week in particular is quite pretty. It has a delicate looking vine and pretty flowers and you decide that one little vine won’t hurt, so you leave it in your garden. In fact, you are so fond of the way it looks, you clear a few of the smaller plants from around it so it can grow. You begin to cultivate it. It isn’t until the Morning Glory, this pretty weed, has wrapped itself around all of your pumpkin and zucchini plants and begun the process of squeezing the life out of them that you realize that you’ve sacrificed good plants to an insidious weed.

Now move to the other garden, the one in your soul. The Morning Glory is a grudge or a refusal to forgive a friend or a family member. Not only do you allow it to stay, you nurture it by focusing on the anger or the hurt you feel you’ve experienced at their hands. Soon that grudge will choke out the kindness and love you once felt.

How do we replace bitterness with the love of God? President Uchtdorf tells us. "In a world of accusations and unfriendliness, it is easy to gather and cast stones. But before we do so, let us remember the words of the One who is our Master and model: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone.” Brothers and sisters, let us put down our stones. Let us be kind. Let us forgive. Let us talk peacefully with each other. Let the love of God fill our hearts. “Let us do good unto all men.""

Forgiveness heals. It heals our relationships with those who we feel have hurt us. It heals our own hearts. It removes the choking weeds of bitterness and anger and replaces them with the beautiful, life giving fruits of love and kindness.

Think of the words of the Savior when he hung upon the cross at Calvary. As his tormentors mocked him he pled with Heavenly Father for those that were crucifying him, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Contention is contagious, but so is kindness. I bear my testimony that forgiveness heals and is divine. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Gotta Dance

Plus One

I need to add one more item to my to-do list:

• speak in church on Sunday

I enjoy speaking in church, I'm just not entirely sure when I'm going to prepare.

That is all.

Happy Working Song

Thanks for all the congratulatory messages. I say that like it's my internship. I know it's Bryan's, but since it has a major impact on the whole family, I do think of it as our internship. And our summer adventure.

We've spent the last week deep cleaning and de-junking. Our DI pile is occupying a large square of cement in our garage. We've also started packing. The boys both remember this process, but it's completely new to Phoebe. She's taken to it well. Today I watched as she dumped a dozen board books into a box that was almost her height and announced, "Packing!"

Bryan pointed out that other than carrying boxes and furniture, he doesn't really know what to do to get us ready to move. I had forgotten that for our last three moves I did most of the packing while he was at work. I'm happy to share the task of packing, just as I'm sure he's happy that I can heft around big heavy boxes this time since I'm not pregnant (as I have been for three of our five moves).

Now all we need to do is:

• sell our current contract
• find a place to live in Wisconsin
• find a place to live for when we come back for Bryan's last year of school
• find a storage unit to stash our stuff
• decide if we're taking one car or two
• figure out what the minimum number of belongings we can take to get us through the twelve-week internship is
• return our library books
• pack
• move

A friend (who reads this blog, hi friend!) asked what my stress level was at and how I was dealing with it. I told her that, although I have long hated running, I've started running between one-third and one-half of the trip to and from dropping Peter off at school.

I'm not feeling too stressed and my pants fit better, so I guess it's working.

And Now For Something Completely Different

Throughout the whole first year of the MBA Bryan has been working to get a summer internship. He's been on interviews and fly-backs and heard several noes. He's watched as his classmates received and accepted offers. We kept hearing stories from last year about guys that didn't get internships until June.

Bryan did not want to be that guy.

After all his work, he was still without an internship when he went to China. I kept his phone to deliver messages via email in case an offer came in while he was out of the country. Nothing. On the last night of his trip he and some of his classmates went through the Hong Kong Temple. Bryan spent his time there focused and prayerful about the problem of finding a job for the summer.

The next day he got an offer.

We were happy to finally have something. But after he and I both prayed, it didn't feel quite right. This was frustrating for me because I wanted to be done worrying and know what our plans for the next three months would be. I've learned, however, that if the choice is not right, it doesn't matter how much I want and wish. He decided to fast about it.

And then another offer came in.

This one felt much better to both of us. That left one more outstanding company. After more prayer, he decided to remove his name from the pool of candidates. Only, the woman that he called didn't get the message.

And she called with his third offer.

After so long waiting and wondering if he would get anything, he suddenly had three options. It was both mind-boggling and miraculous. Two of the offers would have kept us close to home, allowing us to remain in the area. The third would have taken us far away, to a place that none of us have ever been before. But it also would provide fantastic educational opportunities for Bryan.

And that is why we'll be packing most of our possessions into storage and moving two weeks from today.

To Wisconsin.

Any of you lovely readers have any connections in or knowledge about Wisconsin you could share with me?

A Day Late, But Still Adorable

I know my last post was a downer, but I'm about to make it up to you.

Happy (belated) Mother's Day!

Without

I've sat down to write this post every night since Tuesday. Each time it's been too hard and I've put the computer down. Before you worry, we are fine; sad, but fine.

On Tuesday we found out that the wife of one of Bryan's classmates was in the hospital with a severe Strep A infection just days after giving birth to their third child and that she did not have any brain activity. She was Cooper's soccer coach last fall and one of the happiest, smiliest people I've come across. We gathered as a family and prayed that her family would have the strength that they needed.

I was at Book Club that night when Bryan sent me the text: her family was taking her off of life support.

It might seem odd that I'm writing about someone that was an acquaintance. Though I knew her only in passing, her death has hit me hard. I think part of it is that she and her family just finished this difficult road of the MBA program. I think another part is that she has two little boys and a brand new baby girl. That two-boys-and-a-girl combo often makes me feel an immediate emotional connection. Mostly, I think about my own family and the heartbreak of children without a mother.

I've cried a lot over the past few days. I've hugged my family more and I've lost count of the prayers I've said, both for her family and for mine.

A bright spot in the midst of the clouds this week is the response that this family has gotten. I have been amazed by how quickly the MBA students and their spouses mobilized to help them. Baby-sitting, meals, job searches for this now-single father, clothes for the children, all have been offered and many have been accepted and organized.

Up until Tuesday afternoon, we had been focusing on our own trials that felt so overwhelming. Now the problems that we're facing pale. Bryan and I have our children and each other and we are an eternal family.

And for that I am truly thankful.

Lazing About

He's home! Bryan is home! He got back on Thursday night.

Where was he, you ask?

China.

Yes, it's been quite the international semester for him. He went on an MBA trip to Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong. He was gone for twelve days. 

During his absence, if you asked Phoebe where Daddy was she would say, "Dina," which is the 20-month-old version of China.

For the record, tobogganing down the Great Wall of China is quite dangerous. Bryan still has bruises from it. Also, being a tall white male in China means that while you're taking pictures of local sights, the locals will be taking pictures of you.

The trip was the reason my Grandma came to visit. She didn't want me to be on my own with the kids for that long. Truthfully, I didn't want to be on my own with the kids for that long either. I'm so thankful she came. Her visit made things like showering without fear of the boys running out the front door and down the street (this is not a hypothetical) possible. And she folded our laundry the whole time she was here, which was completely awesome.

Bryan brought home a handful of souvenirs, including a pretty painful stomach bug. But despite how awful he's felt, he gave me a fantastic gift yesterday. He took care of the kids and I spent the majority of the day lying in bed reading. I haven't been able to do that in years. Probably not since Peter was born. I told him that was the equivalent of sending me on a spa day. It was wonderful. And when I finally surfaced to find food, I discovered that my children were so much more pleasant to be around than they had been before.

Funny how that works, eh?

Soft Serve

Have you ever opened your deep freeze, pulled out your sugar-free vanilla ice cream to enjoy as a late night treat, and discovered that the previously mentioned ice cream is liquid? And then, after some investigating, you discover that the cause for the slushiness of the sweet is that the outlet its frigid home is plugged into has freaked out and turned off?

No?

Must just be me.

On a positive note, I didn't lose anything, so even though it wasn't receiving any power, the freezer was still keeping our food pretty cold. Just not cold enough to keep ice cream frozen.

And the outlet is working again.

This house has electricity issues...

Ripe Strawberries, Ripe*

My Grandma and I have been busy. We took these

and made this:

*Anyone know the musical?