Forgiving Someone Else

Tonight I sit and really wonder how to forgive someone who time and time again makes me so angry?! 

There was a spat happening on a group text that I'm apart of.  Someone was offended because none of us responding within seconds of her posting some pictures.  She felt as though we did not love her.  The whole thing got way out of control and people were being so harsh when all the group text is suppose to do is bring people closer together by staying in contact with each other.  I wish I could say that I was one of the peacemakers of the group, but I wasn't.  I was pretty darn upset over comments that were made.  So mad that I was shaking. 

People have apologized and things are moving forward again, but I'm struggling.  How do I truly forgive this person who time and time again does stuff like this?  I want to forgive them and I want to move forward in life, but I have such a deep wedge in my heart that I'm struggling so bad.  I literally get sick to my stomach and start throwing up because the feelings are so deep now.  The part that is the hardest is the guilt because I know that I can't feel this way.  I have got to forgive and move on because I'm only hurting myself through all of this.  While I was rocking Hope to sleep tonight I just cried out to my Heavenly Father for help.  I felt a good load of the burden lift, but now that I'm not in prayer, I'm hurting and aching again. 

Please, if anyone has any good ideas please help me!!!

Strength from our Meetings

This last week I've really been struggling with anger. I'm just on edge with everything. Poor Zac has gotten his head ripped off a couple of times. I just didn't know what was causing it. The joys of life ;).

I just got back fromStake Conference. We discussed what it means to be a disciple of Christ. I LOVED the discussion. So much was shared and I could have stayed in the meeting for hours. It was the best I felt all week. The 2 things I realized the most from the discussion were that
1. My desire to follow Christ has to be there. I have to have the desire to be a disciple. Everything starts with desire. So if I want to be a disciple bad enough I will begin to make the choices to be one.
2. I have to deny myself in order to become a disciple of Christ. This made me immediately think of 2 Nephi 9:39 - SMILE (to be spiritually minded is life eternal). I want to put off the natural man but I forget to use the spirit. Only in the spirit can we focus our will with the Lords. As we do this it is a little easier to let those natural desires go. An example: for me waking up in the morning to do read scriptures is so hard. I really want to sleep. But when I look at what putting that little bit of sleep aside in order to have the spirit with me gives me the strength to get up and read.

They also reminded us about how easy it is to be distracted on our journey of discipleship. We may have a pure heart and no desire to be bad but we just get distracted by the world. We don't ever have to give up and think we have to start over. Repentance is just wanting to be better and so we just improve from where we are.

The whole thing was encouraging. I'm just so grateful for the gift of the Holy Ghost bearing witness of truth to me. My testimony was strengthened and revelation received!!!

Daily Routine

Is it just me or does anyone else get grumpy when their daily routine gets messed up? Man!! I love having Zac home but at the same time it throws everything off.

I've been seeing a repeated pattern on days that my schedule gets off. 1st scripture study is normally always missed because Zac is awesome enough to let me sleep. 2nd - I get super grumpy about half way through the day. I have decided that the grumpiness and missing scripture study is not a coincidence. Just today I realized just how much scripture study brings the spirit into our lives. When we are reading everyday we don't always realize how much calmer and happier we are but when we miss a day, especially a few days I realize how much I need that spirit.

Daily scripture study is the power we need everyday. If we start the day off right by reading our spirit starts off strong and gives us the power we need for the day. I always think about the movie Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief. I love when he goes to the camp for the first time and be is getting all beat up while playing capture the flag. Then he hears a voice that tells him to go to the water and the water will give him strength. That is so symbolic of life. Each day we get beat up and we can get our strength and power from the scriptures. We can only survive this life with the spirit. So if that's the case why would we not start our day off inviting the spirit into our lives?!

Do I Love Myself?

My friend and I were working out the other morning and we had a very interesting conversion.  It was a good one and one that I'm sure is repeated many times.  We discussed why is it that we feel such the pressure to look like when did in high school when we are 20 years older and have 3-5 kids?  I would love to meet a woman who doesn't feel that way and explain to me how.  We decided that your 30's are just awkward years.  40 is considered over the hill and people kind of expect you to start aging and 20's you are still young and the metabolism is working great.  But the 30's, where do you fit in?  I went home and was thinking about that a lot.  It's been on my mind since Wednesday of last week.  I realized how true this question was.  I still want to look young, but yet I do have 5 kids.  I'm aging and my body just isn't the same that it was when I was 20.

I've been searching for an answer and I found it!!  I was reading a conference talk called, Give with Wisdom That They May Receive with Dignity.  I didn't even finish the talk because I realized how easy the answer was.  There were a few things that stood out, but the 2 things I liked the most is "I know I'm somebody 'cause God don't make no junk." and then "A person's image of himself is nothing more or less than what he has learned through his experiences and his interactions with others."  Now I'm going to attempt to explain how these 2 things answered my questions so bare with me :) 

The first thing, "I know I'm somebody 'cause God don't make no junk" reminded me of my favorite book

 

I love this book!!  I heard it for the first time on my mission and it made me cry.  I think it was the first time that I truly realized how much Heavenly Father loves me and who I am as an individual.  My favorite line is "I don't make mistakes."  The little wooden puppet was trying to do everything that everyone else was doing to fit in and stand out, when all he needed to do was learn to love himself for who HE was. 

 

Isn't it the world that has made us think that we need to be so much more.  The world has set the standard for how we should look, how skinny we should be, how big our curves should be, what type of clothes we should wear, what time of mom we should be, etc, etc, etc.  When are we going to learn to stop listening to all that nonsense and Love who we are!!  It is who God made us and what he wants us to be.

 

Now I'm the worse at this.  If I'm not wearing makeup these days, I avoid all mirrors.  When I take of my clothes to get in the shower, I cringe from the stretched out stomach of having kids.  I'm so hard on myself.  I'm made myself believe that I need to be someone else.  I only smile in the mirror when I'm dressed nice and have my hair and makeup done.  But tonight I realized that I should love the person I see.  I should smile anytime I see myself in the mirror.  The person without makeup has spent her time serving others, cleaning the house, or spending time with her kids instead of getting ready.  The body I have is beautiful because I have created 5 beautiful children and what a miracle that has been.  Now I'm not saying that you shouldn't exercise and try to eat right because you have had kids or not take the time to get ready everyday because you don't have time.  I'm just saying that we need to stop being so hard on ourselves and how we looks. 

 

The story of Mary and Martha took on a whole new meaning to me tonight.  I realized I do love myself!!  The person that I see in the mirror is a person who is striving to follow Jesus Christ!!  I'm trying to put His teachings into action.  Isn't that the better choice?!!

Recognizing Tender Mercies

Today was one of those bad days!! I was up about 5 times with children and so forcing myself out of bed was a chore. Also when I'm tired my body will just ache. That was today. My legs and body were just throbbing. Sitting under a warm blanket with my fit up is about the only thing that will take the pain away. Well when my kids see me doing that they think its free reign in the house. My walls were decorated with color pencils, all the books on my book shelf became their train to jump around from book to book, water color paint came out and of course food everywhere. So I got grumpy. Kinnley was having one of her monsterous meltdowns that happens all the time now and I was trying to get Abree fed and out the door to preschool and Kodi is doing who knows what to poor Hope. I snapped! I went to get onto Kodi because Kinnley wasn't listening at all and Kodi looked up at me with the saddest little face, the big brown eyes and water paint on her nose. In that moment I just started laughing. How could I yell at her when she just was so innocent? I needed that tender mercy more then anything else today. I needed to stop and laugh. It set me back into place and help me remember what my roll as a mother is. It is not to yell and scream and go crazy. It is to love the little moments of chaos that comes. Laugh with them and then work together to fix and solve the problem.

I'm so grateful I am a mother and that my kids are teaching me so many things.

Pondering

Last night Hope was struggling to go to sleep. Normally I hold her and rock her a while after her bottle and either read a conference talk or think. Well I didn't get to last night. I was too busy trying to help her get comfortable. When she finally settled down it was 10 and time for me to go to bed. I didn't think much about not reading the conference talk or sitting and thinking about what I need to work on till after I said my prayers. I noticed that my prayer ended up being more of those memorized prayers then a prayer of speaking with my Father. That's when I realized how much pondering helps me. It's a time for me to think about what I believe in and to what degree I believe it. It's a time for me to decide I want to be better at something and figure out how to do it. It's a time for me just to sit and feel the peace and love of my Heavenly Father. It really is my precious time. I always walk away feeling uplifted and motivated and full of confidence because I know that Heavenly Father is proud of me and willing to help me. On those days when I do ponder my relationship with the Lord is strengthened because my prayers become more real. During my pondering I always feel Him and that makes it so much easier to get on my knees and really speak with Him. After last night, I realized that I can't miss those opportunities any more. I need them every day. It is what strengthens me and gives me the power to be just a little bit better.

I Feel my Savior's Love

The Boston Marathon bomb!!  I couldn't believe it when I found out.  Are people that sick?  They just set out to hurt innocent people?  My stomach churned.  At one point my kids asked me why I was crying.  All I could tell them is that I was so sad that we live in such a sick world.  Of course they didn't understand what I meant.  But one day, they will.  One day they will wish they could just hide in a hole and not have to face all of this.  The thing that scares me more is that it will probably be worse when they are older. 

 

Summer made a comment today about how bad she felt about those who had put in all that effort to run the marathon and then at the final moment when it is suppose to end and they can rejoice, the bomb explodes and many are injured.  I watched as the blast of the bomb just completely made one of the runners just collapse.  He just fell over feet from the finish line.  But I also watched many continue to run and actually run faster to get to the finish line.

 

All of this made me think about life.  Isn't that how life is for us sometimes?  We put all this effort in and we are exhausted from trying to do all we can and then a bomb explodes.  Something always happens that throws us off from our finish line.  Sometime we can be injured from this, sometimes angry, sometimes hurt, or even as the one man just collapse.  But we can also grow from it.  We can unite from it.  We can humble ourselves enough to rely on God.  I always love that in the worse trials, I can always feel my Saviors love for me the most.  But I can only do that when I choose to allow myself to feel Him.  It's a choice that only we can make.

 

I've always loved the song, "I Feel My Savior's Love".  Here is the link to hear it, if you aren't already singing it in your head :)  The whole song is making a choice to feel it.  We offer ourselves to Him and in the process we are engulfed in His love.  The other song I love that helps us feel our Savior's love is My Heavenly Father Loves Me.  Once again, we make a choice to open our eyes, our ears, our hearts and in the process we are surrounded by the love of our Heavenly Father.  It's just beautiful to me!!  I stand in awe at how much Heavenly Father has given us to help us know that He is near and isn't going to leave us by ourselves.

 

In Primary we were challenged to keep a jar (kind of like the warm fuzzy jar) so the kids could share experience of when they felt Heavenly Father's love for them.  I loved the idea so much that I decided to do it at home with my kids.  Each week for FHE we sit down and share an experience we had that week.  There isn't anything sweeter or brings me more joy then to watch my kids get so excited about sharing their experience.  At first they really struggled.  We pretty much had to help give them ideas of how Heavenly Father showed His love to them.  But now, they can share experiences with us and they normally have multiple experiences to share.  Hunter and I just cried one FHE because he thought it was so cool to feel the spirit testify to him how much Heavenly Father loves him.

 

So here is my jar

 

 

 

You are probably wondering what this has to do with the Boston bombing today.  I do have a point :)  What I realized today is that I don't have to be scared.  I don't have to worry or stress.  As trials come and as tragedies like this happen what I need to do is choose to feel the Saviors love for me.  As I do, I can continue with hope.  The world may be crazy, but I can be at peace!!