Mothers Who Know

Lesson learned from Hiking

Today we went hiking. It was a beautiful day, with blue skies, cool temperatures, and low humidity. It was one of the top ten days you get every year. The mountain we hike is pretty small - as a matter of fact, its not even technically a mountain, it is called Blue Hill. There are many trails you can hike, but our favorite is about a half mile to an observation tower, then a little ways further to a ski slope that the kids run down. It takes about two hours from the time we get there, till we leave.

We usually carry the baby, and everyone else walks. So the three year old was walking, and kept slipping in her sandals, so we let her go barefoot. There are a lot of rocks, and after a while two others chose to go barefoot as well, as it made for easier climbing. A few times, she remarked, this way is too hard. I would look down and find her looking up in a certain direction. I would then point out that if she went a tiny bit to the side, she would have a much easier time. How much like our journey is that? Many times, I think we look ahead from where we are, and are paralyzed with fear, (or at least worried) about how impossible life seems. Then, our loving Father in Heaven, slowly draws our attention to a nearby path, that we didnt even see before, that is much easier, or at least climbable. Unfortuneately, many of us, instead of taking the correction, continue to try to push on for a while before asking for help. I pray that I may have the faith of my daughter, to ask for help when I first realize I need it, and to stop always trying to 'do it myself'.

The second lesson I learned today, was on the way down the ski slope. It takes us an hour to hike up around the mountain to the top - but the way down is just straight. It takes about 15 minutes to get down. At the top, and a few points down, it looks like the earth just drops away, as it so steep. My daughter, upon seeing this, says, "Thats way too dangerous, I cant do that".  I explained how, just because it looks impossible, or too dangerous from here, doesn't mean it is. I explained how it is steep and we need to be careful, but if we just worry about where we are, and a little bit further, it wont seem so bad when we get to the scary part. We focused on how it wasnt so bad from where we were to where Daddy was, and from there to where Ashes was. By the time we got there, we could see the next part of the path, and it no longer looked like the earth was going to drop away from us. As I was teaching her this, I was again struck by how many times, we declare things impossible, only because from our vantage point, they seem to be. That if we will just focus on the next few steps, the journey will eventually appear to our eyes, and won't be as fearsome as it seems. That we need to have faith, like our daughter did, that our Father, wont take us on a journey that is beyond us. We need to trust him, and have faith. Sometimes, the road is so treacherous looking, that we might only be able to take one step at a time, using all our energy, and sometimes we will be able to run and look far ahead, but it is all known to our Father, and it is all for our own good.

Heavenly Father Loves You!!

Today was Fast and Testimony at Church today. Once a month, usually the first Sunday, the members all abstain from food and drink for two meals and donate the amount they would have used to buy food to the poor. This allows even those with very modest means to participate in being charitable. Usually we start our fast after lunch on Sat, and then skip dinner and breakfast the next morning, and then end our fast after church with a late lunch Sunday.

At Church on Sunday we are given the opportunity to bear our testimony. I felt prompted to get up today, and as I was waiting my turn, one of the speakers ended, and my three year old yells out, "It's your turn, Mommy!" Which of course, generated quite a few chuckles from those sitting nearby. :-) 

When it was my turn, I felt prompted to share, (and then share with you), my testimony that Heavenly Father is real. When I first started to learn about faith, I had no idea whether their really was a God. I was hoping there was, but I just didn't know for sure. I will never forget kneeling down by the side of my bed, in the dark, one night before bed, and asking, "Heavenly Father, are you really there? Do you really exist? Am I really your daughter?" As I sat there pondering these questions, a very peaceful feeling came over me, and I felt very warm inside. It really is indescribeable how I felt, so that is a fraction of what I felt. However, at that moment, I knew that Heavenly Father was real. I could feel His love for me in those moments. I never wanted to stop praying that night, as I never wanted that feeling to end.

Of course, that feeling that night did end, but I have felt it many times since then. Sometimes, like that night, it is very powerful and overwhelming, and other times, it is much more subtle and faint, but nonetheless there. It comes when I am giving service, struggling with a bad day, praying fervently, or studying my scriptures. It is the feeling of having a loving Heavenly Father.

Heavenly Father is there. He loves me, and He loves you. He is our Father. We are His children. He sent His Son to die for us, so that we could one day return and live with Him forever. I am so grateful for that sacrifice, and will always be. I hope that as the Christmas holiday approaches, we can all stop for a moment or two, and say thanks for the greatest gift ever given - the birth of our Lord and Savior - a gift from Heavenly Father.

Whoops!

Well, I spent about a half hour this morning typing out the next part of my conversion story. I was about one or two sentences from being done, when my three year old decided to come say hi to me. As she was doing so she managed to hit a button on the mouse which managed to switch the webpage as I was typing. This had the wonderful effect of losing my entire entry :-) So, when I can I will have to re-type it.

Conversion Part Three

I walked into church that morning with a few emotions. Anticipation at seeing my neighbors reaction to my showing up as a suprise to them. Nervousness about what I was getting myself into, and butterflies - though I wasn't sure why. I arrived a few minutes early and walked in. The reaction was as expected - htey did a double take and almost jumped out of the pew when they saw me walk in. (Apparenly after I had left the night before they had decided to fast for me as a family  - I found this out months later). They introduced me to everyone in the ward (what a congregration is called). They were very friendly and welcoming to me.

The service started and was very nice. It was a fast and testimony meeting. After the sacrament was blessed and passed, the members of the congregration had a chance to get up and bear thier testimonies of the Savior, their relationship to Him, thier blessings, challenges, prayers, etc. I remember being very touched again by these sincere peoples testimonies. First it had been the young women, and now it was the congregration. It was the way I had always`pictured church to be. However, converting would be a huge thing for me. I dont know why I felt that way. I just knew it would be a big step into something different that my family would not like.

I was introduced to the missionaries after the service. They were nice, but I turned down thier offer to meet with me. I wasnt ready for anything formal like that. However, I did go home and start reading the Book of Mormon passages about faith that I had written down the night before. They were captivating. They explained perfectly what faith was, and how to nurture it. I kept reading. Since the scriptures were in the middle of the book (Alma 32), I read from there to the end, and from the beginning to the middle again. Just like the gospel principles book I had read and had no problem with - so too had I enjoyed reading this.

As the week went on, I was informed that missionaries would be at my neighbors house for dinner on Firday night in case I wanted to stop over with any questions. Not wanting to let on that I was interested, I kept feigning disinterest till that day. I finally let on that I would be coming. I showed up with about three pages of questions. Looking back though,  it wasn't questions about specific doctrines their church had, it was mostly questions about living a Christian lifestyle. How devoted you were supposed to be. What made them believe in God? Why would they want to give up two years of their life serving Him.

We talked for about two hours that first night - they answered all my questions, and taught me a few things about God and prayer. I would like to say that I immediately recognized the truth of it all right then, but I didn't. I was still just checking it out as a curiosity. I was completely foriegn to the things of the Spirit, and would still need some more time to figure some things out.

Conversion Part Two

As the year went on, I met a new family downstairs from me in the condominium complex  where we lived. This was summer. They were always inviting me to Church, and women's meetings and things. Finally, I attended both (really just so they would stop asking me) in the late fall/early winter. The homemaking meeting was nice, all the women were friendly, and I actually enjoyed myself. The church meeting was very nice. They had all the young women in the church bearing their testimony about their membership in the church. They bore testimony of prayer, and being chaste, and clean, and having a relationship with the Lord. This blew me away, as that is what I wanted for my son when he got older - was to have that kind of relationship with his church.

Before I go any farther, they had told me when I first met them that they were LDS. I had no idea what that meant. Then they tried a few other things, I still had no clue. Finally, they mentioned the church used to have a commercial about a kid singing about a broken window. It finally clicked. I had always liked those commercials.

So anyway, I went to church. I loved it. I went to class. They gave me a book called Gospel Principles and in it was a lesson about everything they believed. I read it in about a week. Now you would think, that would prompt me to ask more. It didn't. It never even dawned on me to take it any further than that. I even use to tease them all the time. Anything they believed in, I would pick the opposite side - just to see if I could get them riled up. It used to bother me, that I couldnt. They would patiently explain what they believed, and then end the conversation with their testimony - they would not argue doctrinal things.

During this time, it was now the next spring, I had continued to attend the congregrational church here and there. Finally in late June, my husband and I decided we would find a church together, as I just wasnt comfortable with the one I was attending. So the next Sunday, we were going to go the Catholic Church down the street and try that one out, and then we would find one to go to the next week after that.

Saturday night came and I was at the neighbors house and we were in our usual banter about religion and politics. I had been raised in a house that was very distrustful of organized anything - religion, politics, business, etc. I dont know if that is how they really feel, but that is how it came across to me. So I never really learned what they do agree, just a bunch of things they didnt like about those subjects. WIthout any formal training in politics, I had picked up the whole fable - democrats good caring nice guys - republicans, bad, selfish, etc. They challenged that. I dont like being wrong - so I set out to arm myself with the knowledge to argue against them and educate these people. The more I researched the more I found that I started to disagree with myself. I WAS WRONG! The things I stood for were actually held in favor by conservatives - who at that point were represented by Republicans. Why do I mention all of this political stuff? Because on that Saturday night, it was about to play an important role.

As we were bantering back and forth, I said to him "You may have gotten me on one thing, but you will never get me on the other one." He responded with. "I haven't steered you wrong yet, have I?". I laughed and responded with the question that would change my life forever, from that point on. "Okay smart alec. I have a question for you. How is it, that you can have so much faith, when you have so little, and are always struggling. How do you have faith - how do you get faith??" They responded with a few thoughts, and then sent me home to read some scriptures. I went home, and I cant remember whether I started reading that night or not, but the next morning, as I arose to get ready to go to the Catholic Church, my husband told me he had a migraine, and couldn't join me that day. I decided that I would go to the neighbors church then, and get it out of the way with, and we would go to the Catholic church the next week.

Conversion Part One

I ran into an old friend tonight, that I knew back before I had converted and  during my conversion process, and we were reminiscing, so I thought that might be a good topic for tonights entry.

I was brought up to celebrate Christian holidays, but other than that had really no religion as a kid. We never went to church, or sunday school, or any kind of anything. I actually got quite negative impressions from them about organized religion. I used to envy my cousin that got to church, and my friends that got to go to church classes during the week. I was told I should be grateful that I didnt have to go, or that I was lucky.

As I got older, I took a turn for the worse when I hit seventeen. I wasnt close to being perfect before then, but having the whole image of "sweet 16" in my head there were certain things that were out of the question. I know this sounds odd, but once I wasn't 16 anymore, there were no restrictions to my behavior. I couldn't come up with a good enough reason not to do what everyone else was doing. I continued down this path, until I met my future husband. We were set up on a blind date, and as we started to date, i started to mellow out.

We were married about a year or so after we started seriously dating, and my first son was born the next fall. We were immediately thrown full force into parenting when my son had a rash that wouldn't go away. Long story short, after watching your son go through (at seven months) a spinal tap, bone scan, and light doses of chemo for a few months, you grow up. The closeness and bond that my husband and I gained through that, I think would have taken years to develop if it wasnt for that.

Next winter, as everything had settled down, I had come full circle and was once again interested in looking for a church. I wanted my son, and me, to belong to a church. SInce I hadnt belonged to one ever, I had created what I thought church should be like. I figured it would be like your family. You should know everyone, you should build your life around it. You should be committed to it. You should go every week. The fact that I still didn't really know if God actually existed didnt even bother me at that point. I just hoped He did, and figured in time that knowledge would come.

So I started attending the church in the center of town. Something felt missing, but having no doctrinal background at all, all I could go on was my feelings.

Teaching Gospel Doctrine

Right now, I have the privilege of being a Sunday School teacher at church. I currently teach the Gospel Doctrine class. We are studying the New Testament right now. I just started a couple months ago this time around, but I had the calling for about two years, and then someone else taught for the last two. It is my favorite calling. I LOVE the studying that I need to do. No matter how bad my week is, I need to make sure I prepare for class.

This week we are in James. I was reading in the study manual how James is set up similiar to the Sermon on the Mount, and many of the same principles can be found in these chapters. It also pointed out, as James himself does, that his epistle is for latter-day Israel, not for the members back then. Apparently, many scholars dont understand the idea of a spiritual Isreal, so they think he was writing to Jewish Christians at the time, when he was in fact wrting to us. This of course, makes the fact that it was in James that Joseph was reading when he felt that prompting to go ask of God, really amazing.

I am always overwhelmed at the evidences in the scripture that testify of the Lord's hand in everything. I also teach early morning seminary, and the evidences of Him in the Old Testament is astounding!

Whoops, apparently Princess Chaluba is not asleepp for the night,

to be continued