tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37800294001201871752024-02-07T22:19:26.415-08:00 HingesThe little stuff that matters to me. . .Rebecca Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468452457991958461noreply@blogger.comBlogger909125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780029400120187175.post-23138570848412860882020-05-12T04:03:00.001-07:002020-05-12T04:03:10.669-07:00Contra Mundum<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“If we take the widest and wisest view of a Cause, there is no such thing as a Lost Cause, because there is no such thing as a Gained Cause. We fight for lost causes because we know our defeat and dismay may be the preface to our successors’ victory, though that victory itself will be temporary; we fight rather to keep something alive than in the expectation that it will triumph.”</span></div>
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I think the larger cultural battle is mostly lost to us, for a season. It’s been several years now since I looked at most political battles and felt like I had a dog in the fight. I believe that politics are downstream of culture, though certainly (particularly in our media-drenched age) it’s an iterative process; consequently, I believe that while we can and should stem the tide of decay and destruction through political means wherever possible, the battles ultimately have to be fought at the individual level to have any real impact in the long run.</div>
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The only approach I feel I can take, then, is to be an unapologetic champion of truth and virtue, offering no equivocation or justification for sin or wickedness in the service of a larger good. One thing the War in Heaven teaches us is that there is no route to virtuous ends via wicked means; the wicked means will be destructive of the very end we claim to seek. We are living in a fallen and imperfect world, and we cannot and should not expect perfection from anyone. But neither should we justify malice, dishonesty, or intentional provocation of contention in order to manipulate outcomes, simply because the individual(s) indulging such wickedness are pushing for policies that are more desirable than their opponents’. Making a sound argument for a principle or policy in which you believe may have the unintended but unavoidable consequence of making those who disagree with you angry. But their anger should not be your goal, and, if your heart is in the right place, it should give you no pleasure.</div>
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The Lord makes explicitly clear that contention is not a tool he endorses: “he that hath the spirit of contention is not of me, but is of the devil, who is the father of contention, and he stirreth up the hearts of men to contend with anger, one with another. . .this is not my doctrine, to stir up the hearts of men with anger, one against another; but this is my doctrine: that such things should be done away”. It is one thing to occasionally give in to the temptation for anger or to act out contentiously in battles where the other side is gleeful in their abuse of you or the things you hold dear; such a reaction is <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">understandable</span>, but it is not <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">right</span>. I can never throw my support behind those who use contention frequently and intentionally, gleefully stirring up the hearts of men to anger and conflict, as one of their primary political tools. </div>
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The Lord has at times ordered his people into battle, to protect their “homes and their liberties, their wives and their children, and their all, yea, for their rites of worship and their church”; but he also quickly rebuked any who delighted in bloodshed. Holding firm to principles we love will inevitably invite challenge and conflict, and there are very real and insidious actors against liberty and goodness busy about their work, but <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">how</span> we fight those battles matters. Delighting in contention–and its inherently destructive, corrupting nature–is much like delighting in spiritual and emotional bloodshed.</div>
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I’ve been thinking a lot recently about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Their moment of truth before King Nebuchadnezzar came as their people were gaining some power and influence in his court. Daniel had recently interpreted a dream for the King, a dream in which he saw a stone cut from the mountain without hands, which grew and filled the whole earth. The interpretation is one we should remember in these times of trouble, which are likely to grow increasingly troublesome in the coming years: the stone was the Kingdom of God, rolling forward and filling the whole earth. No unhallowed hand can stop that work. Yet shortly after that revelation, three young men refused the King’s order to worship his golden idols. They believed in God. They believed they had a responsibility to stand up for what they knew to be good and true, and to refuse to give quarter to that which was not, no matter the temporal consequences. Their choice was binary: worship the idol, or be thrown in a furnace to burn alive. The temporal consequence of refusing to compromise their principles was steep; <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">the flames were real. </span></div>
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The choice appeared binary, and disastrous. But they made it clear that they would do what they knew to be right, and trust the consequences to the Lord–that if they did burn, they believed that they would be in the Lord’s hands. And somehow, the <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">consequences</span>weren’t binary: <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">they did not worship the idol, and they did not burn</span>. </div>
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We have, I think, fallen prey to the temptation to make winning–temporal, political winning–our idol. We have rationalized away, justified, overlooked things that we should not, because it seemed the most reasonable, pragmatic thing to do–no one is perfect, we have to be realistic, we have to live to fight another day, to give good things a chance of survival. And the temporal consequences that may await us are no less real–and are likely to be no less severe, at some point–than the flames faced by those three young men many thousands of years ago. The choice is binary, we tell ourselves. And it is. The choice is always binary, but sometimes we’re not accurately identifying what the two options are. Will we be humble servants of truth or will we not? Do we believe that the Kingdom of God will roll forth and fill the earth or don’t we? Do we trust that, no matter what happens to us, we are in the Lord’s hands? Or don’t we?</div>
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I not only think that the costs of temporal, secular losses are likely to be painful and steep, based on revelation of how things go from here, I expect it. I don’t think that means we give up and abandon the political or secular realms (there is no wilderness left to flee to). But I think it makes it that much more essential that we keep ourselves as unspotted from the world as possible. Those who have ears to hear will be more likely to trust that we are someone worth listening to; and that is our greatest hope for turning the tide.</div>
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If by taking this approach all I manage to accomplish is to be a speed bump for dishonesty or a stumbling block for contention, I will wear those bruises with contentment. It may be that the best thing one can do at this point is to be an unyielding stone of virtue in a river of wickedness. The work has ever been moved forward by faithful people who refused to abandon that which was plain and precious, doing the small and simple things that bring about great things. If the world is against truth, against honor, against virtue, then I am against the world. </div>
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Rebecca Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468452457991958461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780029400120187175.post-41412145025953261222018-08-13T22:33:00.000-07:002018-08-14T02:38:01.803-07:00Taking Care of Each Other<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Recently, I had the opportunity to listen to three doctors from Las Vegas discuss their up-close-and-personal front-line response to the Route 91 Harvest Festival last fall. Something that all three of them mentioned several times was that, given a different crowd, the outcome could actually have been much worse. An unusually high percentage of the concert goers, they noted, seemed to be EMTs, firemen, police, military or former military, and had some degree of first responder training. They pointed out that none of the male concert goers they saw were wearing shirts, all the shirts having been removed to apply pressure to wounds or create tourniquets; far more victims arrived by private vehicle than by ambulance; some individuals were even able to assist nurses in triage and initial interventions. In a horrendous situation, hundreds of people rose to the occasion, not just with tremendous selflessness, but also with remarkable competence.<br />
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This goes to the heart of something that has bothered me since I was a teenager: the narrative often pushed by media and others that traditional conservatives, who place emphasis on self-reliance and eschew government involvement in most aspects of life, approach the world that way because they are selfish and don't care about community. In my experience, most people who feel that way do so because they care <i>deeply</i> about their neighbors and communities. They believe (with a fair amount of evidence to back them up), that as we delegate more responsibilities to government agencies and bureaucrats, we tend to lose, as individuals and communities, whatever skills or knowledge or capabilities went with them, and often fare <i>worse</i> in some meaningful ways as a result. The reason they place such emphasis on self-reliance and self-sufficiency is that they believe the more personally involved with each other and prepared we are as individuals and families, the more capable we are of caring for one another when things don't go smoothly--that we are, in fact, <i>more</i> capable of taking care of each other well than any government agency ever could. The individuals with a heavy investment in self-reliance are exactly the people I generally want to be surrounded by, because those are the souls who run toward the fire, both figuratively and literally. They always believe that caring for and protecting their families, neighbors, and communities is their responsibility, and they take responsibility seriously. That is not something to scoff at.<br />
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We can have good faith debates about the efficacy or necessity of this program or that agency. Doing so becomes difficult very quickly, however, when you impugn the motives of the very neighbors who are not only willing, but, because of the life they've chosen, very capable of coming to your aid when you need it most. </div>
Rebecca Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468452457991958461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780029400120187175.post-50153180598540683792018-08-07T01:03:00.001-07:002018-08-07T01:03:58.267-07:00Differently Abled<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
One of the modern takes on various learning disabilities, mental health challenges, and atypical wiring is to reframe the issue as an individual having an unusual set of skills or perspectives that are outside of the norm--a gift, rather than a handicap. The intentions behind this approach are noble, and I even believe it to be true in many ways. When I see Temple Grandin's description of herself as "different, not less", it makes me feel like cheering. I get it. <div>
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But the fact remains that the world isn't built for people with these challenges. Much of what needs to be done on a day-to-day basis to keep life functioning at a minimally healthy level is much harder and takes a lot more work--and not just for the individual, but for their parents and spouses and caregivers as well. If someone is having to live their life with one hand, we may express admiration for their ability to perform many of the same tasks as those of us with two hands (maybe even almost as effectively), with proportionally increased strength in the other arm and various learned adaptations. We don't generally demand, however, that they be grateful for their one-handedness and how it makes them special; we recognize that they are not just working differently than us, but also much, much harder, to perform tasks that the rest of us view as so routine that we rarely give any thought at all to how we accomplish them. When the labor (and inefficiency and adaption) is primarily mental, we sometimes unintentionally sound as though we are making that demand, as we drive clumsily toward seeking greater understanding and acceptance.</div>
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If you have a child or spouse (or, if the genetic lottery has really smiled on you, both) who has a learning disability or mental illness and some well meaning individual tells you its a gift, you aren't a bad person if you want to shout, "Can I return it?!" You can love your spouse or child and all the unique pieces that compose their personality and soul, and still sometimes just think to yourself (or say out loud), "I hate [ADD, ASD, LD, etc]. I effing hate it. I hate that it requires so much of my time and money to effectively manage and treat while simultaneously making it more difficult to manage time effectively or bring in more income. I hate what filling those gaps takes away from what I have to give to other loved ones who also need me. I hate having to be the emotional ballast because, well, <i>I can</i>, when I'm emotionally drained and struggling, too. I hate that so many pieces of my life are put on hold or pushed to the back burner because the resources just aren't there to deal with them, and looking around at the unfinished projects and problems discourages me. I hate that all the demands that this puts on my time and energy means that I'm always tired, which makes the painfully long to-do list and the emotional labor that much more overwhelming." Moms and dads, husbands and wives, its perfectly OK to feel like this isn't a gift, but a burden, that you and your whole family pay a price for carrying. If you sometimes feel hurt, frustrated, depressed, or even angry, it doesn't mean you don't love your spouse or your kid, and it doesn't mean you're not a wonderful caregiver or companion. It just means you're human, doing your best to serve those you love in a sometimes difficult calling. And, as a family member of a wonderful soul with a disability should know better than most, there is absolutely nothing wrong with being human. So go ahead and breakdown and let out all the things that are burdening your heart; cry or shout if you need to. Just don't unpack and live there.</div>
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You can pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and keep filling the gaps and picking up the slack and putting in that second shift (and third. . .), and <i>do it joyfully</i>. Because the truth is, you really do see, better than anyone else could begin to imagine, just how mesmerizingly gifted and unique is that soul, whose care has been entrusted to you. You are blessed to know, with intense clarity and intimacy, the incredible things that they are and could be. Yes, be grateful: be grateful to God that he brought this effulgent soul into your life, and honor the sacred trust he has placed in you by loving them without reservation. Help them shine; chances are they are having many moments of frustration, sadness, and anger, too, and they need you to use your two whole, healthy hands to lift and sustain them. Trust that He will use His divine hands to do the same for you, and you will find much joy in the journey, no matter what challenges you face.</div>
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Rebecca Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468452457991958461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780029400120187175.post-6514145373805423732018-07-08T04:22:00.000-07:002018-07-08T04:22:11.612-07:0034<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
My favorite hooligan and I turned 34 a couple of weeks ago. He sometimes looks like a stylish hobo<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-sMcKp1xMkk2ADpyE7RjBTWji1Ht45FYGQUn8agoEJqjgp1PnW58OoQW1q-fwLYgrqa1cA9-HIRazbNBvVt0otsfA4QjG8YisDqQIOgYWh8zqTUPeVabN38d8Cze0FOFfXseMF5NXHoll/s1600/IMG_7158.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-sMcKp1xMkk2ADpyE7RjBTWji1Ht45FYGQUn8agoEJqjgp1PnW58OoQW1q-fwLYgrqa1cA9-HIRazbNBvVt0otsfA4QjG8YisDqQIOgYWh8zqTUPeVabN38d8Cze0FOFfXseMF5NXHoll/s320/IMG_7158.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
but I love him anyway. Seriously, he was my human security blanket for many years, and he's still one of my favorite people. This hobo has a special place in my heart that isn't quite like anyone else's. I *sorta* went on an ambulance call with him last month, and seeing him interact with one of his "regulars" was a good reminder why I love him so much, and why most other people do, too.<br />
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For 14 years now, my brothers and a few of their friends have been spending the last week of June camping at Twin Lakes. The event just sort of keeps growing with more family, more friends, and as the kids get bigger, they do a lot more on their own and some of the toys get bigger. We were only able to be there for about 24 hours this year, but there was lots of kayaking and canoeing<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (Keilana and Kylie in Yaya's kayak)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">(Dylan the lake patrol in Yaya's kayak, with Aodhan--on the little yellow board--yelled "I'm texting! I'm texting and speeding!")</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">(Keilana trying to catch Gwen and her girls)</span></div>
and plenty of frogs and fish (fish not pictured)<br />
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There was badminton and lots of chess, and campfire food, and lots of hanging out around the games or the fire visiting and laughing<br />
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It was a quick trip, but our plans for the rest of the week had changed quite a bit a couple weeks earlier, so we had to shorten it up a bit. Hopefully next year we can stay longer.<br />
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Sunday night the kids and I stayed at Mom's house, had dinner and visited with her. I love having my whole big family all right here, and I wouldn't trade that for anything. But once in a while I remember that the silver lining to living so far away when when we were in California is that when Yaya came, we got her all to ourselves. Its still fun to have that once in a while.<br />
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Camping is good for the soul. There are few things I love more than hanging out around a campfire with people I care about. The smell of wood smoke and pine trees and lake water puts me at ease pretty much instantly. I'd probably be a nicer person if I made more time for that.<br />
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And I decided that 34 is pretty good. Because of the quick nature of our trip, I didn't load up much gear: the little girls slept in the tent, and Dylan and I just crashed in the Expedition for our one night up there. So I slept on the hard, flat surface of the back end of the vehicle, and I woke up easily the next morning, and nothing hurt or was sore. I need to start taking better care of myself so that that lasts as long as possible. Other than my electrical-neurological abnormalities, I'm pretty healthy, and as long as I take my relatively side-effect-free med, I don't really have to think about that problem much. I've been absurdly healthy and blessed.<br />
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Even more than the physical health, though, I'm grateful for the rest of my life. I have four amazing kids, who are healthy and happy and smart and funny. I have a home that--crazy terrorist airedale and long, long, major to-do list notwithstanding--I love. I have a job that I love, and am getting the opportunity to expand my knowledge and skills, and coworkers who are dear friends that make going to work a genuine pleasure. My husband is finding his stride in his new business, and some sort of long term vision is starting to take shape. There is so very much to be grateful for.<br />
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The last few years have not been easy. We have a lot of challenges, both self-inflicted and externally imposed, and to say that we've been rising to the occasion would probably not be true. I've spent more time feeling drained, overwhelmed, self-pitying, or defeated (or all of the above) than is comfortable for me to acknowledge. But the last couple of weeks have been some of the best I've had in literally years. There have been multiple times where I thought to myself that something was perfect. I've had a lot of joy and love in my life the last few years, but in the past few weeks, I've began to find a more durable and thorough peace than I've had in quite some time.<br />
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In getting older, I feel like I'm becoming myself again. And hopefully I'm learning a few things and improving on myself, too. </div>
Rebecca Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468452457991958461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780029400120187175.post-59453879246570116572018-06-16T02:35:00.001-07:002018-06-16T02:40:28.097-07:00Grief<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
My uncle (my dad's brother) recently shared a photo of his brother, who died as a teenager in a logging accident. When I was a child, I noticed that around this time of year, my grandma was always trying to make a lunch date with my dad. My mom had to put the pieces together for me, explaining that Grandma tended to "check in" with all of her kids every June. That always made sense to me, but I understand it differently as a mom. My grandma buried 3 of her 8 children before she left this world.<br />
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I work in a place where death isn't necessarily a daily occurrence, but it certainly isn't rare. Most of the death we deal with (in a rural, relatively low-acuity facility) is expected. That doesn't mean it isn't hard, and no one is ever really prepared to lose a parent, but most of us expect that we <i>will</i> lose our parents. No one expects to lose their child. </div>
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The older individuals usually slip away slowly, often after years of health problems. When death comes to a child, or a young parent, etc., its usually sudden, and under traumatic circumstances: the car wreck everyone dreads, the suicide that shatters your heart, the freak asthma attack when meds are out of reach, the overdose that isn't necessarily a surprise but that you hoped would never come. In those circumstances, a strange combination of empathy and distance is required. </div>
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When those situations manifest themselves, I think about the deaths that have had the biggest impact on me. When I was almost 8, I was at a campout for all the first graders at the school with my mom (I was a second grader, but I had missed it the year before due to illness, so Mom let me tag along). One of the second grade teachers showed up early that morning and told my mom that the Fayler kids were missing. Our next door neighbors had gone on an evening plane ride with their uncle, and didn't come back. My brothers and I were good friends with the younger two, Angie and Jesse. Along with their uncle, who had piloted the plane, and their older sister, Sierra, they were missing for 10 days. I remember getting ready for school the last few mornings of the year, looking at Jesse's coat hanging in our closet and hoping he'd be back to get it. I sat on the swing in the yard with Michael, discussing how there was plenty of good water in those mountains, and even a few things that would be edible in the high mountain spring--we were sure they were going to be OK, probably just too injured to hike out. After their bodies were found, I don't think Michael and I talked about them again. </div>
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My brother--who tended to wear his heart on his sleeve as a child--had something of a meltdown when my mom tried to get him ready for the funeral. I remember sitting in the back of our van with one of our teachers--for the life of me I can't remember why she was with us--catching occasional glimpses of my brother throwing himself about and pulling away from my mom, as he protested through tears, and thinking how utterly unfixable it all was. The teacher, who I now realize was probably horribly uncomfortable and was just trying to pass the time, made painful small talk: "I didn't go to my first funeral til I was 26, so you're doing this a lot younger than I did." <i>Does my friend dying make me more grown up somehow? Is that supposed to make me feel better?</i> I was much harder on her as a hurt, angry second grader than I am as an adult. What do you say to the silent 8 year old that you barely know who has lost her neighbors and friends, and is trying to be polite to you and pretend her twin brother doesn't appear to be a total train wreck about the situation? I can't tell you if he ended up going to the funeral; I honestly don't remember. I just remember sitting on the grass at the large memorial listening to my dad give a eulogy for my friend, and nothing made sense. </div>
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When I was a freshmen in high school, one of my brothers' very good friends took his own life. It was the first and last time that a death made me feel physically ill. I was sick to my stomach, my head hurt, and everything felt a little wobbly at first. Luke and I weren't really friends, but he was probably my favorite of my brothers' friends at the time: he was always ready to have a conversation, had a delightfully offbeat sense of humor, and always had an interesting way of looking at things. Our meandering, funny, and sometimes fascinating band room conversations were often a highlight of the school day. It was the first time a death made me angry in that way. Part of me--a part of me I loathed in the moment--was so angry at him. I was mad at him for giving up, I was mad at him for making my brothers grieve, I was mad at him for altering reality. I hated that I was mad, and I never told anyone, because I assumed it meant I was a terrible human being. I received a strange and sweet assurance that he was OK (not the only time I would receive such an assurance related to a death), and the anger melted away, and I realized that most of my anger was anxiety over the fate of his broken heart. Once I knew he was OK, I was OK, too.</div>
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Losing my Grandma Lettie just as I became a "real adult" was expected and came with no anger or denial. Of anyone I have lost in my short life, her absence is the one that I have felt most often, that has loomed largest. I regularly get bouts of powerful homesickness for which there is no cure, because its her I miss. When things get hard, I want to curl up on her couch and listen to stories. Once in a while when I'm grocery shopping I'll buy something I almost never eat just for the sensory experience of feeling like I'm at Grandma's house for a minute. My Grandma Elda was more than a decade younger than Grandma Lettie, so I was fortunate to have her in my life until I was 30, and she guided me with humor and love through most of my young mom years. When she died, I felt more prepared than I had when we lost Grandma Lettie, but just as full of grief. My grandmas raised their large families in the same small town, and there were many inter-family friendships in addition to my parents' marriage and family. When Grandma Elda died, I somehow felt like I had not only lost her, but had lost Grandma Lettie all over again. I miss both of them terribly. In all of my self-doubting moments of insecurity and self-deprecation, I never for a single moment in my life doubted my grandmothers' love. Ever. Their love is powerful, and continues to bless me and make my heart ache for the separation, temporary though it may be.</div>
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When Conner died, it felt like the earth split under my feet. I was personally devastated, and on top of that felt helpless and even counterproductive. When Katy called and told us he was gone, I got his brother and my two small children and placed them in bed between Doug and I, and snuggled up in a tangled mess with the four of them. I need to feel their warm bodies, see the peaceful rise and fall of their breath. I got very little sleep that night, and for months afterward. For all the San Joaquin Valley summer heat, the world felt very cold for a while. There was so much love and support in our world, and I could see it, and I could feel it, and for moments I'd feel good and the denial and hurt would melt away. And then the three little kids would be playing together, as they did several days a week, and my heart would scream, "There are four!!!" and it would be all I could do to not go to pieces.<br />
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I carry these deaths, and others, with me. They aren't something I dwell on, and some of them I may go years without thinking about at all, but they have all shaped the way I deal with loss, tragedy, and trauma. After a difficult loss at work recently, a coworker said that he thought he was doing pretty well, handling it fine, until the family showed up. That's the hard part. Most people in healthcare will tell you that, when dealing with hands on care in a traumatic situation, there's a mode you go into--you are always acutely aware of the reality of the human soul on the stretcher, but you go through the algorithms and you apply the skills and you get through it. But when you turn to the family, to explain the actions you're taking or to tell them you can't do anything more, that's where the pain hits. And that's when that strange balance becomes so important. You remember your own griefs, you feel the vastness of their loss, and you empathize. That person needs to know, in that deep devastation, that you understand their pain and feel with them; but they also need you to remember that it isn't your tragedy. They feel like the world has ended, and in a very real way, the world as they knew it <i>has</i> ended. Their entire reality has to shift, to one that is worse for them, with a new and deep grief that will never completely go away. They need someone who understands all that, who can let that immense pain wash over them and not lose their own feet: to be a solid place in a moment of profound brokenness; someone who can, by their steadiness, remind them that life can go on, and that, eventually, they can be OK, while simultaneously making it OK for them to not be OK right now.<br />
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That's part of what it means to mourn with those that mourn. We allow them to grieve, to break, to cry, scream, get angry (at you, at God, at the deceased, at themselves--it can take all kinds of turns), or feel like quitting, and we don't turn away or let go because it hurts or its heavy. Most people will, at some point, suffer a loss that seems unfair or overwhelms them, and our responsibility as disciples of Christ is to grasp tightly to the iron rod with one hand and cling with all our might to those stumbling souls and not let go. There are moments when hope seems impossible, and we need someone who can still see light on the horizon to promise us that its still there, without condemning us for not seeing it. </div>
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Rebecca Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468452457991958461noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780029400120187175.post-43093719042199171622018-01-26T04:17:00.000-08:002018-01-26T04:17:05.848-08:00A new New Year<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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This is a screen shot from a conversation I recently had with one of the physicians at our hospital. I can't share any more of it, though I wish I could.<br />
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The year started out rough. I work in a profession where dealing with pain, grief, and loss is a daily reality, but at the hospital we rang in the new year with some particularly miserable, devastating pains and losses, some of which hit very close to home. In addition, we were dealing with some significant frustrations at home, trying to figure out a way forward with businesses and health and projects and all that. My mom got quite sick and ended up in the hospital for a few days (she's doing much better). So when I went to start a whole day of chores that was supposed to include about a dozen loads of laundry and my washer instantly flooded the floor, I didn't even try to deal with it. I was exhausted and worn out, so I just went and sat on my bed for about 15 minutes and cried. Not about the washer, really (that's more likely to make me annoyed or angry), but more over feeling like everything was broken.<br />
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It passed. This last week, I was enjoying a shared moment of pure joy at 3am with some of my favorite coworkers, and I looked around the room and thought about how very fortunate I am. There is never a night I look at the staffing and think, "Ugh." Every single night, I'm happy to be working with whoever is there. Our staff is small--we have about 11 nurses total who work night shift--so even one tense relationship could make work a lot more <i>work</i>, but we all enjoy working together. It isn't uncommon to have weeks where we end up spending more waking hours with each other than with our families. And its hard to imagine any other group of people that would make that OK, but these people are some of my favorite humans. They care about their patients. They care about each other. They are incredibly fun to be around.<br />
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And it isn't just our nurses and aides. When one of the losses hit us early in the year, our HR manager showed up with treats and breakfast stuffs early one Saturday morning. She didn't have to do that; the hospital didn't buy those, she did, because she knew we were hurting, and she wanted to <i>something</i>. Cards and donations flowed from the staff to those most deeply affected. It reminded me of a night when I was at the bedside of a critical patient, trying to mix an IV med and get blood infusing as well, and a doctor was right beside me, taking a set of vitals and helping me re-position a miserable patient. I wonder how many hospitalists know the CNAs by name? How many hospitals do you think have an ER nurse who will occasionally grill for the whole staff at 3am out of the back of his truck (or have an ER doc who buys all the meat so that that BBQ can happen)?<br />
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I have lived in towns of various sizes, but I came from a small place--Doug tells me it isn't really a town, but a hamlet--and settled in small places, and always prefer them, because community is at the heart of everything I love. Its possible, of course, to form tight-knit communities in more populous places, but doing so in such places does present more challenges. When I was visiting my mom, one of her colleagues showed up with dinner for that night--as various coworkers and friends had every night since she got sick. There were--completely sincere--offers of help in others ways, as well. Everyone knows her. She is the sort of person who would rather not tell anyone she was feeling ill, much less advertise it, but her absence is impossible to miss, so help was never asked for, it simply arrived. The teacher who had showed up during her own lunch break mentioned that she felt like thefts and vandalism and such happened less frequently in small towns, because its very difficult to depersonalize crime: even if you don't know this person directly, she's the aunt of a friend of yours, or the friend of aunt. You are connected in some way to nearly everyone around you. I agreed heartily, and pointed out that it also makes good much easier to do, because we feel that much more responsible to each other.<br />
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Be connected to the people around you. Do what you can to create communities of support, respect, love, and service. January began with difficulty and tragedy, and in that I watched a community of people circling the wagons to buoy up members of that community who were hurting; it peaked with watching that same community comfort and attend to an individual who had no community of his own, giving him comfort and peace; and, as it sneaks away like a thief in the night, I have watched a community celebrate together, magnifying joy for current and expected blessings. I needed to see all of that to be reminded that, whatever 2018 may bring, we will weather it just fine and find joy in the journey, because we are surrounded and supported by angels on both sides of the veil.<br />
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Bring it on.</div>
Rebecca Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468452457991958461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780029400120187175.post-61670384208597057102018-01-09T00:06:00.000-08:002018-01-09T00:19:12.958-08:00On that President Monson obit. . .<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
There's been a petition going around to attempt to pressure the NYT to present a different obituary for President Monson than the one they published last week. I didn't sign it.<br />
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The NYT knows that many (if not most) LDS individuals don't see the world the way they do, and they made it pretty clear that they find that irritating. Is it surprising to any one that the staff at the NYT finds LDS doctrinal positions on marriage and Priesthood problematic? Protesting that they tried to reduce a man of tremendous charity and personal integrity to someone of no more significance or virtue than Fidel Castro will not change the way anyone at the NYT sees President Monson, or our doctrine. Let that rest with them. <br />
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Is anything they said untrue? In the face of public criticism, loud protest, and clear disdain from people of the mindset prevalent at places like the NYT, President Monson continued to declare and defend the Lord's doctrine, with kindness and respect, but without apology.<br />
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He is the one who told us<br />
<i>Dare to be a Mormon</i><br />
<i>Dare to stand alone</i><br />
<i>Dare to have a purpose firm</i><br />
<i>Dare to make it known.</i><br />
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Whatever their intentions, the NYT has paid our dear prophet the profound compliment of declaring to the world that he lived up to those words. President Monson exemplified the standard of moral leadership revealed to another prophet, who was weathering persecution far more intense than a petulant literary swipe: "No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned." That's the spirit we ought to respond in--that's the only spirit that can really change anything and move forward the work of Him who President Monson so boldly and humbly served. Be bold, defend the Lord's doctrine in spite of those who would see it swept away.</div>
Rebecca Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468452457991958461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780029400120187175.post-63009948632926361452018-01-01T01:30:00.000-08:002018-01-01T01:30:20.912-08:00Really This Time<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Less than a dozen blog posts last year. Less than 3 dozen the two year previous to that. And probably a third of those have something to do with how I don't write enough or resolving that I'm going to write more.<br />
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A lot of that has to do with the pace I was maintaining much of that time. I was in school for four years, and while nursing school isn't exactly med school, for an undergraduate degree it is intensive and time-consuming. Add illnesses, injuries, adjustments to medications, juggling all the kids, and the hubs trying to get a business going, and there just aren't a lot of hours left anywhere in the week.<br />
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But the reality is, we make time for the things that we really want to do, don't we? All the things listed above do in fact take a lot of time. But I found time for other things. I haven't found time for writing, at least publicly.<br />
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If I'm being honest, a lot of that has to do with a severely reduced desire to share, which itself has myriad causes. Being both shy and introverted by nature, it is not a natural thing for me to be an "open book", and while I worked really hard at coming across as open for other people's sake, I often failed at actually being open anywhere other than in my blog and at the pulpit. But I did try very hard to be genuinely open with the most important people in my life.<br />
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Part of the reticence is just born out of shifting in how my hours are spent. I spend 36-48 hours a week at a job where I am "on" nearly the whole time, and then I still have to be "on" for my kids when I'm home and they're awake. After all that time giving energy to other people, I don't feel like I have anything left over. I very seldom socialize anymore, which I need to be better at making time and energy for, because I have a lot of really wonderful people in my life that I would like to get to know better or simply spend more time with.<br />
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I've also been disappointed, frustrated, and increasingly cynical, which has reinforced my natural inclination to withhold. I've seen trusts broken, I've been surprised by people (which I almost never am) in negative ways; there are relationships where I've given up making much effort, after feeling like massive amounts of effort I put in over years was not only unappreciated and unhelpful, but has felt counterproductive or dismissed. I've had moments where I felt like, after years of putting myself out there--far more than I am naturally or easily inclined to do--the other person never actually saw <i>me</i>. I figured out by the time I was a teenager that it is incredibly difficult to see someone as they see themselves, so much more to see them as they really are. Most of the time we see a version of them filtered through a shadow our own presence and prejudices cast over them; but I have had enough experiences where I have had the blessing of seeing someone through the Lord's eyes, at least to some degree, or, with His help, could see them as they saw themselves, and I came to expect that the people I invested the most trust and time and effort in could see me that way. In some cases, I felt like they had very little desire to even try.<br />
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I don't have any anger, or really even feel hurt by anyone. I just want to retreat, I feel uninterested in giving more of myself, of exposing my thoughts or feelings, any more than is absolutely necessary. I've seen the reduced rate of growth in myself, of which the retreat is a partial cause. Generally, the Lord has had to nudge me out of my comfort zone a little bit in life in order to help me stretch and rise to the occasion. I don't think he has in many areas the last few years, and I think its because He knows I haven't been up for the challenge (which is no one's fault but my own, and the fact that I haven't been pushed in a way that would make me feel like just quitting altogether is, as far as I'm concerned, simply further evidence of the Lord's tremendous mercy and love, however undeserving of it I may be).<br />
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But the fact is that 2017 was quite good to us. Finishing school, changing the business plan again, getting to see Brad sealed to his sweet bride and become a father and a husband all at once, buying a house, and hundreds of little blessings in between. There is more learning to obtain, more blessings to enjoy, and more blessings to give if I am willing to be more open and make time for the things the Lord expects me to do. So I hope to see you here more often in 2018.</div>
Rebecca Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468452457991958461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780029400120187175.post-45644433634649838752017-10-02T14:55:00.000-07:002017-10-02T14:55:15.810-07:00Know Thyself<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The school year is off to a pretty good start for the kids. Keilana has been pretty busy with National Junior Honor Society, and came home today talking about needing to see ad space in the programs they sell at high school games; Dylan is on student council (yay!); and Kylie announced when she got home today that she has been chosen as one of the editors of their little newspaper. Then this conversation happened at the table while the girls had an after school snack:<br />
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Keilana: "Did you pick editor as the job you wanted?" Kylie nodded. "I'm surprised, I would've thought you'd want to do photographer or interviewer or the puzzle page."<br />
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Kylie (with more than a little satisfaction): "I want to be in charge."<br />
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I'll give the girl this: she knows herself. But I wouldn't mind having her for a boss.</div>
Rebecca Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468452457991958461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780029400120187175.post-34704510348517871492017-09-25T18:17:00.002-07:002017-09-25T18:17:28.856-07:00Choose Daily<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I had a moment tonight that reminded me of a brief conversation I had about my work last year with another member of my faith. She asked if I wanted to do OB, and I gave my standard answer: "Maybe at some point. Not right now." (I have my reasons, but they aren't relevant to this particular topic). She smiled, and her mother-of-7 eyes lit up and she said, "I would love to be an OB nurse." I responded, "OB can definitely be interesting," and proceeded to share what I thought was one of the more amusing experiences of my OB professor, dealing with a decidedly <i>non</i>traditional family. My acquaintance responded, with a rather stunned look on her face, "I guess what I'd actually love is to be an OB nurse <i>during the millennium</i>".<br />
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One of the difficult realities of healthcare that is that, in most contexts, you don't choose your patients. You don't get to decide who needs your help and care, and often the same kinds of decisions that cause physical distress in individuals also cause chaos in their lives. Physical illness is often the least destructive kind of brokenness in people. But you treat the combative schizophrenic, the ill-tempered (and noncompliant) alcoholic, and the prisoner who gives you the heebie-jeebies with the same respect and patience that you do the sweet old man whose heart is worn out from a long life of working hard and loving well. For me, as a Christian and a Latter-day Saint, I see it as a sacred obligation to see in each of these people the same thing: a child of God, who is loved by Him and so should be loved by me, though the degree to which they've recognized and nurtured the Divine spark within may vary widely.<br />
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I think that applies to the rest of life. Choose you this day whom ye will serve, and once you have chosen the Lord, you don't then get to start being picky. Often, you don't get to choose which mortals you serve: you have covenanted with the Lord to lighten the loads of those he may put in your path, whoever may be bearing them. You have promised to lift the hands that hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees. And guess what? Hands that are hanging down are often unclean, and feeble knees are almost never pretty.<br />
<br />
He reached out to prostitute and taught tax collectors--in a regime where they made our IRS agents look beloved. I guarantee you aren't <i>too good</i> for anyone he may put in your path. Are you good enough? He has given you His love and asked you to share it. The Atonement may be deeply personal, but it is not <i>yours</i>, and in brokenness there is hope.</div>
Rebecca Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468452457991958461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780029400120187175.post-89982861175017375522017-05-30T02:51:00.001-07:002017-05-30T02:54:16.389-07:00Back on the Wagon<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I have done no consistent writing for years now. I have journaled here and there, and had an occasional sporadic blog post. I finally sat down and did some significant journaling a few months ago, and felt sane and level for the first time in a very long time. Because I live with a verbal processor, and I have so seldom had time to write, I convinced myself that talking through some of my thoughts was enough. It wasn't. As I always have, I need to write. I need to write to empty my head, to process and organize my thoughts, to deal with my emotions. And I really, really need to do a better job of recording my kids, and the Lord's hand in our lives.<br />
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To get my brain in the right mode, and my habits back on track, I decided to do a 30 day journaling challenge. We'll see how many days is actually takes me, if I finish it at all. But here goes.<br />
<br />
The first task is to reintroduce myself. This seems simple enough, but its actually quite difficult for me, because I feel like in the busyness of school and work and callings and injuries and illnesses, the frenetic pace has caused me to let go of who I've always been trying to be.<br />
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A few months ago, I asked on Facebook what was unique about me, for a school assignment. An old friend from high school responded thus: "A fiercely analytical flower child. Emotions are valuable, vital even, but they don't circumvent knowledge or logic. You have an innate ability not just to separate the two, but to weigh them appropriately to the situation. . .Lots of people can bring a smile to the room, and lots of people know the right answers to the question, but few can manage it at the same time." He coins this as having "an air of grounded whimsy". That response saddened and delighted me at the same time. I'm grateful to know that I have made that impression, but I haven't felt like that is who I've been lately.<br />
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So who am I? I'm the girl with long hair and bare feet who loved sunshine on her face and wind in her hair and fields full of daisies, and did everything she could think of to radiate smiles and compliments to the people around her, desperate to make them feel loved. I'm the young woman who knelt at an altar in a room full of strangers and trusted: trusted the Lord, trusted her new and forever companion, trusted her family. I'm the mom who can't think of anything more delightful than a 2-year-old and somehow never quite feels like she has enough time with her kids, even on the days when she's had entirely too much of them. <br />
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I'm someone who wants to know and understand: principles, practical knowledge, people. And then I want to use that understanding to uplift and encourage and educate. When I'm tired I get very sarcastic and critical, and tremendously self-righteous when I'm angry or hurt. I can be too sensitive, and I withdraw too easily. I'm an outgoing introvert, who tries to people too much and then crashes.<br />
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Hopefully this month we'll work more on the details.</div>
Rebecca Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468452457991958461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780029400120187175.post-4374128067634197652017-05-26T23:38:00.002-07:002017-05-26T23:38:46.962-07:00Pure religion<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sacrament Meeting talk 04/16/2017</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our little girl is getting baptized next week, and I’ve been pondering the promises we make in our covenants, particularly in taking the Savior’s name upon us, and what that should look like. We promise to mourn with those that mourn and comfort those who stand need of comfort; we promise to take care of each other. For years, I had a sign on my wall that displayed a scripture from Galatians: “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” I still largely believe that it’s as simple and as difficult as that. As I was thinking about that, I was scrolling through Facebook and saw a post my dad had put up about turtles.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My parents live near a sizeable wildlife refuge that consists of several shallow lakes and ponds, and there are many turtles that live in the refuge. Several roads, including the highway, run next to or across the it, and consequently there are sometimes turtles in the road. It isn’t uncommon for these little creatures to be run over. Yesterday my dad was out doing some wildlife photography, and caught on camera a couple who had stopped to pick up some turtles and get them safely back to the water. That isn’t an uncommon occurrence either. People who ignore the turtles moving slowly across the road, and even the people who run them over, aren’t bad people, and certainly don’t intend any harm; usually, they are just in a hurry and don’t have time to worry about turtles, or, more often, they simply don’t even notice. I have said many times that I believe a great portion of human misery is caused not by malice, but by myopia. How much good have we failed to do, or even harm have we failed to prevent, because we simply didn’t take the time to slow down and look around us, beyond our immediate destination or concern, and see what we could do--however small--to build the kingdom of the Lord by some small act of service that was easily within our reach?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">James describes pure religion as visiting the fatherless and the widows in their afflictions, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. Service is a bit like immunizations, healthy eating, and exercise all in one: it helps us build a strong relationship with the Savior, increasing our spiritual health and personal strength, as well as keeping us focused on and occupied by good things, protecting us from distractions and temptations.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Too often we treat service like a check-list of things we have to get done, and when we are approach it that way, it often feels overwhelming or draining. Elder Marion G. Romney once said, “Service is not something we endure on this earth so we can earn the right to live in the celestial kingdom. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Service is the very fiber of which an exalted life in the celestial kingdom is made</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.” The covenant we make at baptism, to learn better to be our brother’s keeper, to look on the needs of our neighbor with compassion and patience, prepares us for the ultimate covenant of service we make to consecrate our time, talent, and means to the building of the Lord’s kingdom.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the same letter, James counsels to be not just hearers of the word, but doers of the word. He tells us to “lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word”. In other words, he tells us to let go of any greed, selfishness, laziness, and be teachable so that we can have the word--the Savior--written on our hearts. To assess how well we’re doing with that instruction, we can ask ourselves a question posed by another ancient prophet, “Have [we] received His image in [our] countenances?” The service we give and how we give it is not about tasks we check off--it’s about who we are becoming.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Lord asks us to consecrate our means, and while this serves a very practical need--people need to be fed and clothed and housed and cared for--this is also about helping us become the people he needs us to be. When the wealthy young man comes the Savior and asks how he might obtain eternal life, the Savior reiterates the commandments, which the man says he has kept from his youth. And so the Savior tells the man to sell all that he has and follow him. The Lord doesn’t always ask us to part with all our earthly possessions to serve him, but he does ask that our hearts are prepared and willing if that is what is required of us.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And that, in part, is why the Lord asks us to consecrate our time and our talents. I’m annoyed if I feel like someone has cheated me out of my money, but I struggle not to be angry when someone wastes my time--I can’t get it back, and I feel like they’ve stolen a little piece of my life. The Lord isn’t just asking us to donate some of our stuff, he’s asking us to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">dedicate our lives and who we are</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">; he isn’t concerned with the substance of what we have so much as he is the substance of who we are. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A few months ago, during the massive flooding in Louisiana, an old friend, who lives in Oregon and is not a member of the Church but knows that I am, contacted me and asked if I had any way that I could get ahold of someone in Louisiana who might be able to find a few people to get a dad who was in one part of the city to his wife and infant who were at a hospital in another part of the city, because their car was inaccessible and there was no working public transportation due to the severe weather. Without personally knowing a soul in the area, I told him that I could. It reminded me of our own experience a decade ago when our infant son ended up in the hospital hours from home, where we knew no one. We called our bishop and informed him of the situation, and an hour later, a couple of high priests were in the hospital room helping my husband administer a blessing to our son, with messages from their wives about meeting other needs we might have. No matter where my children are, or anyone else I love for that matter, even if I can’t get to them I know that there will be someone I can call on to serve them and love them, because of who those Christ-centered souls have chosen to be. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is pure religion, and in an often unkind, ugly, fallen world, it’s hard to imagine a more celestial blessing. That is the natural fruit of choosing to be a Zion people. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One of my favorite lines, by W.H. Auden, is “You owe it to all of us to get on with what you’re good at it.” What talents has the Lord blessed you with? What skills has he given you the chance to learn, what educational opportunities has he extended to you? All those things can be used to build the kingdom, though sometimes it isn’t immediately obvious to us how, and we may need the help of the Spirit to know in what way the Lord would have us use those gifts. One of the adversary’s most effective tools for dissuading us from serving is trying to discourage us and convince us that we have nothing to offer. President Packer had a response to this that I love: “When you say ‘I can’t’. . .I want to thunder out ‘Don’t you realize who you are? Haven’t you learned yet that you are a son or daughter of the Almighty God?’” You most certainly do have things of value to offer, and in the areas where we fall short, the Lord has promised that he can make weak things strong.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But most importantly, we each need to remember one very important thing as we reach out to serve: its not about me. If you’re thinking about your insufficiencies, your focus is on you. If you’re worried about whether or not someone appreciates the service, you’re thinking about you. If you are angry or impatient or annoyed, chances are very good you’re thinking about you. We are, each of us, a work in progress; everyone you serve, and everyone you serve with, is going to have some rough edges, some glaring blindspots, some idiosyncrasies that you find more annoying than charming, and they are going to make mistakes and they are going to fail. That’s, if not irrelevant, at least of minor importance.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Lord loves you: flaws, sins, annoying personality traits, and all. And he loves each of those you live and serve and work with just as much. He is not asking you to put up with that weird ward member that you got stuck putting on the ward Christmas party with or to try to be polite to that clueless blowhard you got assigned to home teach, he is asking you to love his child. He is asking </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">you</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">--imperfect, morally accident-prone, spiritually clumsy you--to be </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">his</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> hands in the life of one of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">his children</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. That is not a logistical obligation, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">it is a divine privilege and sacred trust</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. The Lord declared that his work and his glory is the immortality and eternal life of man. He doesn’t say men, and he doesn’t say Man; the salvation of the Lord’s children is reliant upon the salvation of each individual child. The Lord has given everything for us, and in return he asks us to pray for guidance, and then stop thinking about ourselves and look around us to see what needs to be done. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Over and over, the resurrected Lord emphasized to his apostles that the way to manifest their love for him was to feed his sheep. In speaking of this teaching, Elder Holland reminded us recently that “we have neighbors to bless, children to protect, the poor to lift up, and the truth to defend. We have wrongs to make right, truths to share, and good to do. In short, we have a lifetime of devoted discipleship to give in demonstrating our love of the Lord.”</span></div>
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Rebecca Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468452457991958461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780029400120187175.post-22281311275333415982017-05-21T10:37:00.002-07:002017-05-21T10:37:40.072-07:00Kylie's Baptism<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Kylie was baptized at Mom and Dad's house on April 29th, by her dad. He also confirmed her, with her Papa Umpy, uncle Paul Tanner, and cousin Kenny Krantz standing in. She asked her big sister to give a talk on baptism,<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHcGTKJAQ3QC6BhyJRVJGJ9HBXB2XQh3bK3-kHPmwVgDdxCpBf7wxDBI8fc5E_BFvnesMO4RSmWsEbtRTpI9i5SXo-yNCHlkId0fl8hzI0R7UVs1MGVg90LM3ACbAATMizr-BqX98dmoDZ/s1600/18156781_10212873912467468_3758119146842283455_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHcGTKJAQ3QC6BhyJRVJGJ9HBXB2XQh3bK3-kHPmwVgDdxCpBf7wxDBI8fc5E_BFvnesMO4RSmWsEbtRTpI9i5SXo-yNCHlkId0fl8hzI0R7UVs1MGVg90LM3ACbAATMizr-BqX98dmoDZ/s400/18156781_10212873912467468_3758119146842283455_o.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>
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and she asked me to speak about the Holy Ghost</div>
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She was so excited to be baptized, and she got to be surrounded by a lot of really wonderful people to welcome her into that covenant and support her. Most of her Umphrey cousins managed to make it in between softball games (auntie Christa drove back from Frenchtown--and took these photos--and then drove back to Frenchtown afterward, attending tournament games). Auntie Jen and Uncle Paul drove all the way up from Pleasant Grove with all five of their kids, and then Facetimed in Mimi and Papa, who couldn't make it due to Papa's very, very recent open heart surgery. My parents were, as ever, our gracious hosts.<br />
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Part of the reason we waited so long past her birthday (which was in December) was that she had requested to have her baptism in the creek. I'm not sure she was mentally prepared for it. Her face when she popped out of the water was priceless (I have no photos, because I was standing at water's edge with a warm towel to wrap her up). When asked if it was cold, she nodded solemnly and said, "Feet are one thing, but faces are different". All too true, kiddo.</div>
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During her confirmation, she was blessed that she would build on what she had already learned about seeking the Lord's direction and listening to the Spirit. Kylie is already a prayer. During my talk, I told every one about a recent incident where one of our cats, Shawn, disappeared for about a day and a half. Kylie is also a worrier, and she was terribly worried that he wouldn't come home and was very upset. After bedtime, she came downstairs and tearily told us that she and Keilana had prayed that Shawn would be safe and he'd come home. He showed up a couple of hours later.</div>
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At Christmas time, she helped me make salsa, and accidentally touched her eyes after handling habaneros and jalapeños. She said through painful tears, "Mommy, I prayed. I prayed<i> three times</i>."</div>
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She's confident and silly, but also very sweet and tender. She's thoughtful and notices the people around her. She's clever, and tremendously funny. She has a terrible temper, but she knows it and its only because she's so sensitive. She nearly always takes responsibility for it without being prompted, and feels terrible when she realizes she's made someone feel badly. She's always trying to make the world around her a little more beautiful, a little more colorful, and a little more fair.</div>
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Welcome to the fold, Kylie Bear. We're pretty fortunate to have you.</div>
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Rebecca Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468452457991958461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780029400120187175.post-6657727751690548012017-02-15T01:40:00.000-08:002017-02-15T01:40:06.885-08:00Outside the lines<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Dylan's pediatrician gave us a referral for a neuropsychologist in Missoula to do further evaluations, and thanks to a fortuitous cancellation, we got in almost immediately. So we did an initial interview with the three of us (me, Doug, and Dylan) a few weeks ago, and then we took Dylan back for a full day of evaluation a week later. <br />
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Today Doug and I went back to meet with the doctor about the results. The short version is "Your kid doesn't fit neatly into the classic box. He also doesn't fit neatly into any of the alternative boxes we've developed for the kids who don't fit into the traditional box". When Dylan was six weeks old, Doug gave him a name and a blessing, and one of the things our little guy was blessed with was that he would have the fortitude to face his challenges, because he would have some that were very unique to him. As this doctor checked off the challenges that they saw in their evaluations, I felt better because they were all exactly the things I thought I was seeing as his mom. And I felt a little apprehensive about finding the right combination of tools to help him, because there are little pieces of a lot of different things going on in his unique little brain. But the doctor was unflinchingly optimistic about the future, stating succinctly, "Its complex, but not difficult".<br />
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Something that was reassuring was that, despite having many of the other challenges that usually go along with it, Dylan's emotional reciprocity and attentiveness is not my imagination, or a mom's overly rosy view: he really is in tune with the emotions of others; all that sweetness is really there. Despite the fact that he hyper focuses on his interests to sometimes the exclusion of everything else, when he is tuned in, he sees what people need, he sees when they hurt or struggle, and it matters to him. It make him happy when they're happy. I've always loved that about him. The doctor also said that, with his combination of challenges, Dylan could be doing very differently without a lot of conscious, intentional engagement at home, and told us that we were doing great for him so far. I'm not someone who seeks or needs a lot of external validation, but with all the frustrations and disappointments we've had the last couple of years, I admit that it was comforting to hear that from someone who has helped a lot of kids with a wide variety of challenges.<br />
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So now we get everyone at school on our team, and start making some more specific accommodations for our little guy, who, as I've always believed, is going to be just fine.</div>
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Rebecca Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468452457991958461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780029400120187175.post-35058254276261165602017-01-03T03:04:00.002-08:002017-01-03T03:04:33.347-08:00Shine<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Have you ever had someone ask you if they're too damaged? Too flawed? Too riddled with weaknesses and imperfections to obtain the good things they desire?<br />
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Too damaged? You, dear soul, are a bright, shining bit of divine light. You are far more beautiful than you suppose. Life has beat you up quite a lot lately. Some of the people you loved, who you thought loved you, have said and done things that hurt. Intensely. They are in the Lord's hands, leave them to him. Those painful stumbles have caused you to question your value, your abilities, your worth. <i>You</i> are in the Lord's hands, and he sees the glorious being you were designed to be. He sees all the amazing things that you are, the incredibly good that you are not only capable of doing, but <i>that you have already done</i>.<br />
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Many of the vicissitudes of life sting so deeply precisely because they <i>do</i> have eternal consequences. Having to redefine what we thought our eternity would look like may make it hard to believe we can have the best blessings of eternity--or lead us to doubt those things are even there.<br />
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The light is still there, and I see much of it in you, even if your glow has been dimmed a bit by a broken heart and a bruised soul. The Lord knows well the stones that have been strewn about your path, and understands why they've slowed you, weighed you down, or tripped you up. And he has glorious things in store for you, his loved and cherished child, and he will help you overcome the world, so that all things might work together for your good.<br />
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Its a new year. Don't fail to learn the lessons of the past, but move forward with faith--in the Lord <i>and</i> in yourself.</div>
Rebecca Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468452457991958461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780029400120187175.post-48631564010322391582016-11-29T19:39:00.002-08:002016-11-29T19:39:54.282-08:00Asking for help<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
*deep breath* I'm about to share more than I am usually inclined to do in so public a forum. Bear with me.<br />
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Dylan was in tears when I met him after school today. That isn't all that unusual these days, unfortunately. Some kid in his class had told him, just before the bell rang at the end of the day, that he didn't matter. I don't know what the context was, and he told me he knew it wasn't true, but it still hurt his feelings. Then he said, "I hope Ammon is back tomorrow. He's my only friend." We've heard that refrain a lot the last couple of years. He's mostly kind, and quite sensitive, but unusual (and obsessive) in his interests, and somewhat awkward, meaning he is isolated a bit, socially. Despite high standardized test scores, he struggles in school, and was in tears multiple times the week before parent-teacher conferences, frustrated and embarrassed about the poor grades he assumed were inevitable.<br />
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Dylan has always been unique, perhaps a little quirky, and those closest to our family have always known that and it was just Dylan, no big deal. It certainly wasn't a <i>problem</i>, or really even that far out of the ordinary.<br />
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As a baby, he was a dream: if I wanted to hold him, he was happy to be held and snuggled. But if I had other things to do, well, he didn't so much mind being ignored for long stretches of time. Even though every one of our other babies rolled, scooted or slipped off our big king size bed at some point (yep, I'm that stellar of a mom), Dylan never did. He was weirdly aware of edges, so he would scoot to the side and just look over the edge and whimper until someone picked him up or moved him back to the middle of the bed.<br />
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By the time he was approaching his first birthday, he was obsessed with matchbook cars. He had one in each hand everywhere he went, all of the time. He loved to drive the cars around, but the cars needed tracks--something relatively narrow with boundaries, such as the window sill, or the trim on the coffee table. If he couldn't find a track, he'd make one. The example that always stands out in my head, because he was so little, was one time, he was sitting on the floor of our bedroom, about three weeks after he turned one, and he picked up Doug's tie that was sitting near him, fashioned it into a rough circle, and then drove his cars on it. His favorite game was his car track through the living room: we had long windows with low sills he could easily reach. He would find about a half a dozen of his cars, line them up (usually according to size) on the piano bench, and then pick up the first one. He would drive it down first sill, then the next on the north side of the living room; then he would drive it on the narrow edge of the TV stand in front of the TV; next, he'd move it to the center of the room and drive it around the border on the coffee table; then he'd take it and drive it down the back of the couch on the south side of the living room, and then along the window sill on the southeast side of the room, and finally park in on the bookshelf next to the window. Then he'd go to his line of cars, pick the next one, and do it all over again. He would do that, uninterrupted for sometimes hours at a time if he was allowed to. He loved it.<br />
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Whenever he was done with his cars, he would line them up neatly somewhere, hoods aligned and usually organized from smallest to largest. He loved to play with blocks or megablocks, but would generally sort them by size or color before he started to build anything. During all of this, he had no language. He had scarcely any words before his third birthday, but by 2 1/2, he knew the entire alphabet. He could recognize every letter and tell you what sound it made, simply from watching his sister play alphabet games on the computer.<br />
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He didn't pay attention to people very much. He was very interactive with me and Doug, and his sister (who sort of made it impossible to <i>not</i> be interacted with. There was a reason we considered adding an exclamation point to the spelling of her name: Keilana!) If Doug and I were both gone, he seemed to somehow determine who was the primary caretaker adult in his vicinity, and find that person if he needed something, but otherwise occupy himself with his toys and mostly ignore everyone. He played with toys in their intended way in a very focused manner, and gave most of his energy and attention to that. He interacted with Amanda, and in a tender mercy that I still can't explain, he played <i>with</i> Conner. They were so little, at an age where <i>most</i> kids engage in parallel play, and with all Dylan's quirks, they truly played <i>together</i>, babbling at each other and moving in tandem when they were in the same house. After Conner was gone, he was often a part of Keilana and Clayton's games and activities, but just as often they were playing with each other while he did his own quietly contented thing.<br />
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When he was a toddler, I had to take a niece to a doctor's appointment for a very contagious illness and asked a friend to watch my kids so that they didn't have to be around her. When I went to pick him up and asked how it went, she said he had just mostly stayed in that spot, driving the cars over and over, and didn't really respond to her much when she tried to engage him in other things. She asked, "Have you ever thought about having him evaluated for autism?" What you need to know about this woman is that she is a dear friend, one of the most grounded women I know, and mother to five children of her own, including a daughter Keilana's age who has profound autism (at 12, she is still nonverbal and performs almost no self-care). I'd had the thought. He functioned mostly normally, and whatever his uniquenesses were, they didn't seem to be getting in the way of his development.<br />
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As he got older and hit preschooler ages, the language came, and with the language he became somewhat more social. He started to notice and interact more with his cousins and with friends. He still spent a lot of his time solitarily, but when we went out or had people at home, he spent more time with other little boys, and he began to be a more active participant in Keilana and Clayton's games. It was becoming increasingly obvious that he was sensitive, both physically and emotionally. At times when he did decide to interact, he was easily hurt in a way that his sister never had been, and sarcasm seemed almost impossible for him. He was so young that I didn't think much of that. He was fairly particular about the clothes he liked, but he had trouble communicating that verbally, which resulted in frequent stripping down to his skivvies. <br />
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Eating has been a disaster pretty much since he started solid foods. For the first few years he was eating real food, it was all but impossible to get him to eat anything other than refined carbohydrates: crackers (but nothing too flavorful), chips, cereal, bread (he'd eat jelly, but not peanut butter, until he hit the point where he'd eat peanut butter, but not jelly, and then either one, so long as not both on the same sandwich), and pasta sans sauce. So I bought no cereal, bread, or crackers that weren't whole-wheat, bran-loaded cardboard in an attempt to get some sort of substantive food in him, and that worked for a while. I thought he was just being picky and stubborn, so one night when he was three, we had chicken and some sort of blah vegetable (I can't remember specifically what), and I told him he couldn't have anything else to eat until he ate his dinner. No spices, sauces, or real flavor of any kind. For 36 hours, my 3 year old ate nothing. And didn't whine, complain, or throw fits or anything like that. Just quietly starved himself. If we tried to force him to eat, he would take 10 minutes to get down a bit or two, and then he'd vomit. I realized at that point that we were dealing with more than stubbornness, and I quit fighting. As he got older, his palate expanded--a little. He'd still have pizza, chicken nuggets, or crackers for every meal if we let him. <br />
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As he's grown up, he's been able to channel his energies more consciously, he has seemed more "normal" in some ways, and that much odder in others. He can spot, name, and describe dozens of species of birds, and love wildlife biology in general. He can classify hundreds of Pokemon without breaking a sweat, and generally loves any activity where he can sort and classify, and loves to expound on those things. But getting 10 minutes worth of math homework done every day is nearly impossible. He built a Spiderman web across the ceiling of his room using Legos and connects (it was rather impressive) but after five years of doing it every day, he can't do a decent job washing a dish to save his life. He finally lets us give him a haircut without having a meltdown, but if the cat accidentally gets a claw across his foot when they're playing, it sounds like his foot has been lopped off with a machete. A few months ago, he had to have a simply venipuncture blood draw for some lab tests, and I had to hold him down with help from a lab tech while the phlebotomist drew blood because he was in so much pain and so panicked.<br />
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He has a lot of behaviors that look like ADHD: very inattentive in class, needing frequent redirection from his teacher, you give him one task to complete, and by the time he's walked 10 feet away from you, he's forgotten what it was, etc. We took him to the doctor for an initial evaluation, and his doctor almost had a meltdown at the whole idea, and walked into the room and started the conversation with a lecture about the problems with putting kids on amphetamines. I interrupted him and told him I was looking to get an IEP, not a controlled substance, and this was just an initial evaluation to see where were at and what seems likely/not so likely. I was so annoyed at him that we never bothered to do the follow up at the end of last school year, and that doctor has moved now, anyway.<br />
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I talked to my mom (a special ed teacher in another district) about possibly finding names of therapists who specialize in kids with ADD and/or ASD. Its hard to know what his parameters are--whether we're pushing too hard on things he probably can't do right now, or letting things go that maybe he is capable of. It can be tricky to know the best ways to help him, because he mostly fits under the umbrella of "normal". But school is a struggle, and he is old enough now to recognize that he's different, and there are kids that don't let him forget it, anyway. I want my kids to be able to reach his potential, I want him to be happy.<br />
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From the time I was 14, I was inexplicably convinced that I would have a special needs child someday. When Dylan received his baby blessing at 7 weeks old, I was caught off guard by some of what was said, and I wondered if maybe that prompting came to prepare me to be his mom. That being said, these weren't the needs I was expecting, and I hope that, with some help, his dad and I can figure out the best way to help him harness the power of that marvelous mind of his, and his sensitive, gentle spirit. </div>
Rebecca Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468452457991958461noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780029400120187175.post-50794334244573028822016-11-24T04:18:00.001-08:002016-11-24T04:22:29.555-08:00Adjusting<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Its Thanksgiving. I've been more of a whiner than a gratitude monger the last couple of years. Oh heck, I'll say it, I've been a big, grumbly baby. Last week, we got some news that fell into the same category that so much news the last few years has: unsurprising, but still disappointing and terribly depressing. In my less charitable moments, absolutely infuriating. I'm tired of being unsurprised by disappointment.<br />
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So as I tried to refocus myself on what I'm grateful for (because it is an exceedingly long list), it seemed ironic to me that the first thing that came to mind was one of my own biggest personal frustrations the last couple of years (all of which are pathetically small compared to what my loved ones have dealt/are dealing with).<br />
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I love language. My mom made a comment about some of my schooling choices initially being surprising to her because "I've always thought of you as so language-driven". I learned to read early and was almost instantly a voracious reader, gobbling up just about everything I could. And even more, the things I've read cover a rather broad variety of subjects. Consequently, I have a rather extensive vocabulary, and a fairly easy command of language (for a lay person). Because of the diversity of social environments in which I've spent my life, I, more intuitively than consciously anymore, modify my vocabulary to my surroundings. There are certainly individuals and groups where I find myself more comfortable (we'll not delve into my social anxieties today), but its exceedingly rare that I struggle to communicate with anyone.<br />
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Last year, I faced a period of time where all of that went away. I struggled to communicate, to express myself. I was jumbled and inarticulate. <i><b>I lost my words</b></i>. I've thought of myself as a writer since I was 10-years-old. I knew I loved the world of language. But until that moment, even I didn't know how much a part of my self-conception those abilities were. I hoped (and had good reason to hope) that it was temporary, but I had no way to know for sure that it would be--no one offered any guarantees that my words would come back to me. It was immensely frustrating. And a little terrifying. I was depressed and demotivated. I had to face the reality that I might no longer even be <i>capable</i> of being who I thought I was.<br />
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We have moments in life, large and small, that force us to face our definitions and conceptions of ourselves. And its scary when we find that we're not who we thought we were. As I struggled to figure out who I was without one particular thing I thought essential to myself, I realized that I had always known. I am a child of God, loved by the Lord, frailties, insecurities, cluelessness and all. I long ago stopped caring very much at all what anyone else thought of me, my beliefs, my abilities or lack thereof, because the Lord's acceptance is so much more important and meaningful to me than anyone else's rejection. While I care very much how I make others feel, these days I sincerely rarely even think about what they think of me, much less let it affect how I feel. But I realized last year that sometimes I still let what I think of me get in the way of my relationship with the Lord and my personal progress. I still invest too much pride in strengths that aren't mine to boast of, in weaknesses that aren't mine to fear. Whatever comes, the Lord will empower me to do good things in whatever way he knows is best, and I need to better trust his judgment and his love.<br />
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I have many really wonderful people in my life, and I am grateful to my Father in Heaven for putting those people in my life, or me in theirs. But more than anything, as I reflect on the last few years, I am grateful for his wisdom in placing one really big, obvious-to-me hurdle and weakness in my life, to draw my attention to others that I have been turning a blind eye to. I'm grateful that, through the Atonement, I have the opportunity to repent and improve, all the while feeling the supernal love the Lord has for me. I'm grateful that through the Spirit, I can know how to move forward and be better today than I was yesterday.<br />
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I'm thankful for progress, however small and incremental.</div>
Rebecca Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468452457991958461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780029400120187175.post-58668985032635939322016-11-02T01:33:00.000-07:002016-11-02T01:33:55.455-07:00Love, such as it is<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
For as long as I can remember, I regularly had episodes of strong deja vu. I chose to interpret this as a small evidence that life was going the way it was supposed to. Turns out, my brain was malfunctioning on a regular basis, and it hasn't happened since I started taking medication. But, hey, if you want optimism, I'm your girl.<br />
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I have a lot of reasons for optimism. I have been well-loved by good people, and life has been mostly good to me. I have faith in things much bigger and more beautiful than human foibles and squabbles, things that make the hard stuff and the mistakes less painful and easier to endure.<br />
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I made a sort of critical comment the other day, and Doug said, "Wow, you don't have much faith in humanity, do you?" I laughed and said, "Of course not. Tremendous love for, yes, but faith in? No, no I don't. I've been told not to put my faith in the arm of flesh, and I've found that life goes better when I don't. My faith's in bigger things." Love the people around you, and put your faith in God. Its a pretty happy way to live.<br />
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I do have faith in individual persons, to a degree. I may misread someone's face now and then, but I almost never misread a person's countenance. I am rarely surprised by people. But Doug has accused me of occasionally having too rosy a view of some people. He's usually been right, and when that happens, it annoys the heck out of me. I've found that if you believe the best of people, and treat them as though that's who they are, they will mostly live up to it. And when they don't, well, I'm not so hot, either, so maybe we can all just be a little kinder and more forgiving of each other, and we'll try again tomorrow.<br />
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But there are some cuts that go a little deeper, some disappointments that sting a bit more. And once in a while you realize that someone just isn't, and is not <i>going to be</i>, the person you wish they were, and maybe they aren't even capable of it. Not necessarily who they need to be or should be, but who you <i>want</i> them to be, for you. And maybe that <i>does</i> coincide with who they<i> should </i>be. You can't argue or lecture or shame or cajole or even necessarily persuade someone to be a different person, especially if you are the one hurt by who they're not. No matter how much it may hurt at first, sometimes you just have to accept that they are what they are, and, with the Lord in your life, you don't <i>need</i> anyone else to be anything for you, as desperately as you may <i>desire</i> it, and even as much as they <i>should</i> be. You simply need to forgive them for being mortal and love them as they are, with no other expectations. That may be the only way to have peace, and to love them as much as we should.<br />
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I've found that when you do that, suddenly you can see the good things about them a little more clearly, and love those things a little bit more. Resentment can melt into affection, even gratitude. That person who caused you so much hurt and anger can become someone you adore. They won't become the person you had wished they were, but forgiveness and letting go of those old expectations can transform you. You learn to not only love, but like the person they are, instead of resenting them for the person they aren't.<br />
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There may be moments when you see something that resembles the relationship you think you want, or should have, or deserve. And it might spark a moment of jealousy, anger, frustration, and/or hurt. Take a step back, take a deep breath and remember that the Savior loves you completely. And that person probably loves you the only way they know how. That needs to be enough sometimes, and peace only comes when you let the rest go.</div>
Rebecca Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468452457991958461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780029400120187175.post-46701596385925787402016-10-23T01:52:00.000-07:002016-10-23T01:52:03.108-07:00Moments of Grace<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
We needed to run some errands today, so we did something we almost never do and went to multiple non-grocery stores.<br />
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At Lowe's, the Christmas stuff is already out. I used to be one of those Christmas-season-doesn't-start-til-the-weekend-after-Thanksgiving people. As years with my small children fly by, I've come to realize that stretching out the season that "engages the whole world in a conspiracy of kindness" is something I quite like. Christmas carols are totally an option by November first. We've never done big Christmases, toy and present wise, but we've alway decorated as much as our meager budget would allow, and spent a lot of time making little crafts and decorations, and doing seasonal activities together. As they've grown, I've just realized that the years with my little ones go by so fast, and there are so few of them, that I don't mind at all stretching that special time into two months instead of one. So, even though the Christmas stuff showing up immediately after back to school sales makes me a bit crazy (craven commercialism much?), by late October it just starts to light me up inside.<br />
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The kids were excited when they saw all the Christmas stuff, and spent more than half an hour exploring it. I came across a 2ft tall resin Santa, and was instantly, painfully, dreadfully homesick. Though it really looked nothing like hers, my grandma used to have an old Santa like that that she would sit on a table next to her front door inside her porch, so that he greeted all her Christmas time visitors. Michael and I helped grandma decorate her house for Christmas every year of our childhood, and when we were little, she had to haul that heavy statue in because we weren't strong enough. By the time we hit middle school, the roles had reversed, and one of us had to carry it in for her. We spent nearly as much of our lives with her as we did at home, and decorating for Christmas was our job. She didn't put up a tree or a decoration until we came up to do so with her. I know a lot of people who think the Elf on a Shelf thing is stupid (which I <i>totally</i> get, and respect), but those two little elves floating around my house make missing her a little less painful at Christmas time. She had a whole collection of elves of various sizes and appearances that she had had since some of her children were at home, and we'd pin them up on the drapes all around her living room. So I sent a pic of the statue to my brother and told him I was tempted to drop $80 on this stupid Santa to put by my front door, just because I knew I'd think of Grandma and smile every time I saw him. Christmas is always magical, but there is nothing that will ever compare to childhood Christmases with Grandma. Until I got married and had kids, I didn't believe I'd ever love anyone as much and I loved Mom, Grandma, and Michael, and, though I adore my entire family, many of my happiest memories are just Michael and I and Grandma, at Christmas time, in her cozy little trailer.<br />
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As I stood there, feeling terribly stupid that I was almost in tears over a 2 ft Santa statue, I realized that that is probably how my kids, and all my nieces and nephews, feel about my mom and her house. My mom is so good to her grandkids, and I honestly don't know another grandparent that invests <i>that</i> much time in that <i>many </i>different grandchildren. And as I stood there missing my grandma with a horrible ache that waxes and wanes but never quite goes away, I realized that, despite the fact that in a few weeks she will have been gone for 12 years, she is still very present in all our thoughts. Our children know her. And she is very much alive in my mother, in her affection and attention to her children and grandchildren.<br />
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And I was reminded again (as I have been, often, in the last few years), that I am incredibly fortunate to have been raised by strong women who always put their families first. I am so grateful to my mom and my grandmas for nurturing me when I was a child, and through my young adulthood. I am continually grateful for the way they have taught me to be a mom, and the wonderful examples they've set for one day being a grandma. I am so grateful for the presence they have in my children's lives, my grandmothers indirectly, and my mom directly.<br />
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The last few years have been challenging. There's been more than enough heartbreak and hurt to go around. I have, at times, given into to pessimism or frustration. But that flood of warm, quiet memories burst open a piece of my heart in the middle of a hardware store, and reminded me that things can work out. It reminded me of the examples that have been modeled to me throughout my life of how I can love the people in my life a little better.<br />
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A weary world rejoices. Sometimes, the spark of hope for a weary soul comes in unexpected moments and places. For that, I am tremendously thankful to the Lord, and to the people he has bound me to. </div>
Rebecca Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468452457991958461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780029400120187175.post-4510082920610056142016-10-05T14:43:00.002-07:002016-10-05T15:08:33.305-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"We are probably those referred to as 'our brother's keepers,' possessed of one of the oldest and possibly one of the most futile and certainly one of the most haunting instincts. It will not let us go.” </span></i></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">~Norman Maclean</span></i></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">I read A River Runs Through It for the first time when I was 16. Because of where I was at in my life at the time, and what was going on around me, I fell in love with it and it became a favorite. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">There are battles that aren't entirely ours to fight, but that we can't quite walk away from either. "Strengthen thy brethren" is an exhortation that's very close to my heart, but figuring out what it means in specific situations or relationships can be challenging. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">When it was time to go back to school, the reason I chose nursing is that I hate just standing by when someone is hurt. I need to <i>do</i> something. If I can fix it, or at least help ease the burden, I feel like maybe things will be OK. I've gotten better at accepting that sometimes all you can do is hold someone's hand and acknowledge the painful reality that they hurt and it can't be fixed, at least right now, and not shrink from that. But when it comes to spiritual pain, I still struggle to accept when the answer is simply "Watch and pray". </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">I forget that that <i>is</i> doing something. You can't give someone your faith. You can bear your testimony, but you can't control whether or not they receive a witness. You can't take away their doubts or their fears or their sins. You can do everything you can think of to give them love, but you can't make them feel loved. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">When my most important people are broken, lost, hurting or angry, I want to scoop all the little pieces of their broken hearts into my hands and mend them back together. But I can't do that--that is the domain of the Savior, and the Savior alone. I have seen so much heart crushing of late, and a crushed heart is a deeply difficult thing to hand over, because the very nature of the injury makes it difficult to believe that there is a remedy. So we cover it over with cynicism or anger or bitterness or doubt. At the exact moment in our lives when we need so desperately to turn towards the things of eternity, we turn ourselves farther away from them. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">When someone we love is facing away from the light of joy, we can't turn them around. All that we can do is be kind, try to exercise love and patience and kindness, do all we can to be one of the lights along the shore, so that when they're ready to come home, there is a familiar face to walk </span></span><span style="font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">with them.</span></span></span></span><br />
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Rebecca Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468452457991958461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780029400120187175.post-44067264368112079962016-10-04T19:37:00.000-07:002016-10-05T01:15:11.329-07:00Brain Quirks<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A Facebook friend shared a post about left brain/right brain functions and cooperation, which was more about the true physical and functional differences than just the usual pop culture version of those ideas. Some of the emphasis was on how much one side needs the other for proper function, and some of the problems that result when one side becomes too dominant.<br />
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I always had trouble with the left brained/right brained personality type ideas. I've always thought of myself as very right-brained in some ways, preferring stories and ideas to details and facts. I've always been fairly feelings-driven, and enjoyed the freedom to be creative. On the other hand, I have always lived in language, being in love with reading and writing for literally as long as I can remember. I've always had a deep need for order to feel comfortable. So I assumed I must be fairly right/left brain "balanced", if you will, but on little self-assessments over the years for various classes and such, I always tested as much more "left-brained".<br />
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When I was diagnosed with epilepsy last year, my neurologist told me that, based on where the pathological activity manifested in my brain, and the symptoms that I experienced before, during, and after seizures, it was likely that my Broca's area (the primary area responsible for processing language into speech, usually in the left frontal lobe), and possibly Wernicke's area (where, we think, our understanding of both written and spoken language is processed) are on the right side of my brain, rather than the left. That's not unheard of, but it does tend to mean that not all of my neural activity fits neatly into the normal dichotomy, or its related cooperative functions.<br />
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So I'm not crazy. My brain just has atypical structure.<br />
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Wait. . . .<br />
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Rebecca Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468452457991958461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780029400120187175.post-91738317516598366212016-08-26T03:05:00.001-07:002016-08-26T03:05:23.568-07:00And now, for something completely different<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
At some point in the next week or two, I will finally be replacing my long-finicky computer, and will thus have somewhere to upload pictures, so I'll post about the kids' 4H fair. In the mean time. . .<br />
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Doug left his job at the city in late June. We haven't missed it. We took off on our two week Utah-California-Nevada-Utah-again adventure, with no work or school hanging over anyone's head. It was fabulous. I took my NCLEX the day we left (we drove up to Helena, I spent a little over a half an hour in front of a computerized test, we made a quick stop to feed everyone, and then drove straight down to the Tanners' house in Pleasant Grove), and then I started work two days after I got home.<br />
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School started for me on Monday. So now Doug is taking apart chairs and car seats and whatever else and putting it all back together again completely new, learning the ropes of business, and looking at long term expansion/absorption plans, while I work full time nights on the main floor at the hospital, and now add 18 credits of mostly research and writing courses. The kids start school just after Labor Day. I'll be home from work in time to fix hair and make sure teeth are brushed and get everyone off to school, then go to bed, and will wake up just in time for them to get home from school. On the nights I don't work, I can do homework while my whole house sleeps. Most weeks days this summer, Doug has taken one or two kids at a time to his shop with him. When school starts, though the kids will be at three different school buildings, all four of them will be within walking distance of both the house and the shop. The little girls will be three blocks up from Doug's shop. Keilana will be one block from home. Dylan will be in the middle.<br />
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It's a completely new lifestyle. Both parents working. But both of us with enough flexibility that one or both of us is available pretty much at all times. It's almost certain that, though neither of us intended to be, we will be in Anaconda for at least 5-10 years, and I like the idea more than I thought I would. We're making the adjustments, and we're happy. All of this has happened very differently, and in some respects so much more rapidly, than we had imagined, but we have seen the Lord's hand blessing and guiding our life. He had provided avenues we never could have known even existed, much less were an option. We are grateful and busy and satisfied and overwhelmed all at the same time. </div>
Rebecca Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468452457991958461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780029400120187175.post-5006627321463264732016-08-13T00:26:00.001-07:002017-01-07T03:34:17.908-08:00On Shells<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAho7Et9SPbTzC3H5MDW1yYBEot_mp6_8vwTmipYzEZ4YbBVtaOvi8-fvka4kM-tU_zTK3NbajvM3UN5tUgeZNGEuzp5bArp4aGFVn1Iv7D2Xpn58dmcV-wILnBI5DJQjKQRebwj0yFaGd/s1600/IMG_9042.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="304" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAho7Et9SPbTzC3H5MDW1yYBEot_mp6_8vwTmipYzEZ4YbBVtaOvi8-fvka4kM-tU_zTK3NbajvM3UN5tUgeZNGEuzp5bArp4aGFVn1Iv7D2Xpn58dmcV-wILnBI5DJQjKQRebwj0yFaGd/s320/IMG_9042.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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I came into the world shy, insecure, and introverted. I worked hard on overcoming the first two. When I was in third grade, I found out that a classmate thought I didn't like him because I never talked to him, and I was so sad that I had made him feel unliked. So I went about making an effort to be friendly and outgoing. Not just to him, but to everyone. As a small child, if my and my big sister's memories are correct, I didn't make a lot of noise or talk much outside a small circle of the people I was very closest to. In most places outside my home, I hid behind my mom, my grandma, or my twin brother. At school, I developed a small circle of close friends and only interacted with anyone outside that circle when absolutely necessary. I thought of myself as a nice person, so it didn't occur to me until that moment that my challenges affected anyone else.</div>
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And so I gradually became outgoing and friendly--in the context of my tiny school (there were 150 students in my entire high school, and I'd known the vast majority of them since I was 5, if not longer). Outside the comfortable familiarity of home, church, and school, I was still quite reserved and quiet. I took jobs in high school specifically because of how they would challenge me to step outside myself. I didn't want to miss anything or anyone I might love because I allowed myself to be hampered by innate shyness.</div>
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But introversion can't be trained away. I loved going to school every day. But after six hours of school and an hour of seminary, I was <strong>done</strong>. I played one sport a year because I loved the physical activity and being part of a team, but I played<em> only</em> one sport a year because I couldn't bear the thought of spending an extra 2-4 hours every weekday, and more hours on Saturday, <em>peopleing</em> for any more months. Most week days after school, I went home to an empty house. If it wasn't empty, I often went for a drive, or holed up in my room, or found an empty spot in our blessedly ginormous yard. I didn't often do friends during the week. Two weekend days a month, I might go to Missoula to go to a movie or out to eat with friends. But I usually took a weekend off in between. I didn't do parties at all really--outside of school, my socializing was usually 1 or 2 friends at a time and that was plenty. I spent evenings and weekends filling up notebooks with writing and spending very little time talking to anyone, except maybe my mom.</div>
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I was very active in my church, and I loved going on Sundays and to Wednesday night activities. But stake dances were not something I participated in. I went to one, the week I turned 14, with my brother and my dad. It was fun. I had no interest in doing it again. The only other dances I attended were the ones that were an obligatory part of seminary and EFY conferences. I left the dark, loud, crowded gym that felt like an assault on my senses, and spent the evening out in the sunshine having wholesome conversation with some like-minded souls. And I loved that. The only school dances I attended were proms, and I usually ended up spending most of those out in the hall in the light chatting with a couple of friends. Loud, dark, and crowded doesn't work for my nervous system. </div>
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I can be insanely chatty with people I am comfortable with, but the vast majority of the time, even in places where I'm very at home (such as with my brothers and sisters), once the conversation involves more than 2 or 3 people, I end up hanging out on the edge, listening more than talking. I didn't often share my writing when I was younger, but when I did, I grew accostumed to the somewhat dumbstruck look that would appear on people's faces when they read it. The comment that I remember most clearly, from a YW president who read some writing I had compiled for a Laurel project, was "I had no idea there was that much going on up there." It was a compliment, and I took it that way, but at the time it almost felt backhanded. I had to stop and remind myself that I didn't share much, that when I did talk it was often too quickly (a combination of nerves and genes--sometimes I have my Grandma Umphrey's rapid, lazy tongue), and my conversation was usually littered with defensive sarcasm and inappropriate giggling. </div>
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But in my mind, the person I was in my writing <em>was</em> me. <em>This</em> is who I really am, who I see myself as. All that other nonsense was just a superficial set of half-developed tools used to make my way through unfamiliar territory, and I sometimes forgot that the person in my mind didn't entirely match the person I appeared to others to be. Not because of any deception, but merely because of a difference in elements and abilities. It took me some time to realize that <em>that</em> was why I loved turtles so much: the me I was when trying to communicate outside my safe little circle, the attempts to be "social" in the ways an extroverted world (especially extrovert-loving school systems, where I wanted so desperately to please adults that I respected) expected me to, was the poor out-of-her-element turtle, lugging that heavy shell around, slowly and awkwardly. I knew instinctively that, as difficult as it could make locomotion in those less natural environments, that shell was absolutely necessary for health and survival. I can peek out, I can lumber around, but I <em>need</em> that shell. And I got that, even if sometimes it felt like the rest of the world didn't. Writing has, for pretty much as long as I can remember, been my water. The shell is still there, but here I can move swiftly and agily, I can navigate without the awkwardness, I can safely and happily stretch out my neck and legs.</div>
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As I came to understand that, I learned to embrace that shell. I came to consciously realize how necessary a part of myself it was. People who don't have shells don't always understand that. Sometimes it really bothers them. People who thrive on social interaction sometimes believe that you are somehow not enjoying life or not getting as much out of it or you need to be fixed, because you'd rather sit outside alone than participate in the group activity. I may have spent much of my time intentionally alone, but I have a lot of very deep and meaningful relationships. I try very hard to be outgoing and accommodating to the people in my life. But there's nothing wrong with me. There's nothing wrong with having a sturdy shell. And if you have a shell, or your kid has a shell, don't let someone convince you that that's something that needs to be <i>fixed</i>. Yep, you need to be willing to pop your head out and have a look around. You need to be willing to haul that heavy awkward thing across the sand to live a full life. But don't ever let anyone tell you you have to get rid of it. It protects a sensitive, tender body, and that's OK. </div>
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Rebecca Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468452457991958461noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780029400120187175.post-90799945728152936922016-07-31T17:47:00.001-07:002016-07-31T17:47:41.058-07:00On ordinances<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
As I tried to decide what to speak about, a talk that Elder Bednar gave in the most recent General Conference kept coming to mind. He spoke about retaining a remission of our sins, and consequently spent much of the talk discussing the ordinances of the Gospel. As I thought about that, a memory came to mind. Just a few weeks after Doug and I started dating, we were sitting, talking and laughing, with a large group of friends in a lounge in one of our dorms, and he had his laptop. He opened up a blank word document and typed D&C 84:20: “Therefore, in the ordinances thereof, the power of godliness is manifest.” He then added, “Why is the power manifest in the ordinances?”, and handed the computer to me and awaited a response.<br />
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I confess that I don’t remember what I typed at the time, but as much as my limitations will allow, I’d like to speak to that question. We talk a lot about love, mercy, grace, and rightly so. But these are not disembodied, vaguely defined ideals for us. They take shape and are made manifest in the ordinances of the Holy Priesthood. We use the shorthand of “Holy Priesthood” or “Melchizedek Priesthood” to avoid unnecessary repetition of the Lord’s name, but it is good to be reminded from time to time that it is the Priesthood after the Order of the Son of God. It is through his power, and authority that He alone can delegate, that we receive and perform ordinances. Without that power and authority, the ordinances are without eternal consequence. Nothing else can bring eternal exaltation. Each worthy Melchizedek Priesthood holder can trace his line of authority back directly to Jesus Christ, not to feel that he is powerful, but rather as a reminder that it is not his own power, and not authority that he takes unto himself. It is the Lord’s power and the Lord’s authority that is exercised, only so long as the bearer remains a humble and worthy vessel.<br />
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I think this speaks to one of the reasons that we see the power of godliness made manifest in the performing of sacred Priesthood ordinances: when we participate in ordinances righteously, we come to God in humble obedience, and act in perfect unity with him and his eternal laws, engaging the pathway to exaltation. As Elder Bednar put it, ordinances are “physical acts which signify an underlying spiritual act.” <br />
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In Doctrine and Covenants section 93, the Savior declares that he made flesh his tabernacle in order to become one with the Father. For our Father’s plan to work, it was absolutely essential that the Savior perform his greatest work in a body of flesh. Where is the power of godliness made more manifest than in the overwhelming love and incomparable power of the Lord’s Atonement? He physically ached. His mortal body bled. His temporal face was surely twisted in agony. But there has never been a more spiritually significant act in all of eternity. The most spiritually significant act that ever took place also had a very physical element. We ought to keep that mind when contemplating the seriousness and vital importance of the ordinances we are privileged to perform on this side of the veil. As Elder Bednar explained, “The ordinances of salvation and exaltation administered in the Lord’s Church are far more than rituals or symbolic performances. Rather, they constitute authorized channels through which the blessings and powers of heaven can flow into our individual lives.” They are not mere cultural touchstones or rites of passage. They are the gateway to eternal salvation and exaltation.<br />
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Some of the first ordinances we generally receive are baptism by immersion, and receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost. The Savior himself, when preaching to the Nephite people after his resurrection, proclaimed, “Repent, all ye ends of the earth, and come unto me and be baptized in my name, that ye may be sanctified by the reception of the Holy Ghost, that ye may stand spotless before me at the last day.” Baptism is essential to our salvation, and a necessary gateway to most of the other ordinances we may receive.<br />
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Most ordinances are accompanied by a covenant. When we are baptized and receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost, the Lord cleanses and purifies us through the Holy Ghost by the power of his Atonement. Most of us need purifying again within days if not hours of our baptism. The Lord knows that we are still learning, that we are frail and all too prone to indulging the whims of the natural man. One of the ways he helps us to remember and honor the work of the ordinances we’ve received is by placing us under covenant.<br />
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The power of the ordinances is magnified by covenant keeping. Elder Ballard recently said, “Sometimes we are tempted to let our lives be governed more by convenience than by covenant. But there is no spiritual power in living by convenience. The power comes as we keep our covenants.” When we receive the baptismal ordinance, we covenant to always remember the Lord, to take his name upon us, and to bear one another’s burdens. The Lord asks these things of us not to weigh us down, but to lift us up. By receiving this covenant, we become accountable to him as well as to the body of Christ. That accountability draws us back time and again to the first and great commandment--to love the Lord with all our hearts--as well as the second-- to love our neighbors as ourselves--at times when we might otherwise slip into the powerlessness of the convenient life.<br />
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I’m convinced that one of the sins that many of us falls prey to the most often, is partaking of the Sacrament lightly or thoughtlessly. Because the Lord knows our frailty, he has instituted the administration of this powerful cleansing ordinance weekly. But how often do we simply habitually reach out and take our scrap of bread and our sip of water as just that--a scrap of bread and a sip of water? With no thought about what it means, with no reflection on the powerful ordinance we are privileged to partake in? How often do we just not even show up, because we’ve convinced ourselves it not that big of a deal to miss Sacrament Meeting. We have a testimony, we know what the right things are, we’re trying to be a good person. What does it matter if we aren’t always there?<br />
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We need to be cleansed. We need to remember. Elder Bednar explained, “The sacramental emblems are sanctified in remembrance of Christ’s purity, of our total dependence upon His Atonement, and of our responsibility to so honor our ordinances and covenants that we can stand spotless before [Him] at the last day.” We are often far too casual about the things of eternal importance. Do your children see you partake of the Sacrament with seriousness and attention? Do you listen to the ordinance prayers with contemplation? Do we really realize the phenomenal power inherent in the act of truly engaging the act of partaking of the scrap of bread and sip of water that are the holy and sanctified emblems of our Savior’s torn flesh and spilled blood? There is so much joy inherent in the chance to be a little bit better each week, to partake of the Lord’s goodness and mercy and be wholly cleansed again, just as we were after participating in the baptismal ordinance. No matter what we have done, no matter how far we have wandered, the Lord is there, offering an opportunity each week to come home, and try again.<br />
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The ordinances of baptism, the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and the Sacrament, as astounding and utterly essential as they are, should not be enough for us. The temple should be our goal. The ordinance of the Endowment teaches us how glorious and gifted the Lord intends us to be. He asks us to commit our time, talent, means and anything and everything with which he may bless us to building the kingdom of God, and in return he offers us an eternity of growth, progression, and joy. Elder Robert D. Hales once said, “The temple’s saving ordinances are essential to--and even the central focus of--the eternal plan of happiness.”<br />
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In the 84th section of the Doctrine and Covenants, as the Lord explains the power manifest in Priesthood ordinances, he continues, “this greater priesthood. . .holdeth the key of the mysteries of the kingdom, even the key of the knowledge of God. . .without the ordinances thereof, and the authority of the priesthood. . .no man can see the face of God.”<br />
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We need the ordinances of the temple, the ordinances of that higher Priesthood, to dwell with our Father and Jesus Christ eternally. Elder Bednar emphasized, “Everything we do in the Church--every meeting, activity, lesson, and service--is to prepare each of us to come to the temple and kneel at the altar to receive all of the Father’s promised blessings for eternity.”<br />
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If you are struggling with the covenants of baptism or feel distanced from the ordinances of the Sacrament, and the temple seems too far out of reach to even contemplate, please don’t quit. Don’t get discouraged. The Lord loves you infinitely. No life is ever so broken that it is beyond his ability to bless and uplift. No soul is ever beyond the reach of his love, and the glorious mercy and love of his Atonement. Each part of the body of Christ is needed, even the feeble ones, and the older I get the more convinced I am that we are, each one of us, in one way or another, or at one time or another, the feeble one. We all feel weak, rejected, discouraged, or overwhelmed sometimes. Elder Holland testified, “Keep trying. Keep trusting. Keep believing. Keep growing. Heaven is cheering you on today, tomorrow, and forever.”<br />
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Participating in the ordinances of the Priesthood will not only demonstrate the Lord’s power in our lives, it will help us to better understand that everything he does is for our eternal good and progression. The power of the Lord to act in our lives is limited only by our agency. Receiving the ordinances of the Gospel helps us to better know Him who created us, and who we were created to be. It is the ordinances of salvation, administered through the Holy Priesthood by the power and authority of Jesus Christ that transform a repentant soul into a cleansed and sanctified one; that prepares an obedient soul into one taught and prepared to enter God’s kingdom; and transforms a group of loving and dedicated individuals into an eternal family bound to each other and our Father in Heaven. I bear my testimony that this is His church. He loves us with a perfect love and is anxious to share his knowledge with us, as we humble and ready ourselves for instruction. He will lead us grace by grace until that perfect day, when we become joint heirs with Christ, and receive a fullness grace and truth.<br />
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Rebecca Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468452457991958461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780029400120187175.post-3578817734460893952016-04-24T18:08:00.001-07:002016-04-24T18:08:16.089-07:00Serving, Asking Others to Serve<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
We all could stand to be more patient with each other. And most of us could stand to stretch a little more. I have served in Relief Society, Young Women, and Primary presidencies. Each time I have been in a leadership position, I have been reminded repeatedly that there are many people who serve nearly tirelessly, happily, and selflessly. There are people who will do just about anything you ask, no matter how many times you go to that well, and there are almost as many who step up <i>before</i> you've even asked, because they saw the need and were willing to help. The sister who will step in and teach a lesson at the last minute. The counselor who shows up with the treat you completely forgot to ask her to make. The friend who offers to bring dinner to a family in need before you've even had time to think about who is available. Believe me, there are more of those people than you'd expect, and each and every one of them is worth their weight in gold, especially when you're trying to keep an organization (and a ward) running smoothly. I will never forget hundreds of moments and days where people stepped up and helped their leaders and their ward, often in ways that people never knew about. My gratitude for that is deep.<br />
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Sometimes we forget how difficult it can be to fill all those roles and needs. Sometimes we get impatient or critical. We are unChristlike in our assessment of a situation or the people involved in it. We all have different areas of weaknesses. Our frailties are as unique as our strengths, and sometimes people may have been put in a position or asked to fill a role because the Lord can help them develop more strength where they are weak. People who are willing deserve patience and encouragement, not criticism and condescension. I am deeply ashamed of the few times I forgot that, the times that I forgot how very patient my Savior has been with me, when I was willing but weak. I regret the times I forgot how often I have demanded--all too unknowingly--the patience of my ward members and leaders.<br />
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When I was 22, my bishop asked me to be Young Women president. I thought the idea was completely ridiculous. But I was raised to believe that you don't say no to a calling--I don't think it ever occurred to me that that was an option. You serve wherever and in whatever capacity you are asked. Full stop. More than that, though, I trusted that bishop implicitly. After several years of working with him, I would come to trust his spiritual leadership even more. If he said he felt strongly impressed that that was the role I was to fill, I believed him. I felt a little overwhelmed, but I was also confident that if that's what the Lord wanted me to do, he'd help me figure it out. Those three years were challenging, but delightful. I loved those girls more than I ever thought possible. I learned a lot. I had no teachers, advisers, etc., and more often than not only had one counselor. I put a great deal of time, effort, and energy into it. But I was still 22, with a baby and a toddler and not very many years under my belt as an adult. There were things I did poorly, things I failed to do, and I only figured that out in retrospect or through gentle, patient direction, because no one ever criticized me. They only supported me. And I regret the times I have been less than that for someone else who was willing--but weak.<br />
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Because one of the other things that has been readily apparent every time I have served in any leadership role is that there are people who<i> won't </i>serve. Or who will only serve in ways that they find pleasing. When you are in a leadership position, trying to fill callings within your stewardship can be a difficult, and sometimes discouraging, task. There are people who will tell you that of course they'll serve, just not with this person. I'm happy to take any calling. Unless its in this auxilliary, then don't bother asking--no matter how many necessary positions you've got vacant. Sure, I'm happy to take dinner to this family, as long as it falls on the second Wednesday of the month. Nope, I'm not gonna help with that activity, I don't do weekday stuff.<br />
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Personally, I think the doers are much more numerous. I think the vast majority of people step up and help their neighbors. And obviously there are definitely times when health or circumstance genuinely prevent us from doing something that we've been invited to, and we need to be honest with those doing the asking if that's the case. But if you've been asked to serve, think twice before you say no. It could be that the thing you think you don't want to do, or think you can't do, will end up being one of your most rewarding opportunities--that was certainly my experience in YW--and that can only be true if you approach it with a willing heart.<br />
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If you are in a position of leadership, offer guidance and instruction and redirection as the Lord so prompts, but fight the temptation to be impatient or self-righteous or critical. If you place your trust and your love in the Lord, he can do amazing things with a willing heart, no matter how weak. We are each of us a part of the body of Christ, and each part is needful. We are each at a different place in our spiritual development, and we each need teaching and nurturing. Do not turn away from those who are willing to serve because they are not yet as you would have them. The Lord <i>would</i> have them, just as he would have you, and that is enough to start something wonderful.<br />
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Rebecca Susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09468452457991958461noreply@blogger.com0