Not As the World Giveth

One of my callings is teaching the youth (12-13-year-old) Sunday School class. During ward conference, the Stake Presidency teaches all the youth during second hour and I have the pleasure of sitting in and listening. Usually a week or two prior to conference, the Stake leaders have the youth submit questions that they would like to have answered, and the Stake Presidency prioritizes the questions and addresses as many as time will permit.

One of the questions at the last conference a few weeks ago was, "Does living the Gospel guarantee a happy life?" At first the leaders bounced the question back and forth amongst themselves, trying to decide who would answer. One of them laughed lightly and said, "Define 'happy'." That seemed an honest and appropriate beginning of a response.

My instinctual response is to say, "Yes, absolutely, so long as you don't depend on 'easy' to be 'happy'." Several people started appearing in my mind: I thought of my Grandma, and the weariness she's experiencing; I thought of a dear friend who has a profoundly autistic daughter, as well as four other children who need her time, attention and energy, and has recently struggled with health challenges of her own on top of everything else; I thought of the friend who went from an abusive and broken childhood to make a happy marriage and motherhood, only to be plagued by an aggressive cancer and its after-effects; and of course there was the loved one who has faced a great deal many trials while also shouldering the burden of being judged and somewhat ostracized by her own family for making the right decisions and being true to her testimony.

All these individuals have been obedient to the commandments, diligent in their callings, amazing, devoted wives and mothers and sincere, charitable friends. They are all very, very good people who have nevertheless had to walk some stony paths. They have all had to carry heavy burdens over which they had little to no control, and their lives have had much difficulty and a lot of tears here and there. But every one of them is a happy person. Every one of them makes me happy. They are, more often than not, at peace with themselves, their families, their lives, and the world around them.

Just before the Savior laid down his life, he spoke to his apostles about comfort. They surely did not fully understand yet the magnitude of what was about to happen--the Atonement, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, the Ascension--or the trials that were to follow. The Lord knew that they would be persecuted, left nearly alone at times, be asked to travel far from home and family, and live through many difficult and temperance-testing circumstances. And He knew that they would have to do it all without Him at their side in the same way that He had been during his mortal ministry. "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you," He told them, but with a very important clarification: "not as the world giveth, give I unto you." The world understands personal peace to mean a lack of conflict or difficulty--there is an ease of circumstances implied in peace as it is traditionally understood in the world. This is not the peace of which the Savior spoke. He spoke of the peace of that comes through his Atonement, the peace brought by the presence of the Holy Ghost; a peace that looks forward to a celestial rest, where conflicts do indeed cease, but that seizes a bit of that peace here and now, in the midst of conflicts we cannot necessarily resolve, hardships that can't necessarily be lifted, outward circumstances that we can do little to change.

The Savior lovingly admonished his apostles to "Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." This is where the happiness lies. Our hearts can be light, knowing that He has "overcome the world". Too often we forget the temporary nature of the challenges we face, and indeed the temporary nature of life itself, and so we make unwise or momentarily satisfying decisions that appear easier or more desirable than striving to live the commandments that the Lord has set forth. Or sometimes in our short-sightedness, we feel that we are being unduly tried after laboring so hard to do the right thing. Without fail, the times we feel alone are the times when we forgot to ask for Him to give us that peace, or we have asked half-heartedly because we know that's what we're supposed to ask for, when in fact what we actually mean is, "Make the hard stuff go away." Too many of us equate "having fun" with being happy or having true joy. The fact is we can have a lot of temporary "fun" while lacking real joy in our lives, and we can have real joy even when life is anything but "fun".

The Lord has paid too steep a price for the agency of man to interfere with it, and that means that no matter how hard we try to be obedient, we will sometimes suffer adverse consequences of others using their agency as they so choose, or simply the happenstance of life. Certainly the Lord can help us to change our circumstances to escape burdens at times, but often there are things we simply must endure. The Lord promised, "I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever. . .I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you." The peace that the companionship of the Spirit brings is not readily describable; I sometimes think of how a loving embrace from a family member or friend in a difficult time can make us feel better, even though that hug itself has done nothing to change the circumstances which have upset us, but even that is a very weak analogy. It is peace and joy in our hearts in knowing that someone loving and wise is ultimately in control and is ever mindful of us, that this too shall pass, and in acknowledging that truth to be able to look beyond the difficulty to what beauty and blessings we may have been overlooking. Its developing a trust in the Lord by cultivating a relationship with the Spirit so that we can obey when we hear the Divine whisper, "Be still, and know that I am God."

Living the Gospel does indeed guarantee a happy life, because one of the commandments is "Be of good cheer". The Savior gave us all the tools to be cheerful in the midst of life's heaviest trials. He offers the Atonement freely, and the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost, but we have to grab hold and make use of them ourselves. Your own happiness, your own peace, your own joy, are always within your grasp.

Good Stuff

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If only they all got such a welcome home.

If only they all came home.

Define "Normal"

So I'm putting the kids to bed and Dylan has become rather. . .energetic the last six months or so. He's always hopping around, in someone's face, bouncing off walls, jumping off any piece of furniture he can climb, constantly drumming on something, etc. And he's taken to curling up in a ball, with all his blankets swirled around him, in the center of his bed. Which would be fine except that it lasts all of about five minutes and then he's on top of all the blankets and has icy fingers and toes by the time Doug and I head upstairs to go to bed.

So everybody's had a super grumpy afternoon today and I am so done with the bouncing and I say to him, somewhat impatiently, "Dylan, stop hopping around and put your head down on your pillow and lay down under your covers like a normal kid."

Without a hint of humor, and in fact with every bit of earnestness his little voice can muster, he replies, "But Mom, I'm not normal!!"

I really had to laugh at that one. Last week I had them in the car and they started arguing about something (I was zoned in on my music and had tuned them out) when Dylan started to whimper. I asked what was wrong. "Keilana says I'm weird," he whined. She responded very cheerfully, "Its OK, Dylan. You are weird, but its OK to be weird." A few days later I was on the phone with his aunt while he played upstairs and she said, "So, like, don't take this the wrong way, but Dylan's really weird," to which I instantly replied, "Oh, I know." She continued, "He's not like 'special' weird is he? Some of his behaviors are kind of extreme for someone as little as he is." I pointed out that he's in the "special" preschool class, and no one there has even considered having him evaluated, much less labeled, so I'm pretty sure that he still falls somewhere under the bell curve, even if he is skewed sort of far to one end of it. The fact is, "weird" runs in the family. What on earth would we do with "normal"? I'm afraid it would look terribly strange to us.

Almost

This cute little boy wrapped in my sarong and the clear memory of how gorgeous it was in Hanauma Bay that day (how I miss warm ocean and fresh pineapple and the scent of plumerias everywhere. . . ) almost makes me want to go live in Hawaii again. Almost. Then I remember how very far away it is when you want to visit a grandparent or somebody gets sick or you're too broke for plane tickets. Then I remember that, as much fun as it was living there single or childless, now that I'm a mom and a grown up, I much prefer being a closer part of the lives of the people I'm bound to. Even if California is still dreadfully far away from this little boy (who ain't so little anymore--he's 10 now!) and the rest of his family and cousins. In my dream world, both families are just a few hours apart so I can be a big part of both of them. For now, we work with the distance as best we can and I relish the opportunity to read my sister's blog and see my brother's photos on Facebook and chat with my mom on the phone. If I have to be almost 1500 miles from them, I'm glad I live in the digital age.

It also almost makes me wish my hair was that length again. Almost. Maybe once I'm past the "baby stage" in life. But I think its getting lopped off again this summer--as soon as baby is big enough to start getting her fingers twirled up in it.

35 weeks

So I realize that this is an odd outfit choice, but its the only reason that I remembered to take a picture at all. Doug and I are going to the temple tomorrow, and its been a few months since I put my dress on, so I was trying it on to make sure it still fit, and Kylie walked in and laughed and said, "Marshmallow, Mommy." I think I'm still a little cuter than the marshmallow man on Ghostbusters. But just barely. So, here we go, 5 weeks til my due date.

Chatting with Grandma

I spent about an hour on the phone with my grandma the other night. I've always loved her (I've been very blessed in the grandma department), but she was someone I never thought of myself as being very similar to when I was child.

Now that I'm old enough to be more self-aware, I laugh occasionally at the similarities I do see: she talks too fast and often laughs before finishing a sentence, so that people sometimes have a hard time understanding what she's saying; she's very independent-minded and terribly stubborn, never taking well to having others tell her what she can or can't do; she has a tendency to oversimplify things she doesn't want to deal with; for all her boldness within the family, she's actually rather shy by nature; she loves kids, especially babies; she's loves photos--taking them, having them, looking through them over and over again.

There is a comfort and ease in talking to her that comes from the fact that, at the end of the day, two things really matter to her: the Gospel and her family. Everything in her life is seen, processed and judged through that perspective, and she has a hard time understanding how anyone can get through life, much less enjoy it, without those two things at the center. There have been times when I've felt like my grandma didn't get enough credit--she's not terribly articulate by nature or training and is as flawed as anybody else, so it seemed that at times perhaps her understanding of certain things was underestimated.

But the last few years, its been hard to take her faith for granted. She had already faced a lot of trials, notable among them a very rocky 38-year marriage that ended in divorce, the death of one of her sons just after birth, and the death of another son when he was a young adult. After a lot of heartache, it seemed like she'd finally found an even keel: she was married for a third time, and this time was sealed. I will never forget the impression it made on me a few years into her marriage to Clark when she said, "He's a companion to me." She had loved my grandfather a great deal, but that was a type of relationship that she'd never had. The peace it brought to her was obvious in her demeanor and temperament. And then she lost a daughter to murder, and felt very much like she'd also lost a grandson, her head spinning in circles trying to understand how he could've done such a thing. And then she had to bury the eternal companion she had waited so long to find. And now she has luekemia.

Through it all, she's been sad, and she's had her moments of grumbling, but she's been calm and generally happy. When I talked to her, she was telling me that she needed to work on her attitude, because it was hard not to be grumpy about being so doggone tired all the time (at the moment, I can certainly relate to that frustration--I'm very grateful there's a timeline on my fatigue and that its much less severe), and she was pretty grumpy about the fact that she was probably going to have to do another bone marrow test, because that big needle in her bone sure hurts. "But I know my disposition makes a lot of difference," she told me, "So I'm going to be positive." She sounded pretty determined. "I've got really good grandkids," she went on. "Christabel was here the other day, and then Gwendolyn stopped by yesterday. They're good company, they're good girls." She went on about how grateful she was that her grandkids and great-grandkids are all healthy and strong and smart and live relatively good lives. She realizes that with the number of descendants she has, the odds are that more should've gone wrong, and it hasn't. Such a positive outlook from a woman who has buried three of her own children--a fact that would be enough to make many women (understandably) morose or pessimistic. She's got a healthy, happy family who love her, and that's all that matters. It really seems her only disappointments are where her kids or grandkids have stepped outside the Church, but even in that she's optimistic. "He's still young. I was stupid sometimes when I was young."

And I guess that's what Grandma always reminds me, whether she intends to or not: a loving family and the Gospel are bound to make one optimistic. The Gospel helps you see the best in your family, and reminds you always that the best thing in life is family. If you stick together and do the right thing, there's a very bright future to look forward to, and a lot of fun to be enjoyed along the way. After all, as President Packer is fond of saying, "Salvation is an individual matter. Exaltation is a family matter." I'm glad to have a Grandma who makes me mindful of that.

Changes and support

Doug left his job early last week. It was a shock and it wasn't. Part of me had been preparing for the possibility, and part of me just couldn't have been prepared.

We should be OK for a while, having some time to figure out, step by step, where to go from here. Why he left and how we got to this point is a whole other blog post (or perhaps a whole other blog), but it looks like there are some interesting possibilities out there and, though it might require some sacrifice in the mean time, we're both feeling pretty optimistic.

The only truly unsettling part to me was how people might react to this change--we'd gotten so used to our lives being so intertwined in so many ways with so many of the people we know, that we both knew that this wasn't just your normal leaving-a-job-situation in a lot of ways. But once again, our friends have proved that they are worth their weight in gold. They've reached out and showed nothing but understanding, support and optimism for our future. It is a real blessing in life to know that there are lots of people who love you for you, in spite of whatever flaws you may have, and who want always for you and your family to be happy and successful. I have felt no loneliness or judgment in this change, and for that I am extremely grateful.

So wish us luck. It looks like Doug may get his master's degree finally completed (and it will be nice to have the paper in hand, since he spent a lot of time and money on that education), and will be able to do so in a simpler and cheaper manner than we had expected. There are lots of logistics to be figured out, and new employment to find, but I'm feeling good. I'm the type that would be inclined to panic at times like this, and I haven't. I feel at peace. Nothing has really gone according to plan since we got married, and yet things have worked out pretty well to this point. I've gotten much better at just accepting living life one step at a time, not knowing for sure where we're headed. I'm excited to see what comes next.