Insanity to Zen All In One Week!

When we were trying to figure out what "sacrifices" we were going to have to make, I was mad because I was thinking that we already sacrifice A LOT! But when I found out we were moving to Idaho?!?!... I was more like this...

I was kicking and screaming because as much as I complained about my life situation, I didn't want to move!



I went CRAZY looking for a house and figuring out if we were going to buy or rent...

 

Everything was totally out of control until I finally gave in and let Heavenly Father take over. After that I was totally Zen.

I was feeling pretty proud of myself until...I realized that all of this spanned a total of ONE week! :-P

Oh well, at least I made progress. I'm not freaking out. I'm slowly packing. I'm taking my time and being very methodical with this move. I want us to be so great and easy to move that people will love the ease of it all and still feel they did a good deed for the day! LOL

Our Family Is Growing, but not in the way you're thinking...

I have found that growing happens in many different ways. We grow through experiences in our house, mainly. Through all our trials and tribulations, we have grown into new people it seems. Christopher grows as a child should and in amazing ways. The way his life moves seems to be a similitude of the way my life is. Sometimes his growing pains are difficult for him because he wants to be free and make his own decisions and live his life the way he sees fit, rather than through the guidelines we have set for him.

I find myself with those same growing pains...

Our family has endured much in the short time we have been together and most of it has made us stronger. This new chapter in our lives will probably have the same effect.

We are moving from our beloved first home in Rancho Cordova, California to find our new selves in Pocatello, Idaho! It all seems so crazy, and it is because we are to make the move in the next 3 1/2 months!

What do you do with all the things and places that have memories attached? Leave the things, take the memories.

We have been born and raised in California and it will seem strange to have a child that will barely remember living here at all. I, on the other hand, will have LOADS of memories, good and bad, that I take with me. I know we will obviously be making new ones, but I have become accustomed to my life here with little change. I realize now while writing this, like finding out you've never truly been in love with the person you're with, I don't care for my life as its played out the last few years.

I will miss my friends, our ease of access to fun places I know and love, I will miss what might have been. I'm reading a book that attempts to ease me into my new life when it reminds me that I "must be willing to let go of the life [I] planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for [me]," Joseph Campbell.

So, here goes something...

How Low Can You Go?

I have been having a bad week and a bad attitude to go along with it!

Things have not gone my way and next week's outlook doesn't look good either...
I told a good friend of mine just some of my grievances and she suggested I was being humbled. ME?! Need humbling?! YEP!

At first I was taken aback by her comment and then pondering truthfully I knew she was right, and that she was a VERY good friend for telling me! (Apparently I'm not an easy person who people can be straight-forward with, without fear of losing a limb) She told me that I should "just be". Just be humbled. Just be who I'm being molded into. Just be like Christ and turn the other cheek when life smacks me square on the jaw!

When she told me this, I sat in my car and cried. I wasn't hurt by what she said, I was scared. I'm being humbled in so many ways and have been for so long that I was hoping for a break soon. This advice lets me know that I'm just in the thick of it. ...bummer...

If realizing I still needed humbling wasn't humbling enough, the scale wanted to laugh at me and spit in my eye all at the same time today! But dutifully and humbly I walked into my meeting to receive my penance. After sitting there and stewing, the lead of the group and another good friend told me (without even knowing what was going on) that I was being too hard on myself. I told her that it's difficult not to after so many people for so many years have been just as hard on me. She said something that COMPLETELY changed my life. She said that I didn't have to be one of those people. Simple yet amazing!

So, even though my mood hasn't changed completely (I'm gonna need a pity party it up for another day or so) I have received some AWESOME advice! I know it was Heavenly Father's way of letting me know what's going on and how to better deal with it all, and for that I am truly grateful. 

In Case of Emergency

Have you ever been on a flight as they are preparing you for take-off and they inform you on the proper way to (possibly) survive? After they get done showing everyone how to properly fasten a seat belt (does anyone still have a problem with this?!) they look directly in the eyes of all the mothers on the plane and proceed to tell us about the oxygen mask. Rule number one for these masks: PUT IT ON YOURSELF FIRST! Many moms fumble with this idea and decide to space out from this point on because obviously this "Flight Attendant" isn't a mother or at least not a very good one BECAUSE what child-loving mother would put herself first?!

I remember thinking this as we were on our first plane ride with our newborn son on the down to receive cancer treatments for my young husband. Everything about that situation was crazy... I was in complete survival mode at this point which meant everyone around me mattered more than myself. NO WAY was I going to put that mask on myself FIRST!

Hindsight being 20/20 and having the gift of seeing it has helped me understand a few things...

If I don't put that mask on first, nothing gets done and everything is chaos. I'm not saying I am the queen of all things and nothing gets done without me but my family looks to me to be the steady one and when I can't breathe, no one does either.

Everyone is looking to me for their example. I'm mommy and if I'm doing it, it must be the right thing to do.

If I'm going crazy over a crazy situation, EVERYONE goes crazy along with me. BUT if I can breathe and keep my head about me then things can go a lot smoother.

So, now when the Flight Attendant starts her show on how to properly use those wonderful oxygen masks, I pay close attention; because when the plane (of life) is going down I need to know how to breathe.

Bent Not Broken

For a few years I have been hurt and angry at those around me which left me feeling alone and bitter.

I felt let down.

 Let down by people, church,

and God.

I felt cold.

Then about a year ago I started seeing a pinprick of light at the end of my long and dark tunnel.

 Now I look behind me and see a small bit of black, ahead of me –

 potential.

I heard something recently that broadened my perspective on these years of trials in my life. “We’re not broken, just bent.”

It’s from a song about a dying relationship that still possesses hope.

This got me thinking of others around me who have probably or are currently feeling the same way I did. An image came to mind of reeds blowing in the wind.

 These are beautiful, so beautiful that they are sung about as “amber waves of grain.” Many of us may feel as if they are the lone reed mentioned in poems, left alone to our own devices. I don’t feel this way any longer. I see there are other reeds bending

not broken

standing beside me…and they are made beautiful because of this bending.

Many things are made more beautiful because of bending. Things of nature like the grass,

the waves, 

the reeds. And just like these things

they do not stand alone.

They come together to form one large beautiful scene.

 They cover valleys and mountains,

 rivers and oceans.

We are not alone in our bending process. And those of us that see that MUST help those that don’t.

I see those around me now suffering and all I can think is, “how can I help?” I realize this is probably how others thought when I needed help. I don’t know how to help. I don’t know what to give.

I pray.

I think.

I wait to hear how Heavenly Father wants to bend me.

Pure Love

I'm no exemplary mother or wife. I don't come out of trials of faith beaming. I'm pretty much the key example of what not to do when hard times come. Case in point...

I'm still reeling over my husband's illnesses that occurred about 3 years ago. Not only did he have cancer but he had necrotizing fasciitis that killed him, once. I am so traumatized by all of that, that I have episodes that have happened recently where I'll be sitting on the sofa watching a show with my husband and totally not realize I'm at home. For me, I'm at the hospital sitting in a cold chair in a cold room trying to convince myself that watching TV for four hours is beneficial to my husband who's lying there finally sleeping because he can't rest all day until I come to visit. Most of my husband's 3 month stay in the hospital was like that. I would drop my newborn off at a different person's house each day for 5 or 6 hours. Drive like a madwoman to the hospital to sit there with a near comatose man who was slipping away, and watch television. He was so bad off that I made him make 24-hour pacts with me to fight to stay alive...because he didn't want to. And who could blame him, really? He was going through extreme amounts of pain most people could not survive. His illness was one that only 10% of people who are diagnosed with necro fasc have and less than 1% survive. And for good reason. It eats through people from the inside out. You aren't supposed to live through that!

I contemplated suicide EVERY SINGLE DAY. I thought, "Why should I go on when he doesn't want to? How am I going to live if he doesn't?" We had only been married 4 years. We had gone through 3 miscarriages together and finally had our miracle baby. Life was looking up...until. The only reason for my living? I want to tell you it was because I knew that despite all my pain, all our troubles, I knew my Father in Heaven loved and cared for me and that it was all going to work out in my favor. But I can't. The one and only reason I am still alive is because of...

him. With post-partum depression baring down on me on top of situational depression, I was marked for death. If I didn't have my little son to come home to I would have died.

After my husband came home from the hospital, I left my faith. I was so angry so hurt by God. How could I bow my head and pray to the one who made this all happen. It has taken me nearly the entire three years to finally realize I did have Him with me. I know just a bit more of the love Heavenly Father and His Son have for me personally every single day because of my son. I love my son like nobody's business! I mean how could you not with a face like that?! :) I love my son with such an undying love that I even surprise myself with the extent of it all. Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have a similar love for me, but I know they love me more than I know or could ever comprehend. How do I know? Because that's exactly how I feel about my son.

Don't get me wrong, I love my husband with a passion I never knew I could for anyone that I would live with 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I couldn't love my cat that way, how could I for a person?! My husband is an amazing man, and amazing husband, and an amazing and wonderful father. But people can, have, and do "fall out of love" with spouses but I don't think I know of one person who has been able to truly un-love their own child. You can be angry or hurt or disappointed my your kids, but you will always love them in that special and sacred way. This is how I know I am loved. This is how I know we all are loved.

I've just discovered a little bit more about the Pure Love of Christ and wanted to share with you what I now know. Because with all the anger and hurt and disappoint in the world, isn't nice that you are loved no matter what? I think so.

Be Still My Soul

I think the sound of the ocean is that of the Earth breathing, and those drawn to it are immediately called to answer its plea:

be still.

When I find myself at the water's edge it is difficult to leave. The wind, the air, the calm all keeping my feet right where they are and my mind centered on a universal sound. I realize not everyone feels the same way I do about ocean (or any large body of water) as I do. I know people that could care less about their proximity to the water, but it sounds so unreal! How could you live without being near the water?! How do you not hear and feel serenity and peace standing there? How is it you do not stand in reverent awe when, from the beach, you spot a pod of whales or dolphins?

I'm not going to give you a Save the Whales speech or go into my beliefs on global warming. My thoughts are more focused on the Savior today and His message: be still. I hear this when my tempest is raging or even if my blood pressure is rising. It is a constant stream of thought throughout my hectic day. This is how I know He hears me and knows me.

 I can go to the temple and feel a sort of loud peace, if you can imagine it. When I'm at the temple I feel I have so much work to do and so much to receive that I am bombarded with messages and promptings, but at the ocean I feel and hear just one message, one prompting: be still. Don't get me wrong! The temple is a wonderful and beautiful place filled with peace and joy and love, it's just that for me it's filled with work (I'm kind of a lazy person) and to-do lists. I go to the temple with a purpose and task. I go to the ocean just to be.

I'm sure you hear something, sometime. I know there's a place you go to feel peace and to be still. Go there, if you can, even if it's only in your mind for now. There's a message waiting for you there: be still.