Sunday Thoughts

I'm enough behind in my blogging that my "Sunday Thoughts" aren't coming out until Monday afternoon. Oh well. You do the best you can. We had a wonderful regional stake conference yesterday that pretty much went right along with other thoughts that have been swirling around in my head lately. I love when that happens, when if feels like all the talks were written just so I could hear them.

I tried something this time, which I'm well aware that I should probably do every time, but I don't. Saturday night I prayed that by listening to the conference talks I would find the encouragement and strength that I feel like I am in such need of while we're going through the ups and downs with our kids right now. I've been feeling a certain kind of desperation lately, like I just have no idea what do to next or how to help our situation, or make the kids feel better or sleep peacefully, etc.

Sunday morning we were late getting out the door, so we missed the first speaker, I was sad about that, but had to tell myself that (since we'd been up most of the entire night Saturday night) we were doing the best we could do, and that would have to be good enough. Adelia wanted to eat the very second we got inside the church, so I went straight to the mother's room. This turned out to be a huge blessing, actually. They had the talks playing over the speakers, and the room was quiet, almost empty, and once Adelia was nursing, free of distractions. I got to listen and follow along with every word. And I am so grateful.

Julia B. Beck was the first speaker, and her talk hit home. Her main theme was this, "We are doing better than we think we are. But we still aren't doing as much as we could be." When I first sat down to think about this the points seemed to contradict one another, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized how exactly right she was, at least in reference to me. If I sit down and analyze it honestly, I can truly say that I don't give myself enough credit for the things that I am trying to do and the things I am doing well. I tend to focus on the things I'm not doing, or the things I wish I were doing, and I dwell there instead of focusing on the positive things that do occur...For example, I've been pretty terrible at personal scripture study, and I focus on that a ton, and think about what a slacker I am. But on the flip side, Aaron and I do well at couple scripture study and we even do alright having scriptures in the morning with the kids. And I do need to give myself credit for what we do accomplish.

At the same time, if I analyze myself honestly again, I know that I'm not doing as much as I could be. Taking my previous example, instead of just being depressed that I am not doing so hot on my personal scripture study, I can say instead, "Ok, I'm not doing as well as I should be, how can I do better?" And then I can come up with some ideas and try implementing them until I conquer that challenge.

This same idea has been floating around in my head lately. I think about being better all the time, but I don't always take any action. And I've been thinking a lot about what I can do to improve. A friend of mine wrote a very inspiring blog post about her thoughts along this same line, and she came up with some great ideas about how to bring the spirit into her home. She said a lot of good things that I think I'd like to try, but what I came away from her post with was the idea that changing, being better, and getting the results that you want...for any goal even, not necessarily just the gospel related ones...requires action. I can think all day about what I want and what I'd like to have done, or how I want my household to run, but if I never put forth any effort to change anything, then it will still just be wishful thinking on my part.

Elder Holland gave an excellent talk on faith. And used several pioneer stories to illustrate his point. He talked about how we need to have a deep foundation of faith, and that if we do our children will see that, and can develop their own faith from it. What I took the most from his talk and the pioneer examples, was that the Lord is not going to stop life from being hard. But He will help us through it. I really like that idea. I sometimes find myself praying for life to go back to being easy, for the burden to be lifted, for the trials to magically disappear, for my children to just please sleep through the night. And most times those prayers don't materialize. But I have noticed that when I pray for strength and patience despite my lack of sleep, or the will power to keep taking care of the baby in the night, or cleaning up Ivan's throw up, or to not be angry with Lincoln, even when I'm still tired and know I'm going to be more tired, even when I feel cranky, even when I think I've given every last shred I have to give to my children and they still need more...somehow when I pray for the the ability to come out of the trials alive rather than that the trials will just go away...those are the prayers where I get answers and where I feel blessed to be able to keep going when I thought I couldn't anymore.

President Packer's talk was great too. He told some amazing stories about how the Lord puts people in our lives when we need them. I didn't really come away with anything specific from his talk, but I felt uplifted and strengthened by it.

I came away from stake conference very encouraged. I felt cheerful and happy all the rest of the day. I let Aaron have a nap and did the dishes and folded the mountain of laundry that's been sitting on our couch all week, I got dinner started, and we planned to have friends over for a game night. It felt good to feel to lite for a change, instead of just weighed down and tired.

We had another rough night with the kids. I think I got a grand total of two hours of sleep, and I don't think Aaron did much better. The last few nights that Aaron has been up, he's been watching the Mormon Messages off of lds.org. For something to focus his mind on and keep him awake while he's trying to rock Adelia to sleep. Last night, I decided to check it out while I was up. I was feeling a little bit discouraged again . Why does that always happen in the middle of the night? It's like you can shove the discouragement aside in the day time, but as soon as it's late and you are the only one awake it creeps up on you.

Anyways, I just started watching them in order. There are some really good ones, all really good messages. The Church has done a wonderful job with these, I think. Then I got to this one, and I'll be honest, it made me cry. I needed to hear it. And I don't think I'm the only mom out there who has challenges, or who wonders sometimes if it's all worth it. So, I wanted to share this in this post. And I hope that if it touches you in any way that you'll share it too, because I think so many of us out there need the reminder late in the night when we feel alone and things seem too hard.