Old Journal Entry

I don't write in my journal super often anymore. I figure that I blog enough to keep more than sufficient record of my family. But occasionally when there is something I don't want to share with the world, I'll pull out my old journal and jot some things down.

I have a testimony of the fact that we are commanded to write things down. The other night I was laying in bed with a headache, and my mind was going a million miles a minute. I pulled my journal out of the night stand drawer and started to read some old entries. One in particular caught my eye. I'd forgotten all about writing it, but felt like the things I had written down then, were things I needed to be reminded of now. I want to share the entry.

Sunday, March 2011 

I stayed home from church today with Ivan and Adelia because Ivan was up in the middle of the night with croup-sounding symptoms. It was Aaron's week to teach in Sunday School so he had to go and he took Lincoln with him. Lincoln just started Sunbeams this year and loves it. While they were gone, I listened to a conference talk by Elder D. Todd Christoffersen called Reflections on a Consecrated Life. We had a lesson on this a few weeks ago at church, and I've been feeling kind of like a huge failure at consecrating my life ever since, because I feel like all I do all day is try to entertain/teach kids and do house work. I wanted to read the talk again today to see if I could come up with any ideas for how I could make my life more consecrated. 

First of all, what a great talk. Last month my visiting teachers gave me a challenge to study up on a restored principle of the gospel in the latter-days (any one of my choice) and I decided to pick the principle of the modern prophets speaking the will of the Lord. I have always had a testimony of the prophets and apostles, but I've been really bad lately about going back and really studying the things they teach about in general conference. So I chose to learn more about the principle of living prophets by making an effort to hear and ponder their words. My goal is to watch on-line/read one conference talk every day during Ivan and Adelia's nap while Linc is having quiet time. I started my goal last week, and I am not doing perfectly...I only watched 2 talks last week, but I'm trying. I have loved those few minutes spent listening to the prophets. It's never a waste of time.

Anyways, back to the talk I listened to today. One thing Elder Christoffersen said has been sticking with me, he said something to the effect that when we do the work of the Lord we are consecrating that work to Him, and, any honest work that we do is the work of the Lord. To me this was a comforting statement because it means when I do my laundry for our family it is the work of the Lord. So is doing dishes, and cooking dinner, and reading story after story to my kids, bathing them, dressing them, cleaning up after them, stopping my chores to listen to or play with them. It's all honest work, so it's the work of the Lord. 

There were also a lot of things he said in his talk that are things I need to work on, and will try to work on. But I came away from the talk this time not feeling like I was too far behind to catch up. Instead I feel like I am making some progress, and that I still have a lifetime to go, but that I can keep taking little steps forward. 

-Krystal

I always sign my journal entries at the end...I have no idea why. I'm so glad I reread this entry. For myself, personally, I find that I seem to need very frequent reminders that the things I do during daily motherhood are meaningful. I needed to be reminded that the work of a mother is honest work. Sometimes very monotonous, repetitive work, that rarely doles out any form of instant gratification; but honest work. And honest work is the Lord's work.

I read another talk tonight from October's conference by Elder Perry entitled Becoming Goodly Parents. In the first part of his talk, he reads an excerpt from a letter he wrote to his mother when he was in the military. I hope to the be kind of mother that is someday worthy of receiving that kind of letter from my kids. I hope they can remember mostly the good and forget the bad, as I stumble trying to find my way through this parenting business. I want to fortify our home with the gospel. And make our family relationship a rock that our children can anchor on. They are going out into a scary world, and I have no idea which angle Satan will try to tackle them from. I hope I can teach them, and I hope I can love and support them when they make mistakes.