Happy Things

There has been a lot of sadness around here. Gut-wrenching sadness. But there is also love. So much love and so much goodness. Queen Victoria II (and my bishop) said, "Grief is the price we pay for love." So true. I've wanted to want to blog all week, but life has felt heavy, and if you haven't been reading, my last few posts have been heavy.

So instead of blogging, I've been procrastinating. I am good at it. I practice a lot. But I am finished flipping through Insta and FB and being "heavy." I am a doer. Of hard things. So I am blogging about things that made me happy.

1. I am happy that I can walk. It is such a miracle each time I take a step. I'm still not super good at it. But I am doing it.

2. I am happy for sweat. I went to the gym last night and for the first time in a looong time, I was able to work out so hard that I was sweating. That was joy sweat friends.

3. I am happy when my feet are so sore at the end of the day and I see this beauty. I 💗 Sheila.

4. I am so happy that I have a winter coat and warm shoes.

5. I am happy that I was insanely brave (for me) yesterday and I had something great happen.

6. I am so happy that Wingers makes those sticky finger tacos and that I have good friends to eat them with.

7. I am happy that when there is so much sadness there can be so much love too.

8. Car dancing makes me SO HAPPY and it is my new drug. If you are hurting, try it. Maybe it will work for you too.

9. I am so happy I got to go to this place with an awesome friend and that I only fell asleep for a little while. . . It was a celestial snooze.

10. And who cannot be happy watching The Greatest Showman (three times)? I love the message-YOU ARE GLORIOUS, "bruised" and all. The Best of Us All, the Greatest of Us All, "had no form nor comeliness; . . . (he had) no beauty that we should desire him. He (was) despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: . . .he was bruised for our iniquities." He knows what it's like to be bruised like nobody else does. And friends, He thinks we are glorious. Because of Him we can be even more glorious than we ever imagined. And it gets better. We are part of HIS family. His eternal family.  Family is also one of the themes in The Greatest Showman. Go see it. You'll love it. Buy the music. You'll sing it and car dance to it. You will be happy and you will fell glorious.

Burdens

Several years ago I had a friend that was experiencing a devastating tragedy. One night I couldn’t sleep. I was worried about my friend and the weight of her burden. Was she able to sleep? Did she feel alone? How could she possibly endure such a trial? I found myself on my knees praying. I asked if her pain could be eased if only for a while. I said I was willing to share her burden so it could be lighter. A heavy, oppressive feeling overwhelmed me. The weight was crushing, almost unbearable. After about an hour, the pain lifted. I wondered if my friend’s burden was eased just a little during that hour?

I love that Christ wept when He heard that Lazarus died. He had power to raise Lazarus from the dead, so why did He weep? I like to think He wept because He felt the sorrow of Martha and Mary. Their problem, their pain became His burden. Bearing one another’s burdens is a casserole and babysitting and lawn mowing and donating funds, but it is so much more. When we truly mourn with someone, we go from saying, “That’s sad,” to “I’m sad.”

In the Fall I had a surgery that knocked me for a loop. I had some set backs and complications that involved a lot of pain, no sleep, and little healing. Sometimes the pain seemed unbearable; I literally didn’t know how I could make it through another day. I received phone calls and visits from countless family members and friends. They brought meals and gifts, but more importantly, they listened to me, they mourned with me, and they cried with me. My burden, my pain became theirs and I was lifted.

Recently a friend and I talked and she shared a heavy burden with me. She apologized saying she didn’t want to weigh me down. I remembered a time several years ago when I had unapologetically unloaded on her. She had been through a similar trial and because she had been where I was and because she loved me, she could give me words that provided new perspective and charted a course of action that changed my life.

The Savior, through the power of His atonement, has the ultimate power to lift burdens. As a people that have covenanted to take upon us His name and try to be like Him, we should mourn with, cry with, and feel the pain and despair of our brothers and sisters, and no one should ever have to apologize.

New Year's/Old Year's Resolutions--I've Heard it Both Ways

New year's resolutions always kick my butt. I mean I make resolutions but let's face it, my resolve dissolves as fast as cookies in milk. I wasn't making new resolutions, I was really just wringing milk from last year's cookies and passing those soggy things off as next year's Oreos. So, then it got easier to not make resolutions. . . to break. But then there's guilt. And pounds. And dust bunnies. And chocolate cake for breakfast. And brain drain.

So last year I resolved to be more resolute. I thought carefully about what I wanted to accomplish. I had a long list of soggy cookies I could resurrect, but I decided to leave them all in the cup. If I died at the end of the year, would I really care if I had exercised, or eaten broccoli, or even if I'd read my scriptures everyday if it hadn't really changed me? Not changed my health or my body, but changed me, my soul, my spirit? So I picked one goal. One thing that mattered. My new year's resolution for 2017 was to not withhold love. It has kicked my butt, but in a good butt-kicking way, in a way that it needed to be kicked.

I learned that there are SO many ways to withhold love: when people annoy me, when family members hurt me, when my children are bullied, when I am jealous, when someone dismisses or even laughs at my opinions just to name a few. This week.

Last year, after a few months of this goal, I started to feel a little beat up and far less than perfect. That's when God sent me a message. I was at a conference and one of the presenters was a woman who my college boyfriend had dumped me for. I was hoping she was fat, not very interesting, and maybe just a little bit bald. She wasn't. She was beautiful, articulate, captivating, everything I felt like I wasn't.

That night when I checked in with Heavenly Father, I realized that once again I had withheld love for this sister in a big way. After I finished what I hoped was a full, sincere, heartfelt repentance, Heavenly Father said to me, "There's one more thing you need to repent of--withholding love from yourself. You are every bit as bright and beautiful and loved by me as that woman." That's when I learned, although I had been told and taught a jillion times in dozens of Sunday School classes, that I can't love others if I don't love myself.

That's why my resolution for 2018 is to not withhold love. It may be an "old" resolution, but it will make me a new person.

President Thomas S. Monson, a great example of love.