Personal Private Victory

At the funeral of the late Stephen R. Covey, his family shared how he had made it a habit to spend at least 20 minutes in solitude, contemplation, and study of the scriptures at the start of every day.  He coined this his "personal private Victory." I feel as if the past months have been that for me.  Every day, I wake up to a new day filled with opportunity to continue in the habits I am trying to form, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually: weight training/hiking/running and eating healthy, job skills to learn and remember, putting into every day practice communication skills newly learned, praying for and loving my neighbors, family, friends and strangers. I am reading and trying to understand about having a heart at peace versus a heart at war. Every day I am trying to be true to the things that I know are right and appropriate.  How does that fit in with every thought and every deed?  How do I humble myself and allow Christ's atonement to work in my life? Every night I ask myself, what was good about the day and what was not so good about the day? If/when I find myself sliding down the path of comparison, I stop myself in my tracks.  For me, comparison and self pity are the most dangerous places for my thoughts to go. Instead, I remind myself that I have a Father in Heaven who knows, loves, and supports me.  He is the same Father to all I meet, therefore, I need to try to know, love and support them.  I am finding that anger and conflict leave when I can do that. And that has become my own personal, private Victory.

Love is the Key

Last month, Steve and I went on a little lover's adventure trip to Las Vegas and St. George.  I call it our little lover's trip because it was the first time in a very long time that we were able to go anywhere and focus on just the two of us and our relationship.  Although Vegas is not my favorite place, the hotel was paid for (thanks, Safeco Insurance) and we were able to see a couple of cool shows (Cirque De Soleil).  But, I have to say that the biggest highlight for me was seeing the Donny and Marie show up close and personal and shaking Donny's hand (thanks to my husband pointing to me when Donny began walking on the tables in the audience).  Oh my.  Be still, my heart.  What a fun show.  I was most blown away, however, by Marie's performance of Pie Jesu by Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber. I was so touched by her beautiful voice and the emotion with which she sang (she dedicates this song to her son who has passed away) that I wanted a personal recording to keep.  I found the song on one of the CD's that was being sold in the foyer after the show, so I purchased a copy and played it in the car on our drive to St. George.  While the music was playing, I started to read out loud to Steve what Marie had written in the CD notes about each song.  She expressed a very powerful testimony of the atonement of Jesus Christ, and many of the things she wrote were hard for me to read out loud because I was crying. What an emotional wreck I've become!  That's how much her words spoke to my spirit.  One of the things she shared were the words of her mother: "All the doors of oppression and misery would be unlocked if people would just be kinder to each other and remember, as one of the great commandments say:  'Do unto others as ye would have them do unto you.'  "Love is the key, Love can unlock all that our world needs." I am finding this to be true more and more each day.  Just love. Just forgive. Reach out a hand and lift up another.  A few weeks ago I was in a counsellor's office,  sitting  across from a boy who had hurt my daughter.  He is struggling with some hard things, and part of his treatment involved apologizing to our daughter and to us.  While he was talking, I was silently fuming inside--I had a lot of anger rolling around.  When the mediator turned to us to allow our response, I was so grateful that I held my tongue while Steve talked to this young man.  As Steve continued to talk, I calmed down and I felt the overwhelming thought that there was nothing I could do to punish this boy that he hadn't already done himself.  He was hurting.  He was beating himself up.  When it came to my turn to talk, the only words that came to my mind to express to him were words of love.  I told him that he was greatly loved by his Father in Heaven and Savior, Jesus Christ.  He was one of their masterpieces.  I told  him that I forgave him and that I loved him and wanted only the best for him.  The crazy thing is that while I was speaking these words, I meant it all!  The anger, the hurt, the great dislike for this boy was completely gone!  I truly wanted only the best for him.  I wanted him to know that he was greatly loved.  My daughter also told this boy these same things...that she forgave him.  The doors of oppression and misery were unlocked that day in that room, in my heart and hopefully in the heart of that young man also.

Daughters

Saying Good-bye to Emma.  We love you!

When Steve and I had our first daughter, and then another, and then another, and then another, we pretty much thought that we better learn how to work with and raise girls.  I learned how to do hair, we braced ourselves for prom dress shopping and wedding planning.  We not only had our own four girls, but they had their friends over so then we really would have a houseful of girls....girls beget more girls, we found out!  Now we have the honor and privilege of working with a group of beautiful young women who are not only learning so much about themselves, but also teaching others and teaching me and Steve as well.  Teaching us how to show compassion, love, patience, honesty, forgiveness...and seeing the true beauty within each and every soul.  I am learning how to see with God's eyes, the unconditional love that we always read about...the pure love of Christ.  These beautiful young ladies are our daughters too.  We pray for them, worry about them, hope for them, support them, feed them, talk with them, laugh with them and admire their strength to do very hard things.  We have seen several go on to bigger and--hopefully, prayerfully--better things.  We send them off with tools in their handbag of tricks to pull out and use against unhealthy triggers and patterns of thought and action. We watch them advance, and sometimes get setback...two steps forward, one step back--but always, one step at a time.  Keep on moving, keep on moving...forward.  Let go, and let God.  Sometimes they leave because they have graduated the program.  Yeah! We are so happy and excited for them.  Sometimes they leave because of other reasons, and we have to let them go with our love and confidence in their abilities ringing in their ears.  We give them our phone number and make them promise to call us if they get in trouble or need help in any way.  And then we trust, and pray, and love.