Monthly Archives: October 2010

Why our FHE made Satan happy

Posted in Diapers, Divinity by

Last night we had the worst Family Home Evening ever.  I commented on Facebook that dead prophets probably rolled over in their graves.

We had a little bit of a sass problem yesterday, and at one point Clark even took a swing at me.  This is, of course, completely unacceptable. Matt got home from work and I was exhausted.  He was exhausted.  We both lay down on our bed bemoaning our exhausted states.  Matt suggested we have a “lying down” Family Home Evening, and it knew right from the start it wasn’t going to go well, but I was too lazy to get up and do anything different.  (Feel free to put this away in your “How to be pathetic” file.)  So we called all the kids into our room, basically to gather around our corpses and be instructed.  They made paper-bag puppets of themselves and then Matt said we were going to talk about respect and responsibility.  After several mind-numbing attempts to get them to define those terms, we tried to think of examples from the scriptures of respect.  Clark volunteered that when Nehor killed Gideon, that wasn’t very respectful.  Right.  This led to a long list of people beating, killing, and basically destroying one another and pointing out as a tangent that “that wasn’t respectful.”  I lay there (yes, lay there) rolling my eyes.

Then Matt directed a puppet show that basically re-enacted the way Clark had treated me earlier when I told him he couldn’t have a playdate with his friend, only the children thought that the representation of their previous poor behavior was hilarious.  They couldn’t wait until it was their turn to be the puppet and yell at and hit their mother.  So our family home evening turned into an unfettered all-out paper-bag puppet brawl of people screaming at and beating on each other until the puppets lay in tattered shreds on the ground.  Matt wearily tried to make some summary statement about how it’s important to be respectful and then we released our feral children to go play something else.  We stood in the kitchen a few minutes later and looked at each other with dumbfounded disbelief.  “That was such a bad family home evening,” Matt said.  We tried to laugh, but we were too tired.

We were supposed to do P90X after the children were in bed, but Matt fell asleep on the couch, so I just ate a chocolate cookie instead.  That’s just as good, right?  I stayed up late watching episodes of Dr. G., Medical Examiner.  Does anyone else do ridiculous stuff like that even though the only thing you want to do is sleep?  Sometimes I just confuse myself.

Elder David A. Bednar said:

“Sometimes Sister Bednar and I wondered if our efforts to do these spiritually essential things were worthwhile. Now and then verses of scripture were read amid outbursts such as “He’s touching me!” “Make him stop looking at me!” “Mom, he’s breathing my air!” Sincere prayers occasionally were interrupted with giggling and poking. And with active, rambunctious boys, family home evening lessons did not always produce high levels of edification. At times Sister Bednar and I were exasperated because the righteous habits we worked so hard to foster did not seem to yield immediately the spiritual results we wanted and expected.

Today if you could ask our adult sons what they remember about family prayer, scripture study, and family home evening, I believe I know how they would answer. They likely would not identify a particular prayer or a specific instance of scripture study or an especially meaningful family home evening lesson as the defining moment in their spiritual development. What they would say they remember is that as a family we were consistent. . . .

Each family prayer, each episode of family scripture study, and each family home evening is a brushstroke on the canvas of our souls. No one event may appear to be very impressive or memorable. But just as the yellow and gold and brown strokes of paint complement each other and produce an impressive masterpiece, so our consistency in doing seemingly small things can lead to significant spiritual results. “Wherefore, be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work. And out of small things proceedeth that which is great” (D&C 64:33). Consistency is a key principle as we lay the foundation of a great work in our individual lives and as we become more diligent and concerned in our own homes.”

Man, I hope he’s right.

GCBC Week 3: Stay on the Path

Posted in General Conference Book Club by

“Stay on the Path”
Sister Rosemary M. Wixom
Primary General President
Saturday Morning Session

Sister Wixom’s talk is a great reminder about the sacred responsibility that parents have to anchor themselves and their children on the path of righteousness.  She uses several different phrases that highlight both the urgency and the purpose of spiritual parental guidance.

“If they understand the Plan, and who they are, they will not fear. … We begin to make the plan known to our children when we hold tight to the iron rod ourselves.”

“The world will teach our children if we do not.”

“When we are intentional about holding them and teaching them of Heavenly Father’s plan through prayer and scriptures, they will come to know where they came from, why they are here, and where they are going.”

I was struck by how important it is to be purposeful in our parenting, to take the seemingly meaningless experiences of the day and let them point children toward a better understanding of gospel truths and their own important role in God’s plan.  Her message reminded me of several previous talks about intentional parenting that have inspired me as well.  Perhaps you may want to read some of these this week to enhance your study of Sister Wixom’s talk:

A Prayer for the Children by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

More Diligent and Concerned at Home by Elder David A. Bednar

Watching with All Perseverance by Elder David A. Bednar

Nourishing and Protecting the Family by Sister Julie B. Beck (link to download and print talk)

How about you? What are your favorite moments or quotes from Sister Wixom’s talk?  Is there anything you learned here that you had not considered before?  What stood out to you as you studied it?  And, most importantly, what did it make you feel or want to do?

Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Also, if you would like a GCBC button for your blog, you can grab the code below.

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Blog post, light.

Posted in Uncategorized by

Things have been a little heavy on D&D lately (that’s Diapers and Divinity, not Dungeons and Dragons, although we do have that How To Train Your Dragon party going on tomorrow), so I thought I’d focus today on some of the lighter day-to-day stuff.

  • I’ve done P90X for 3 days and I’m still alive.  I’m pretty sure that means I’m doing it wrong.  I’m even kind of doing the diet portion of it, which is basically focusing on healthy foods and avoiding fats, sweets, etc.  Not rocket science, but just as hard.
  • Isn’t that mine rescue business in Chile so cool (except for the ding-dong who invited his mistress and his wife to the rescue)?  My favorite quote from the event: ‎”I think I had extraordinary luck. I was with God and with the devil. And I reached out for God.” – Mario Sepulveda, rescued miner.
  • I finally watched last week’s episode of Project Runway, and I just don’t understand why people are so mean.  If you’re really as talented as you claim you are, can’t you rely on the merit of your own work without trying to throw everyone around you down?
  • My friend Shantel is coming to visit me today from Minnesota.  I’m really excited to have a visitor who’s a good friend, who knows me, and I can have some quality girl time with.  So far the only thing on the schedule is taking her to Cafe Rio (that is totally not in the P90X rules, and I don’t care.)
  • Grant wrote a book about spiders and made 20 copies of it because he’s sure all his friends will want to buy one.  I tried to tell him they probably don’t want to spend their money on facts about spiders that he wrote in his notebook, but I felt mean.  Anyone in the market for a real masterpiece?
  • Natalie has another UTI.  Can you guess how happy I am about that?  We’re getting a referral to Primary Children’s Hospital and I’m hoping we can work with a pediatric urologist that can figure out why this keeps happening.  (She’s been to the hospital three times in Minneapolis for testing and it always comes back normal.)
  • No matter how hard I try, I can never get all my laundry done in one day.  I even have that mega-sized washing machine now, so it shouldn’t be that hard.  I think I have domestic ADD.
  • I’m liking the fall sunshine.  The view out my window right now is lovely.
  • I need more sleep.
  • Last night, Matt got stuck in traffic so I had to coach the first 25 minutes of Grant’s flag football practice.  I did a fine job if I do say so myself.  I guess that intramural flag football team I was on at BYU paid off.
  • Did you know that you can download all the music from general conference as .mp3 files to put on your iPod?  I love it for Sundays.  Here’s a link to download it all, or you can get individual songs at conference.lds.org.  Click on “Show Music” at the top.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Self-mastery

Posted in Divinity by

I’m perhaps dipping my toe into a pool of controversy, but I’m going to try to express some thoughts I’ve had amidst all the reaction to President Packer’s recent conference talk.  First of all, many people have assumed that he was referring to a single issue (homosexuality), when a more careful study reveals that he was addressing many and any of the plagues that men and women struggle with.  He acknowledges that they are tragically difficult and promises that the power of the priesthood can help God’s children find their way out of dark places.

I believe the underlying message (not only of his talk, but of Heavenly Father’s plan for us) is self-mastery . . . with God’s help.

Our eternal destiny as children of God is an immense and incomprehensible concept, but I think it can be simply wrapped up in 1.) our sanctification through the blood of Jesus Christ and 2.) our roles in eternal families.  Jesus Christ and family (which by default, includes marriage) are key elements of our exaltation.  God has given us both commandments and covenants as guideposts toward all the blessings that both can offer us.

Therefore, it seems obvious that some of the greatest challenges we face in our life are temptations designed to remove us from the Spirit of Christ and distance us from righteous family relationships.  We are human– spirits in temporal bodies– and we “naturally” have desires, urges, impulses, laziness, etc. that make it easy for us to give into temptation and ignore commandments and covenants.  Unfortunately, for this reason, “the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father. (Mosiah 3:19)”

A basic restatement of “putteth off the natural man” is to resist the temptations and desires that take us away from God, and “becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ” is simply a reminder to repent, be forgiven and recommit.

The natural man is something we’re born with (it’s part of mortal experience), but so is the ability to overcome it.  There is no inborn automatic, uncontrollable surrender to temptation.  There is, however, an inborn spirit child of God with a remarkable power of agency.

The invitations of the natural man are many, and are often tailored to individuals:

selfishness
vanity
pornography
infidelity
homosexuality
laziness
substance abuse
obsession with distractions (pop culture, computers, gaming, motorcycles, other hobbies, etc.)
and the list goes on…

What makes me uncomfortable about all the lashing out regarding the homosexuality issue is that it completely diminishes the struggle that every single person is trying to make to overcome their temptations of the natural man.  There are married men who look away when scantily-clad women walk past on the sidewalk.  There are single men who turn off the computer when they feel tempted to look at pornography, and they exert themselves greatly to keep their thoughts clean.  There are women who struggle to overcome alcoholism and dig deep to find the strength to do what’s right when they really, really want to take a drink.  There are single adults, both male and female, who resist sexual advances because, even though they would love to feel loved, they believe in and live by the law of chastity.  Others do not marry because they are not presented with an opportunity to do so in the way they feel is right.  For many of them, this could mean years and years of celibacy and some significant loneliness.  There are those who struggle with social anxiety, but try to overcome their fears and do their home teaching and reach out to others in service.  Each of these carry a burden that is intensely personal.  All of these people have “natural” desires to give in or give up, but they don’t.  Many of them may have struggled with these issues since childhood and, yet, they strive to master themselves because of their love for Christ or family or even self.  They have a testimony of commandments and covenants, they sacrifice for the things that matter most to them, and they obey.

It is “natural” that when we desire to do something, we want it to be our right to do it.  I believe President Packer was saying, in part, that we should all spend more effort doing what’s right, and less effort trying to redefine what is right.  When it comes to commandments, there is no double standard.  Regardless of the audience, each commandment is affixed to blessings and consequences.  The Lord asks obedience of all his children because he wants to bless all of his children; he does not target certain populations.  Gay, straight, married, single, avoiding, recovering, poor, wealthy, all– He expects us to use our powerful gift of agency to choose obedience over temptation.

Self-mastery is hard.  It is never the easy choice, but it is the easiest way to be blessed.  Like President Packer said at the conclusion of his talk, the Lord will work with us as we try to master ourselves.  He will even heal us where we are wounded, and He will do so with great kindness, tenderness, mercy and love.  He is, after all, the greatest Master that ever lived.

GCBC Week 2: Because of Your Faith

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“Because of Your Faith”
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland
Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
October 2010 General Conference
Saturday Morning Session

This is it, friends:  the official beginning of a new round of General Conference Book Club!  I am excited to have so many new people join us, and it’s sincerely my hope that participation in this book club will help us personally in our gospel study goals, and collectively as we share testimony, encouragement, and insight.  We will begin with Elder Holland’s beautiful talk, “Because of Your Faith.”  It seemed to me that the goal of this talk was simply validation– the bearing of testimony that our righteous efforts are seen by a loving Heavenly Father and appreciated by Him, by His servants, and by His church.  It was a lovely reminder that whatever contributions we make, no matter how small or insignificant or unnoticed they may seem, they are puzzle pieces in building God’s kingdom and in building ourselves.  When we offer our hearts and our service to Him, we are becoming what He wants us to be.  And He is pleased.

“I have struggled to find an adequate way to tell you how loved of God you are and how grateful we on this stand are for you. I am trying to be voice for the very angels of heaven in thanking you for every good thing you have ever done, for every kind word you have ever said, for every sacrifice you have ever made in extending to someone—to anyone—the beauty and blessings of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

What are your favorite moments or quotes from this talk?  Is there anything you learned here that you had not considered before?  What stood out to you as you studied it?  And, most importantly, what did it make you feel or want to do?

Please share your thoughts in the comments below.  The comment thread is set up so that you can comment on and reply to each other’s comments as well.  Below each comment is a “reply” button.  If you are interested in receiving everyone’s responses, there is a box to check in the comment form that allows you to get all the follow-up comments by email.  Or you can come back and check out the progress of the post at anytime.

When you click on the link at the top of this post to read Elder Holland’s talk, you’ll see a page that looks like this:

Notice that on the right side, there are links that allow you to watch the video, listen to audio, print, download, etc.  There is also a link to the Study Notebook feature so that you can highlight and comment on the talk “in the margins.”