I once heard Sister Julie Beck say that we will never have enough time and energy to do all the good things our heart desires to do. Amen. It’s a curse of the nurturing way of womanhood; we want to help in so many ways, and our to-do lists become so long, but we just can’t do it all.
I’ve been thinking of the words to this hymn:
There are chances for work all around just now,
Opportunities right in our way.
Do not let them pass by, saying, “Sometime I’ll try,”
But go and do something today.
’Tis noble of man to work and to give;
Love’s labor has merit alone.
Only he who does something helps others to live.
To God each good work will be known.
I wanted to pass along a few opportunities for service or help that I’ve been made aware of recently. I can help a little with some, but not with all myself, so I’m sharing them with you. Maybe something will stand out to you as a way you can help, and with a team of us contributing just a little, we can add up to make a difference.
–> There is a scholarship available for single mothers to study at LDS Business College. Apparently, the funds are running low and they really want to be able to help struggling single mothers to have access to an education. I think it’s a great cause. I tried really hard to make the widget work, but it was not meant to be. However, good ol’ blog pal DeNae is hosting up some incentives for making a contribution to this fund, so feel free to hop over there and contribute through that route. Please do. This video shares one success story of the fund.
–> Also, for any of you nursing mothers who may not have much time or money to donate to good causes, consider checking out Helping Hands Bank (for breast milk), where you can share your … um, abundance. It’s another easy way to make a big difference.
–> Maybe you’re already familiar with The Vineyard, but it’s a place, sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where you can donate your time and talents to building the kingdom in simple ways, like photography or language translation, or editing or technology. It also has a list of church-sponsored charities and ways that you can contribute. Definitely worth checking out.
–> One reader wanted me to pass along her and her husband’s recent attempts to produce good media that can be used in Family Home Evening lessons or for children’s entertainment and learning. Here’s a link to find out more about that.
A blessing of duty and love.
A brief testimonial.
Remember this talk we studied last week for GCBC?
Well.
If you get a prompting to do something for or say something to someone, and it seems kind of odd and you feel kind of foolish,
Do it anyway.
If your husband says, “Won’t [she] think you’re kind of weird if you do that?” and you say, “Well, yah, maybe,”
Do it anyway.
It won’t take long at all for you to figure out that God knew exactly what he was doing when he made you think those random thoughts. You’ll learn for yourself that He can trust you, and that feels really good.
The end.
GCBC Week 6: “Counsel to Youth” by President Boyd K. Packer
I was surprised that I hadn’t heard anything about this week’s talk yet until I checked this morning and realized that I never actually pushed the publish button yesterday. Sorry about that. I guess I had just saved the draft.
So we all know, of course, that counsel to “youth” is chock-full of counsel to the not-so-young, too, right? I mean, what’s good for the gosling is good for the goose. So I loved listening to this with two sets of ears: one as an adult that can benefit from this counsel in my own life, and another as a parent who will play a hands-on role in raising the next generation. Both sets of ears learned some really important lessons. I’m excited to study it more in depth throughout this week.
| Counsel to Youth by President Boyd K. Packer |
“I say again that youth today are being raised in enemy territory with a declining standard of morality. But as a servant of the Lord, I promise that you will be protected and shielded from the attacks of the adversary if you will heed the promptings that come from the Holy Spirit.”
Your general conference book club participation so far has been phenomenal, so thank you. I love reading and sharing your comments. What lessons did your ears learn from this talk this time around? Please share your insights in the comment thread below.
To anyone who is checking out GCBC for the first time, the goal is to read one General Conference talk a week and discuss it together as an on-line “book club.” If you want to learn more, go here, and join the discussion.
I found this in my inbox this morning. More counsel to youth from Pres. Packer just last night. Check it out if you have the time.
Find-A-Friend Friday: The Finale
It has been so fun to get to know the wonderful women that are floating around out there in the blogosphere. Can you believe that we’ve met over forty amazing women? I have been impressed, uplifted, and inspired as I’ve read about your families, your testimonies, and your trials. I can sincerely say that many times, getting to know you has helped restore my faith in humanity because you are evidence that God’s work and priorities are still rolling forth even when we see headlines every day of the moral decline of our society. That reassurance has strengthened me. Thank you.
This will be the last week of the Find-A-Friend Friday feature here on Diapers and Divinity because even though it has been such a satisfying run, I’m just a little burnt out. I think there may be a handful of people left who had indicated interest in participating, and I hope you can forgive me if you still had not been picked by random.org. I’ve found myself having so much less time at home than I enjoyed during the summer months or in the years before my children started going to three different schools and I became their bus. I’m just struggling to get everything done, so I need to let some things go. I’ll still be around, but with the exception of General Conference Book Club, I’ll just be a lot less structured.
So, I have one last friend I want to talk about before FFF officially signs off. In fact, he’s part of the reason I need to make more time for myself. His name is Jesus Christ. He’s my brother, my Savior, and my very best friend. No one knows me better than he does, which makes it all the more miraculous how much he loves me. You probably know him too, and that’s one of the coolest things about him– his ability to love each of us with infinite intimacy. One of my favorite classic talks that I’ve returned to often is the first conference talk given by Elder James E. Faust when he was called into the Quorum of the Seventy. It is called “A Personal Relationship with the Savior.”
“We should earnestly seek not just to know about the Master, but to strive, as He invited, to be one with Him (see John 17:21), to “be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man” (Eph. 3:16). We may not feel a closeness with Him because we think of Him as being far away, or our relationship may not be sanctifying because we do not think of Him as a real person.”
He then goes on to speak of five simple things that we can do to grow closer to the Savior:
First: A daily communion involving prayer.
Second: A daily selfless service to another.
Third: A daily striving for an increased obedience and perfection in our lives.
Fourth: A daily acknowledgment of His divinity.
Fifth: A daily study of the scriptures.
The common thread in each ingredient is the word “daily.” I’m ashamed to admit that in all my busy-ness, I’ve let some of these things slide, and I can feel it start to wear on me. I need to regain the strength that comes from putting Him first, my truest friend. President Faust declared it so beautifully:
“It is my testimony that we are facing difficult times. We must be courageously obedient. My witness is that we will be called upon to prove our spiritual stamina, for the days ahead will be filled with affliction and difficulty. But with the assuring comfort of a personal relationship with the Savior, we will be given a calming courage. . . . I know and I testify with an absolute awareness in every fiber and innermost recess of my being that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Divine Redeemer, and the Son of God. May we be obedient to His wish, ‘Come unto me thy Savior’ (D&C 19:41), I pray humbly in His holy and sacred name. Amen.”
I feel confident that if I can put these steps more fully into practice, I’ll never have wait for Fridays to find a friend. This finale post is an invitation to join me in getting to know the most perfect Friend a little better every day of the week. We all need Him.
101 reasons why I should have lost at least 10 pounds by now.
You may get to the end of this post and wonder if I was being a tad bit sarcastic and bitter. Let me help you take the guesswork out of that: Yes. Today’s post ranks very, very low on the “Divinity” scale.
I am not now nor have I ever been obsessed with weight. I’ve always been an advocate of Elder Holland’s advice to “please be more accepting of yourselves, including your body shape and style, with a little less longing to look like someone else.” I am not the least bit motivated by Hollywood harlots starlets because they are not even real people. (At least the almost always fabricated versions of them that are shoved in our faces.)
However.
Since I moved to Utah, for reasons I cannot for the life of me figure out, I all of the sudden gained 20 pounds. (Yes, I’ve had my thyroid checked and there have been no other changes in my normal health or any medications or anything like that. I’m practically a psychic in anticipating your questions.) I swear it’s Utah’s fault, but since I can’t really beat up Utah, I’ve got to figure out what to do about it. It has nothing to do with wanting to compete with all the people around me who live for yoga, decorate their cars with 26.2 and Ragnar stickers, and shop for their jeans in the single-digit-number section. I mean, despite the fact that they are probably part-alien and I kind of want to hate them, I’ve been surprised that many of them are actually really nice people. Dangit. So it’s not about that. It’s just about wanting to be the normal kind of me and not a foreign-body version of myself. Oh, and because I really want the clothes I already own to FIT me. Is that really too much to ask?? Really? Well, apparently it is. I will now proceed to list the 101 reasons I should have lost at least 10 pounds by now.
- I have exercised at least 30 minutes a day for five days a week since school started NINE weeks ago. I have never had that kind of discipline since my college days.
- I even started jogging a little bit a couple weeks ago. As I stated in my Facebook status: Cue the apocalypse.
- I created an account at myfitnesspal.com and I have tracked pretty regularly my calorie intake and exercise to try to keep it toward a healthy daily total of net calories.
- I switched to skim milk. That alone deserves at least a pound or two.
- When I’ve met up with friends for lunch or dinner, I try to order smaller and smarter.
- I’ve tried to make better choices for cooking dinner.
- Once a week, I do one-on-one dates with each of my kids and it’s usually to a cute little bakery or something. For a while now, I’ve only ordered something for them, and I’ve just had a bite, or ordered nothing for myself, or like TODAY, my son got a sugar cookie and I ordered a half Spinach salad.
- During the entire week of Halloween, I only ate 6 of those little mini candies. Okay, and one caramel apple (maybe two). But let me tell you, that took some major restraint when sugar stuff is EVERYwhere.
- I started ordering green smoothies when I crave buying something sweet. Did you get that? Green-freakin’-smoothies.
- The Great Pumpkin came to our house on Halloween night. Our kids picked out their 10 favorite pieces of candy, put the rest in a bucket in the back yard, and during the night the Great Pumpkin came and swept it away, leaving a small toy in its place. ALL the candy gone from our house. To clarify, the Great Pumpkin did not eat ANY of it.
- I have exercised rigorously enough in the last 9 weeks that at least a few days a week, I have sore muscles.
- Yesterday I went to an exercise class called “Boot Camp.” I cannot, I repeat–cannot, do push ups, yet this woman made us do like 2,000 of them. And leg lifts that made my abs catch fire. I can handle all the jumping jacks and fast running in place and such, but any exercises that actually require any muscle strength are a joke. Last night I could not roll over in bed without pain.
- When I crave snacks during the day, I’m trying to eat stuff like a handful of nuts, some carrot sticks, Greek yogurt (I think it’s nasty), or whole-wheat toast.
- I almost never drink soda, diet or otherwise. Maybe once a month I’ll have a root beer. I always drink water and occasionally milk. I should drink more water than I do, but I’m trying to do better. (Actually, in the spirit of full disclosure, in the last week when it turned cold, I did have a couple hot chocolates.)
- Except for that one time at The Melting Pot like 10 years ago, when they dumped half a glass of white wine in my cheese fondue, I’ve never even tasted alcohol in my life.
- That’s not really 101 reasons, but whatever.
Anyway, I’m pleased really, really ticked off to announce that after almost 3 months of this kind of regimen, I have actually gained almost 4 pounds. Don’t try to be all “Oh, that’s totally because you’ve gained muscle,” because if that’s true then why are all my clothes just as tight as they were when I started? So basically this post is just me saying that I’m mad at the universe and I’ve been robbed.
I know you’re dying to give me advice like go Vegan, eliminate carbs, train for a marathon, drink protein shakes, put all your food in a blender with ingredients you can’t buy at normal stores or whatever. Just to keep it real, though, I probably will not listen to you unless you are actually a nutritionist, personal trainer, or certified seer. Because, trust me, the kind of effort I’ve put in should have brought about some kind of difference. So I’m pretty skeptical right now.
I’m not going to quit, mostly because I’m stubborn. I just needed to vent. I just got off the phone with my sister, and I told her I’ll probably feel humiliated after I push the “Publish” button. So be it. This is the part where you say stuff that’s either encouraging or empathetic. Otherwise, I remind you that I am a grumpy woman who is denying herself chocolate at the moment, and I hold the power to the delete button.
I am acutely aware that on the blessings vs. trials continuum, I am still riding very high. My life is abundant, and I don’t face the thousands of horrible thing that many others are suffering. I’m still giving myself permission to be bugged, though.
Ahem. Have a nice day.
Diapers and Divinity 