Tag Archives: charity

GCBC Week 5: “Opportunities to Do Good” by President Henry B. Eyring

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This week’s talk is “Opportunities to Do Good” by President Henry B. Eyring.  My family is going to study it tomorrow in Family Home Evening and try to come up with ideas to seek out more service.  I think we can come up with some ways to make sacrifices and bless others’ lives more than we have been doing.

What do you like about this talk?  What messages and goals stand out to you.  Please share comments in the conversation below.  If this is your first time to General Conference Book Club,  go here to learn more.

GCBC Week 24: Charity Never Faileth

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Guess what?  We did it.  We finished all four sessions of general conference.  To those of you who made it this far and are still hanging with us, congratulations!  For the next two weeks, we’re going to study some of my favorite talks from the General Relief Society session and the Priesthood session.  This week’s talk is my all-time favorite talk ever by President Monson.  I loved it.  I watched it on TV and I can still remember exactly how I felt as I lay on my couch and listened to his prophetic counsel.  He nailed something that women really struggle with.  It’s a fantastic talk, and well worth your study time this week:

“Charity Never Faileth”
by President Thomas S. Monson

 

“Rather than being judgmental and critical of each other, may we have the pure love of Christ for our fellow travelers in this journey through life.”

Share in the comments some things you learned or appreciated as you studied this talk.  If this is your first time visiting the General Conference Book Club, click here for more information.

Perhaps it’s time I analyze the world in general.

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I haven’t done a real post in about a month.  Life got busy, but life is always busy.  Sometimes it gets so busy your brains almost fall out.  That’s where I went, but not because I’m some psycho over-scheduler or anything… stuff just happens.  Trips to see family, trips for family to see you, Christmas (enough said), children in hospital, loved ones in hospital, and somehow all the regular routines and demands of life don’t take a break during that time (food prep, laundry, housekeeping, obligations at school and church, etc.).  I’m not complaining because a quick look back at your own calendar probably reveals a really similar cacophony of activity.

Anyway, when life gets a little …. shall we say “challenging?”…there are usually a lot of lessons to be learned.  Here’s some of the stuff I’ve been thinking about lately.  (I’m not promising it’s profound or unique, but it’s where I am right now.)

  • When things are so busy, it’s hard to maintain function.  This helps me understand why it’s important to keep our lives as simple and focused-on-the-essentials as possible.  It almost leaves room for crisis, which is sure to occasionally come along.
  • Also, we can go into superhuman mode for a little while and accomplish more than seems possible.  It’s a small kind of miracle that meets the needs at hand, but we cannot maintain daily life in that kind of mode and expect to … here it comes again … function.  Our minds and bodies reach a point where we push their limits and they need rest.  They need recovery.  We have to be able to dial it all back and take care of our basic needs so that we can be useful and helpful again.  For me, I call that limit “oatmeal brain.”  It’s where my mind is so tired of problem-solving that it needs a nap.  And chocolate.
  • People are good.  It’s an amazing thing to watch when family, friends, and even acquaintances step up and rally around someone in crisis.  My brother was in the hospital for 6 days last week.  I’ve witnessed people making visits, preparing food for, offering blessings, sending up prayers, writing encouraging notes, providing childcare and even cleaning and moving all out of love and concern for someone who is suffering.  I understand how busy life can be, so it’s a beautiful sacrifice to watch and a calming reminder that there are still lots and lots of wonderful people left in the world.
  • People are complicated.  Everyone has private struggles and heavy burdens.  Those challenges affect how people see the world and interact with others, sometimes in very intricate and mysterious ways.  It’s easy for us to judge others because our own heartscape and mindscape are so different.  Why doesn’t he just….?  Why can’t she …? It’s way more complicated than that, and we just don’t get it.  It’s a miracle that we’re able to have healthy relationships at all, but I can only attribute that to the grace of Christ and charity– the ability to see others as He sees them.

“I consider charity—or “the pure love of Christ”—to be the opposite of criticism and judging. In speaking of charity, I do not at this moment have in mind the relief of the suffering through the giving of our substance. That, of course, is necessary and proper. Tonight, however, I have in mind the charity that manifests itself when we are tolerant of others and lenient toward their actions, the kind of charity that forgives, the kind of charity that is patient.

I have in mind the charity that impels us to be sympathetic, compassionate, and merciful, not only in times of sickness and affliction and distress but also in times of weakness or error on the part of others.”  – President Thomas S. Monson

  • This is even (maybe especially) true in family relationships.  Maybe part of the reason that God wants us to have families is 1. to get to know someone on an intimate level (faults and all) and still love them, 2. to realize that despite all our familiarity, there’s more to them than we see, and 3. to rely on God to help us treat them the way they need to be treated.  Our Heavenly Father, after all, knows our minds and our hearts and even our nothingness, and loves us with a love that is greater than we can comprehend.  He succors us individually in just the ways we need most.  He shows us how family should be done.  This is hard to do.  Really, really hard.  Especially when we have plenty of our own challenges to deal with.  Maybe this is naive of me, but I think that as we reach out to others in mercy and love, our own suffering will find some refuge and relief.  I just know that we need each other and we need the Lord.
  • Lest you think I sit around having deep thoughts all the time, I’ve also learned that if you put a Lindt dark chocolate truffle and white chocolate truffle in your mouth at the same time, it tastes satisfyingly like a milk chocolate truffle.  I’ve learned that children also have a temporary period of monster-like behavior following a period of vacation.  And I’ve decided that right before a child gets baptized, Satan must get a 90-day free trial with them just so they actually have a good pile of sins to wash away on the big day.

So how about you?  Has life been whispering any lessons to you lately?

I’m expecting an angel to ring my doorbell in about 5 minutes

Posted in Diapers, Divinity by

I’ll spare you most of the details of how miserable the last 24 hours have been. On Monday, Natalie had a 2-hour consultation with a pediatric urologist at the local children’s hospital in an attempt to stop the onslaught of urinary tract infections. While we were there, she peed in a cup and was pronounced clean. By that evening, she was starting to fever. Again. By morning, the fever was rising. I got her in to get some labs done and -surprise, surprise- it looked like there was some bacteria in her urine. There has been much medicine wrangling, shivering, vomiting, and general misery. This morning her temperature was 105.7. Seriously?

I had to take her in to get some shots, which she was not happy about, and in the struggle to get her to put her shoes on (that were all too tight, or too bumpy, or too “weird”) I told her that we can get her some new shoes another time, but please just put them on so we can get to the doctor on time. She got shots in both legs and was not pleased. She demanded that we buy her some new shoes on the way home. Even though I know it’s probably not the wisest idea, I decided to appease her and fulfill my promise and maybe ease some of her misery. (Note to anyone who’s thinking about calling the CDC: UTIs are not contagious even if they have a fever.) We tried on a few shoes, but that wasn’t going well, so I convinced her to go home and come back another day when she felt better. I tucked her into her carseat and covered her with her blanket and headed home.

A few minutes later, Matt called me to tell me that a lady called him from my cell phone saying she found my purse. Oh great. He then told me that she’s bringing it to my house. After a day like I’ve had, her honesty and kindness are a real blessing. I’m so glad that there are people who will respond with charity, even when they have no idea who I am or what I might need.

“I have spoken here of heavenly help, of angels dispatched to bless us in time of need. But when we speak of those who are instruments in the hand of God, we are reminded that not all angels are from the other side of the veil. Some of them we walk with and talk with—here, now, every day. Some of them reside in our own neighborhoods. Some of them gave birth to us, and in my case, one of them consented to marry me. Indeed heaven never seems closer than when we see the love of God manifested in the kindness and devotion of people so good and so pure that angelic is the only word that comes to mind. . . . My beloved brothers and sisters, I testify of angels, both the heavenly and the mortal kind. In doing so I am testifying that God never leaves us alone, never leaves us unaided in the challenges that we face.” — Jeffrey R. Holland, “The Ministry of Angels,” Ensign, Nov 2008, 29–31

I hope when my doorbell rings, I can express how much it means to me.  Any wagers on whether I can do it without crying?  These are the kinds of days you can’t make it through without knowing that God is watching, helping and caring.  And now I know He is, because he sent me an angel.