Mother's Retreat Journal Entry Week #2

In what ways do I hide my light and why?

I don’t conscientiously hide my light.  If I do hide it, I do so by choosing not to do something, rather than choosing to do something.  That is, I don’t write, or I don’t dance or I don’t plan excellent meals or empower my children, etc. Distraction, disorganization, or not believing it is important are all strong reasons. Or I know it is important at one point, but that sense of importance fades if it is not immediately before me.  My memory dulls the prick of conscience or immediacy.

One of the things that I do which I haven’t ever thought of as hiding my light, but which might fall into the category, is “airing dirty laundry.”  That is, I tell people about the hard times in my life—my struggles and failures, etc.  Sometimes it shocks people a bit, I’m afraid, or worries them.  Perhaps I tell too much too freely, and it gives people a poor impression of me.  Because I never, ever list my accomplishments.  I have strengths along with the weaknesses, of course, but I don’t air those.  Just the weaknesses.  Is that hiding my light?  I don’t think so. . .

That just brought up another way of hiding my light—if my light is the Light of Christ, or my testimony of Christ and having him in my countenance, then anytime I sin, or get distracted by what is unimportant instead of doing first things first and keeping things simple, I hide/darken that light.  That is a light that I don’t mind showing off, either!  That is, I would like people to know of my testimony and see it in my life.  I would be happy to tell about my testimony, and Jesus Christ, etc.  That is a light/strength that I DO share!  (Or try to.) Becoming a better missionary by talking freely about the happy, positive parts of my life and hopefully eliciting questions is something I could work on. 

And that makes me think of a sad thing—I told my sisters and sister-in-law how hard motherhood is, with the intent that they wouldn’t feel bad when it was hard for them, too.  But then it seems like I may have scared them off of it to some degree, because they all decided to work instead of being full-time mothers. Both my brother and sister mentioned to me that my “warnings” really affected them.  What have I done? I didn’t mean to say “This sucks, don’t attempt it!” I meant to say “This is hard—expect it to be hard and don’t expect perfection, and I think it will be much happier that way.” What fickle things words are.  They betray me incessantly.