Seeking courage

Today in church the Lord answered my unspoken prayers.  I’d spoken with Sam last night about my feelings of sadness and failure.  I feel discouraged about how easily I act unkindly, how easily I am grumpy, impatient, and angry.  I even hit Dorothea the other day when she didn’t stop whining about an easy job I’d asked her to do.  I was appalled.  I feel repulsed by myself—by the anger and impatience, by the poor mothering , when I know better.  I long to escape this fallen body and the evil of my telestial nature.  My heart desires to express its loving, tender, nurturing feelings, to encourage and see the best in my children, to help them see it and to reach their potential.  I am sure I was a better mother two years ago than I am now, and it rips me up to know it.  Why continue?  What is the point, if I am, despite the time and my best efforts, actually getting worse!?  I fasted mid-week to try to subdue my offensive feelings/actions and let my spirit through.  It helped—at least I didn’t hit or yell.  I took the sacrament today hoping to be forgiven, which is what I’ve been praying for this week. 

So, in sacrament meeting (fast and testimony meeting), I was grateful for some wisdom that was shared:

Take solace in your family.  When I just enjoy my children and have no other agenda for that time, there is joy and peace.  This week as I’ve prayed about how to spend the day (snow days—the kids have been home from school) just spending time having fun with the children has been repeatedly high on the list.  This surprised me a bit—surely there is something more productive I should be doing?  The good Lord knows.

Giving service brings meaning and purpose to life.  I’ve been looking for something to enjoy in this life and trying to remember what I enjoy—what there is to enjoy.  It seems like the things I enjoy more and more are things that are to be had more fully in heaven.  Family, beauty, righteousness, truth, love, etc.  But giving service—improving other people’s lives now, here, in this veil of tears—that is something to be done on earth and well worth doing.  That is something to give purpose, joy, and even pleasure.   I even had a chance to give a very small service, when one of the children in the primary class I was substitute teaching began to cry and couldn’t/wouldn’t stop.  They were quiet tears, and I didn’t know until someone pointed it out.  Then, I could simply put my arm around him and help him find his dad.  I hope he had a better day because of it.

Change happens slowly.  Sam actually brought this learning home to me, because it was given in Sunday School, and I was in primary.  Ezra T. Benson wrote: “. . .we must be careful, as we seek to become more and more godlike, that we do not become discouraged and lose hope.  Becoming Christ-like is a lifetime pursuit and very often involves growth and change that is slow, almost imperceptible. . . Day by day [we] move closer to the Lord, little realizing [we] are building a godlike life.  [We] live quiet lives of goodness, service and commitment. . . like the Lamanites, who the Lord said “were baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost, and they knew it not.”  Again, I am reminded of a talk I never actually heard, which James (my brother) gave and later related to me.  He talked about a man who decided to start running and laid out a route for himself.  There was a hill he had to climb, and he put it at the beginning of the route, when he would be most fresh.  Still it was a challenge.  Nevertheless, he stuck to his route and built muscle and stamina, so that it began to grow easier.  He was pleased with his progress, and decided to add to the route, to stay challenged.  Over time he continued to improve and then add to the route.  At last, satisfied with his level of fitness, he decided to reverse the route, so that the hill he had previously approached at the beginning of the run, when he was fresh, was shifted to the end of a much longer route.  He struggled with that hill again, and it was humbling for it to be such a challenge, when it had previously become easy.  One of his neighbors, having watched his daily runs, was disgusted to see him struggle slowly up the hill which he had once jogged up lightly, and concluded that the man was less in shape than when he began, and that they exercise had been a failure.   

 I hope, hope, hope that that is what I am experiencing—a struggle where once there had been success could mean either that I am failing, or that I am growing and challenged in other places, so mothering seems to have taken a step backwards.  I don’t know.  If that is the case, I wish I could see where it is that I am progressing, because it does certainly seem imperceptible to me.