I just wanted to take a moment to tell you about a lesson I had in my Relief Society meeting at church when I was living in California. We were counseled to remember that the central theme of all of our lessons revolves around doing the will of the Father and making sure that we do all we can to make our own wills match His will for us. The lesson was based on a talk by Patricia Holland in the June 1984 Ensign, entitled, "Fruits of Peace".
Fear makes us feel exposed, defenseless, vulnerable, and unprotected, like being naked. The opposite of fear is faith, bravery, and courage; however, charity, the pure love of Christ, is at the root of all of those, and increases our ability to overcome fear.
The question was posed, "How many of you would run into a burning building?" Nobody raised her hand. Then, "How many of you would run into a burning building if your child was inside?" and, as you can imagine, everyone's hands shot up. Charity makes us brave. Perspective, or seeing others as Christ sees them, changes our perception.
Women are their own worst enemies. We compete with and compare ourselves to other women. That makes us afraid and fearful that we are not good enough or that we don't measure up. We need to be more generous and loving to ourselves. This fear and competition impedes our progress, and keep us from using our fullest capacity to love. We need to stop comparing ourselves to others, because what someone else needs may not be what you need in order to become like Christ.
We are born with charity, but fear is learned. We learned to fear as children and many times teach fear to our children. We have to work to love. Our desire to love promulgates His help. There are 3 exercises we can do to gain charity:
Forgiveness: If we do not forgive, we will not be forgiven. Matt 5:43-48. Grudges are like us drinking poison and then expecting someone else to die.
Unconditional Acceptance of Others: If we want to be accepted by others, how can we do less? Often we think of love like currency. We spend it and expect love in return. But charity is more like paint, because we can give charity and paint whatever we want our environment to be.
Give without thought of receiving: Others cannot fill or satisfy us. When we love freely without recompense, we will be filled with the Spirit.
We were issued a challenge to give without expecting anything in return for a week. I tried it, and it brought a more peaceful atmosphere into my home.
I have been living with my daughter, Amie, and her family for 7 months now. I know that all of us believed that I would be out on my own by now, and in my own place; however, things have worked out differently. I have begun comparing myself to other women my age who are retired, or who don't have to work, or who have been married nearly 30 years by now, or who have their own homes. I SO needed to be reminded of this lesson.
Something else was brought to my attention that really helped me this week. With all of that negative comparing I was doing, I started feeling badly about my exes being involved in the lives of my children. Living in California for so many years, away from most of my children, made me very unaware of how much my children are involved in their dads' lives. So I was reading in Chapter 4 of II Nephi and came across a passage that really made me stop and think.
So at this point, Lehi has finished blessing all of his children, and Nephi is remarking about how he feels after he has prayed to the Lord and become acutely aware of his many blessings:
27 And why should I yield to sin, because of my flesh? Yea, why should I give way to temptations, that the evil one have place in my heart to destroy my peace and afflict my soul?
Why am I angry because of mine enemy? 28 Awake, my soul! No longer droop in sin. Rejoice, O my heart, and give place no more for the enemy of my soul.
So I realized that I am still harboring ill feelings about my exes because I never got closure and was treated so poorly. I started thinking that my children should be mad at these men, too, because of the way they treated their mother. Ha! Ha!
Well, of course, now you can see that the Lord was very good to me in making this particular scripture stand out in bold upon my heart. He helped me to remember that lesson in love as well. It's time for me to let go of the past and rejoice in the future. I need to stop comparing my situation with theirs (my exes') and just love every moment I have with my children, but also make every day a positive experience toward my eventual exaltation. That's my goal, anyway. A work in progress, but realizing that you're heading in the right direction is half the battle.
Hmmmm..... What's on the menu tonight? What can I make on the fly? Through the years I have seen some interesting things in refrigerators and freezers. We had a cow eye in the fridge when Lindy did a science project in high school. Nice! I used to go giggin' for frogs as a young newlywed. Talk about budget food! I've had to tolerate a few minor myocardial infarctions when I lived with an avid fisherman who had a habit of leaving fish heads intact. I wasn't used to opening the fidge to find something looking back at me with an open mouth that seemed to say, "How YOU doin?" I've seen my share of white butcher paper with black magic markered labels on various and sundry (and sometimes surprising!) body parts from pigs, cows, elk, and deer. I'm tellin ya, I thought I'd seen it all. But the latest thing to hit the freezer in the Dunford home has me surprised yet again... 
