Something happens on the weekends. Our schedule gets turned sideways. We want to sleep in. We have chores that need doing, but the kids fight them, so we fight with the kids. There are errands to run, and sometimes sports games or piano recitals. And then there's Sunday, with church, meetings, firesides and exhaustion. All of this results in Monday mornings where I busily slide everyone out the door and then sit and wonder what happened to our house, what happened to our weekend? A common casualty of this weekend whirlpool is our family scripture study. We do okay getting into a groove during the week--there is resistance and some fighting, but by Friday things are almost non-ugly. Then Saturday with its schedule-lite comes and more often than not scriptures get forgotten and then Sunday with early meetings, church, naps, firesides etc and we have forgotten again. And then it's Monday, and we are at the beginning again, with resistance and fighting and ugly. I keep reminding myself that trying is worth something. We keep trying. But I get so discouraged that we can never seem to keep our groove.
Something amazing happened this weekend. When the Spirit whispered to me on Saturday, "now would be a good time for scriptures," we read them. When we were almost ready to leave for church on Sunday, again the Spirit whispered, "what about now?" And so we did. The whirlpool still happened. My house is trashed, but scriptures this morning were a marvel to me. Everyone came with a minimum of difficulty. There was no ugly. People followed along. We kept our groove. Amazing. There really is something to that consistency argument you always hear. We did not miraculously morph into a family of erudite scriptorians just because we didn't let the habit die over the weekend. But we kept our groove. Amazing what a couple of days can do when you don't entirely lose them!
Monday, April 23, 2012
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Learning to Know
Sister Julie B. Beck was released this weekend as General Relief Society President, the leader of the women of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I remember sitting in my family room when Sister Beck gave her talk entitled Mothers who Know. I felt a call to action, an urging to be such a mother.
Perhaps my most profound memory of a Sister Beck talk, though, was from a BYU Women's Conference in 2010 entitled Choose Ye this day to Serve the Lord. I watched it in my family room, alone after everyone had gone to sleep. I was transfixed, scribbling notes furiously. Perhaps I was touched at the urgency of the message because Sister Beck was giving it just days after her father had passed away. You could see that she was grieving, but that her message was more important than her grief, than the fact that she had lost her voice, if I remember right. That talk was many things and there are many touching and tender principles taught, but the thing that struck me most that night was the pattern: to prioritize our lives by what is essential, what is necessary and what is nice to do. Her first paragraph under "essential" is:
I am always looking for patterns, for lists, for help. This pattern from Sister Beck has been the clearest pattern for me, so essential, so tender, so pointed as to how to get where I need to be, how to get back to where I should never have left.
There are many things, many thoughts, many calls to action I will remember from Sister Beck, but that pattern, combined with the idea that knowing the mind and will of God for me, for my family was essential, was possible, was--is--empowering. It reminded my spirit that God is my Father, that He wants to teach me, to help me teach my children, His children. That this roller coaster of motherhood is not meant to be a solitary job, that I "can hear His voice and receive His guidance in all aspects of my life." Simple. powerful.
Perhaps my most profound memory of a Sister Beck talk, though, was from a BYU Women's Conference in 2010 entitled Choose Ye this day to Serve the Lord. I watched it in my family room, alone after everyone had gone to sleep. I was transfixed, scribbling notes furiously. Perhaps I was touched at the urgency of the message because Sister Beck was giving it just days after her father had passed away. You could see that she was grieving, but that her message was more important than her grief, than the fact that she had lost her voice, if I remember right. That talk was many things and there are many touching and tender principles taught, but the thing that struck me most that night was the pattern: to prioritize our lives by what is essential, what is necessary and what is nice to do. Her first paragraph under "essential" is:
I wrote at the top of the essential list revelation. I have to be able to know the mind and will of God. Therefore, I have to do the things in my life that put me in a position to hear His voice. Reading the scriptures then became an essential for me because the scriptures contain the mind and will of God, and by reading and studying from them, I can hear His voice and receive His guidance in all aspects of my life. I came up with a simple rule that was easy for me to keep: Every day I will spend some time in the scriptures. The accumulative power and learning of that commitment has changed my life and helped me learn daily the mind and will of God.
I am always looking for patterns, for lists, for help. This pattern from Sister Beck has been the clearest pattern for me, so essential, so tender, so pointed as to how to get where I need to be, how to get back to where I should never have left.
There are many things, many thoughts, many calls to action I will remember from Sister Beck, but that pattern, combined with the idea that knowing the mind and will of God for me, for my family was essential, was possible, was--is--empowering. It reminded my spirit that God is my Father, that He wants to teach me, to help me teach my children, His children. That this roller coaster of motherhood is not meant to be a solitary job, that I "can hear His voice and receive His guidance in all aspects of my life." Simple. powerful.
Not exactly how I planned
I had a vision for this weekend. We would watch all sessions of General Conference; we would color and play bingo, and learn and feel the Spirit. We would celebrate DH's birthday with Raspberry Tiramisu. We would eat chile verde, crepes, and french dip sandwiches. We would spend time with friends as a last hurrah before they moved. I was trying so hard to prepare my family and myself. How did it really go down?
We made tents.
Day One
Day Two
DH ended up being stuck in Connecticut for work. He'll be home next Thursday. So, we didn't make the Raspberry Tiramisu. We had pizza and mexican food for dinner and in far away CT, DH had Popeye's chicken and went to the Priesthood session.
Dreading the weekend without DH and a family of picky kids, I shelved the chile verde idea and postponed the crepes. We did have waffles, french dip and way too much easter candy with our bingo. We hung out at the park with our friends between Sunday sessions, but a family emergency precluded them actually watching conference with us or assisting us in our tent construction or bingo playing. We watched conference, some of us paying more attention than others. I had prayed a great deal about how to teach and prepare my family. I feel, as usual, like the whole conference was aimed directly at me, like a fire hose. There were talks I missed because of tent and bingo mishaps, others that I heard, but need to revisit. I looked to the part of lds.org where it says when talks will be available in various formats. 24 hours I was told I would need to wait to be able to re-watch talks. But, I also watched talks pop up far quicker than that. Perhaps this is the first time I am sufficiently cognizant of the monumental work involved in bringing the words of prophets and apostles to millions of people in as many formats as possible. I don't have the skill set to do their job at all, but I am in awe and in debt that they do it, so quickly, so well.
Conference with my mangy brood is also a great deal of work (though not on the scale of producing and broadcasting the entire conference for worldwide consumption over multiple formats and in multiple languages). I'm getting better at planning for it, preparing us for it. The smaller parts of our bunch are also getting older, so that helps. In some ways, I wish we could have church like this every week, sitting at the feet of of our leaders, drinking from the fire hose. But then I realize that we need the opportunity to practice what they preach, to do what we're learning, to lead, and teach and learn and follow and that doesn't all happen in our living rooms under a tent made of quilts with a bingo card filled with pretzels and jelly beans. It happens when the husband is working all weekend, when there are family emergencies and general mayhem. Some days, some glorious days, are respites, days for passive learning, days for direct heavenly answers. But most days are workdays, days for on-the-job training, take home tests, teaching on the fly. I couldn't do the second without the first and the first would be meaningless without the opportunity for the second.
We made tents.
Day One
Day Two
DH ended up being stuck in Connecticut for work. He'll be home next Thursday. So, we didn't make the Raspberry Tiramisu. We had pizza and mexican food for dinner and in far away CT, DH had Popeye's chicken and went to the Priesthood session.
Dreading the weekend without DH and a family of picky kids, I shelved the chile verde idea and postponed the crepes. We did have waffles, french dip and way too much easter candy with our bingo. We hung out at the park with our friends between Sunday sessions, but a family emergency precluded them actually watching conference with us or assisting us in our tent construction or bingo playing. We watched conference, some of us paying more attention than others. I had prayed a great deal about how to teach and prepare my family. I feel, as usual, like the whole conference was aimed directly at me, like a fire hose. There were talks I missed because of tent and bingo mishaps, others that I heard, but need to revisit. I looked to the part of lds.org where it says when talks will be available in various formats. 24 hours I was told I would need to wait to be able to re-watch talks. But, I also watched talks pop up far quicker than that. Perhaps this is the first time I am sufficiently cognizant of the monumental work involved in bringing the words of prophets and apostles to millions of people in as many formats as possible. I don't have the skill set to do their job at all, but I am in awe and in debt that they do it, so quickly, so well.
Conference with my mangy brood is also a great deal of work (though not on the scale of producing and broadcasting the entire conference for worldwide consumption over multiple formats and in multiple languages). I'm getting better at planning for it, preparing us for it. The smaller parts of our bunch are also getting older, so that helps. In some ways, I wish we could have church like this every week, sitting at the feet of of our leaders, drinking from the fire hose. But then I realize that we need the opportunity to practice what they preach, to do what we're learning, to lead, and teach and learn and follow and that doesn't all happen in our living rooms under a tent made of quilts with a bingo card filled with pretzels and jelly beans. It happens when the husband is working all weekend, when there are family emergencies and general mayhem. Some days, some glorious days, are respites, days for passive learning, days for direct heavenly answers. But most days are workdays, days for on-the-job training, take home tests, teaching on the fly. I couldn't do the second without the first and the first would be meaningless without the opportunity for the second.
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