But I was listening to a 2017 Time Out For Women talk, and in it Laurel C Day showed a clip of an address that Elder Holland gave. He said, "Be of good cheer. We are COMMANDED to be of good cheer." And I thought to myself, "Oops." I know that's something I've been lacking in, so I started looking for ways to have "good cheer," and I remembered that sharing what I've learned about gospel principles makes me happy. So I'm going to write this, and I am just going to hope that even though I tend to wax long winded on gospel subjects, it will be okay to the right people, even though it's probable no one will read this anyway since I haven't advertised this blog, nor used it for some time.
First, a little background:
I am exhausted. Physically exhausted from scoliosis and hypothyroid, emotionally exhausted from the demands of raising five teens and an autistic five year old while my husband works several states away twenty days of the month, mentally exhausted from homeschooling and trying to stretch myself to do what I need to do in spite of it all and coming up short more often than I want to admit. Besides, I feel the ticking time bomb... I only have so much time with the kids left, and then the pressure mounts. I've got to get my act together, I actually start thinking about how we all only have so much time in life, blah blah blah...
And spiritually exhausted, because I haven't fully recovered from my breakdown a few years ago. People think, "Oh, that was years ago, and you should be over it by now." Um, no. Sometimes when an event traumatizes you, it takes years, if not a lifetime to heal. But yes, healing does take place. I am doing my best - I am tons better than I was when it first happened. You know that line upon line principle? It applies to healing too.
I admit to having great anxiety over the whole ministering thing - I can't explain the terror I feel every time someone talks about it. I keep asking Heavenly Father to help me manage the emotion now, and to heal from it bit by bit. To please let me deal with this in baby steps, because sometimes in the church people don't look at the whole picture, and sometimes they want more than I have to give right now. Christ met people where they were at (not "got down on their level - I heard this in a mtg the other day from several members and CRINGED. The idea was right, the analogy is wrong.) I know I've been deeply scarred. The Lord knows it too. I try to be an active member without overtaxing myself and going back to that awful place where my own mind tortured me.
Did I say I was exhausted?
So this is the state I've been in. The other day I woke up after a night of tearful prayers with a scripture in mind. My favorite scripture in the whole world, because it has taken me from anxiety and overwhelm to confidence and purpose before:
Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God; ~ D&C 88:119
“In order to establish a church that would continue under His direction even after He was taken from the earth, Jesus ‘went … into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.
“‘And when it was day, he called unto him his disciples: and of them he chose twelve, whom also he named apostles’ [Luke 6:12–13].
“Later on, Paul would teach that the Savior, knowing the inevitability of His death, had done this to give the Church a ‘foundation of … apostles and prophets’ [see Ephesians 2:19–20]. These Brethren and the other officers of the Church would serve under the direction of the resurrected Christ.
“Why? Among other reasons, so ‘that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive’ [Ephesians 4:14]” (“Prophets, Seers, and Revelators,” Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2004, 6–7)Even on the earth He sought our Heavenly Father's guidance. He organized his thoughts. Gave it time - prayed all night long... and then He got busy.
The other thing that strikes me this time in studying this scripture is, not only are we to organize ourselves and prepare every needful thing, but we're also to establish a house and the Lord is very specific in what kind of house. (Yes, yes, the Lord in this scripture is talking about temples. But haven't we been instructed to have our home reflect the temple as best we are able? I can tell you, this scripture, if you study it and utilize it, can change your life for the better.) So we are to establish a house - meaning boundaries & establishing how things work - along with organizing ourselves and preparing for every needful thing. Not later. Not "or." WHILE. DURING. ALONG WITH.
The first thing I did was... pray. Unfortunately, I fall asleep after awhile, and I don't have all night to pray without consequences the next day (see young autistic kid in my life). But then, I'm not organizing my church to operate after I'm resurrected either. So I live with the line upon line principle. I keep praying, in hopes that at some point I'll gain a little more insight and be able to tweak life in a better manner. It's where I'm at, and I promise you, the Lord meets us where we're at as long as we are reaching out to Him.
Then I started writing thoughts. I took inventory of my life. I wrote what was right and what was wrong in it. I wrote how I feel about things. I wrote where I want to be, how I wished my family was this & that along with gratitude for how they are now. I wrote about my husband's job, the job I want, the house and all the decorating, remodeling and fixing up I want to do. I wrote about experiences I want to have and things I want the kids to experience. Etc. I am still writing, but not as much - I've about exhausted all the avenues in my brain, and believe me, they are many. This took me about two weeks to do, all while living life and doing little organizing projects like cleaning my closet and fixing my recipe binder to be functional (which was a 12+ hour job - what a mess!).
The third thing I did was organize all the thoughts I wrote down (believe me - if you saw them you'd think MATTER UNORGANIZED!). I got a binder, and put some index tabs in it. Nothing fancy. Then I sorted the thoughts by values. Back when I had a life coach he asked me, "Aine, what are your values?" I didn't know. I knew what they should be, but I wasn't sure. How did I really feel about all that? After my nervous breakdown my therapist asked me, "What are you core values?" Again... frustration. I didn't know! But when I did this organizing exercise and started to put things together I began to see the patterns - what I really valued came down to 5 categories:
Heavenly Father/Jesus Christ
(basically anything that brings me closer to them)
Individual Worth
(my divine purpose, my health, freedom, education, using my talents, helping others and joy)
Marriage/Spouse
(Celestial marriage thoughts. His joy, my joy. Our dreams and aspirations both individually and as a couple. What we want to do together. Romance. Sex. Yep, that too...)
Family
(kids, extended, in-laws, ancestors...)
Beauty
(surface beauty and beneath the surface)
I feel like all of those are self-explanatory except the last. Yes, I love beautiful surroundings. Beautiful clothes. Beautiful antiques. Beautiful food. Memories, and moments. A manicured lawn. A clean and organized closet. I love finding beauty in nature, in my children's faces (I could stare at them all day), inspiring ideas, a decluttered desk, a friendship, beautiful words, beautiful stories, a beautiful song, a beautiful soliloquy... I LOVE beauty, in all it's varieties, and it doesn't always mean flashy, brassy beautiful although I'm just as wowed as the next person over a work of art. This value has a big umbrella and brings me a lot of peace and joy when I get to experience it. To me, beauty, in all it's varieties, is a gift. Maybe someday I'll break that down even further since beauty is in the eye of the beholder. For now, it's a huge step - I've never had that one listed as a top value.
When I did that, it was a lot easier to break down my goals, create my "vision board," and find purpose instead of overwhelm. I could see why some of the accomplishments I made last year left me empty and in some cases like my weight, I went backwards on. I did a lot of the right things, but I wasn't clear on WHY they were right and reverted back to old habits. Organizing myself and understanding what my soul values most has given me more of a bird's eye view of my life, how to get there, and why.
BTW - finances are important, but it isn't the money I value. It the beauty in life, the peace of mind and provisions that money brings me and my family that I value. Which has been hard on me because... I often don't think of myself as a money producer, but I need to start thinking of myself as one. But that's a blog post for another time.
So that's how my favorite scripture has brought me out of the funk and into motivation, again. I hope this gives you an idea how it might bless you. Please note, not every one's values are the same... if you aren't married, or going through a divorce, I imagine that third value would be quite different for you. Or maybe you don't give two figs about beauty - my husband doesn't and struggles with my love for beautiful things, like table settings. 😍 It's okay. There's possibly something else you care deeply about that I couldn't care less... like how my husband and rocks have a love affair going on that I really can't understand. 😏
One last addition on this subject - I was listening to Kirk Duncan's audio, "Chaos to Order." He talks about how everything in our lives, no matter how many times we return it to order, will naturally fall back into chaos until we continue to develop that order in our lives. He talks about how we are beings of order because that's how Heavenly Father is and we're patterned after Him. It made me think about how I kept telling myself: "My life is a train wreck." "I'm such a mess." "I don't know what to do with this." "What is happening? I can't even get it together." Even my husband has been known to say, "You are the most organized, DISorganized woman I have ever met." I know a lot of it had to do with the tornado in my brain... an ADHD side effect. To see those two versions of myself clearly was illuminating. I started listening to Shad Helmstetter's Self Talk 3 times a day and noticed an immediate difference (basically telling me that I'm an organized person). Negative self talk can be so damaging!
It has worked. Organization is slowly coming into my life again, and this has brought peace and a sense of well being.
I think what was really illuminating to me, though, was the idea that just because I organized something once didn't mean it wasn't going to need to be organized again. That the coming back to it and coming back to it and coming back to it simply meant that I was getting stronger and better at it than before. The key is to feel the joy and the accomplishment of achieving organization on whatever level it is (Kirk shared that at one point in his life, he simply organized the silverware drawer, and built up from that because that's where he was at), even when you see it go to chaos later, knowing that the next time you organize it, it will be better.
That's how I got so disorganized around October last year. I lost it when someone asked me something and I could see I was circling back and I didn't want to. So instead of revisiting it calmly I let my inner two year old throw a tantrum so here I am, getting my life back together. Again. - and drinking Dr. Pepper.
I'm a work in progress...
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