Time Marches On

I recently attended church in a place I have not been for about seven years. Two years before I left there, I taught a sweet little six-year-old girl who knew all the answers to gospel questions and was amazingly sensitive to spiritual things. As I sat in the congregation, I realized that the beautiful young woman conducting the music was this little girl from my class! I was overwhelmed with joy and love for her and so proud to see her up front, conducting herself so reverently. I smiled brightly at her and she smiled back. After the meeting, I wanted to give her a big, heartfelt hug – I was nearly crying! I asked her if she remembered me.

She said, “No, I’m sorry,” with a polite but blank look on her face.

Something changes in the way you see yourself and the passage of time when things like that happen. Sigh. I’ll be turning thirty this year.

I recently came back into contact with some good friends who have a large family and found myself wondering how well the children would remember me.

It brought into focus a new aspect of adult and childhood for me. Many of you, I’m sure, have already figured this out. (I’m a little slow sometimes.) We grow into adults who have many experiences knowing, loving, teaching, and raising beautiful children. We have memory after memory stored up of these small people. But when they are all grown up, they only remember a very small portion of who you were to them as a child. Hmmm, who is really teaching who, here?

Hopefully the parent-child bond is strong enough to create many positive experiences after a child begins retaining more of their memory. Unfortunately, too many teenagers and parents go their separate ways. Relationships seldom stretch into adulthood so that the man who was once a child can get to know his parents on an adult level.

It all brings to mind the Lord’s promise in the book of Malachi. He said that in the last days, the Elijah would come and turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers (Mal. 4:6). Many people take this to mean that people will take a vested interest in their family history and the many generations that went before them and their stories. But what about just within our immediate family? Sure, we are supposed to leave our parents and cleave unto our spouse when we get married, but that doesn’t have to mean that we stop learning from our parents.

I don’t think I’ve fully allowed myself to consider the day when my daughter leaves home and I no longer have her close by. When I do, I think it will break my heart. Did it break my mom’s heart when I left home? Obviously, life goes on for empty-nesters. Marriage, the most important relationship in life, goes on. Grand-parenting begins and more joy comes as we find ourselves interacting with small people again.

Even though it might break my heart to let her go one day, I hope I will be proud of who she has become. Because even though she might not know everything about me, who I am will be reflected in her – every day – for the rest of her life, whether she remembers it or not. And a little bit of who I am will even be reflected in that little six-year-old, too. If seeing her as a righteous young woman of about fourteen brought me that much joy, then how much more will I be consumed by joy when it is my daughter, all grown up with a testimony of Jesus Christ in her heart? Why are we here, teaching and learning from all these children in our lives? Oh yeah, so we can have joy. And, so we can learn some of the most important lessons God has for us to learn.

Patting Yourself on the Back

Last time, I asked how many people you know who pat themselves on the back at the end of the day. Today, I want to point out that if you do know any people like that, you should emulate them.

It goes back to fault-finding. Those of us who are so good at finding faults in others are also experts at finding faults within ourselves. Whether or not we are willing to openly admit to their existence, faults can cause us guilt and pain and self-hatred.

We cannot overcome our faults, however, without knowing what they are. So it is not a bad thing for me to realize it when I’ve made a mistake, especially when I’ve made one repeatedly and thought that it was a justified action. (What? You mean all that resenting didn’t actually give my husband any clues about how to treat me? You mean it’s not okay to drop subtle hints about how a person should be doing things my way (which is, of course, the right way)? Oh, so I really am supposed to pray every single day…)

The crucial point is what happens after we’ve realized a fault within ourselves. Naturally, we feel guilty, perhaps disappointed. We are frustrated or angry with ourselves. What is wrong with me?

Well, what is wrong with us is that we are human. That is not an excuse for behavior, but a realization that as children of God, we humans possess the God-given ability to progress, to overcome, to learn from mistakes, to repent, to commune with our Savior and be changed. In fact, that is one of the reasons we are here: to experience weakness so that we can have it turned into strength.

After we have truly come unto the Savior, there is another step that we frequently do not complete. We must forgive ourselves. We must show ourselves the unconditional love that the Savior shows to us. We must choose to feel happy with ourselves now instead of continuing to feel the guilt we felt when we first realized our mistake. We deserve to be happy. In case you didn’t know, another reason we are actually are here on earth so that we may have joy. (See my second post).

So instead of fault-finding, I’m going to work on joy-finding. There’s an ironic thing about loving yourself and being happy. It increases your ability to love others and help them feel happy, too. And it helps us all to do better today rather than worrying over what we should have done yesterday.

Unconditional Love

In my life, I’ve had the experience of watching other people (and myself) make choices and express attitudes that are detrimental to themselves and others. I’ve seen them hurt others, whether knowingly or not. I’ve seen them justify and rationalize their own actions and attitudes as they’ve passed judgment on others.

One time, I was so frustrated with someone that I was on the brink of telling them (in the most polite way possible, of course), that they were hurting others and themselves and why couldn’t they just show some unconditional love, for heaven’s sake!

Then someone told me that solutions like that aren’t really solutions; they usually make things worse. So I restrained myself.

We humans are just too good at fault-finding sometimes. Fault-finding is kind of an interesting term. It all depends on your basic attitude toward people whether their faults are like neon stickers popping out all over their forehead until you can’t see their face anymore or whether we actually have to look with a magnifying glass to find a person’s faults. And if we would need to look closer, do we take the precious time from our lives to actually do the looking?

Even if we do notice a fault or two or two hundred in someone else, do we actually point it out to them? Do we do it indirectly, with even the subtlest of hints because we just cannot restrain ourselves from fixing their faults? Or do we just waste precious time worrying over them?

The likelihood is that those with whom you would find fault have already found plenty of faults in themselves. How many people do you know who pat themselves on the back at the end of the day?

How many do you know who weep with guilt over the things they wish they could have done differently? Who smile at you when you see them, but on the inside they are decaying with self-loathing.

You might say, but the Savior pointed out when people had wrong thoughts or feelings, or were disobeying God’s law. He told people their faults. Why can’t I? I’m a follower of Christ, I want others to be more Christ like, wouldn’t I just be helping them by gently telling them what they could do better?

Well, there are just a few small differences between us and the Savior.
1) He’s perfect. We’re not.
2) He fully forgives those who repent. We don’t even have the power to always know when a person is penitent about their sins. And whether they are or not, we’re expected to forgive them anyway.
3) He unconditionally loves everyone. We – well – we can (and should) try.

I was weeding the garden when it hit me. I was so angry with someone for being judgmental and hurtful and I was about to go judge and hurt them.

If we really want to help someone do better, shouldn’t we just love them unconditionally? (It’s all I wanted this person to do.) Then if the Lord truly prompts us to “reprove” someone, it will be in the context of love and could actually have the potential to inspire change. We can also pray for them and have faith that the Lord knows how to teach them better than we do.

How do you like it when someone gently tells you what you could do better? Yeah, remember the last time that happened? Occasionally this can be well received in a deeply loving relationship, but usually it only hurts.

Now, do you remember the last time God gently told you what you could do better? How did you respond to that? Isn’t it much easier to accept correction from someone who unconditionally loves you?