Thinking

I think too much. I've been in a thinking mood the last few weeks ... oh, maybe even a few months. Too much thinking and not enough action.

I'm now thinking about running for an elected office in Rutherford County. I have thought of this before, and got the distinct impression in prayer that I should do it, and then chickened out. I don't know if I will have a chance to make it a reality but Jim and James were both very supportive. (The girls had gone to bed by the time I brought it up.)

I simply think about all the mistakes I have made in my entire life and think "Why would anyone want to vote for me?" Well, I guess it's not the winning that is important, but the running ... the opportunity to share my ideas with others.

So, I will keep the unknown world posted on the developments in this area.

My Hurting Heart -- and Cleaning Silver

It still hurts a bit. Not as bad as yesterday. I must have been having an anxiety attack ... not really sure because I've never really had one ... because my chest and face and mind was just on fire. I couldn't breath sometimes and I just wanted to punch someone in the face! I don't think it was a real heart attack, but it was scary.

I wanted to re-write my "Things To Do" for 2010 ... for I think the 3rd time, isn't it almost March? ... but I couldn't find the little book I had it written in. That's frustrating. And then I remembered that this happened to me once before ... about three or four months before I joined the church. I looked and looked for my Franklin planner (it was only Franklin then, Covey had just started) and I was going to do my mission, vision, whatever-the-heck-it-was stuff. I guess the Lord had some different ideas about what my mission and vision needed to be! Hmm, I wonder if He still has some different ideas from mine?

So, I brainstormed all the things that were running through my mind, the things I have to do, but don't have the time to do. It was interesting, in that heightened and confused state, that as I wrote, some of the items made my anxiety increase ... ah, those are the things that I really need to look at, change, eliminate? And then I realized that in some cases it wasn't eliminating them at all!

And it comes down to time ... the wasting, hoarding, and bestowing freely of time ... I realized this morning in my prayers that as God gives us another day, He is investing His time in us. We are His greatest treasures, so He allows us to get tarnished a bit by the world, like a fine piece of silver. Then He rubs us and shines us and polishes us. We can fight against it, but it's really useless. It will happen whether while sitting in a cupped hand by the maticulous rubbing of cloth within all our intricate features or burned off in a chemical bath.

So, now that I almost get it ... will I actually do something about it? My plan is to take my list and decide if I'm wasting, hoarding, or bestowing freely. I also made a huge sign that is sitting right by my desk at work, and I'm going to print some for home. But I'll talk about that tomorrow.

Oh, and just as a point of reference ... I don't clean silver! ;-)

What is the problem ... I mean REALLY!

I'm so overwhelmed that I'm on the verge of shutting down. It's crushing. I want to go to sleep as soon as I get home. I just want to work on my list of things to do and analysing it by the waste/hoard/bestow freely concept, yet I have so much that MUST be done that I don't have time to stop to do that so instead I just collapse in a heap of nothingness.

My heart hurts. My eyes water. I'm such a whiner. There are so many with more significant trials/troubles/talents. I'm just a wreck! Can today get better? Will it? Maybe I'll just chalk it in for tomorrow!

What a morning!

So this morning, I got very angry. Oh, so incredibly angry that I could almost not even pray. What caused it? Well, um, that's an interesting question.

I could detail all the situations that occurred this morning to "create" the anger, but ultimately it boiled down to two things ... selfishness and bondage.

First I was upset that "my time" was infringed upon by my family. Never mind that I told them the night before that I would do the thing they were asking me right then to do this very morning. What a piece of work I am! "My time" was infringed upon LAST NIGHT when I put off until today what would have taken me two seconds to do last night.

Argh! And the bondage ... it's the whole God and mammon thing ... and mammon is winning! I even just wandered off from this blog post to check the bills that I have coming up online, getting lost in the upgrade possibilities on my cell phone and checking new plan rates wondering if I could get a lower plan all while deciding what kind of discipline to enact on my youngest child who spent $10.58 in extra usage charges last month! What?

The bondage is real. The debt and bills and lack of time is real. But why? Yesterday, I think I mentioned praying like I had in the past ... the "build His kingdom and establish His righteousness" prayer/praying. So a couple of things occur to me this morning ... that I cannot pray about that effectively if my mind is elsewhere and I cannot have my mind any place else but "elsewhere" if I'm in bondage to debt, bills, money, and too many commitments. And too many commitments are just a much bondage as money.

So after I spent about 15 minutes privately yelling at all the people I was angry with ... it was quite a tirade, I'll have you know ... I got down on my knees and was finally able to have a conversation with God. It hit me that the person I need to focus on today to "build His kingdom and establish His righteousness" was me. I took a mental inventory of all the commitments I've made or that have been made for me by poor choices (Way far back in the past, I might add! Humph!) and realized that I had to sort them out based on ... on ... on something. I had to make sense of them in the terms of being a disciple and how they allowed/hindered me from being the best disciple possible.

Then it hit me ... I can sort them by 1) how close they brought/bring me to God, and 2) whether I waste them, hoard them or bestow them freely. Knowing that everything we have is either from God directly or as a result of disobedience to God's commandments or plans, then would it follow that when I feel badly about something, I'm moving farther away from God? If I give that "thing" away or eliminate that bad habit from my life, then will I feel better? So my debt is something I could quite possibly be hoarding ... keeping in my life to keep myself from experiencing freedom -- the freedom to do that which the Lord has called me to do.

I think that's true ... I cannot even think about what the Lord has called me to do because my mind immediately drifts to what bill is due today (or tomorrow or next week) and how we will rob Peter to pay Paul. And I can definitely see how I waste my talents ... just completely throw away the time that I have to exercise them or in other words, bestow them freely to benefit others. Wow, and that then brings me back full circle to the time ... my time.

Ha ... I have always intellectually known that time is not "mine" but I just connected how the waste/hoard/bestow freely concept is both affected by and affects time. When I told the kids last night that I would do something this morning I was "using my time" by wasting that precious time sitting watching TV. I didn't consciously think that then, but I can see that clearly now. So then this morning, when I woke up a bit early and felt really good about having time to do extra things (important only to me, I might add), I was frustrated by the intrusion of a commitment made last night not even recognizing that I was really angry with myself.

Wow ... this is some good stuff! Okay ... I think the next thing to do is write down all the commitments I have made and determine if I am wasting/hoarding/bestowing freely.

So many thoughts

I prayed this morning ... like I used to. There was a time in my life that I lived the principles of Matthew 6:33 (specifically JST Matt 6:38) and would actually wait for an answer. It was also a time in my life that I was at home, I was focused on my family. I would do whatever the Lord taught me to do, but I wasn't being honest with myself.

I was in bondage to the world ... I still am. I want very much to be free of that bondage, temporally, but I feel that I must be strenghtened spiritually before I can be freed temporally. Well, it makes sense because all things are spiritual.

Yes, everything is spritual and temporal at the same time. So if my temporal bondage is real, then my spiritual bondage is real as well. My focus has been more on the world than on the Lord and I'm confused. And that makes sense because the world is confused. Okay, so I think I have a plan ... work on the spiritual first and then the temporal.

It worked so well back then. It really did. We had money when we needed it; food when we needed it; anything when we needed it. And my heart was to serve. And things were simpler. I want that again. I want that to be the way my life is.

Yes, my focus should be the Lord. I'm going to "data dump" my ideas and things that I want to do for the year, but my focus is going to be on reading, pondering, studying, writing about the scriptures. Rachel and I went to a fireside with Bro. Halverson last evening. He shared about the pattern of learning and teaching that Lehi and God share in the first chapter and a half of 1 Nephi. I'm looking forward to making that a part of my life.

Great Whales and What I Want to Be When I Grow Up

Man, did I hit the snooze alot this morning. Almost didn't have any time to do small and simple things.

I had wanted to do some exercise from the On Demand feature on my TV, even picked one out last night that I wanted to use. Isn't it amazing, however, that while we cannot find our keys in our purse, no matter how small the purse or how large the keys/key ring, we can find a tiny little snooze button, three feet away, in the dark, with our eyes closed in about 1 second? Over and over again ;-)

But I did get up and do my old, stand by, Richard Simmons Never Say Diet exercises. I've done them enough in the past that I don't have to look at the wacky pictures of Richard showing the exercises. It's also quick enough that I could feel like a I did something and still get a shower and get to work on time.

So ... I have tons of things on my "To Do List" for 2010 and I was thinking to myself this weekend, "What do I want to be when I grow up?" I mean ... I work, I'm trying to start a business, I volunteer, I serve in church, I want to get my craft mojo going again, and quite frankly, have about a 100 different other things that I'd like to do this year. So, I was having a conversation with God this weekend about that very thing and surmised during our time together that I really should be figuring out one or both of the two following scenarios ... 1) What He wants me to do and/or 2) What I was sent here to do.

I decided that was a really good idea, but didn't stick around to get any further direction on the subject. Really? Really. I'm not sure I'm ready to find out what I was really sent here to do or what He wants me to do because that knowledge will be more than I'm prepared to accept right now. Can't I just do what I want to do? Yes, I know that I've been questionably successful on the things that I want to do ("perfection paralysis" again), but the idea of doing what someone else wants me to do is um, frustrating at best and really darned annoying ... even if the One doing the telling is the all-powerful Creator of the Universe.

So I went about my merry little way ... and promptly got slapped in the face by what I was supposed to be doing. Now, I haven't figured it all out yet, so I'm keeping it myself. I've got to work through the concept that was presented and my unbelievably prideful and selfish nature that must be crushed to make it work. Ouch! It is going to be hard. I even told God in another conversation that I wasn't really happy with the information He shared. I don't think He saw it as that difficult. And, for at least a few days so far, He's made it a little easier to start.

The amazing thing is that I really believe if I do what He wants me to do, the mission I was sent here to do, the person He wants me to be, then I think I will have time to do more of the things that I want to do. Of course, I want it to happen really fast but I fear I'll be waiting a while.

Oh, and what's with the "great whales." I was reading Moses 2 and it just struck me that the only specifically called out animal on the 4th Day is great whales. Why would the Lord specifically call out only the whales. (Moses does mention winged fowl, creeping things and cattle later.) Well, I learned that it probably means something more. And when I think about the instruction I received from God about my role, I KNOW that it means something more.

I'm not aspiring to be a "great whale" ... I'm pretty close to that already anyway ;-) ... but I think I'm working to be called out for something great, in my own sphere of influence, once I humble myself enough to make it work.

Another Start

My goodness ... how many times will I start and stop this stuff?

Well, as many times as it takes to get it right, I suppose. The problem has always been a "perfection paralysis" ... every effort I make must be exactly perfect like only my own personal thought process can determine (which, mind you, is like nothing on earth or in heaven). If it is not absolutely perfect, then it cannot be done.

For all my knowledge of and counsel to others about "Reality Is," I certainly get wrapped up in other peoples's realities ... specifically my own. Oh, and Satan's ;-) Let me explain.

The only reality I should be living is God's ... He's in control of Reality and whatever happens should have happened because it did happen (perfectly easy to understand that one, right ;-). If you believe that God is capable of miracles like Phillip's and Nephi's, and He is the same yesterday, today, and forever; then it follows that if you didn't get moved, pushed or smacked into a different place, whatever crappy stuffy (or great stuff) happened to you is just as it was supposed to happen. The Present is the only place where we live in Reality. Therefore, if we are making stuff up in our own pathetic little mind about ourself or someone else, we are not anywhere near Reality! The Lord wants us to not only know a principle, but take action on it.

And Satan want's you elsewhere, too ... the Past is okay, because we can try to re-live it (good and bad), but there is an element of truth that cannot be swept away too lightly. The Future is completely unknown, and a great place to divert attention with worry, dispair, even misplaced hope. But for me, the best tool Satan has found is to paralyse me right in the Present with an irrational need for perfection.

If I cannot do it ALL, I will not start. If I cannot do it "just so," I push it aside. If I cannot get it right the very first time I try, there usually is not a second time. I'm ready and willing to try alot of different things, and have been pretty lucky that I'm good at some of them, too. There are so many great things that Satan has convinced me that I am not able to do because I screwed up some "thing" or "other" in the past. Who did I tick off? What did I forget?

I read a recent month of posts in my journal (not immediately recent since I stopped writing -- another story for another day, but recent enough to remember the period of time). Every. Single. Freaking. Entry included something about Satan ... Satan this and Satan that ... are you kidding me? You would have thought he was my boyfriend and I was 13 again! That's when I realized ... and I think he might have realized ... his undoing. He (and his minions) made me too aware of him/them. (See The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis)

So now, I'm working on doing the small and simple things ... this blog/journal is one of them. I picked up my bedroom today before work ... made the beds, put the extra dirty socks in the laundry basket, put shoes and clean clothes in the closet (glad the door still shuts ;-). Scripture reading today is another. I decided to do it online, so I could slow down and really listen to the words. I was going to start reading the Book of Mormon again. I clicked the link online and hit The Pearl of Great Price ... wait a minute, that's not what I wanted. I decided to go with this "Reality Is" thing ... that must have been what I was supposed to do because it happened.

It was PERFECT, gloriously perfect. I really rejoiced to realize with Moses that I am nothing and God is everything -- I don't have to be perfect!!!!! (And, I can only be "perfected" though Him.) Better still was the absolutely, laugh out loud ridiculousness of Satan ... how simple it was for Moses to SEE that Satan was less than nothing, especially the moment when he realized that he still had a portion of the Spirit with him to discern Satan's nothingness.

So, if I post everyday ... bonus ... but I'm not going to sweat it. I might even try things twice. And if IT happens, IT happens ;-) and I'm going to relish in the Reality of it.