I'm For Team Humanity

I went to a college gymnastic meet recently (for the first time) and remembered the world of sports all too well after being out of them for so long.
Back-story: I never really watched a lot of sports growing up, and only participated in church sports. After becoming a mother at age 21, I became more a fan of people in general, rather than siding with teams. Over the last 15 years, I've helped women through labor and taught childbirth classes, done mentoring, music writing, homeschooling, and am a huge advocate of natural medicine and good nutrition.
So, upon entering the gymnastics competition, the first thing I noticed was all the people. Oh, the crowds.
The second thing I noticed was all the paraphernalia - the sweatshirts, concessions, posters, the fan fingers, etc...
The third thing I noticed was the announcer.
Next was all the noise - the cheering especially.
It took at least 20 minutes for us to find a seat... And then we started really noticing and appreciating the competitors. I cheered when someone did well and noticed that sometimes not everyone was cheering with me.
In all reality, I didn't know what type of gymnastics competition this was going to be before coming- professional is all I was told...
So then I realized that it was a state university against a different state's university... and that the times that I was cheering and no one else was, were the times the non-home university was showing their skill.
I had been out of the sports arena for so long (besides a couple of kids sports one year - and INTO the compassionate and humanity world for all that time that I thought it was so rude for only the people that came to support the other state (which were only a handful) to be cheering for that team.
I started to wonder why no one would cheer for them even when they did good. Why, when someone does a good job, is it not popular to cheer for them? Because they aren't on the team of your favorite university?
I knew and remembered what the answer was... Pride. School pride. "But school pride is good isn't it?" Well, maybe not always.
I am not going to try to change the world on this issue here by extensively explaining why this is just not humane or fair...
I will say, though, that I am on team humanity... and that when someone does a good job, I'm going to cheer for them no matter what team they are on...

Have You REALLY Graduated From High School?

Top 15 ways you can tell you've REALLY graduated from high school.
15. You no longer have to have a sandwich or a "food service" meal for lunch every day.
14. You see co-workers as team members, as opposed to competition.
13. You forgive, don't judge and don't gossip about, someone you see frequently for something they've done and you know they should be ashamed of. On the contrary, you seek to be kind to them.
12. You can easily choose to be there for a friend rather than watch or go to a game.
11. You have embraced your freedom to eat healthy foods.
10. You no longer have a desire to avoid the "nerds".
9. You make decisions based on what is right instead of what everyone else is doing.
8. You have realized that you are the famous "THEY" that people always talk about.
7. You realize that your worth does not depend on what grades you get or what other people think of you.
6. You start hanging out with people that truly care about you and that don't mind you truly caring about them.
5. Every day has stopped feeling superficial.
4. You have embraced your freedom to set and accomplish your own goals, free of stereotypical or flawed system's limitations.
3. You realize the great power you have to shape society.
2. The amount of money you have has nothing to do with the people you choose to be friends with.
1. You let go of hatred based on imperfection or unpopularity.

~Mylie Laing

Failing Because it's Too Easy?

What if I asked you to touch your nose, then your toes, then your mouth, eyes, ears, and lips? Would you do it? Some would. Yet some would ask why - and may be skeptical of it because they don't want to look stupid doing something so elementary.
What if I told you that you would get a very sweet prize at the end of twenty years if all you did to earn it were these simple exercises - every day? Would you do it? What if I told you that the sweet prize really might not be attained any other way?
Would you do it? What if the sweet prize was seeing your children succeed? What if it was your own success in your goals? Would you do it?
Some would. Some would say, "Whatever! Like that is going to really get me those things."
Well, what if I said that if you made your bed every day, prayed, journaled, drank 1/2 your body weight in ounces of water every day, exercised, cut out refined foods and focused on love, every day, you would get those things? You might believe me, and you might not. Some of those things sound hard and some may sound easy. To some, they may sound too easy. Some may get very bored doing these things.
But does that mean that doing these things would not give you the sweet prize at the end of twenty years? No. It most certainly still would give you the sweet prize at the end of twenty years.
Think of slowly painting a picture with small dots. If you put a few dots on the picture every day, over time it will start to take shape into something of an image.
If you choose to only put a few dots on every week, it will take longer for the picture to take shape. You may even forget what the picture is supposed to look like over time, or loose motivation, seeing that you have so far to go every day.
So, if you haven't caught on yet, the point I am trying to get across here is that by small and simple means are great things brought to pass (Alma chapter 37). We are all meant to do big things. Sometimes we are called to do big things in a short amount of time, but many times, we are called to do big things over a long period of time, requiring a daily effort fraught with faith, hope and love - that will, over that long period of time, turn into something very big.
Now I would like to give you an example of this. Many times in my life, I have struggled with daily things that are beneficial to my over-all health. However, I had plenty of reserves for handling bigger problems or situations - I was used to saving my energy for the big stuff. I actually, sometimes, was too afraid that if I used my energy for small things every day, I wouldn't have what I needed in the event of a big circumstance. Well, I have had the fortune of experiencing a very real shift in my life. A shift from fear and huge circumstances, to faith and daily diligence. I no longer fear I won't have the energy for the big problems because I am ready to do daily things to prevent big problems and that also give me energy in the case of a big circumstance.
I still struggle though. It was as I was reading this 37th chapter in Alma that I realized that the Lord was asking me to do easy things each day. For a long time, I really felt he was asking me to do hard things each day. So, this shift has been very foreign to me. I have wanted to invite huge circumstances into my life for the sole purpose of doing something big, and learning something big. For a big faith growing experience. I see now, that it is okay for me to not have to have the big - although that may still happen - because I have the easy and the small.
Here is my list of small and simple things that I strive for every day that I know are putting oil into my "lamp", and bringing to pass something marvelous. Mind you, I am by no means perfect at doing all of these every day, but when I really focus intently on them, the results are amazing!

Pray
Use the bathroom
Make my bed
Read my scriptures until I feel something good happen inside my soul
Eat nutritious foods - specific to my needs
Drink enough water
Help my children get ready for the day and be nice to them
Exercise
Shower and get dressed in clean clothes
Deoderant
Primp
Write in my journal
Pills
Clean up bedroom for 10 min.
Clean up after breakfast
Make a to-do list for the day.

These all together actually feel like a big feat and not small, considering I have 9 children. However, they are small things in themselves, that really bring synergy into the events of the day.

I am participating in a 21 day fast and LOVE IT! It is not a fast from food and drink, but rather from something that is preventing me from getting closer to Christ (Love). I am fasting from silence and will either be speaking more truth, like memorizing scripture outloud, or I will be journaling, characterizing affirmations, singing more, and accepting the joy that will follow. I need both the expression and the acceptance. This is my 21 day fast. It began January 3, 2016.
I bore my testimony on Sunday and Monday - uninhibited. Tuesday, I told the yucky junk/evil entities to leave my body and freed my voice. I felt great! Clean, pure, beautiful...Thanks to God for being there for me every step of the way - I can be there for him more when I speak truth freely and feel his love freely. Today I share my journey thus far, and I plan to sing freely today and journal about some very deep topics/issues. Here I go!
I invite all who would love to do this as well, to jump aboard and share you goals in the comments.

Are You Where You Are Most Needed?

This morning I opened an email from a company that was advertising some job openings. The first line of the email said, "Do something with your life that really matters and change the world."
I thought, "I am doing the thing that really matters and I will change the world doing it, today, little by little, every day, until a VERY big change occurs." Do I work for them? No. I certainly hope that nobody reading that thought, "I must not be doing anything that changes the world."
So what are YOU doing that matters that is changing the world FOR THE BETTER?
Personally, I am home. The word 'home' is one that has become abused and expanded. Says Noah Webster, "Home is the sacred refuge of our life." However, when I say I am home, what I mean is that I am a mother who is choosing to make home my occupation. Admittedly, I have not perfected this area of my life yet, but ideally, this is what making home my occupation means. It means that I wake up every morning and am there for my children. I pray, take care of myself, to show my children that it is important to do that, and take care of those that cannot take care of them selves yet. I show them how breakfast is made and help them eat it. I clean messes that cannot be cleaned by anyone else in the family. I help the little kids know how to get ready for the day. I sing songs to my children and with my children. I make cleaning look fun and I help the children play nicely and safely. I tell my children the things they need to be doing. I try my best to show them how, and be a good example for them. I teach them about the rules of manners and safety. Ideally, they would trust me, because they have no reason not to. I keep a schedule without getting angry, but rather by making it a game and fun. I show them by example, how to be on time for things. Our home feels like a refuge from the storm because Mom is there and always has something, whether a listening ear, a bandage, some oils, a bowl of food, an idea, a song, a game, a job, a hug, a kiss, a rule, an instruction, a drink of water, something yummy, words of comfort...
I cook dinner with the help of the children for my husband to come home to and we all sit down and eat as a whole family. Everyone loves the food I cook and it is full of good nutrients. Everyone has a drink of something to quench thirst. We work as a family to clean up dinner and do evening activities. No one goes to the computer. There is no time for that, because we choose to let our children know that they are the best use of our time ever. Our hearts are turned to them. God is there because love is there.
Can anyone measure the value of this, or how much it matters? I think not. It is immeasurable. This work matters. Nine children call me mom. I matter to my children and what I do changes the world in immeasurable ways.
Does it still matter if you stay at home so that this can be facilitated, but your day goes nothing like this? YES! We were created to have joy! So, see the good in the world. See the good in what happens every day!
Today, we all have the same 24 hours. What will we do with it? I know what I will try to do. I want to do what matters most, and what is most important. I want to be there for my children and really be present, aware of them, their needs, their joys, their uniqueness, and their love. I want my children to be aware of me, my needs, my joys, my uniqueness, and my love.
Today is a new day - unless of course you are reading this in the evening, then say to yourself, "This is a new hour!" or "Tomorrow is a new day, all fresh again!" What are you going to do with it?
Perhaps you will go to a job that provides for a family. Perhaps you will try to get some sleep because a newborn, elderly, or special needs family member needed you throughout the night. Perhaps you will pray all the day long that the demon of self destruction will go away from you and back to the pit of hell where it came from. Perhaps you will focus on finding truth. Perhaps you will be taken care of by an angel through trials or tribulations. Perhaps you will just be, breathe, dance and love. If you would like to share, please do!

The Need for Nurturing

Today I was in church and one of the nice older ladies in our ward came up to me and said, "Are you feeling okay? You look like you're not doing so well today." I told her I was a bit tired. However, I then wondered how she could see that. Did I have black under my eyes? Was my hair messy? Did my clothes look ragged?
I had to go to the powder room to make sure none of this was the case. I then noticed that although my hair wasn't that bad, it wasn't the way i would have preferred it, so I fixed it. I also decided to check down my throat. She wouldn't have been able to see that, of course, but my throat was sore and maybe people could tell that just from looking at me... Well I noticed something I didn't think was normal and decided to stop pretending that I was on top of things when I really wasn't. So, I went back to the chapel and listened to the announcements. I cried thinking of how much I needed for someone to notice that I wasn't feeling well and ask me how I was doing. It meant a lot to me. I was touched. I then began thinking of all the things that were going wrong in my life and in my family. I knew that path was not healthy though, so I did what I could to combat it. I noticed that I wasn't in the mood to sing the songs. This was NOT me. I always sing the songs and I hate it when people don't even try to sing. Now it was me not even trying to sing. Wow! REALLY? Adversarial pride at work, I suppose.
There was a High Councilman sitting up on the stand who is very musically inclined and he knew that I was too.
I knew that there was a dark force trying to get me down. It was now the sacrament song. I looked at the High Councilman and thought of who I really am. I though of what my mother would be doing if she was right beside me. I reclaimed myself and chose to sing the song. I chose to use the sacrament to really renew my baptismal covenants. I chose to pray for help and see the help. It was a matter of shifting my paradigm.
I shifted back into who I really was and started noticing something great! I was honest. I was real. I wasn't ashamed, though a little disappointed, and I looked at everyone else in a way that they didn't know how to respond to.
But the rest of church happened and I felt great! I allowed me to be me. I though about how much I needed someone to come up to me and tell me they were concerned and to remind me to take care of me. I needed the High Councilman's presence to remind me of who I really am and to be it. To just be me. The real me.
Then I thought, "How many times have I thought that I wasn't doing any good or helping out, when really it was just my presence that was needed?"
Thanking God for wisdom beyond my understanding.

Rebelling against rebellion

I have been rebelling ever since my father-in-law-"suggested " that I not breastfeed in "public" (at a family gathering). Since then I have rebelled again and again against cultural traditions that are wrong. In the process, I have learned a lot of what really is. What is good... what is right, and what is true. Defending truth was what I did for a long time. At times I stood for things that were different, just because they weren't wrong in general. Sometimes they actually were just things I needed to find out weren't right for ME, by experiencing the opposite of what WAS true for me - or what my path needed to be.
Then something changed in my life. What I thought/believed would be, did not happen. Why? Because I chose to rebel when I was not supposed to. Soon after that, things got the point that I did not need to rebel any more against what my husband was doing and saying. I was so used to everything around me being not quite right that when it changed, probably due to many people defending the truth, I was shocked and didn't know what to do.
What happens when your previous purpose no longer exists? Or maybe it's just your previous perception that does not exist any more.
Find a new purpose and gain a new perspective.
There came a point where I no longer needed to defend to my husband all that I was so used to defending. For some odd and strange reason, he needed to hear the truth from myself, AND someone else (and being an introvert, hadn't come across that second witness as of yet) and once that someone and the realization came along, I didn't know for sure what I should do. After I didn't have to do so much convincing and defending contrary to the false traditions that he seemed to believe so heavily in, I didn't know what to do with myself. I blogged and tried to work out my feelings.
There has been an undoing of sorts.
And now I am experiencing a situation where I know what is right and true, what my path is, but have not been choosing to follow it all of the time.
Theory 1: I am subconsciously compelled to do this to give other people a taste of their own medicine.
Theory 2: I am subconsciously compelled to do this to give other rebellers, like me, something to rebel against.
Theory 3: I am being presented with a test. Now that I know for sure what I am supposed to do, and there is no one else standing in my way, will I do it? Or will I stand in my way, because I am so used to having so much resistance?
Theory 4: The casting out of the garden of Eden has happened personally, and it is by the sweat of my and my husband's brow that we are eating our bread the rest of our days...
Theory 5: I have grown lazy in doing what is right, because of not having to fight against my husband any more, and now have to fight against my own flesh, because of atrophy.

It really doesn't matter which theory it is, what matters is that I do the right thing no matter what. What matters is me, my husband, my children, and our salvation. What matters is me being obedient. Me being responsible. Me being true and standing for the right.
So, I am now on a journey of rebelling against rebellion. Fighting against the force that seems to be dragging or pulling me backwards. This is interesting, because as my husband learns all of what I have been trying to tell and teach him through the second witnesses that God is sending into our lives, I am learning all the things that HE has tried to teach me over the years of us rebelling against each other's perspectives.
What a hard lesson to learn. But to finally learn these lessons without the other one on our back, being supportive and helpful instead of adding a burden by climbing on each other's backs, is, to me, better that doing the right things for the wrong reasons. That is relieving for me to acknowledge. Instead of regretting "wasting" so many years - which maybe were still wasted in some ways - I can be grateful that we have learned the lesson of doing the right thing for good reasons.
So, every day as I go about the day, it is my opportunity to do the right things for the right reasons and rejoice in it!!!!
Sometimes I perceive that I am being held back by my husband or my children, but in so many ways, I am who I am and what I am because of them. This cannot be a bad thing. I will not believe that I have become a negative person because of my family, but that I have become a strong and supported and supportive person because of my family.
I am a visionary woman. I see many things as they will be, or can be and sometimes get so frustrated that I am not there yet. It is good for me to see a picture that is bigger, but to see what is right in front of me and be sure that it is the perfect and correct step to take, is just hard sometimes - and easy at other times.
To rebel against the forces of Satan that are so viciously fighting against me doing the right thing, is my new purpose and new challenge.
I am now in a position to really do the best things and be true to who I am destined to be.
What about you?
Leave a comment please. :)