Feeling Deflated, Finding Hope

Being a mother is tough stuff!  There are many joys and there are many, many heartaches.  There is this constant feeling that you are not doing enough and are making more mistakes than strides.  Sigh.  It’s enough to break my heart. 

I have been weak this past week.  It’s been a hard week.  I rarely let on to others where my struggles are in any given moment.  I try to be constantly moving forward and upward.  But even that takes its toll. 

Almost one year ago, I decided that I needed to spend more time with my children.  I wasn’t exactly sure why, but I felt that I needed to be more present in their lives and that my own life needed a boost by being with my children.  Well, that decision certainly has been an amusement park ride!  There have been highs and lows and even lowers and some stall outs and some stops and some giggles.  Amidst it all I have NEVER questioned the inspiration I received to be at home more with my children.  NEVER.  I did wonder, however, if my choice for my career was as inspired (working from home).  I know that it is, but there are times, like this past week, where I begin to wonder. 

Deflated.  That would be the word that I felt this week.  I feel like I should be more, be doing more, be a better mother, network more, smile more, dance more, exercise more, clean more, write more, study more, cuddle more, and overall make life MORE uplifting, joyous and fun for my kids and family.  And guess what?  The only thing that really happened was I was MORE deflated.  Life with my kids seems to take away from my studies (my schoolwork).  Life with my schoolwork takes away from my kids and family.  All of this takes away from my writing.  My writing takes away from my housework and exercise.  All of this takes away from my overall happiness.  Sigh!!!  Things were so bad that my husband wondered if he should have come home from work to help me with the kids (as this is Spring Break week).  I mean, I was in a terrible place.  LOTS of tears were falling*. (luckily they were all mine…for now)

I realized that I have had the wonderful opportunity to see where I am going and see what I am meant, designed and created to be!  And yet, I am not quite there.  I am on the path, but my footsteps are timid at times. Trepid movements toward something more.  Sometimes I get scared.  Scared that I misunderstood the inspiration.  Scared that I am not really supposed to be so successful.  Scared that I am being selfish.  Scared that no one will care.  *it’s easy to see the DEFLATION process in effect here* 

And then I realize, “oh that cunning plan of the devil”…to tempt me with doubt!  Sometimes that is all he can do – tempt us to doubt ourselves.  He knows how magnificent we are to be.  He knows that we are already stronger because we are here!  So he leaves us doubting.  Are we good enough?  What if no one cares?  If you do this, then you’ll be less-than for your family, or your school work, or less of a person.  Well, to him I say, “you don’t even have a face! So…I’ll thank you to get outta mine.”  Okay, I don’t really say that, but isn’t that the truth?  He has none of what we have.  None of it.  Including a face!  He has no family.  No inspiration. Hope. Dreams.  Testimony.  Faith.  All he has is the worst job in the world… “to bring the children of God down to hell.”   Well, I will not let him take me.  I was given specific inspiration so that I would know what I am supposed to do for my family and for myself. I know that the pathway that I am on, while still CHALLENGING, is the right pathway.  If this is my knowledge, brought to me by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, why then am I walking with timid steps towards what I know will be success?  Fear does settle in sometimes, but fear has no place where there is hope and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.  I know who I am.  I know God’s Plan.  I know that He has a plan for me and I was privileged to witness just a piece of it.  Therefore, I will go and do the things that the Lord has commanded me because I know the Lord gives no commandments except He shall prepare a way that they may be accomplished.  Boy, it is awesome when you can apply the scriptures to your life!

So, here I am.  Ready, willing and able to do better and to be more.  Not more than anyone else, but more than I am now because I know that I am blessed and was sent here to do many wonderful and great things!  Off I go!


*I should note that in that moment, described above, when I was in that “terrible” place, I could only eek out a very weak plea to my Father in Heaven to “help me”.  I was so low and so deflated that I didn’t even know what would help me.  But I testify that almost immediately after uttering my plea, I felt lifted up.  I felt just enough energy to get through the tasks for the day without much upset or tears.  I felt that if I kept moving I would be okay.  I did not have the energy or desire to do a single thing that morning, but after my plea for help, I was able to do all the housework that I felt looming over my head for three days.  I was still weak and I still needed to work through some things and manage my time and tasks better, but in the very moment when I was at my lowest point and all my heart could do was plea to my Father in Heaven, HE WAS THERE!  I will never doubt his love for me.  He is ever present in my life, especially when I invite Him in.

Why Do Mother's Cry?

A little boy asked his mother, "Why are you crying?" "Because I'm a woman," she told him.

"I don't understand," he said. His Mom just hugged him and said, "And you never will."

Later the little boy asked his father, "Why does mother seem to cry for no reason?"

"All women cry for no reason," was all his dad could say.

The little boy grew up and became a man, still wondering why women cry.

Finally he put in a call to God. When God got on the phone, he asked,

"God, why do women cry so easily?"

God said, "When I made the woman she had to be special.

I made her shoulders strong enough to carry the weight of the world, yet gentle enough to give comfort.

I gave her an inner strength to endure childbirth and the rejection that many times comes from her children.

I gave her a hardness that allows her to keep going when everyone else gives up, and take care of her family through sickness and fatigue without complaining.

I gave her the sensitivity to love her children under any and all circumstances, even when her child has hurt her very badly.

I gave her strength to carry her husband through his faults and fashioned her from his rib to protect his heart.

I gave her wisdom to know that a good husband never hurts his wife, but sometimes tests her strengths and her resolve to stand beside him And finally, I gave her a tear to shed. This is hers exclusively to use whenever it is needed."

"You see my son," said God, "the beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair.

The beauty of a woman must be seen in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart the place where love resides."

Now this story was clearly written by someone and it does not have any doctrinal proof that this is, in fact, how women were created; however, for most who read this, especially women and mothers, it touches us in our hearts.  I believe it touches us in our hearts because it is our Father in Heaven letting us know that yes, we were created differently and for a special purpose.  We should not try to be the same as all the other children of God, always trying to be equal.  We were created for a wise and separate purpose.  We should be engaged in the same purposes as others, however, including uplifting others, our children and those with whom we serve and help them to feel of the love that their Father in Heaven has for them. 

As a mother of four – 3 boys (2 of whom are teenagers) and a daughter – I have shed many, many tears.  These tears have been for a variety of reasons, including feeling hurt or disappointment in their decisions, words and actions.  I have been engaged in long prayers with my Father in Heaven for an understanding of how I am to parent “this child” because I am feeling so hurt or sad or frustrated.  Amazingly enough, the answers are always the same.  “Love him.”  “Serve him.”  Invariably I find that those words that echoed through my mind and heart were just the right things to do.  While it didn’t “fix” my child(ren), it did strengthen me.  It uplifted me to be the mother that I was created to be. 

I do not know if my children will ever know of the many hours I have spent on my knees or with my head bowed in pleading supplication to the Lord for His strengthening power to get through the day and to be a “good mother”.  Perhaps they will never know how much I ached with them and for them in the quiet of my own room.  Perhaps they will not know the number of times I negotiated with the Lord to allow me to take on their pain so that they would be spared.  And perhaps they will never know the number of times I asked the Lord to distance the memory of their mother losing her patience from their sweet minds.  But I do know that it is my job, as their mother, to bear all of these things FOR them and to tell them EVERY DAY that I love them and that they are extraordinary children of God.  If this is all that they know and all that they learn from me then I will have done my duty - as a mother - well, and I can return with honor. 

To my children…I love you. 

Endure to the End

Taken from my talk given in church in October 2012

 

To remain firm in a commitment to be true to the commandments of God despite temptation, opposition, and adversity.

 

Today, my thoughts will reflect on a familiar commandment.  One that sometimes causes us to have a reaction of, “Oh yeah, that commandment.”  But my hope is that today you will be blessed with the Spirit to take away from these words that I will share with you today, something that will help you to restore your eternal perspective on challenges.  This commandment is to “endure to the end”. 

You know, we hear that phrase often in the gospel.  Regardless of when your introduction into the gospel was, whether it was as a teenager, or a young adult or older adult or whether you have been raised in the church, that phrase “endure to the end” is just abounding in the gospel lessons and thus, it becomes common and is heard repeatedly.  What can happen, however, is as things become more common, they tend to lose their meaning or their significance.  

So, as we are in the middle of the challenge or the middle of the struggle, someone, who means well and is listening to us, says, “Aww, I’m really sorry.  Hey, endure to the end.”  In that very moment, the only thing that we want to do is …choke them out!  We don’t want to hear that!  We want to hear something uplifting.  We want to hear something that is going to bring us some sort of hope.  Some sort of compassionate response, some empathy.  How about a hallmark card!?  Something.  But someone says, “endure to the end”… what does that mean?  What do you mean, endure to the end, what do you think I’m doing over here!?

As we go through these challenges and trials, we get mired down by the difficulty of life that we, of course, will all experience.  And due to the combination of the weight of the trial and that gospel principle going through a diluting process (after hearing it so often), it doesn’t have the same value that it should.  And yet, what truly does ENDURE TO THE END mean?

So we get on the pathway to “Endure to the End” and we think that we are doing it. 

We say, “that’s what I’m doing!  What do you think I’m doing?  I’m enduring.  Does it not look like I am enduring?  How am I supposed to endure my spouse’s death?  My child’s death?  My child leaving the church?  My husband losing his job.  My children don’t want to have anything to do with me.  I hate my calling.  I can’t stand my job, it doesn’t pay my bills.  I’m enduring all of that. 

And suddenly that phrase doesn’t feel so hopeful.    

But what happens mostly, for us, is that we have interpreted it in an imbalanced way.  We focus heavily on the ENDURING part.  Just 'getting through' it.  And yet, that is not what the commandment means. 

It doesn’t just mean, ‘get through it’, ‘grin and bear it’.  It is very important that we understand that this counsel comes from our Father in Heaven and at no time, EVER, in the history of our existence or those who have come before us, has Father in Heaven ever said to us, “just deal with it.  Just grin and bear it.”  Never.  He has always been compassionate.  He has always been loving.  Everything He has ever commanded us to do has always been thoughtful.  Purposeful.  It has had a reason.  And it always has to do with our eternal salvation.  Always. 

So what does ENDURE TO THE END have to do with our Eternal Salvation?

Most of us go through this enduring phase and we think,

“Yeah, I just gotta get through it, someday it will be better.  Someday I guess I just won’t have to deal with this.  Someday I guess it just won’t matter to me anymore.” 

That’s not it.  That perspective is our mortal perspective, often referred to as our “short-sightedness”. 

Our eternal perspective, however, is trying to balance things that are meant to be difficult and are meant to be challenging and are meant to cause us to call upon the Lord.  So if we only focus on the enduring part – just get through it – and we don’t have our perspective calibrated just right, then yes, it will be tough and it will be tougher to get through. 

What we need to do is rethink the phrase.  I think we should insert this part into the commandment so we can hear it each time.  It is Endure WITH A PURPOSE to the end.  Because that changes everything.  If I know that this experience that I am going through right now has a purpose and a meaning for ME for a year in the future, two years in the future or ultimately for my eternal salvation – my ability to return to my Father in Heaven – that somehow is significant enough to me and I’ll do it...better. 

EXAMPLE:  Running in the rain to save my child.

Clearly I am not a runner.  But if I had to run in the rain to save my child who was hanging off of a cliff, then I would run.  Yes, it would be hard and it would hurt.  My knees would ache, my breathing would be labored and I would think that at any moment I just might die, but I would not stop because running to save my child is worth all of that pain and difficulty.  That is why if we can impart meaning or purpose into the enduring then it gives us an identifiable reason and then the surviving/bearing/resisting is DIFFERENT.  Whether it makes it easier or not, it suddenly becomes worth it. 

So the purpose of our trials, the purpose of our challenges has to have meaning and purpose.  Otherwise, it would be just cruel suffering. And our Father in Heaven has never been one who is cruel.

There are all kinds of personal definitions for 'endure to the end', but one of the greatest comes from President Thomas S. Monson.  He said it means, to “withstand with courage.”  WITHSTAND means to “hold up” to “bear” to “survive”.  And courage is “valor” or “nerve”.

The idea of 'enduring to the end' is a commandment.  Anything that the Lord asks of us is a commandment.  There are 10 that a lot of the world focuses on, and that is great.  But ANYTHING that the Lord says and any direction he gives to us, is in fact a commandment.  So, because it is a commandment it is followed by a blessing – a promise. 

There are several references that I found very quickly that refer to this promise (Matthew, Mark, etc.) and they all say the same thing, “he that endureth to the end, shall be saved.”  I asked earlier, what does endure to the end have to do with our salvation?  It has everything to do with it.  It is our salvation. 

No matter what station in life we find ourselves in, whether we are at the end of our journey on this earth or whether we have children or don’t; are married or are not; have callings or do not; have an education or successful business, etc.,  wherever we find ourselves – that commandment is the same. And so is the promise.

Sometimes we begin to think “Why!?”  Why me!  Why do I have to go through this, Father in Heaven?  Have I not done this or that?  Have I not gone to church every week?  Have I not born my testimony; gone to the temple; taught my children; held family home evening; pay my tithing; fulfill my calling; volunteer?  Why am I being asked to go through this?  This is just too hard!  I’ve done all of the things you have asked."  I try to remind the Lord of my resume as his child and all of my accomplishments here in this life…just in case He forgot and is accidentally challenging me with a trial – as though some angel wasn’t paying attention. 

In 1994, I began serving my mission.  I was called to serve in Ecuador.  I loved it!  I loved the people.  I did get sick, but I still worked everyday.  After about a year, we were at a Zone Conference and my Mission President came up to me to ask how I was feeling.  I told him I was "fine".  He said, "Great!"  He then told me to go home and pack because I was leaving that night to go home...as in back to the United States - six months early.  I was heartbroken.  I didn't want to leave.  I couldn't understand.  I began to question his wisdom and begged the Lord for understanding.  I was numb the hour-and-a-half bus ride back to our little apartment.  Later that night, the APs (Assistants to the President) came to drive both me and my companion to the main city.  A 2-hour drive.  

I don't remember that drive and I barely remember sleeping that night.  A few hours later, just before dawn, the APs returned to take me to the airport.  They walked me into the airport, made sure I had my ticket and wished me well.  Sixteen hours later, I was walking off of the airplane in my hometown and I was not happy.  My family was there to greet me and they could tell I was not happy.  For five weeks, I stayed at home and went to doctor's appointments to try to remedy my illness.  After the 5th week, on a Tuesday evening, I received a call from our Stake President who asked if I was ready to return to the mission field.  I eagerly said that I was.  He told me that on Thursday I would fly to Dallas Texas to begin my mission.  Stumbling for just a moment, I thought that surely he was kidding and that I would be returning to Ecuador.  Such was not the case.  So, I packed and I left on Thursday.  

As I entered the Dallas Texas mission, I felt out of place.  I was used to dirt roads and humble circumstances.  This felt completely different.  But, my companion and I went about our work of serving and teaching.  About five weeks after arriving in the mission, I met a young missionary who was intriguing.  Truth be told, he was annoying, but funny.  He was always in a good mood which seemed to clash with my hardly ever being in a good mood.  But I tolerated him and he used his talents to try to make people smile and laugh.  I was the hardest nut to crack that he had ever encountered.  We served in the same areas of the mission for three months.  Then I returned home.

In 1997, six months after he left the mission field, we were married.  It has been 15 years and we now have four beautiful children.  To think, if I had remained in my mission in Ecuador as I had wanted, I would have missed the opportunity to meet the future father of my children.  You see, we don't know the reason for the challenge we might face, but our Father in Heaven surely does.

Even Joseph Smith asked this very question.  While in jail and wondering when he would be released to return to his mission, he cried out to the Lord saying, “O God, where art thou?”  He wanted to know when all of this turmoil was going to end.  The Lord answered his prayer in a very comforting way.  He said,

"My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes." (D&C 121 7-8)

To further underscore the power of the trial that Joseph was faced with and after continued prayer to the Lord, he was told…

“and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good." (D&C 122:7)

To me this means that the Lord knows that we are suffering.  He knows that this is hard.   

Sometimes we wonder, “What else could the Lord possibly be doing?  Why doesn’t He know that this is hard for me!?  Why doesn’t He take this away?”  And his answer is always the same, “This shall give thee experience,…”  I remember thinking a long time ago, “Experience for what?”  What is this going to give me experience for?  If this is gonna give me experience, then I don’t want what’s coming.  I don’t want more of this!  I don’t want to suffer more.  I don’t want to wonder if my kids will have food; if we will have gas in the car; if they will shut off the electricity.  I don’t want to experience more of this tragedy.  This was my short-sightedness. 

The Lord knows that this is hard and it will be for our experience.

"Enduring to the end, or remaining faithful to the laws and ordinances of the gospel of Jesus Christ throughout our life, is a fundamental requirement for salvation in the kingdom of God. This belief distinguishes Latter-day Saints from many other Christian denominations that teach that salvation is given to all who simply believe and confess that Jesus is the Christ.  The Lord clearly declared, 'If you keep my commandments and endure to the end you shall have eternal life, which gift is the greatest of all the gifts of God' (D&C 14:7). "Therefore, enduring to the end is not just a matter of passively tolerating life's difficult circumstances or 'hanging in there.' Ours is an active religion, one that is joyful, one of hope, strength and deliverance, not one that is grim and gloomy. " 

Dieter F. Uchtdorf, "Have We Not Reason to Rejoice?" Ensign, Nov. 2007, 20

Finally, to truly understand, let me share with you greatest example that we have.  Our Savior, Jesus Christ.  The greatest example of enduring …with a purpose… that any of us will ever have. 

It started in the Garden of Gethsemane, when he went there to pray to his Father in Heaven and there he dropped to His knees and it is here, in this moment that we know that He took upon himself all the sins of the world – so much so that He sweat great drops of blood from every pore.  Just even in that, if we could comprehend what that means – that the pressure and the weight of all that he was taking upon himself was so taxing and difficult, great drops of blood came from every pore.  And He with His Father endured all of that – and the reason He did so, was so that today, you and I could repent and could be free from the weight of sin.  That is the purpose of those hours spent in the Garden of Gethsemane. 

He then gets up and he goes out of the Garden to find His disciples sleeping.  He wakes them up and says, “Could ye not watch me one hour?”  He then returns to the Garden of Gethsemane and asked his Father to be with him during the experience that he soon would endure.   Angels then came down and they strengthened him.   And what experience was he soon to endure?  His betrayal, mocking and crucifixion.

Within hours he was taken, judged, mocked, spit upon and abused.  They call out from the crowd, “Crucify him!”  So he is whipped and spit upon some more and a “crown” of thorns was pressed into head.  They gave Him a large beam to carry – this would be the one that he would soon be nailed to and as He walked the long walk up to the hill called Golgotha, he was continually mocked by those he loved and served.  They then nailed Him on the cross through his wrists and feet and hung a sign that mocked him further that said, “King of the Jews”.  It is important to note that crucifixion was not intended to kill people – it was intended to make them suffer.  The longest time any individual person hung on the cross was about 3 hours.  Christ endured for almost 8. 

In his final hours, Father in Heaven withdrew His spirit from Christ so that, in fact, it truly would be that he, the Savior, did it all.  In those moments, Jesus cried out, “Why hast thou forsaken me?”  And then, in that moment, having endured it all – even on his own, he declared, “it is finished…Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.”  And he gave up the ghost.  Jesus had indeed endured to the end. (Luke 23:46)

From this amazing and touching example we can see what we are to do in the midst of trials and challenges.  As Jesus himself faced an upcoming challenge, he went to Father in Heaven and asked for help to endure his trial.  We also learn that, enduring all things with an eye towards heaven – thinking of the eternal purpose of the trial and the suffering, will bring about the energy and strength needed to accomplish what is asked of us.  It is not easy, but it is worth it. 

I bear you my testimony that we truly are children of our Father in Heaven who loves us and He has given us this life to help us build up our strength so that we can learn to be more like He is.  I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and that he died on the cross for each of us, so that we would have the privilege of seeking repentance and returning to be with him and our Father in Heaven someday.  I know that the difficulties that we face in this life are frustrating and may even cause us to fall to our knees, but our Savior’s promise is still true – we have not been left comfortless, we can have the peaceful Spirit to be with us as we endure with valor.