$21.16 of Gratitude

The season of Lent is now complete. It's the morning of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the celebration of the greatest gift ever given...and I'm in the middle of nowhere Nebraska where the stars are boldy shining and there's abosulte stillness surrounding the little farmhouse I grew up in. I got here at midnight actually after a detour for a beautiful and spiritual three hour Easter Vigil mass on my way home. And I drove in listening to piano music. And I don't even care if that makes me a weirdo. I'm contemplating the season of Lent that ended with the dawn of this day while munching on frosted animal cookies, and justifying that becasue every kid in the world would love to be sitting here eating them with me while waiting for the Easter Bunny to arrive...

The season of Lent. I did something absolutely unique this year. I decided while running on Fat Tuesday - the day before the start of lent (February 12 to be exact) - that I was going to use the 40 days of prayer and fasting leading up to Easter Sunday to become someone better than I was at the start. And so I decided I was going to love more deeply. And to do so? Through an expression of gratitude. Through 40 letters in 40 days (well 46 to be exact...). Letters of gratitude. Letters written and mailed to people I am blessed to have in my life. Letters to people who have impacted me, helped me to grow, and supported or challenged me in my faith journey. Counting my blessings if you will.

And I did it. I wrote a letter every single day for the past 46 days, rain or shine, lots of sleep or little. I got up early or stayed up late. I took study breaks at the library. I wrote from the backseat of a friend's suburban and while tuning out pharmacy school lectures. And I am so blessed because of it - because of the people that Heavenly Father has placed into my life and given me the privilege of thanking.

At the conclusion of the project - at least the physical manifestation of it. I feel empty but absolutely full. Empty in that I've written away so much love and poured all of the energies of my heart into it while continuing on in the exhausting road of graduate school. But beautifully full in that I could keep going. In that I realized how much and how deeply I love so many people in my life. In that I feel so incredibly humbled by the love that so many have shown me in life. And I feel swallowed up in a reciprocating love - in a realization that no matter how much love I ever could give, I can never out-give the Savior. Because Jesus Christ loved me and you so much that he embraced our sorrows for us so that we don't have to. He sufffered everything we ever have and more and gave absolutely everything for us. Out of pure and simple love. No measure of gratitude could ever be sufficient to thank him for that.

I have one more letter to write. A letter to my Savior. And I'm going to write it today. But really, I feel like it's going to have to be more of a proclamation. Words on paper will not even begin to measure up to the love that He deserves from each of us. So I'm going to write this letter today and then promise to try and live the love I express in it each and every day. What He has done for us deserves a living and ever-expounding measure of gratitude expressed as love.

I wrote Forty-six letters, spent  $21.16 in postage, and a received in return a heart full of gratitude. I think an expression of love is a small price to pay in return. :)

The tulips are coming!

This has been a particularly crazy week. The beginning of it seems like forever ago, but back in those precious hours I was performing the ridiculous task of writing my advance directives for my ethics class. Such heavy thoughts and concerns for such a busy week. And let me say, all I could think about was the fact that they waited to give this assignment to us in the LAST semester of classroom pharmacy school... I fear that maybe they are secretly plotting to kill us all off before we ever make it to graduation...and they are just planning ahead. How kind of them to have us all have the wishes for our lives in case of tragedy written on paper... Why else would there be the need to create such heavy documents in the middle of so much required study and busy work? Is that really just a coincidence? Probably not...

Anywho, with that being said. All I really want to say this week is that I'm alive. And well. And blessed in hundreds of ways each day. Little things have made me smile this week even when it seemed that somehow I had fallen off the train of life and despite my best efforts couldn't make it slow down so I could jump back on board.

Like for instance: my tulips have sprouted up!!! I came home one day late last fall to the horror of Chuck, my landlord's handyman, plowing up my precious little garden. It was a small tragedy. But those flowers are resilient and they're coming back. Maybe life stirred them up a bit and maybe the air's been ridiculously frozen. Maybre they've had to push themselves up through snow and maybe they're not in perfect rows anymore, but they've sprouted. They are fighting and I'm so excited about this! :)

And if the plowed-up flowers can fight through trials, so can I, and so can you.

"Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?" Matt 6:30

SUNDAY ALWAYS COMES! :)

Spring Healing

Considering my car was deemed a total loss five hours after the start of spring break, my break became quite a unique experience. I spent a good portion of the week talking to insurance people and dealing with the issue of releasing my murdered impala to them and finding a new car. After two days of being awoken by insurance company calls, I reached my point of absolute frustration on Wednesday morning. I received 13 phone calls in one hour from insurance people and car dealers and my parents. I may have started crying at call 11 when I finally gave up on my scripture study for the time and deemed my reflections would simply have to take a different course for the day…

That seems like forever ago. I am now in the backseat of my dear friend’s Suburban three hours into my eight hour journey back to NE from the tiny, peaceful, off-the-map, SD reservation town of Porcupine where we spent the weekend visiting dear friends from college who followed the quiet beckoning of God’s call and moved to this remote and special place to volunteer at a tiny Catholic Lakota school.

We’re dodging sketchy snow patches in the road. The sky is overcast and the wind is cruel. And I’m sitting back here reflecting on all that has transpired this week.  All I can think is that I am so grateful for the blessing it was to end my Spring break in that humble and remote place.  It wasn’t a break spent in a warm place or surfing the ocean waves or skiing or embarking on adventures others would claim as brag-worthy feats. But my heart is so warm and comforted at its close.

Sure, coming inches from death and dealing with the expenses of an accident was in no way an ideal beginning to a break. It was frustrating, and for a time I was so overwhelmed with the stress and realization of how lucky I had been that maybe I was mentally and spiritually exhausted and broken. So my spring break started with a REAL break – not just in my car, but in my spirit.

But I am so grateful. Sometimes we simply need to be broken to realize that we need to be fixed. Heavenly Father blessed me with an opportunity to start my vacation from school in his house – in his temple – and that peace prepared me to face the brokenness and to find a way to make something of it.

I spent all of last Sunday outside of church skyping and talking to friends I haven’t been able to make time for. I cleaned my house and read scriptures and watched testimonies from the apostles. I had no car and no way to go or need to be anywhere other than with those people.

I spent the beginning days of the week with the broken car issue, and the nights blessed with a new, wonderful friend. An answered prayer from Heavenly Father. A girl home from her mission. We did nothing special at all. We just talked. And reflecting on it now, I realize how special that was. How amazingly wonderful that I didn’t have a car and a way to escape to places I didn’t need to be. My broken car brought me to face a sort of spiritual break. And to be healed in the beauty of realized blessings and in the humility of realizing how many ways Heavenly Father is aware of each of us. And in the phenomenal way he brings people we need into our lives to help us and direct us and to help us to know him more closely.

I got a new car mid-week. It’s nothing fancy, but it allowed me to come to SD where I’ve only grown in that appreciation of God’s plan for my break. Something about being in the middle of nowhere with people you’ve grown up with and grown to love and being able to pray together, no matter the differences in doctrinal beliefs or paths in life, brings sealing power to the healing of the soul.

I realized that cars don’t matter. Fun vacations don’t matter. A perfectly planned and carried out vacation doesn’t matter. But people do. People and a realization of Heavenly Father’s love for each of us and a desire to learn and return that love. I am blessed to have been broken by this spring break, and I can honestly say my spring healing has begun. J

He will Protect Me

Earlier this week I had an interview for a scholarship. I was a finalist for a University sponsored memorial scholarship that would have paid my summer tuition. To the best of my understanding, the award was to be granted based on scholarship but more importantly character and friendship modeled after the amazing young woman it memorialized.

I entered the interview quite nervous, because let's be real, those are always awkward events. I was prepping myself to answer some cheesy question that can only be answered with a cheesy made-up answer. I hate these kinds of interviews so much - the competitive kind where the questions are dumb and not realistic at all and the answers are expected to make you stand out of the crowd, which requires talking yourself up, which I cannot stand to do. It's so fake and surfacey and dumb and it gives me anxiety.

So that's what I was expecting. And that's not what happened at all. The first question was a generic, "What made you want to apply for this scholarship?" I answered sufficiently and avoided getting cheesy about it. So far so good. The second question? "Can you talk to us a little bit about how you have done service in both the Catholic Church and the Mormon Church?" ...And after that, "What made you decide to become a Mormon?" ..... I was shocked to say the least. I repeated the question, trying to process the realness of it. Trying to figure out when this interview turned into a testimony meeting or a trial with my religion as the defendent. And then I answered it. Absolutely honestly and for real. Nothing cheesy about it. I didn't have to make up a thing or worry about how ridiculous I sounded.

I walked away from that interviewed confused as to how and why it took that course. I felt like I had been set up in some sense - that I had been pulled into that awkwardly and needlessly formal setting to be questioned about my religion. And some part of me felt like it was cruel to ask me such meaningful questions in a setting where the only rational response was criticism - where my answers drew a picture of me to use as a comparison to the other finalists and as a means to accept or reject me rather than as a search for truth and understanding. I felt using my answers was using and belittling me. They had fulfilled the purpose of their interview. They had "gotten to know me." But the scholarship didn't have anything to do with faith and that left no room for the realness of my answers to settle in to any of their hearts. And the shallowness of that situation left me feeling empty.... BUT, the realization of what had happened was also quite incredible.

I realized in answering those questions - granted not an ideal situation - that I had never been to an easier interview in my life. I didn't make up a thing or feel the need to impress anyone. They asked me real questions and I gave them real answers and I was confident in them and wanted them to listen. It was an unexpected situation for sure, but one that helped me to feel absolutely confident and blessed that I have an incredible relationship with my Heavenly Father and that I am rooted in truth. Their desire, even if fleeting and momentarily induced, to get to know me made me so grateful for the faith that is me.....and so grateful for the timing of things and the hand of God constantly in my life.

Because that had been a prayer of mine this week - that I would be able to see the hand of God in my life each day. And let me tell you, I saw it in a remarkable way last night. I went to the temple last night. I ironically didn't even realize it was my ward's temple night, which is super unusual for me. I found out on Thursday afternoon from a friend who was going for the first time. She wanted to know if I would come with her. She wanted me to be there to make her feel more comfortable. So I said I would without thinking. I had my last exam before Spring Break at 3:00 yesterday and for some reason I really didn't want to go to the temple after. I almost didn't go. My friend called me twice with nervous questions though, and I simply couldn't leave her. So I drove there. I felt strange all afternoon honestly, and I really had a huge desire to put on my sweatpants and just make dinner and be content with my roommate at home. I didn't want to dress up or talk to people. But I told myself that of course the adversary pulls at my heart about such important matters. It's counter-intuitive to even suggest that going to the temple could ever be a bad idea...

I went. I stayed in the chapel for a good 30 minutes after the session just praying. Perfectly at peace and perfectly content. I was in there alone and marveling at the blessing that was - to pray in the Lord's House and to have those deeply personal moments with Him. I remember reflecting on how easy it was to pray there and how many questions came to my mind and seemed to resolve themselves in the stillness. I wasn't in a hurry and felt no need at all to leave or to be anywhere else. Finally I did though. I walked back to the waiting room at the front and talked to a few stragglers from the ward before leaving. I got to my car, turned on my phone, responded to a text message and started driving. I stopped at the stop sign at the top of the hill and dialed home to talk to my mom. She picked up and I resumed driving. I was going slowly. I was listening to Paul Cardall's piano music and perfectly calm.

I turned down the road passing the Mormon Trail Center and was talking to my mom about Easter plans....and then I just remember a loud crushing noise and a weird shuttering impact. I screamed and I dropped my phone and the crushing noise was horrible. A large truck had flown through a random side street I'd never even noticed before. Two young guys inside had been drinking a bit and sped through a stop sign. They hit me. I didn't even see them coming. Their truck slammed into the driver's side of my car. The impact smashed into my hood. If I had been two seconds later, they would have slammed into my driver's side door - and into ME. I so easily could have died. So easily. The difference was a matter of seconds, maybe milliseconds even. I think I blacked out. I hit my knee on something but didn't notice anything else. I remember saying, "Oh no. Please help Heavenly Father. Please help. My mom. She's terrified. I need my phone." I wasn't thinking rationally when the impact ended. I didn't think about me or the fact that I was alive. I was searching for my phone and shaking uncontrollably when the driver of the truck appeared by my passenger side door. He opened it and told me to crawl out - that I could get out that way. I hadn't even realized my car and my driver's door were smashed up into his pick-up. I listened and craweled over. He looked at me and asked me, "Have you been drinking?" I was so stunned and confused by the question and he smelled like alcohol. I don't think I responded. But in my head I was screaming, "No. no. absolutely not. I just came from the temple. what is going on?" And I looked behind him and some nice man in a truck was there. I pleaded with him to tell me what was going on. He asked me if I was ok and said, "Honey, it's ok. It's ok. The guys in the truck ran a stop sign. You didn't have a stop sign. It's not your fault. You're going to be ok."

One of my friends appeared. He had left the temple five minutes after me. I had walked out with him but he had stopped to talk to a friend and was delayed long enough to come past the scene and to be my hero of the night. He completely took over for me. I was barely responsive and I sat wrapped in my library blanket in the back seat of my car while the cop filled out his paperwork and the tow truck was called and the details were worked out.

So many crazy things went through my mind sitting there. So many senseless things. I tried for a while to figure out why this would have happened. What the point was supposed to be. But my thoughts were just stuck on the concept of timing. I was two seconds away from dying - or at the very least horrible injuries. Instead I walked away with only a bruised knee and some form of whiplash. My airbag never went off. I didn't even have a scrape. My car was destroyed. The impact twisted the frame and the hood looked disastrous - the contortion of it extended all the way over into the passenger-side door that no longer closed smoothly at all.  I miraculously was uncontrollably shaking, but fine. Alive and well.

And I'd seen God's hand in my life in a phenomenal way. And sitting in my shock and fear in that car, that interview question came back to me. "What made you decide to become a Mormon?" My answer was prayer. I told them that I asked Heavenly Father what He needed me to do and that I promised I would do it. And that I knew it would be incredibly difficult but that He would protect me.

And I thanked Heavenly Father in that moment, repeatedly in my shock, for protecting me. There was simply nothing else to do.

Take Off Your Shoes

This was quite an eventful week and so many wonderful things are spinning around my head right now. Lucky I ran a half marathon yesterday morning in 24 degree weather. That gave me sufficient time to think and to clear my mind of many of the problems it's been failing to fix. Had it been 60 degrees warmer, I may have even believed it was summer again and I'd be able to continue my life reflecting in the moutains post-run....but on the contrary, I could see my breath and my fingers looked like marshmallows from the cold.

So what's left in my head? That I didn't deliberate through or leave behind in a sad frigid mess? Thoughts on HOME - in many unique and different ways.

I was at the library earlier this week studying for an exam. I was majorly distracted and hurt by an interaction I'd had with a friend earlier in the day, so much so that I ended up leaving in frustration. I went to the gym and I ran. I was on a treadmill (treadmills make for horrible, depressing life analogies, but that's a story for another day), running my little heart out and feeling calmer by the second. I finally ran myself to exhaustion and started walking. I turned off my music and turned on the voice of Elder Robert C. Oaks from the October 2006 General Conference. I was scrolling through the list of talks and found his entitled "The Power of Patience" and I, still in somewhat of a rage, though quite a bit milder now, thought, "patience, yes, I need a lot of that...."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdlzRmUS8Y0

So I began walking expecting this wise gentleman to enlighten me on things of a patient nature. He didn't waste any time. Within the first 30 seconds, he had moved from the concept of patience straight into the 13 elements of charity, commonly quoted from 1 Cor 13 or Moroni 7:44-45. And he proceeded to explain that 4 of those elements are directly related, and prerequisites to, patience: Charity suffereth long. Charity is not easily provoked. Charity beareth all things. Charity endureth all things.

Pretty sure my walking slowed down with this instant and direct and overwhelming and beautiful reminder/realization. I had turned on a counsel on patience expecting to be able to be told how to get it while maintaining what I believed was my right to anger. And my heart was told instantly that I had it all wrong. I could only be patient if I could love. And to love meant I had to forgive and that meant that I was wasting my time being angry. So I slowed down - I felt like I'd run to the top of a mountain and hadn't appreciated the view and was finally calm enough to slow down and realize what I'd been missing on the way back. My walked slowed to nothing as this sweet man concluded his counsel. And, I walked slowly outside and back to my car. I went home and I changed and headed back to the library.

This time I walked in carrying a fleece blanket and wearing fur boots. I found a solitary table and I spread out my study materials, took of my shoes, curled up in my blanket and calmly began to study. Three hours later, I'd realized that I'd been walking around the libary all night shoeless. And it was so much easier to focus and to feel calm and capable of patience.

Speaking at a fireside this summer for youth, I remember taking off my shoes and walking up to the microphone barefoot. Speaking in church a few Sundays ago, instead of twirling my hair like a normal nervous person or smiling while my knees shook uncontrollably, I was standing behind the pulpit slipping my shoe on and off while speaking, with non shaking knees or twirled hair.

What's my point in this, besides confusing you by going off on a shoe tangent? Think about being at home. Most people when at home, in the place they feel most comfortable and relaxed, take off their shoes. So naturally, when I go places where I want to feel at home, I take off my shoes.

And I realized, in my most excited and perhaps most humbled moment of the week, that in the temple - in God's HOME, before walking to the bapistry, we take off our shoes. And doing so, makes me feel so, so perfectly at home. :)

After that treadmill run, I had been reminded of how much I needed to work on charity. Those feelings calmed my heart, but the concept of getting to that level - where I could forgive and develop patience - seemed too insurmountable and that made me feel defeated. So I did the most natural thing I could. I took off my shoes in the library and I allowed myself to be at home.

Needing to talk shoeless in church allows me to be at home. It's oddly humbling and so calming for me to do. If I take off my shoes, I can't go anywhere until I have communed with Heavenly Father - been at home with him. And when I'm at home, maybe not a specific physical building or place at this time in my life, but home in my heart, I am my best self and most capable of settling in and settling down and finding patience, charity, and peace. And Sundays? Sundays are the most perfect days to be at home.