Look Up!

I think the challenge for all of us--but perhaps particularly for young adults--is to try not to look sideways to see how others are viewing our lives but to look up to see how Heavenly Father sees us. He doesn't look on the outward appearance but on the heart. And He knows, better than anyone else, what each of us needs.

- Elder Carl B. Cook, Look Up, Ensign January 2012

Boy do I know that challenge well. Lately, especially since I just started a new job, I have found myself almost constantly thinking about what the people around me are thinking about me. Concerned that I will not be viewed in as favorable light as I would like to be. Worried nearly sick that I am not putting forth enough effort or making a good enough impression.

Elder Cook introduced this idea of looking up in his address in the October General Conference for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. After a long day during his first week as a General Authority Elder Cook unexpectedly found himself in an elevator with Pres. Thomas S. Monson. As Pres. Monson entered the elevator, Elder Cook continued staring downheartedly at the floor of the elevator. Pres. Monson provided the following encouragement:

... he had seen my subdued countenance and my heavy briefcase. He smiled and lovingly suggested, while pointing heavenward, “It is better to look up!” As we traveled down one more level, he cheerfully explained that he was on his way to the temple. When he bid me farewell, his parting glance spoke again to my heart, “Now, remember, it is better to look up.”

Elder Cook then shares what he learned from this brief encounter with Pres. Monson and other events in his life:

Experience has taught me that if we, like President Monson, exercise our faith and look to God for help, we will not be overwhelmed with the burdens of life. We will not feel incapable of doing what we are called to do or need to do. We will be strengthened, and our lives will be filled with peace and joy. We will come to realize that most of what we worry about is not of eternal significance—and if it is, the Lord will help us. But we must have the faith to look up and the courage to follow His direction.

Right now in my own life, I feel a need to truly believe this principle and put it in action in my life. I can't agree more with something that Elder Cook said in an article entitled Look Up, in this months edition of the Ensign:

It's easy to get caught up in trying to please others, but we can't trust such external measurements; the world can be too quick both to praise and to criticize.

I think it is time for me to re-acquaint myself with my intrinsic value, and stop focusing so narrowly on what those around me right now think. The lyrics from a song my dad has always loved come to mind - especially the chorus:

The stars fall down from heaven
And scatter upon the earth
As strangers in a strange land
Forgetting their heavenly birth

Adrift and untethered they wander
Through kingdoms of darkness and light
Unschooled and unlearned they follow the tides
And many are lost in the night

Look up! Look up!
The stars in the heavens cry out!
Look up! Look up!
Your course does not lie
On the earth or the sea
It lies in the heavens above
Look up! Look up!

The prince of darkness covets
These glimmering sparks of light
And seeks to blind and bind them
With treasures that have no life

But blazing and bright is the Prince of the Light
Revealing the mystery--
Endowing the stars with His power and might
He shows them their destiny

Look up! Look up!
The stars in the heavens cry out!
Look up! Look up!
Your course does not lie
On the earth or the sea
It lies in the heavens above
Look up! Look up!
 
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Rejoice in the Prince of the Light!
Rejoice! Rejoice!
For stars that were fading now shine like the Son
Reflecting the light of His love
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Look up!

Look Up! Words & Music by Steven Kapp Perry

Knowing is Not Doing

Reading is one of my favorite past times. I love getting lost in a good story and leaving reality for a while. I love expanding my mind with new ideas. I love thinking about how things connect.

Recently my roommate loaned me "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett. Amazing. Very well written novel on a tough subject that made me think. A lot.

In her afterword Stockett says there is one line she truly prizes:

Wasn't that the point of the book? For women to realize, We are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as I'd though.

This part stuck out to me too, and I like it even better with a little context around it:

I watch Lou Anne slip away in the parking lot, thinking, There is so much you don't know about a person." I wonder if I could've made her days a little bit easier, if I'd tried. If I'd treated her a little nicer. Wasn't that the point of the book? For women to realize, We are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as I'd thought.

But Lou Anne, she understood the point of the book before she ever read it. The one who was missing the point this time was me.

The irony, and relation to reality, struck me. A character in a book who went out of her way and risked a lot to prove a point - that people are just people, that we don't know people's stories till we ask - failed to see the application with someone she knew well and had interacted with regularly. How often do I do that? How often do I fall into that same trap?

It is a fact of life - "what we know is not always reflected in what we do" (to borrow the words of David A. Bednar.) But, we can work each day to understand the stories of the people around us a little more. And, we can be honest and brave enough to acknowledge and learn from situations where what we know was not reflected in what we did.

Storm Cloud or Silver Lining?

If there is one thing that is constant about life, it is change. I know this. That doesn't mean I always like it.

Over the past couple weeks I've been thinking about change and over the past couple of days everything I hear or read or sing seems to relate to my thoughts and feelings. Specifically I have been reminded of the role of my choices - particularly the role of how I choose to perceive things.

Lyrics from two songs:

"Even perfect days can end in rain."

"Roses and thorns grow together
Even rainbows follow bad weather."

Quote from Remember the Titans:
"Sometimes life is just hard for no reason at all."

My experiences have taught me that almost anything can be seen as a stumbling block or a stepping stone. We can choose to look at thorns or roses, we can focus on the rain or be grateful for the possibility of a rainbow when it stops; we can see a grey storm cloud or hunt for the silver lining.

"Anywhere is paradise; it's up to you." -Anonymous

As I have prayed and pondered, seeking peace in quiet moments has become very important to me. A repeated line from one of my favorite hymns kept coming to mind: "Be still, my soul." Well, today we sang it in Church. There are a few lines here and there from the song that really pull all of this together and express my faith in the future and God ability to help me thorough anything:

"Be still, my soul: The Lord is on thy side;
With patience bear thy cross of grief or pain.
Leave to they God to order and provide;
In ev'ry change he faithful will remain.
...
Be still, my soul: Thy God doth undertake
To guide the future as he has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;
...
When disappointment, grief, and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgot, love's purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul: when change and tears are past,
All safe and blessed we shall meet at last."