Casting Care Upon God

I too often find myself feeling sorry for myself. Seeing the success and good fortune of others and reading that as a sign that I can’t, or at least won’t, have success either.

One of my recurring fears is not that someone won’t love me, but that someone can’t love me.

In the light of day, while putting words on paper, most of me can see [or hope] that this is not true, or that this is a demon whispering in my ear.

But inside my head (where I apparently spend too much time), this feels real, inevitable, inescapable.

We all have good and evil inside us. We all have damaging thoughts and healing thoughts.

Someone has characterized these as wolves. And which wolf wins – the good or the bad?

The one we feed.

In church yesterday, my bishop shared a few comments at the end of our Sacrament meeting that got me thinking:

“We believe in a God of abundance.
But we live in a world of scarcity.”

It is true. If one person gets a specific job someone else can’t have that job. If one person gets a scholarship that money is not available for anyone else.

And that reality is true for other things as well, including dating.

But the abundance that God offers us is so much more than any of those things. We all can feel peace. We all have access to God’s love. We all have the benefit of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. We all have access to the guidance of the Holy Ghost. Every single person on earth, as much as we need, all at the same time, forever.

Wow.

That is certainly the wolf I want to feed.

So how do I access that abundance?

This morning I had one way come to my attention while reading in 1 Peter 5:6-7:

“Humble [yourself] therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: [Cast] all your care upon him; for he careth for you.”

I can’t keep it rolling around in my head, I have to cast my care upon God.

What first came to my mind was a visual of fishing with my grandpa. Using the proper flick of my wrist to send my fishing line singing through the air to plop in the water far away.

Thinking of that experience I also realized that it is not just about sending something away. That sending out is crucial, but what is beautiful is that you get something back. And God, our abundant God, is going to give us beautiful things when we are willing and able to cast our cares on him.

Things I want to cast away:

• Negative thoughts
• Envy of others good fortune
• My tendency to dwell on my mistakes
• Poor self-image

Even if I got nothing in return besides having less of that in my life, that would be pretty incredible!

"Put some lipstick on and smile"

We all say things that are taken in a way we didn't mean.

We also all say things without having any idea the impact they will have.

This happened to me last Saturday night. I was in a place I knew was good to be - listening to an apostle of Jesus Christ give advice and share wisdom and life experience with a room full of people eager to hear his words - and more importantly council from our Heavenly Father.

It was a beautiful evening full of gems that I recorded and am grateful to have been present for.

In the closing minutes came a phrase that is still ringing in my ears and making my heart hurt a bit:

"Ladies put on some lipstick and smile."

What did he mean by that phrase? I don't know.

What did it mean for me? Being transported back to my 19-year-old self in a vulnerable moment.

I was on the way to the bank with one of my college friends who kindly agreed to take me to deposit my work-study paycheck (yep, pre-direct deposit AND pre-bank apps allowing you to upload photos of checks to deposit them). In fairness, I don't remember the context of our conversation, but I do remember what he told me (or what my head and heart heard): "You'll never get married because you don't wear make-up, you don't like dogs, and you can't eat chocolate."

My brain and heart believed those words. "He's right," I thought to myself.

While most of the time I no longer believe those words, they have had a long-lasting impact on me.

And the reality is that nothing in my life has proven them wrong. I've never been someone that guys seek after. I've heard and thought over a million reasons why, and the no make-up factor has come up more than once both externally and internally.

Also, let me give some context - the first time I wore make-up was in fourth grade when I was in a play at school. Make-up made me someone I wasn't. And that trend continued through high school as I continued to participate in stage performances. In addition to wearing make-up for performances, a few times friends really wanted to give me a makeover - and the same thing, it made me feel like someone other people wanted me to be.

Besides, make-up is expensive. And it takes precious time (which is limited!) that I'd rather put into other things.

But, there are times when I worry - "Is this the reason guys don't ask me out? If I did wear make-up would that change things?" And one of the most difficult thoughts for me personally is this one: people will sometimes say "You're doing everything you can/should." and my mind tells me, "No I'm not, I don't wear make-up."

So, an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ says, "Ladies put on some lipstick and smile," and I groan and involuntarily throw my head back.

My 19-year-old self is back, believing that I'll never get married and part of the reason is because of something I could change.

This is not a plea for people to tell me I'm beautiful, or don't need make-up, or should wear make-up. It's just an experience - and a reminder to me, and to others, that people have "sorrow that the eye can't see" (Lord, I Would Follow Thee) and sometimes things we say hit those nerves. It's a reminder to be more kind to ourselves and to those around us. That the things we say matter - they affect people in ways we often do not know, both for good and bad.

Oh, and a song I was listening to today brought all these thoughts and feelings together and gave me the courage to write this post:

"Make-up hides her face
'Cause she feels out of place
She cries
Come on someone tell this girl she's beautiful
We don't gotta run, we don't gotta hide
When someone needs somebody
We don't need to say, we don't got the time"

-The Vision of Love, Kris Allen

Lessons Learned Roller Skating

"When was the last time you were on roller skates?" While waiting for a response from the driver's seat I tried to remember when I last laced up a pair myself.

Ice skates? A few times over the last couple of years. Roller skates? I don't even know.

"At least ten years," drifted over from behind the steering wheel.

Once we arrived at the skating rink, I repeated this query to another friend as we pulled on brown skates with bright orange wheels.  "I can't even tell you how many decades it's been," was her slightly anxious response.

We all tentatively rolled onto the hardwood floor of the rink, holding onto each other and the yellow rail along the wall.

Some people got their roller legs faster than others.

One woman not in our group zipped past - forward, backward, sideways. It was impressive and intimidating. Something inside me wanted to rise to the challenge (self-imposed, not externally issued!) and skate around the entire rink backward.

Rolling over to the edge I stopped my forward inertia by grabbing onto the yellow railing. Carefully I turned my body around and tried to figure out how to translate forward skating motions into backward ones.

Using what I already knew, I decided to go with the in and out motion that has worked on ice rinks.

Mostly by accident (trying not to fall or do the splits....) I learned that doing a squat gives increased momentum. Similar to leaning forward when skating forward - one translation of movements made!

It was painfully slow. Part of me felt embarrassed - I knew the way I was flailing around/ contorting my body was not flattering or impressive. My friends lapped me countless times. The talented skater also zoomed by more times than I wanted to know about.

There were many moments when I glanced (or stared longer than I should politely...) at my fellow skaters filled with thoughts like these:

-"Why am I making a fool of myself in front of people who are so much better than me?"
-"Whoa, I'm not brave enough to even try a move like that!"
-"What's wrong with me? this shouldn't be so hard!"
-"Man, she's never even skated before, and she's way better than me!"

Then my brain reminded me how learning works: A little at a time. Over a period of time.

If I let my insecurity or my lack of quick progress or the skills of others hold me back I'd never get better.

On one pass by the most experienced skater there, I heard, "You're already getting better!" waft encouragingly from this stranger. I felt my confidence grow a tiny bit. "And your butt's going to look great tomorrow!" floated back when she was already out of sight. I couldn't help the grin, hold back the giggle or restrain my fist pump (and it didn't make me fall - maybe she was right, I was getting better!)

I made it around the rink.

I paused by the tables to chat with some friends. I took my phone out of my pocket - no need for a cracked screen! Emboldened, I started rolling backward away to go back to the rink and promptly fell, hard, on my butt (that should look great tomorrow ;)

Laughing, the way we all do when the alternative is crying or dying of embarrassment, I accepted the proffered hand to pull me back up.

Isn't that what matters? Getting back up when we fall.

Do I really believe that? At that moment I did. I went back out and skated more. Both forward and backward.

Thinking about this experience (through sore muscles that made me question afresh the wisdom of my choices!) a couple of scriptures came to mind:

Mosiah 4:27 And see that all these things are done in wisdom and order; for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength. And again, it is expedient that he should be diligent, that thereby he might win the prize; therefore, all things must be done in order.

Doctrine & Covenants 10:4 Do not run faster or labor more than you have strength and means provided to enable you to translate; but be diligent unto the end.

This idea - that we should not run faster than we have strength - is one that comes up often in my mind, and in conversations in church classes or with family and friends. It is complicated for me in part by the balancing end of those verses: "it is expedient [to] be diligent" and "all things must be done in order" as well as "be diligent unto the end".

Those additions remove the "well, guess I don't have to work too hard" aspect for me. It turns it into a "don't get upset if it takes longer than you want, or is harder than you anticipated - just keep going. As you do things in order, build up a little at a time, you'll get there if you just persist diligently."

Thank you skating rink and fellow skaters for reteaching me this lesson.

It's not so much time for me to pick up my pace, but time for me to get up, again, and keep moving forward on those things I care about and want to improve.

Old Friends

Friends: People who know you and love you anyway

While reading Graceful by Wendy Mass there was a line that jumped out at me:

"...no one knows you like your childhood friends..."

I've been thinking about friendship a lot lately. My Journal typing project has brought back a lot of memories and made me extremely grateful that we get to learn and grow through life. And even more grateful for those who walk along that path of growth with me.

During a phone call with one of those childhood friends, we were discussing some of the current challenges of life. They look different than the ones I'm transcribing from my junior high journal, but they don't feel that different. Feelings still get hurt. Life still throws us curve balls. We still need a listening ear and to feel like someone cares and wants what is best for us.

My friend spoke these words into the airwaves across the nearly 2,000 miles separating us:

"...even if we're not physically close, I rely on you. I know you care and know me."

As someone who has moved quite a bit, I know that developing relationships with people in the place you are now is important -- a huge, necessary, support. BUT I don't know what I would do without the connections and bonds that traverse longer distances of time, and in my case, also longer distances of space.

Another childhood friend of mine I don't get to see very often since we both moved far from our childhood homes and live on opposite sides of the country.  Her friendship and support is still something I can feel and that I definitely value in my life. She was the only locker partner I ever had. I trust her completely. I am so grateful for the memories and shared experiences we enjoy.

In her parent's bathroom they had a saying:

Make new friends, keep the old.
One is silver, the other is gold.

That sentiment is also conveyed in a song lyric that has lodged in my brain:

I believe we gotta forgive and make amends
'Cause nobody gets a second chance to make new old friends
-

"Most People Are Good" by Luke Bryan

These things have been on my mind, and then Facebook brought up a memory of my roommates outside our house around the time we graduated from college. The same song lyric came to me: "...nobody gets a second chance to make new old friends" and I realized this is also true of each time we start over.

When I moved to Boston the first time I was sitting by myself at Church. A friendly voice asked if I was new. Turns out, she was too. "We're going to be friends!" she proclaimed. And we were. And still over a decade later. What a great old Boston friend she is! And when we both ended up in NYC, guess what, I was incredibly grateful to see her there.

As I've processed through writing these thoughts out, I've come to decide two things:

1. We should try to maintain existing relationships. They are gold.
2. We should remain open to building and cultivating new relationships too - they will become existing relationships that we value and find more precious than gold.

What would you do?

At the end of the audiobook version I listened to of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas there was an interview with the author that made me think even more deeply. 

The interviewer said:

I always say that you don’t hand in your reading passport at 14 to draw an adult one. Or the age or twelve or whenever. You seamlessly travel up the ladder and every step you take frees your mind further, doesn’t it. 

The power of books has been something I've enjoyed for a long time. I have never thought of it quite as freeing my mind, but I like that a lot. 

In the interview, they also discussed some of the criticism people have had for the book. One line of criticism deals with the level of complacency in the book, the idea that no one did anything.  

There are examples in the book of people actively choosing not to do anything: 

“...do whatever your father tells you, we must all just keep ourselves safe until this is all over. That’s what I intend to do anyway. What more can we do than that after all? It’s not up to us to change things.”

My gut reaction: "Isn’t it up to us to change things? Even if we can’t do everything, we can do something."

In the interview, the author said that we'd all like to think that we would stand up and do something. But would we?

I'm one of those people that likes to think I would do something. Every time I read a book set in WWII I want to think I'd be the one with a hidden cupboard or feeding people living in my attic or something, anything. 

Is there a way to know?

For me, I have a clear example of when I did not. There was a time in junior high when I could have stood up against a bully on behalf of someone else, and I didn’t.

I remember wanting to. And I remember being scared of what could happen to me if I did.

From my journal in Jan 1999: 

"these two trouble makers were throwing rocks at the two kids that were sitting in front of me. They were actually more like gravel than anything, but when they missed they would usually hit me and it hurt really bad!"

 

What if we don't stand up to the bully? What do we do? 

Labeling ourself a lost cause and continuing onward with our head down "just keep[ing] ourselves safe until this is all over" isn't what I want to do. I want to learn and become better.

This makes me think of a habit I formed later, while in high school. 

Teenagers are not always nice. On more than one occasion I found myself sitting in a car or around a lunch table and people would say unkind things about someone who wasn't there. Usually someone we all knew. One time I spoke up, "You know, this makes me wonder what you say about me when I'm not around."

Silence.

Sometimes it lead to open conversation about the value of speaking positively about others. Sometimes people apologized to me, or reasured me they didn't say mean things behind my back. I don't know if it changed what people thought or said in the long run, but every time I pulled out that phrase it stopped the negative conversation. 

Should 9-year-old Bruno have realized more about the situation he and his family were in? Maybe. 

Should his parents and the adults in his life have told him more? I don't know.

I do know that it would have been better if he didn't have to be in the situation in the first place. And that is something that adults have more responsibility for than children. 

Something else I've been thinking about is the power in moving forward. 

Our lives are full of opportunities to make choice, to help or not, to speak up or not, to seek understanding, to share with others. We get to make decisions over and over again. And if (okay, when, let's be real) we make one we don't like or aren't proud of, we can try again. And we can do what we can to make up for, repair, or fix things when possible. When that's not possible, we can pay forward to as many people as possible a larger heart, a kinder soul and plant seeds of goodness.

Exploring Connections

Finding connections is something I really enjoy.

It is one of the things I love about traveling - that you can go such different places and find similarities. People are people, with hopes and dreams and families and challenges. Places have little things that remind you of other places. But until you go and see and interact with people and places there are things you just don't know or comprehend.

I recently finished listening to an audiobook called I am Malala. It had been on my to-read list for a long time. Listening to that book after an extended trip to Madagascar was insightful. It helped me to connect to things Malala talked about - including just understanding that there are things I can't understand about her specific situation or the places she wrote about since I have not been there or experienced them myself.

But there were so many nuggets of truth, moments of connection, that I loved in this book.

Another reason for the connection comes from a project I've been working on - typing up all my childhood journals. Reading over those words have reminded me what it was like to be in elementary school and junior high. To relive the adventures of changing schools, meeting new people, learning from my teachers and textbooks, but also from my friends and our interactions, big and small.

There are two lines that stood out to me with that context.

Malala shares an experience where a new girl at her school became friends with her and her best friend, Moniba: 

... which sometimes caused fights as three is a tricky number.

Passages from my journal when I was in fifth grade came to mind - moments when there was tension between my "best friend" and her "best friend". I often felt like she wasn't my best friend after all - the proof lying in the fact that she had a different best friend. 

Later in the book, Malala shares a cultural phrase that makes me smile:

The other girls stirred things up, what we call putting masala on the situation.

I've experienced that myself! And it has been interesting to read (sometimes in a lot of detail!) about some of those experiences from my childhood.  

Perhaps the most interesting thing to me is the reminder that so many of the things that seem like big deals in the moment are not. And sometimes things we don't even notice at the time shape our life in far reaching ripples.

Next Time I'll Lock the Door

You know those "memories" you only have because someone has told you the story so many times?

This is one of mine:

When I was about two years old I discovered I could make a staircase out of my dresser if I pulled all the drawers open different amounts. I pulled everything out of each drawer to make it easier to climb up to the top.

My dad was passing by my room and saw me - he was, rightly so, concerned for my safety. Empty dressers with all their drawers pulled out can easily tip onto a little girl and do some big damage.

"Don't do that - put the drawers back right now. I don't ever want to see you doing this again!" My dad scolded.

"Fine, next time I'll just lock the door first," my two-year-old self muttered as I flung clothes back into the drawers.

My dad loves telling this story, and often when he tells it to others they say something like, "Oh man, that's when you knew you were in trouble"

This week I've been reading from Acts as part of the Come Follow Me curriculum rolled out by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints this year.

Reading about Saul and his miraculous, nearly instantaneous transformation to Paul reminded me about the dresser staircase story and how my dad responded to my willfulness.

I'm grateful that instead of being worried (or at least not overly worried) about potential negative implications of this facet of my personality, my dad viewed it as a challenge. A chance for him to use his knowledge of my tendencies and his life experience to lovingly guide me.

My parents talk about my willfulness, independence and stubbornness often and how they hoped they could help me channel it toward good causes. I feel so often our skills and tendencies are like that - we can use them powerfully either for good or evil, it is our choice.

Another time I was studying about Saul/Paul someone shared their opinion that he did not actually change that much. His personality and approach were the same. He was still outspoken and fighting for a cause he believed in - the cause he was fighting for is what changed.

What a cool example and thought. When I learn that I am doing something wrong, I want to be more like Saul/Paul. I want to be able to pivot and put all of my energy in a new direction - a better direction.

Saul gave us a great example of how to do this: Pray to God and ask, "What wilt thou have me to do?" (Acts 9:6). Then once we have an answer, do it.