Category: Faith

Self-Doubt

Leave a comment

For a while now, I feel like one of my biggest challenges is feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt. I’ve pondered why I’ve been led to this, and while studying the life of Christ, I wrote these words:

You must have confidence in yourself and lose your self-doubt and feeling of inadequacies. 

You can have confidence and self-worth because you are a daughter of God. God is in your life and He will not fail you! Have confidence in God, that as you strive to obey His commandments, He will be with you. 

Jesus Christ must not have had any self-doubt. If he did, would he be able to serve those around Him to such a degree as He did? He had full confidence in God the Father: He had learned of Him, talked with Him and developed a transcendent relationship. He knew God the Father had a plan, and that He would provide the way for Christ to fulfill the plan. His confidence was not in himself, but of the Divine Father. For Christ could fail, but more importantly, the plan provided a way for Him to succeed. He knew this. He knew if He put all trust in the Father, it would work out. 

Jesus had full confidence. And so He was not worried as the hour of His suffering was soon to come. He was able to fully love and serve those around Him because He knew God was in charge, and there was no reason to doubt. Even in sorrow, pain, God would provide a way to succeed. He provided the power Christ needed to overcome. 

God has and will provide a way for you to succeed! Your power comes through Him, and He is a perfect God who will not fail you. Trust in His promises, His scriptures, obey His commandments, and the way will be open for you. As you lose your self-doubt, you can also lose yourself in the service of others and perform the work you need to do. 

Advertisement

Bindweed

1 Comment

I planted a patch of strawberries a few years ago. The ground was mostly bare when I planted them. But the next year, I had not only strawberries, but a bunch of bindweed as well.

Bindweed is one of the most hated weeds around for good reason. It is a noxious perennial, with deep roots and a long seed source. It is nearly impossible to eradicate and climbs up and around the plants until it takes over.

I despaired over the strawberry/bindweed combo. I had two perennial vines competing with each other, and one was more adapted to the situation than the other. But not the one I wanted. It seemed like a losing situation.

The work started. I mulched, fertilized and irrigated the strawberries, encouraging their growth. Once a week, never more and never less, I went through and pulled up all the bindweed. It was always there, aggressively growing. I didn’t always get all of it, but I kept trying and pulling.

It’s been three years. My maintenance in that time frame hasn’t changed: once a week weeding, and keeping up with the mulching and irrigation of the strawberries. This is what it looks like:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I’m not pulling that much bindweed anymore. It was a hopeless situation. But I set maintenance plan and I worked consistently at the problem. It succeeded beyond my hopes.

If I would have at any point skipped weeding for more than a week or so, the bindweed would have overtaken my strawberries and I probably would have given up. It took years of effort to get rid of it. If I would have tried to work really hard at one point, pulled out as much bindweed as I could at one go: mulched it, sprayed it, etc; and then just left it, the bindweed would have come back and overtaken my strawberries.

It is still there: I haven’t eradicated the bindweed. But I put into action the habits that would limit it to an acceptable level, and would let my strawberries thrive instead.

I think there are a lot of parallels to life, if you want to find them. Or if nothing else, here’s some hope about bindweed: it is a horrible noxious weed, but it is not impossible to overcome it.

Summer Day

Leave a comment

The days have been busy and lazy. Full of chores and playing with children. I’ve been getting around to things that I keep meaning to do. We got out the baby pool in the yard, set up the hammock, went on a walk and such.

I’m not necessarily doing a lot with my life right now. Sometimes I want to pursue more projects and do more with my career. But I’m also living the life I’ve always dreamed about. I have a big garden, chickens, a nice and usually clean home, three rowdy but awesome boys, this blog, occasional projects, volunteer work, all that goes along with managing a household, and plenty of good books to read. It’s a full, wonderful life. I would rather have the time to watch my boys play and spend time swinging on the hammock than any other success I could have. (Naps on a hammock outside just might be the best luxury in the world.)

Enjoyment

1 Comment
Often I focus on trying to find things I enjoy. I flipped that around and I tried to enjoy the things I had to do. I was less stressed, and more focused. At the end of the day I wasn’t looking for fun relaxing things to do, because I had made most things I did throughout the day enjoyable.

Worth

Leave a comment

Let every man esteem his brother as himself, and practice virtue and holiness before me. D&C 38: 24

Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them. Matthew 7: 12

Recently I realized that I needed to apply the golden rule to myself. I can treat others better if I start to also treat myself better.

Repentance

Leave a comment

I’ve always read the scripture, “Cry repentance unto this people” like I should be going out and telling people what they are doing wrong and they should stop. That’s not going to happen.

But I’ve been studying repentance a bit more recently, and had a few experiences. One, I did something a bit stupid and realized that instead of sitting around feeling horrible about it, I should pray about it and confess my sin and ask for forgiveness and help to change. I immediately felt better.

Joe and I were reading a book and it contained an article about how it shouldn’t be “I can’t do this” to “I won’t do this.” Because Christ has promised that with him, we can do all things. I started to really think about those things that I want to change, but it just doesn’t happen. A lot of this is really, I won’t change, because if I do try, and more importantly, rely on Christ for help, I really can do all things.

Going back to crying repentance. It’s not about telling others what is wrong in their lives. It’s about telling them about the power of Christ. All those little or big things that we just can’t change by ourselves and cause us grief can be taken away by Christ. Through repentance we can become everything we want to be, everything God wants us to be.

Parenting

Leave a comment

Adventure #1: I had grumpy kids. Staying at home did not seem like a good option. So we drove two blocks and changed the oil in the car. They had popcorn. The kids were happier. I am glad that kids enjoy popcorn and seeing cars lifted up.

chicken.JPG

Adventure #2: We wanted to go to the pond and maybe fish a bit. But as we pulled out of the driveway it started to rain. And hail. We drove around a bit thinking of things to do. There was a rainbow in the sky. We thought of visiting Grandpa and pulled up when he was leaving. Finally, we went and bought ice cream. Bubble gum ice cream is disgusting. It ended up in the garbage. Tears were shed.

asparagus.JPG

Trying out asapragus

It is hard to be a mom. I try to do my best, but I often don’t know what to do. The things I try go poorly. Or I maybe should try more in certain areas and less in others. All the parenting books and articles in the world can’t quite describe the unique relationship and struggles I have with my children.

Love them.
Listen to them.
Guide them.

Maybe the struggle with parenting most of all is it is easy to forget how simple it can be.

 

Just Show Up

1 Comment

I practiced a little race walking. In the rain pushing a stroller. I’ve never liked running, but I do like to walk fast. It was the first time I’ve really race walked, and it was fun. It’s very beautiful outside, we are into the psychedelic spring phase where everything is blooming like crazy.

We had story time at the library, playing at home with lots of friends over today, and far too much procrastination on my part. My mantra today after a slower morning and a lot of negative thoughts on my part was to just show up. I didn’t need to do anything great but simply do the things that needed to get done, and be there for my boys.

I ran across a similar theme in a blog post and video. I have a hard time accepting that some days are worse than others: I want every day to be perfect. But it’s not going to be and some days all I really need to do is the bare minimum. There’s nothing wrong with slow days.

I did weed a big bucket of weeds, and helped my husband paint the ceiling. I wanted to try out a textured paint there.

ceiling.JPG

ceiling.JPG

To be honest, I like the look for such paint jobs, but I also do them out of laziness.

We had soccer in the rain. I had two little boys on my lap under a big warm blanket. One was hiding under the blanket. soccerc.jpg

Perfection

1 Comment

Growing up I thought the best way to live my faith was to be perfect. Then I made mistakes that got a lot worse than stealing a couple of pieces of candy from the bulk bins. And I realized that my faith in Christ should not be based on being perfect, but my faith allows me to overcome my sins and imperfections. I slide off the road on my journey in life, but the miracle of Christ is He can overcome any obstacle that I face. Believing in Christ isn’t about me being perfect, it’s admitting I’m not and I want help.

sick.JPG

The youngest two children were sick. I got a lot of cuddles in. The rest of us still made it to at least a portion of church. I spent the rest of the day reading, watching a lot of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, playing games and reading stories with the kids.

I found this article the other day, found it matched my feelings a lot. I’m glad that lately I’ve rediscovered myself and I’m actually enjoying life instead of getting stuff done.