Struggling With a Few Things

As I mentioned before, I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Lds or Mormon).  Our leaders a number of years ago issued a statement about some of our beliefs.  They called it The Family:  A Proclamation To The World.  In this Proclamation it states:

We further declare that God has commanded that the sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only between man and woman, lawfully wedded as husband and wife.

and

Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity.

 These are things that my parents taught us since we were little.  I know many other families teach similar things to their children.  Sometimes kids listen and sometimes they don't.  I did, my sister didn't.

Right now my sister is pregnant.  She is not married and right now there is no chance of her marrying the father of her baby because he is married to someone else.  It doesn't matter that he was separated from his wife when he helped my sister sneak out of the house in the middle of the night to go and live with him.  After getting her pregnant he decided that he still loved his wife and wanted to get back together with her and basically told my sister to take a hike.  What a charming guy, huh?

Right now I am all kinds of torn up inside.  I am mad at my sister.  I am mad that she has betrayed us.  I am mad that she is using my parents.  I am upset because she seems to think that this is all okay and she doesn't see anything wrong with living with a married man and getting pregnant by him.  I love my sister, she is family after all.  I want to help her though this because I know pregnancy can be really hard.  I don't want my sister to think that I think this is in anyway okay, though.  It would be a difficult situation at best, but you also add to the fact that my sister has a mental disorder and she cannot take her medication while she is pregnant. 

If I lived far away this would be a mute issue.  I would let her and my parents and whoever deal with it and I wouldn't have to hardly see or talk to my sister.  That isn't the case, though.  She lives with my parents, who live about 25 minutes from me.  It's the holiday season and we are getting together fairly often, and right now she is staying with me.  My parents are having some remodeling done on their house so my sister is staying at mine for a week or maybe longer.  I get to see my sister every day.  She eats meals with us.  She reads with us when we have family scripture time and family prayers.  My kids beg her to read them stories and after bed times she and I chat until it's time for me to go to sleep.  I know this can all be a wonderful opportunity to bond with my sister, but it's also stressing me out.  I don't like confrontations and I am not comfortable when she starts talking about the baby.  I think that baby deserves something a lot better than being raised by my sister.  She is also in contact with the father's family quite often.  She will quite frequently refer to them as her family also.  She calls his mother "Mom" and tried to tell my children that his niece was her niece.  I did correct that one, but maybe not in the nicest way.  It just galls me.  I don't want things to be uncomfortable since she will be here for a while, but I don't want her teaching my children that it's okay to have a baby and not be married, in fact, not have anything to do with the baby's father.  I am trying to teach my children the values I was raised with.  At the same time, I want to teach my children to love people, even if you don't love their actions.  We believe that we are all sons and daughters of God and therefore all brothers and sisters.  I don't want to confront my sister but I don't think I can go on and just change the subject whenever she brings something up that is uncomfortable.  I am just so unprepared to handle this.

I know my children will learn more from my actions than from things I say so I want to teach them right.  I want to teach them to stand up for their beliefs, and teach them to respect that others may believe differently.  I want to teach them to be good parents, and that means thinking about your children more than yourself.  I want to teach them that being a parent is a wonderful thing, but it's not something to get into on a whim, it's also a very challenging job.  I don't want to teach them to run from, hide from, or avoid all confrontation (which is what I like to do).  It's not good to go out seeking an argument or fight, but some things need to be stood up for and that may mean standing up to someone.  Maybe I'm just too nice.

I Have Seen a Miracle

I have seen a miracle.  A friend of mine's son died a week ago.  Through modern medicine and the power of God he is alive today.  After he died his heart was shocked back into working, but it was only working at 10%.  His organ were shutting down and they had to cool down his body and then warm it up again.  My friend was told first that they didn't expect him to make it.  After they cooled his body down she was told that they didn't expect him to wake up.  A friend of the boy, who is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, asked him if he would like a priesthood blessing.  He said yes.  I talked to my friend a couple hours before the blessing, she is not a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  She was so worried.  Her son was awake, but was hooked up to tubes and monitors.  She didn't know what was going to happen and she was so worried.  The next day I got a quick note saying her son was talking and then the following day she told me he was going to be released the next day.  I saw them on Saturday.  He was walking, talking and acting like a normal 19 year-old boy.  I wanted to cry happy tears.  Me and my family were all praying for my friend and her son.  I know there were many others praying as well.  The doctors and nurses have never seen anything like it.  His heart went from 10% to 100% in less than 5 days.  He has suffered some memory loss, and they are still monitoring him, but his is alive and functioning.  He can sit and visit with friends and family, he was playing with my daughter.  It is a miracle, and I am humbled to see it.

Monday's Miracles

It's Monday again!  I'm undecided on my feelings for Monday.  I love that after a crazy weekend it's a chance to jump back into routines again, but it also means that I have to get back to doing laundry.

1.  Shovels.  Out here in the country they are especially useful
2.  Straws.  Did you know you can make a whistle out of a straw?  My mom taught me that.  I have not taught my children that yet, though.
3.  Aunts and Uncles.  My kids love theirs, and I am grateful for all they do for my kids.
4.  Canning.  I love that I can preserve my summer bounty to eat during the cold winter months.  I also love that it tastes so much better than stuff I buy from a store.
5.  Clear Vinyl.  We put a map on our table and used some clear vinyl as a tablecloth.  The kids love looking for countries and seeing the different flags of each country.

My Right to Think and Believe

A friend posted a random question on Facebook that got me thinking.  He asked if people believed free thinking would send them to Hell.  A little off the wall question but the short discussion that followed got me thinking.

My basic answer to that question is no, I don't believe that thinking something through, or studying it will send you to Hell.  I do believe that our brains were given to us for us to use.  We should study things out and decide if they are good or bad.  That being said, we are responsible for our thoughts.  If we know something is bad and we continue to think about it that could have a negative impact on our salvation.

It was also asked why were some religious people taking it WAY too seriously?  I don't have an answer to that.  I know what I believe.  I would consider myself a religious person.  I belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, sometimes referred to as "Mormons".  I go to church every Sunday.  As a family we pray over meals and read scriptures together at night before kneeling as a family for prayer again.  I attend our temples as often as I can and quite often participate in week day church activities.  Yes, I would classify myself as religious.  That being said, I realize that not all good people believe the same as I do.  I know many people who would classify themselves as more spiritual than religious.  These are good people.  I believe in what our 11th Article of Faith says,

"We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may."

Of course I would be overjoyed if everyone in the whole world decided to join my church.  I would love for the world to hold to the same virtues and standards and beliefs that I have, but that isn't the case.  I will defend my beliefs and stand up for the things that I think are right and stand against the things I think are wrong.  If someone tries to take away my freedoms I will defend that.

Case in point.  A while ago there was a bill on a state's ballet that would legalize marijuana.  Now, I am not a supporter of any addicting substances.  I don't drink or smoke.  For those reasons, I would have voted against the measure, but I can understand why people would vote for it.  I don't believe that would have taken away any of my freedoms unless by passing it grocery stores that sell tobacco would also be required to also sell marijuana and I didn't want to do that.  If it was telling me I would be punished for not agreeing to sell something I didn't believe in, that would be taking away my freedoms.

There has been a lot of discussion on Proposition 8 from California.  As with the stance of my faith, I don't believe homosexuality is right.  I grant that those feelings and urges are real for a number of people, but I still don't agree with it.  I may believe that a relationship is wrong without believe that the people in the relationship are bad people.  Going along with the above quote, I believe that people may think and choose according to the dictates of their own conscience, but please don't punish me for disagreeing with you.  I don't care who you have a relationship with.  I do care that you want me to have to accept it as okay and normal.  If the state wants to accept such unions as valid, fine, but please don't make my church perform the union if we don't believe in it.

In summary to the discussion, we should all use our minds and intellect to think about and ponder issues.  We should study it out in our minds and then act according to our conscience.  We should also realize that others may come to a different conclusions, they come from a different background and may have different information.  Above all, we should realize that all people should be treated with love and respect. 

A quote a friend once told me in college really stuck with me.  It was something like this "Please don't judge me because I choose to sin differently than you do".  It's true.  We are all sinners.  

Monday's Miracles

1.  Babies.  They are so cute and sweet and innocent.  A good reminder of how precious life is.

2.  A living prophet to guide us, encourage us, and teach us.

3.  Heaters.  I'm so glad I don't have to rely solely on fire to keep me warm.

4.  Electric lights.  Seriously something I take for granted way too often.

5.  My vacuum.  I seriously love that I have one that works.  Since my husband and kids love all this carpet it's good to have a vacuum, especially when you have inside pets.

Motivation

I have lost my motivation.  Is that something you lose, or something you make?  Either way, I have very little right now.  For a few weeks I was getting up early, letting the dogs out, coming in, reading scriptures, some light exercising, and then doing my computer stuff, all before the kids woke up.  Now, I'm lucky to be up before the kids.  My alarm goes off, and I go back to sleep, or to at least laying in bed longer.  The worst part is when I can't go back to sleep, I know I won't go back to sleep, and yet I still don't get up.  This bout of laziness is just horrible!

I know the best thing to do would be to just push through it.  When my alarm goes off, get up and get moving.  Make myself DO something productive, anything productive.  Where is my willpower?  It's a vicious cycle.  The more I don't do anything, the less motivation I have to start, but once I do start, I know it will be easier to do it again.  With the days getting shorter, though, I'm missing the sun as my cue to awaken.  I'm sure there has to be some kind of scientific study that states it's harder for people to wake up early when the sun is coming up later and later.  Maybe I can find that study and see if they have any advice for me.

Just tell me and I'll do it

As a Mom, don't you just love it when you step into the bathroom and all of a sudden all of your kids have questions that need answered RIGHT NOW!  I know I can't be the only one this has happened to.  This happened, again, to me the other day.  My son was trying to ask me a question.  Well, normally I am pretty good at understand 4 year old speak, and my 4 year old does speak fairly clearly, but through a door when I have something else on my mind, I wasn't hearing him very well.  I was trying to tell him to just wait a few minutes, I would be out soon and then I could answer his question.  Then, I heard very clearly through the door "Mom, just tell me and I'll do it!"  I did finally understand what he was asking me, and I gave him an answer, but his response really stuck with me.  It impressed itself so firmly in my mind that I had to take a dry-erase marker that was near by and write it on my mirror so I wouldn't forget.  (Hey, having dry-erase markers in the bathroom really is not that strange, is it?)  It's now been there for over a week and I keep looking at it. 

The thing is, I know I could have told my son just about anything and he would have done it.  He was asking me where to put the shells when he peeled his hard-boiled egg.  I could have told him to peel it outside and he would have done it.  I could have told him to put the shells into a bowl, peel it over the trash, or put them all into a plastic bag to scatter in the rocks of the driveway and he would have done it.  It wouldn't have mattered how silly they may have sounded to him, he would have done what I told him.  How often are we as willing to listen?

How often do we pray or ask for advice, but we are only willing to do what we are told if it fits in with what we want to do?  We pray for guidance and assistance, but then when we get our answers we decide maybe we didn't really need help, that couldn't be what we need to do.  My son may not have understood the reason for pealing his egg outside (so the shells didn't make a mess inside), but he would have trusted me and done it.  Do we have enough trust to just go forward and do it?  I'm not sure I do, but when Jesus told us to be as little children, I think may have been part of what he meant.  I know that thanks to my son's innocent remark I will be thinking more about my willingness to do and maybe quit trying to guess the reasons why and just trust.