Month: January 2022

Thorns and Thistles: Applying the Fall to my marriage

Posted on by docena
Honey locust
http://identifythatplant.com/a-couple-thorny-locusts/

I regularly listen to two podcasts each week to gain more insight into the Come Follow Me lessons, followHim and Talking Scripture. Many of my friends also listen to these and other podcasts. I imagined a Sunday School lesson where we were sharing what we’d learned from podcasts passed off as our own insights. I have also shared what I’ve learned from podcasts with my husband and son, and the joke in our house now is that if you do something I don’t like, you deserve to listen to a podcast. Or more than one. So this past week as we studied about Adam and Eve and the Fall, I pondered what I’d truly learned. I was able to apply some teachings from these podcasts and my own study to my life, and in the application, my faith and testimony increased.

After Adam and Eve partook of the fruit, the Lord God told them, “Thorns also, and thistles shall it [the ground] bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field” (Moses 4:24). We have a thorn-less locust tree in our back yard that has thorns. It’s a beautiful tree, but you have to be careful when you walk past to not get caught. My husband and I have been married twenty-nine years and are still learning how to communicate and love and respect each other. There was tension between us this week, and I was feeling defensive. I listened to a couple of relationship podcasts and learned some good tools but also some that didn’t feel quite right. Then I asked in my scripture study how to fix the tension with my husband, and the answer I received was to pour out my soul to him. I did, and it was scary, not because he’s a scary person, but because it’s uncomfortable to be vulnerable. We had a good conversation, and I realized that the tension had built up because I wasn’t being open with him. I saw how a concept I learned from Dr. Shon D. Hopkin on followHim applied to my marriage. After Eve ate the fruit, she went to Adam and he ate the fruit. Eve didn’t hide what she’d done from Adam, and he didn’t reject her (Moses 4:12). Then when the Lord God asked about what they’d done, they admitted they’d eaten the fruit. The consequences of their choice was that Adam and Eve knew good and evil, were able to have children, had to work “by the sweat of [their faces], and would die (Moses 4:25). Then, as was always the plan, The Lord God provided a Savior to atone for our sins and the sins of Adam and Eve so that we can return to His presence. Through my actions and choices like Adam and Eve, I saw that as I worked through the thorns and thistles and involved the Lord in asking, I had joy in my relationship with my husband. I know that it is in the personal application of the concepts and insights from the lessons that I learn and grow. And I know that while podcasts and experts can help me understand and learn more, it is through the grace of Jesus Christ that my relationships are strengthened, and I become who He wants me to be.

Processes and Perfectionism

Posted on by docena
To Do List

I like processes. I like checklists. I like guarantees. I work one to two days a week for most of the year at our family’s accounting office, Treasure Valley CPA. During tax season I work five days a week. For tax season we hire extra interns and this year a receptionist to help with the increased work of end-of-the year filings and taxes. That means lots of training and teaching of processes. A couple of months ago, I discussed a brilliant idea I had with our two permanent employees. We would make lists and checklists and procedures to help with training the new employees and to have in place for future years. I have a mistaken hope that if we get expectations and procedures right, we will have only positive customer service experiences. I’ve also had this mistaken belief for much of my life about myself and in parenting. As a child, I thought that if I could wake up and not make one single mistake that day, my life would be perfect and easier. As a parent, I thought if I could find the one perfect parenting chart or program, my children would stop complaining and do all their chores and there would be no tension in our home. While there are good techniques and procedures that can help in our accounting office and with parenting, I am being taught through life experiences that there is not one way to do things, and that I will not be perfect in this life.

I don’t know how I developed my false beliefs about perfectionism, but they used to also extend to the church of Jesus Christ and the scriptures. I thought there was one perfect church plan and that the scriptures came straight from God in perfect form. I thought that God at one point had taught man the perfect way to run a church but it had become polluted over time. As I’ve been reading the accounts of the creation from Genesis and Moses and Abraham, I’ve come to understand that God reveals truth through the lens of understanding of man at that particular time.

Recently in the temple as I was participating in sealings of couples and children to parents for deceased ancestors, I noticed changes in the wording of the sealing from when I was sealed to my husband. These changes were made under the direction of modern prophets and apostles who receive on-going revelation for our time. I found myself thinking that finally, now, the wording was right. That in the past it hadn’t been correct. But then I received understanding that the words in the past were right or relevant for that time and the words now are right and relevant for our time.

I believe in a God who loves His children and communicates with us in ways we can understand and that are relevant to our day. Since we sin, since we cannot make all perfect choices all the time, and since this life is to give us experience, God offered His Only Begotten Son as a sacrifice. Jesus Christ is our Savior and through His grace, we can receive strength and comfort in our trials, we can become more than we could be on our own, and as we repent, because of Jesus Christ’s atonement, we can live with God again. Not because we are perfect but because we are perfected through Jesus Christ.