Sharing life....

A friend has endured some harsh things in her life.  It left her somewhat devastated as there are still remnants dangling out there, hanging over her head, possibilities that may happen down the line.

Those past painful things are so haunting and make us halt our progress, as it oozes over into other relatively healthy areas, of our life.  What to do?  Obviously...sing the song from Frozen and read books about letting things go and pray and fast and try to forget and move on.  Easier said than done.

One solution--  Years ago we found ourselves in a dreadful business deal.  It was destructive to us.  A man lied.  We trusted.  He ended up fine.  We ended up broke and broken.    Terry went to work at the North Slope. We moved.  Our pain personally was almost to much as we tried to begin again.

Each time he came home we would rehash what had happened.  The violation of trust. The dishonesty. What had been said and what the reality of the books really were.  For two weeks we'd relive, rekindle, re-ignite the entire scenario.

Next time...same conversation.  over and over and over.

One week we talked that this was stopping our progress.  We couldn't really feel the Spirit.  We were overcome with regret/pain/remorse/blame/guilt and on and on.

We decided to tell each other our story one more time, with all the gory details, and how we had wrangled with a coiled rattlesnake and he won! and to never mention it or talk about it again.  To just let it go.

We relived it by it's telling, in full minute detail, to each other and then we prayed and told the Lord...He knew the truth.  He knew our hearts.  We had been to trusting etc. etc.  True the fellow took advantage of us but also true- he did not force us to sign anything.  We exercised our agency and acted accordingly by signing.  Our choice.  That fatal signing.

Next time he came home we didn't really know how to act.  Our routine of our self-justified griping/complaining/victimized etc. had taken over our communication.  We struggled to shift and keep our word of absolutely no communication about this single incident.

It took time but as we cleared that toxic debris from our minds/thoughts/speech, it faded further and further from our life and then the Lord could have space for His thoughts/Spirit.  We started healing.

I have a couple of scars from minor things, like a cut that required stitches, years and years ago.  I can see the scar.  I remember the entire bloody painful incident. Today??-- I have no pain at all.  The scar does not hurt nor does the memory of how it happened pain me.  I just know it happened, how it happened, it was fixed, and I've heard that scar tissue is extremely strong so actually I'm stronger than I used to be.

We have never talked again about that happening that undid us.  You know what?....right now in telling this--it's like my finger scar-- I know what happened, it is fixed the best it can be, by releasing it unto the atmosphere and giving our pain over to the Lord.  I'm not in pain.  I am stronger.  Even in knowing/living with the consequence that remains....Interwoven in the fabric of our life tapestry...still evident today. and yet...  I am still stronger.

In life we will have more than one rug pulled out from underneath us and we have to learn how to deal with it and apply the Atonement to whatever ails us...be it big or small.

I share this now because maybe, just maybe, what I learned will help my friend to figure out what will work for her in her personal plight.  I hope so.

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Paul said--
"...but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."  Philip 3:13-14

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I just found this marvelous quote by President Benson...

I hope we will not live in the past. People who live in the past don't have very much future.  There is a great tendency for us to lament about our losses, about decisions we have made that we think in retrospect were probably wrong decisions.  There is a great tendency for us to feel badly about the circumstances with which we are surrounded, thinking they might have been better had we made different decisions.  We can profit by the experience of the past.  But let us not spend our time worrying about decisions that have been made, mistakes that have been made.  Let us live in the present and in the future. (1988)

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always do your own due diligence.  a part of my personal creed... as President Reagan said....

 Trust but Verify

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Worth a thousand words. Easily.

Yesterday was what I'd call a lovely day.  Spent part of it in company of a friend celebrating her birthday, special lunch, and getting caught up on our lives that are on different paths/stages...sharing a special heart connection.

In the evening, sorting through the mail, I saw the new Ensign.  I started to leaf through it and my attention was riveted right out of the chute seeing this painting.  Artist is Frans Schwartz.  It was the illustration for President Uchtdorf's First Presidency message.  I believe every single word he wrote as truth. "...He will strengthen, encourage, and bless us.  He will encircle us in His gentle arms." I know we can be encircled by His gentle arms.  the thought makes me teary and my heart tells me, once again, that it really is true.  I muddle and mull my way through mortality but one thing certain in my life is belief in the Atonement and His power to comfort me.  When things are not in muddle/mulling mode with me trying to understand/learn/figure things out, and I'm faced with things/experiences/challenges beyond my scope...that comfort is there.

Agony in the Garden

I am fascinated, strengthened, comforted and taught by renderings of Gethsemane.  Most especially depictions of Luke 22:43 And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him.

Years ago the Ensign (then the New Era) printed paintings by Carl Bloch.  All of us were amazed at scriptures coming to life in such vivid detail.  I don't remember his Gethsemane print at that time but at some point, again the Ensign, printed, in conjunction with an article a small picture of Christ in Gethsemane.

It was the first one I'd seen with the Savior receiving that heavenly help.  I ordered a large one and a smaller one.

The large one I kept in it's original cellophane wrap. The large picture has darkness all around but the center is the light of Christ. There have been times when friends are really suffering that I take the picture to them, share my feelings about it, and let them borrow it until the crisis has subsided or they feel okay about what is happening in their lives.  Because it's not framed they can slip it under or behind something and take it out when they want to think of the available help from Christ.  to ponder what He went through to learn/know how to help each of us.  My friend Myra Faye had the picture at two different times.  Right now a friend struggling/battling the odds of mortality, has it. Last I saw it propped up in her office.

Christ in Gethsemane

 
I have my own favorite framed. a small one that is cropped.  I have never hung it.  it just seems so personal and I have it propped behind my copier!  I know that seems irreverent but I always see it, take it out from time to time, look at it and am reminded of the Atonement.  I have been thinking lately of hanging it but most likely I'll keep it tucked back here in the office.

The very thought of this happening-- of our Father in Heaven, sending an angel to comfort His Son...of His Son learning how to help us.  well, it just strengthens me and comforts me over and over. and over.  It is such a hope-filled idea.  I believe it.  I draw on it.  It is real.  It is true.

This month in YW we are talking about the Atonement and I'm looking forward to sharing Elder Uchtdorf message and bringing my print to show them and share my testimony and belief.

Hopefully I can get the Schwartz print, to share with my Laurels, before the month is out but right now they are 3 weeks out.  Plus WA has different taxes across the board so you can't order online.  you have to call.  If you are in WA then call 801-422-8214 to order Frans Schwartz print.  You can go to BYU Museum of Art store to see sizes/prices.  If you are out of WA you shouldn't have any trouble at all ordering from BYU-MOA.  Now this print would be a great visual for a FHE in talking about the Atonement. well, in my book it certainly would be.

here is a neat deal about Frans Schwartz www.youtube.com/watch?v=CogjXjwwbqY  

Still mulling- Part B

 Still thinking about callings and teaching and love.  So Susie, that I mentioned yesterday sent that note to me and then I sent one to her and then Monday she sent me one more.  I'm sharing as it really reminds me of the power of love...the power we have within us to give and also the power we receive when we receive love.  Love is truly all there is.

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Sent: Sunday, February 22, 2015 1:31 PM
To: Nancy Seljestad
Subject: Love you 

My dear,
I am preparing my SS lesson for 16/17 year olds. I just keep thinking about HOW you taught me.
Not WHAT you taught me, but how.

The answer is love. You loved me. And yes, I have tears coursing down my cheeks. Thank you for loving me when I needed it most. I love you.

Susie

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On Sun, Feb 22, 2015 at 5:14 PM, Nancy Seljestad  wrote:

oh, sweetie, now you make me cry.  it's amazing that you just love someone and at a tender time in their life, they feel it, and years later they still feel it!!  and when you love someone, like I loved you, it holds and you always ALWAYS love that person!!!  I love you darling Susie.  I so appreciate the fact that you shared and reminded me that love is really all there is.  you can strip away all the trappings but what it really boils down to is plain old sincere true love.  what a blessing you are to those girls!!  lucky them and lucky us for having crossed paths and miles and distance and all of that doesn't amount to a hill of beans.  It's love for sure!!!

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from Susie on Monday Feb 23



Thank you.  Well put.  After my Sunday School class, I went to RS which I didn't think I would get to go to and lo and behold, the lesson was Dallin Oaks' talk on Loving Everyone and it really hit home that that is what everything boils down to. You were a good example of that to me.  Yes, love you still and always will.

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This exchange with Susie really made me look to my heart....I'm asking myself if I still love as openly/honestly/wholeheartedly as I did for all those many years.  Have I shied away to a certain extent?  am I as joyful in relationships?  do I talk myself out of being me?  do I hold back in fear of rejection?  do I allow past negative events to fill me with self-doubt?  Co-d types certainly do and I do see shadows/shades of that with my inner vision.  Am I comfortable in my own skin to the point I just am...am who I am???  Do I represent my true self?

Love.  That is the key.  Me loving me and loving everyone else AND letting them know that I love them.  Not necessarily mush-gush but reaching out and leaving no doubt, that those I'm in contact with, are important to me and I love them.  

Just thinking and mulling things over.  Still!

Mullings...

The last while I've thought about the importance of callings in the Church.  Callings extended and accepted are what gives us programs to attend/enjoy/learn from in our Ward.  As you age you are usually sort of phased out...and I think that is fine.  Young parents with young children and teens, need those callings to keep them active in Church.  Older folks need to set the example that they are in Church because they have a testimony and it's the place to be.  So as an older folk (although I feel younger at heart and in my mind.  not so much young on the body rating!)  I'm so happy to have this calling to teach the Laurels.

Anyhow I digress.  There is a side to service that I never thought of until a few days ago.  You know that I'm doing my monthly family note writing and I feel good about it.  I received a thank you note from a woman...she is probably 44 and I was closely involved in her life 30 or so years ago.  Her teen years.  Especially her senior year.

She wanted to thank us for the many ways you served me.  She said- the obvious: My Bishop. She then listed some things that I was involved with.  I think I'll copy what she said because it really hit me hard that we never know, when we are serving with love and loving those we serve, how it will linger in their memory and impact those in our care/teaching for their later lives.  Her note....

So I wrote those 3 above paragraphs, started to copy what she said and then got sidelined (as I'm prone to do!).

Really I think at this age you end up with some sort of identity crisis.  Your body is older and things you used to do?...you simply don't do it.  Either you can't or you simply don't want to.  I see my brain actually thinks young but my body is not young.  When my brain was actually young and my body also, I think of all the activities I was involved in and loved doing with the YW of the Church.  Now I take my young thinker old brain and my fully old body with years heaped on it and I ask myself....what about these Laurels that I teach?  How do I reach them so that I can touch their hearts?? 

So totally shifting gears here...because of the above note from 44 year old, Kirsten, I referenced and sweet 40 year old Ami's comment a couple of days ago and a note I got from 50 something
 Susie...I was reminded that love is what it is all about!!  The world is definitely not the same as when I was involved with these other Laurels that are now women but  the underlying common connecting emotion, no matter the age of these now women, that I still view as girls, was love.  I loved them.  They knew it.  They could feel it.  You can't fake loving a teen.  You either love them or you don't.  Teens I've gotten to really know, love to be loved, in that they always met me at least halfway in accepting what I had to offer. 

This Sunday note from Susie really touched me. She entered my life when she was 16. Reminding/teaching me the value of unconditional love really popped out.  It surprises me how everlasting love is.  I still love these girls that are now women and yet they are still my girls.

My dear,
I am preparing my SS lesson for 16/17 year olds. I just keep thinking about HOW you taught me.
Not WHAT you taught me, but how. 
The answer is love. You loved me. And yes, I have tears coursing down my cheeks. Thank you for loving me when I needed it most. I love you

I want that same strong connection with these Laurels that I now teach...  a new and different program...  modern Laurels in a modern world...a world that doesn't always clearly reflect the Lord's path  and yet they are still daughters of God... so sweet and beautiful in His eyes.

Transitioning within takes a lot of thought.  Being co-dependent, I'm thinking, maybe I shouldn't put this in...what if someone thinks I'm bragging in some way....what if...what if..  I think I'll be more capable of Loving the Lovely Laurels if I really accept and love myself!!

Hope...

I'm plugging away here and not taking the time to share what I'm thinking while I'm plugging along but my heart is thinking and feeling and loving my blog readers.

With all the things going on in the world I thought this was a good thought to hold onto...

Wisdom...

I have enjoyed this old saying.....

William Edward Norris said:

If your lips can keep from slips,

Five things observe with care:

To whom you speak; of whom you speak;

And how, and when, and where.

Agree?????? I do!