Dear Lydia,
So I have said this before but the reason I'm doing this blog is so that in case something horrible ever happens to me and we are separated by death than you will at least have a little piece of me. That you will be able to see a little glimpse of the mom I am trying to be. And maybe I can be a little bit of an inspiration to the kind of Mom you want to be. Nothing in life would be more flattering. My relationship with my parents was always me trying to not be like them, which is not really fair to them. But I set up an ideal for the type of Mom I wanted to be. I wanted to always be there for you, so far i'm good on that one. My day revolves around you and your toys and your diapers and teaching you letters. But mainly I wanted you to get a head start on a couple of the secrets of life. Good values make a good person. I'm not saying I know them all, or even that I am even very good at implementing them all (even though I am ;). I'm only 27. But here is a little list of things that I hope I can teach you.
1. This is a big one. We have a Heavenly Father who loves us. That means every person you meet is as dear to you as your brother, you just don't remember. Everyone you meet could be fighting a harder battle than you can see. Give them the benefit of the doubt. Have charity. Believe in the good of others. Remember to still be careful, don't put yourself in a position where a stranger can hurt you. There should be a balance in your judgement of others. It's ok to learn from others mistakes, it makes you smart. It's ok to look at traits in others and decide you do not want them as your own, just don't punish them for it. Choose to spend the majority of your time with good people for those you love will have power over you, make sure they deserve it.
2. Skin color is only as important as hair color, which is to say just appriciate its beauty. And trying to physically look like someone else will only take away from the beauty you are born with. There is beauty in diversity.
3. Most other people will not reach out to you and you can not expect them to, you should reach out to them. But this who do reach out to you are usually the favorites.
4. Kindness is always the best answer. At 3, I know this is already in you, don't ever let yourself get confused. Mean girls in school? Kill them with kindness, no matter how hard it is because in the long run you will always win. I delt with some mean girls, I was never mean back and some of them are still my friends. Don't sink to a lesser persons level. Inspire them to be better. Give them a chance to learn the better way. Teach by example.
5. Forgive everyone for everything, because only you are hurt by the grudges you hold inside. It can poison and change you into the same type of person who hurt you. Watch that happen in others. But only forget if you know the person is truly repentant, then give a second chance.
6. Always tell those you love how you feel. May you never know how someone you love can be gone in an instant and all you want to do is make sure they know/knew how much you mean to them. Even if it's a boy and it's unrequited, you will always wonder what might have been and the sting of rejection may hurt but it dies sooner then regret. Unless, of course, he is the type of person whom you do not want to have power over you. Because sometimes we love people we don't like. So please know how to use both your heart and your brain. There is a reason there is a book called, "he is just not that into you."
7. It is ok to be emotional, it is ok to wear your big heart on your sleeve. Speak your mind, stand up for yourself. Those who tell you otherwise are bitter and wrong. It is also just as important to know when silence speaks louder than words.
8. Whit and cleverness is the best kind of sense of humor. It's only ok to make fun of people for choices they have made, not what they were forced to do or were born with. Bullying is not funny.
9. Take care of yourself. Eat well but it's ok to follow your cravings occasionally. Food is one of my favorite things in life, let it make you happy. Drugs and Alcohol have the power to take descions away from you. You could hurt yourself or someone else in almost every situation involving substances, even with just a little bit. The only way to not relinquish control is to avoid.
10. Live below your means. This is something you might hardly see me do, but I try really hard. Please be better than me. Do not covet thy neighbors possessions. Save money.
I can honor my Heavenly Father
by caring for my body and using it for wise purposes.
Years ago as an early
teen, I began to be aware that my body, the precious tabernacle I had likely
yearned for in the pre-earth life, was much bigger than might be physically or
socially healthy for me, and I wondered what that would mean for my life. It
was a confusing time as I struggled to reconcile the contradictory views being
thrown at me: God looked on the heart, but it seemed His children, both old and
young, cared a great deal about what size I was and what clothes I wore. I did
not then understand the relationships between healthful eating, physical
exercise, and my appearance, but I did know that God loved me and that He had a
plan for me.
My Identity as a Daughter of God
I once confided to my
Young Women leader that I was afraid that the boys might not be interested in
me because I was overweight. She wisely told me to concentrate on being a
friend to all, both boys and girls, and assured me that a person who was a
friend to all would be very attractive to the right kind of person. She told me
that what we find attractive is a type of mirror into our own souls: “For
intelligence cleaveth unto intelligence; wisdom receiveth wisdom; truth
embraceth truth; virtue loveth virtue; light cleaveth unto light” (D&C 88:40).
I tucked her message into my heart and prayed to Heavenly Father to know if it
was true.
I remember praying often
to Heavenly Father about the struggle with my weight. In my prayers I attempted
to strike a bargain with Him, suggesting that if I read my scriptures every day
and prayed to Him day and night, He might respond by making me thin. For days
and weeks I kept my end of the so-called deal, yet my body altered little. Even
after years of praying, I still found myself bowing on plump knees.
Fortunately, beneficial change is not only physical, and in my effort to pour
out my heart to Him and keep His commandments, He was working a miracle in my
heart. In those days and years of drawing close to Him, I came to feel the
sweet companionship of His Spirit testifying that I was His daughter.
Choices concerning My Body
As I learned more about my
identity as God’s daughter, I experimented with ways that I could use my agency
to affect change in my physical body. Through the foods I chose to eat and the
activities in which I participated, I worked very hard to achieve and later
maintain a healthy body weight. I discovered that I could honor my Heavenly Father
through caring for the gift of my physical body and using it for wise purposes.
However, I also realized
that if I wasn’t careful, I could easily become distracted and fashion my body
after a worldly image or even reject the gift of my body because it did not
measure up to impossible worldly standards. Worse yet, I became tempted to
believe Korihor’s philosophy that we “[fare] in this life according to the
management of the creature” (Alma 30:17)—that
my value would somehow increase or diminish depending upon my ability to
achieve a certain size or number on a scale. I learned that improved body
management may be an outcome as God helps us make weak things
strong, but as an end in itself, “fixation on the physical … is spiritually
destructive.”1
The Role of Challenges
In order to avoid these
traps, I found it helpful to ponder deeply what God wanted me to learn from an
experience in thisparticular body and why a physical body is
indispensable in the process of becoming more like Him. I began to see
similarities between my struggles and other people’s seemingly unrelated
challenges. I discovered that often their problems, like mine, followed the
pattern God set for Adam and Eve when he said to them, “Cursed is the ground
for thy sake; … thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; … in the
sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground” (Genesis 3:17–19).
In other words, Adam and Eve had to consistently and recurrently work very hard
to tame things that spontaneously grew out of control in their lives, but in a
sense, God cursed the ground and caused the thorns to grow for their
sakes. This insight helped me to recognize the numerous blessings I
had experienced in my life by working through my challenges.
Additionally, as I learned
more about the Savior’s life and more closely observed struggles in the lives
of others, my ability to perceive and recognize beauty grew. The promise of my
Young Women leader—that being a friend to all would attract the right kind of
person, that “light cleaveth unto light”—was fulfilled in an external way; a
truly great-hearted man came into my life and we eventually married. But it was
also fulfilledwithin my own heart. Jesus, of whom Isaiah wrote, “He
hath no form nor comeliness; and … there is no beauty that we should desire
him” (Isaiah 53:2),
was a friend to all, and the more I learned about the remarkable ways He coped
with challenges in the flesh, the more I wanted to know Him. He mastered His
body though fasting, prayer, and self-discipline—not so that He could become an
admired physical specimen but so that his body could become a living testament
of God’s love for the human family. He used His flesh in a unique, profoundly
selfless way to bring about the salvation of all mankind, and He did so in a
way that could be called nothing less than beautiful.
A Tool for Service and Learning
Today, I too desire that
my body might be a testament of God’s love. Like many people, I work hard every
day to reign in my body’s natural predispositions as well as combat worldly
“vain imaginations” (1 Nephi
12:18),2but because of Christ’s
example, when I keep His perspective, my body becomes a tool to bless the lives
of God’s children, and proper maintenance and care of that tool demonstrates my
recognition of His noble purposes.
My body also continues to
be a vehicle through which I can learn more about Heavenly Father and the
Savior. I experience the wonders of nature and creation to a greater degree
because of my body, and I find that hiking and running are specific ways I can
commune with heaven. My heart echoes the sentiment expressed by a runner in the
film Chariots of Fire: “When I run I feel [God’s] pleasure.” I
love to feel my pulsing heart provide cleansing, sustaining blood to my inner
vessel, and it reminds me of the life-giving blood of the Lamb. It assures me I
am a living thing—and indeed it is great to be alive! Similarly, when I truly
nourish my physical body through good food and clean water, I feel my very
cells respond to revitalization and life, and I see clearer connections with
the bread and water He offers us. Even when I am ill, injured, or not as well
conditioned as I might like to be, I appreciate what these situations teach me
about opposition in all things, faith, line-upon-line growth, and gratitude for
any small capacity I may possess.
I feel like Louise Lake,
polio victim, who once said, “I love my body … because I have disciplined this
flesh, and in times when normally it would have said, ‘Oh I can’t, this is too
much, too difficult,’ I have said to my flesh, ‘Arise, you will get
out of bed, you willprepare this, you will do
that, you will attend this.’”3 Though it may seem
ordinary or unremarkable to the eyes of the world, my corporeal collection of
cells is a miraculous testament of His grace and love.
May the God of heaven and
earth be praised for the flesh—for the bodies that give us opportunities for
both physical and spiritual growth. Although the flesh may be weak and can
sometimes be the source of trials in this life (see Matthew 26:41),
it is also a sweet gift that our wise Father in Heaven has bestowed upon us,
His children—a gift through which we can be made strong and become more like
Him.
