Seasons of Life

One thing that I have learned as I have gotten older and more mature is that there is a time and a place for everything. When I was a teenager and the comment was made that there is a season for everything I couldn't understand what they were talking about. Of course there is a season for everything there is spring, summer, fall and winter. But as I have grown up and had kids I realize what this is talking about.

I have a fabulous Sunday School teacher who I admire so much. Sister Law was talking about how as we go through life we have different seasons: newlywed, a young mom with kids and toys to clean up after, elementary years, high school, empty nesting and retirement. Each of these bring different things into our lives. It is different for someone with young kids to clean her house than it is for a family with teenagers. I am really sleep deprived because my 2 boys wake up a few times during the night but my 8 year old sleeps all night. It is hard for me to get to the temple when I have young kids and trying to find a babysitter, but at sometime as my kids get older it will be a little easier for me to get to the temple.

This also applies to reading the scriptures and lessons learned from reading the scripture. I wish that I would have loved reading the scriptures as much in High School as I do now. I have seen how the scriptures give you so much direction and so much help that I wish I would have learned that lesson earlier. But I have also found that there may be things in the scriptures that mean a lot to me because of what I am going through in my life.

Right after Kayden was diagnosed with Kidney Failure, our home teacher read a scripture that has meant so much to me and has helped me through a lot of the trials that I have had. It is in D&C 123:17 it reads: "Therefore, dearly beloved brethern, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed." This scripture may not mean as much to someone else as it does to me and I may not feel as much comfort from this scripture had I not gone through what I did with Kayden.

I think that as we read the scriptures we need to make sure that we keep track of what is going on in our lives and why certain scriptures effect us because of what we are going through in our lives. This will help us understand ourselves and see how the Lord has blessed us with certain trials.

I also wanted to write about our lesson in Relief Society. Our teacher gave the lesson on the talk given by Dallin H. Oaks titled "Good, Better and Best". We all have things that we do in our everyday life that we have to choose to do. Wouldn't it be easy if we had a clear wrong choice and a clear good choice, but instead we have have a lot of good choices to make during the day. As a mom we have so many places that we have to excel in: with our kids, as a wife, and as a woman and a person.

The teacher also referred us to the talk given by Bonnie D. Parkin called "Choosing Charity: The Good Part". It was stated that the story of Mary and Martha are applicable in these days more so than ever before. Are we Mary or Martha? Do we take the time to learn about the Savior and study our scriptures? Is there too much emphasis in our lives on how we are suppose to look in the eyes of other? Are we worried about keeping a clean house or teaching our kids about the Savior? Are we worried about things that can wait for 30 minutes so that we can learn about the Savior? So I ask again are we Mary or Martha?

We as sisters also need to look and see what we can do to help each other instead of hurt each other. I think we have a responsibility to each other to help build each other up and not tear each other down. By making ourselves look like we are the nice and honest ones are we really just putting on a show or are we being honest in our dealings with ourselves and with others. We need to be honest and sincere in all of dealings with everyone so that when the time comes we can walk into the Temple of the Lord and know that we are worthy to receive the blessings that only he can give us because of our righteousness. I want to make it clear that I am talking about the way that we treat our friends, family, business partners, co-workers, and employees. We need to ask ourselves as women are we being the friend and confidant that we would want others to be to us? I think that is another hard role that we as women play and we need to make sure that we DO NOT cross those boundaries because we will need to report to the Lord about our actions. In Jacob 2:32 it states: "And I will not suffer, saith the Lord of Hosts, that the cries of the fair daughters of this people.....shall come up unto me againnst the men (and women) of my people, saith the Lord of Hosts." The Lord is telling us that we need to be nice and make sure that what we do and say does not hurt another one of Heavenly Fathers daughters. I think that we as women need to look at ourselves and make sure that we are communicating the correct things to others and to not pass on gossip and harsh judgements. We want our daughters to be nice and treat friends with respect we need to make sure that we are giving them a good example to follow because if we don't they will turn into us down the road.