Expectations...Do Not Run Faster Than You Have Strength; My First Ponderize Scripture

My ponderize scripture of the week came from an experience that's been going on for the last week. If you think in your mind "Somebody call the whambulence!" Please just close your browser and check back again later.

Get In My Head...A Stress-y Place to Be

So...I needed to buy tickets to the Young Ambassadors, a BYU traveling dance company. I have been emotionally stressing about getting downtown sometime between 9 and 5 when the box office is open. Dan and I would try to coordinate but it was always to late to make it before it closed. I could buy them online but they have a $5 processing fee...so I didn't do anything and let it weigh on my subconscious for a week or so.

Then I received an email that they were looking for host families for the Young Ambassadors. I felt like "I love it that they come to Cheyenne and to be the person I should be, I should host them." I would need to feed them a sack lunch and a breakfast (we don't eat "normal" food so I would have to specially plan those meals for them). We would need to wait for them later that night and then take them early in the morning. Dan has seminary in the morning, so could I take two BYU men by myself? What would I do with my little sleeping girls that morning? etc.

My mom helped me see that there are times in life that we can only do what we can; run as fast as we have strength. I am trying to believe that I don't have to make it feel like a marathon either! Sometimes what is for my best good isn't the hardest thing (I often think the best thing is what stretches me to the max). For example, our second and third child won't be 20 months apart as were our last, and that's really healthy for me emotionally right now. I have all I can handle at the moment.

Life is a process and if I keep holding on to past mistakes or when I didn't feel "enough," those feelings continue to weigh me down. If I remember every moment is a new moment, and every day is a new day I can always, ALWAYS begin again.

We forgot to have FHE last night. I had planned it all day and we've missed a lot of weeks in a row. I haven't even read the girls scriptures for a month or more. Seriously!? Alyssa...what could be more important than that? Um...yeah. But holding the past against myself has lowered my expectations for the next day. DO NOT do that to yourself! Remember, an FHE on Tuesday night is better than no FHE at all.

I recently read an article that hit home. Brent and Wendy Top talk about the cultural commandments we've set up for ourselves. They suggest: "'If you can, read the scriptures for half an hour each day as the prophet has suggested, but if not, read when you are able. Anything is better than nothing!' These would be better ways to encourage the actions that lead to the changed inner and outer being. We should remember the wise adage that goals (or commandments, in this case) are stars to guide us and not sticks with which to beat ourselves" (find the article here).

Tonight I wrote on the fridge:

"every moment is a new moment; every day a new day."

I flipped open one of those little daily devotional books to the scripture below (D&C 10:4); and I actually printed out my first "ponderize" scripture ever. Somehow that's symbolic too- A new beginning; a fresh start. I want to focus on the things that truly matter in changing my inner being. Father's message to me today was:

Do not run faster or labor more

than you have strength . . . ; but be diligent unto the end.

- Doctrine and Covenants 10:4

Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are so grateful when we realize we can begin again. Because of the atonement we can begin anew every day. We have a clean slate every moment. I want to remember that is what the atonement is all about; new beginnings.