What defines us

Yesterday I attended a funeral. It was a beautiful, hilarious, and heartfelt tribute to a life that ended heartbreakingly too soon. (Truly, only the Fullmers could keep the audience in tears of laughter during an entire two-hour funeral.) It also got me thinking. As I chatted with some friends afterward, it really hit me: we all have trials. We all sin and have things that we struggle with, sometimes over our entire lifetime (or for what sometimes seems like a lifetime). But no matter our weaknesses, our imperfections, or even our sins, they are not what define us. It's how you choose to spend your time every day, the way you treat other people, the relationships you cultivate, and the amount of heart you put into things that really make you who you are. That's what makes your life.

That thought is both reassuring and worrisome to me. I'm relieved that, if those who know me are as gracious as I hope, my sins and weaknesses won't be what they think of when they think of me. But if that's the case, and those things don't define me, then what exactly does? I know that I have a long way to go in being the kind, thoughtful, big-hearted person that I'd love to be. So I'm going to take what was said at this funeral yesterday and use it as my motivation to choose what defines me, to choose what people will think of when they think of me.

Incidentally, the word I chose for 2015 is choose. And as sad and tragic as the loss was which led to that funeral, I'm grateful for the perspective it gave me. I'm going to choose every day this year to be kinder, to show a little more heart, and to choose to love. Because in the end, that will be the only thing that matters about your life. (This scripture comes to mind.) Maybe the biggest difference between that amazing life that was lost last week and my own is that his was effortlessly full of heart, and mine is going to be a fairly uphill battle to love and serve those around me. We're all given different gifts in life, and although I regret that that is not naturally one of mine, I'm so grateful for those I do have, but more than that, I'm grateful for the Atonement of Jesus Christ that allows me not only to work on getting rid of those sins and struggles I have, but also to choose to be more like Him and possess more of His love.

So here's to amazing people who inspire me with their hearts, to the opportunity to live better every day, and to choosing what defines me.

RIP Kade

Another year down

2014! I'm a little bit in shock that this year is over. How did that happen? As always, as I reflect on the past year, I'm amazed at my life. I would never in a million years have thought I'd be where I am right now (in good ways and bad ways), but I guess that's life for you, huh? Things never really go how you expect, but somehow they seem to work out for the best—even if you thought your plans were what would be best.

I didn't realize that I'd done a yearly recap for so many years in a row now. Gotta keep track of life somehow, right?

Here's the 2013 recap, the 2012 "best of" list, and 2011's highlights.
Enjoy the 2014 version. I can't wait to see what 2015 brings!

The Heart of God

I was going through a little packet of writing samples that is circulating around our office right now, and this one in particular really touched me. It's from the book The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming by Henri J. M. Nouwen, and he makes reference to this beautiful painting by Rembrandt.
(In case you'd like to read the scriptural account of the story he's talking about, here it is.)

“In Rembrandt’s painting, the elder son simply observes. It is difficult to imagine what is going on in his heart. Just as with the parable, so also with the painting, I am left with the question: How will he respond to the invitation to join the celebration?

“There is no doubt—in the parable or the painting—about the father’s heart. His heart goes out to both of his sons; he loves them both; he hopes to see them together as brothers around the same table; he wants them to experience that, different as they are, they belong to the same household and are children of the same father.

“As I let all of this sink in, I see how the story of the father and his lost sons powerfully affirms that it was not I who chose God, but God who first chose me. This is the great mystery of our faith. We did not choose God, God chooses us. From all eternity we are hidden ‘in the shadow of God’s hand’ and ‘engraved on his palm.’ Before any human being touches us, God ‘forms us in secret’ and 'textures us’ in the depth of the earth, and before any human being decides about us, God ‘knits us together in our mother’s womb.’ God loves us before any human person can show love to us. He loves us with a ‘first’ love, an unlimited, unconditional love, wants us to be his beloved children, and tells us to become as loving as himself.

“For most of my life I have struggled to find God, to know God, to love God. I have tried hard to follow the guidelines of the spiritual life—pray always, work for others, read the Scriptures—and to avoid the many temptations to dissipate myself. I have failed many times but always tried again, even when I was close to despair.

“Now I wonder whether I have sufficiently realized that during all this time God has been trying to find me, to know me, and to love me. The question is not ‘How am I to find God?’ but ‘How am I to let myself be found by him?’ The question is not ‘How am I to know God?’ but ‘How am I to let myself be known by God?’ And finally, the question is not ‘How am I to love God?’ but ‘How am I to let myself be loved by God?’ God is looking into the distance for me, trying to find me, and longing to bring me home. In all three parables which Jesus tells in response to the question of why he eats with sinners, he puts the emphasis of God’s initiative. God is the shepherd who goes looking for his lost sheep. God is the woman who lights a lamp, sweeps out the house, and searches everywhere for her lost coin until she has found it. God is the father who watches and waits for his children, runs out to meet them, embraces them, pleads with them, begs and urges them to come home.

“It might sound strange, but God wants to find me as much as, if not more than, I want to find God. Yes, God needs me as much as I need God. God is not the patriarch who stays home, doesn’t move, and expects his children to come to him, apologize for their aberrant behavior, beg for forgiveness, and promise to do better. To the contrary, he leaves the house, ignoring his dignity by running toward them, pays no heed to apologies and promises of change, and brings them to the table richly prepared for them.

“I am beginning now to see how radically the character of my spiritual journey will change when I no longer think of God as hiding out and making it as difficult as possible for me to find him, but, instead, as the one who is looking for me while I am doing the hiding. When I look through God’s eyes at my lost self and discover God’s joy at my coming home, then my life may become less anguished and more trusting.

“Wouldn’t it be good to increase God’s joy by letting God find me and carry me home and celebrate my return with the angels? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to make God smile by giving God the chance to find me and love me lavishly? Questions like these raise a real issue: that of my own self-concept. Can I accept that I am worth looking for? Do I believe that there is a real desire in God to simply be with me?

“Here lies the core of my spiritual struggle: the struggle against self-rejection, self-contempt, and self-loathing. It is a very fierce battle because the world and its demons conspire to make me think about myself as worthless, useless, and negligible. Many consumerist economies stay afloat by manipulating the low self-esteem of their consumers and by creating spiritual expectations through material means. As long as I am kept ‘small,’ I can easily be seduced to buy things, meet people, or go places that promise a radical change in self-concept even though they are totally incapable of bringing this about. But every time I allow myself to be thus manipulated or seduced, I will have still more reasons for putting myself down and seeing myself as the unwanted child.”

Don’t you just love that? I can so relate to him in having that view of God sometimes: up there on His throne, one ear half-turned away from me until I shape up and turn again to Him. So wrong. His hands are always extended out to us. Always! But being that we're human and [hopefully] fighting that daily uphill battle to overcome tendencies of the natural man and temptations of the devil, odds are we mess up a lot, further distancing ourselves from Him. And yet, “For all this . . . his hand is stretched out still.” Jacob reminds us “how merciful is our God unto us, for he remembereth [us] . . . and he stretches forth his hands unto [us] all the day long.” I think of the father of the prodigal son, imagine him going outside every day to see if today would be the day his son came back to him. I think of his joy in knowing that his son finally came to himself and realized that, regardless of the appeal of the world, the greatest happiness he’d know would be with his father. I just love that connection we can make between this story and of ourselves making that painful, mistake-and-temptation-ridden journey back to our Heavenly Father. “When I look through God’s eyes at my lost self and discover God’s joy at my coming home, then my life may become less anguished and more trusting.”

(Other images of the prodigal son:)

The God of hope

Oh, hey. Sorry I'm negligent of my blog. It is what it is, though. What can you do.

This past weekend we had stake and regional conference, and I wanted to share some thoughts that stemmed from one particular talk. One of the counselors in our stake presidency talked about a trial in his life and the "what do I need to learn about me?"-genre questions which followed that certain event (or as he kept saying, in the third person, "What does John need to learn about John?").

He talked a lot about Abraham, one of my favorite characters in the scriptures. My sister and I talk often about how his "qualifying trial" is an example of what we must all face in this life. We will all have really hard, soul-stretching, life-altering trials come our way, and there will come a point where we'll have to ask ourselves, "How far can I go? How long will I remain faithful? How much will I trust in the Lord?" I used to get to hung up on why I had to go through certain trials when Heavenly Father knew that I was willing to be faithful through them. Wasn't it enough that He knew my heart and knew that I would remain faithful to Him no matter what? But there are lessons to be learned—lessons about ourselves—in those qualifying trials, maybe the biggest of which is hope and trust in our Heavenly Father.

Back to Abraham. So here was a guy who, right from the very first thing we read about him, had some pretty sweet promises from the Lord. He was promised land, titles, posterity, and just wonderful, wonderful blessings. The most poignant one to me, however, is the promise given to him and his wife, Sarah, of a child. This promised blessing was something that was just impossible. It just was. The scriptures say "Sarai was barren; she had no child" (Gen. 11:30). And Abraham himself was freaking old: "Abraham and Sarah were old and well stricken in age; and it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women" (Gen. 18:11). For him it was maybe just bad odds; for her it was impossible.

But, man, his faith! "Being not weak in faith, [Abraham] considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sara's womb: He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform" (Romans 4:19–21). He didn't doubt that Sarah could carry a baby in a womb that was "dead"! That just blows my mind. He just didn't even doubt that the Lord would fulfill all His promises. He knew that the Lord "was able."

But not all of those promised blessings came soon. They had to wait, like, their entire lives for some of them, and even longer for others! And then, when that promised, impossible blessing of a son finally came, Abraham was asked to sacrifice it. Like, again, impossible. But Abraham, I think, had already learned something about Abraham. He had learned that he trusted God. More than that, "Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness" (Rom. 4:3). He held fast to those promises and he knew without a doubt that they would be fulfilled. He had hope: "the confident expectation of and longing for the promised blessings of righteousness" (Guide to the Scriptures, "Hope"). Have we, through our qualifying trials, learned to trust God? Do we believe the God of hope?

As this counselor in the stake presidency pointed out, Abraham is our great example of hope; of holding fast to promises. He "against hope believed in hope" (Rom. 4:18) because, through his waiting on blessings, he had developed faith and trust in Heavenly Father and knew that He was faithful. I also love how that attitude rubbed off on his wife, who was skeptical at first (is that just a woman thing? Doubting that God can do the impossible in our lives?) but ended up receiving "strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age (when it was impossible!), because she judged him faithful who had promised" (Hebrews 11:11). I guess Sarah learned something about Sarah, too. She was strong when she believed.

I guess all of this is just to say that Abraham was awesome. And God IS AWESOME. His promises are great and they are sure. He will fulfill them all in His time and in His way. And He can do impossible things. And thank goodness for Abraham's example of hoping and trusting in God and believing Him. Because we saw how it all unfolded for him, and, I think, if we can try to be as faithful throughout our trials as Abraham was throughout his, then not only will we learn what we need to about ourselves (hopefully that we have more trust and faith and hope in the Lord than we thought) but also we will see things unfold with that same fullness as they did for Abraham.

So here's to hope. Here's to trusting in Heavenly Father's oh-so-sure promises and believing Him when He says He is able.

P.S. I made this little sign for my office of a scripture that someone mentioned in our work devotional last week. I thought it went right along with this!

Cancer-noia

Am I the only one out there who is perpetually paranoid about contracting some horrible disease? Both times I spent time in Africa, a good portion of that time was spent worried that someone was going to run up and stick me with an HIV-infected needle or that I was going to get bitten by a malaria-carrying mosquito (oh wait—that one actually happened).

But really. I didn't eat at Taco Bell for like years and years after that hepatitis whatever scare, and I can hardly touch raw meat and have to religiously disinfect any possible salmonella breeding grounds in the kitchen. I use hand sanitizer like it's a drug (which, at this point, it pretty much is). 

All these worried tendencies are nothing, however, compared to my cancer-noia. As I write this, I'm waiting for some doctor results to come back to tell me, in my worst-case-scenario mind, whether or not I have cancer. (I really don't; I promise.) I'm not worried about it, although the ultrasound technician spent an awfully long time wielding that gooey, looking-through-my-skin ultrasound instrument. Anyway. So as I wait (I'm not really waiting... Just bored at the moment), I thought I'd give you a glimpse into my paranoia-filled mind and make a list of all the things that I'm positive are giving me cancer:

1. Standing in front of a microwave when it's going. After pressing that start button, I leave the room always if I can help it. Microwaves at stomach-level seem somehow worse...

2. Walking through a metal detector while talking on a cell phone. People probably thought I was so weird every time I walked through the metal detectors in the library at BYU, because if I was on the phone, I'd put the phone down as I walked through. One too many waves going on there.

3. Goiters. Just don't ask any follow-up questions. It's a real thing. You know, for some people.

4. Looking at the light from a copy machine while it's scanning. Again, coworkers have almost certainly seen me looking up after I press the start button and have thought that I'm super weird. Whatever. I can get away with it, though, right?

So, yeah. Basically I'm insane. Please tell me I'm not the only one with crazy, irrational cancer-related fears. 

Merely me.

I watched Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella the other day. The Brandy version, of course. It may or may not have been while working, and on YouTube. Dare you to judge me.

I can never get enough of the song-and-dance, interracial goodness of that film, although I'm not quite sure how it compares to the Broadway version. Anyway. As much as I love every single song in that movie, one line in particular stuck out to me this time through: "a girl who's merely me." You know the song it comes from—the two stepsisters are getting out their frustration and negative emotions through song (what a great idea, right?), and, like, psychotic jealousy and violent tendencies aside, they make a valid point: "what's the matter with the men?!" Why can't a fellow ever once prefer a girl who's merely me? Just a usual girl.

The more I get to know people, the more I realize things about myself (that whole trying-to-not-compare-myself-to-others thing is obviously going really well), like the fact that, for as wonderful as I (and my mother) think I am, I'm really just an average girl. There really aren't a ton of things that I'm really good at, let alone great at. (Except maybe editing. Or kissing; I'm a great kisser.) And the more I think about that, the more I'm okay with it. I don't have to be great at anything to have a good sense of humor, an empathetic heart, or a fun personality. I don't have to be an expert at anything to still be a hard worker or a good friend.

So, yeah. I'm just a solid (though hopefully not in the hefty, solid-chocolate kind of way), usual girl. And that's enough. And someday there'll be a fellow who will prefer that. And that'll be good enough for me.

Me, on a rare bare-bones-makeup kind of day, lounging at the lake house of some dear friends.

BTdubs, a quick grammar goody on "who's" vs. "whose." YES, there is a difference. Learn it; love it; use it. Here we go:

Who's=contraction of "who is" or "who has" ex: "who's at the door?" "Who's seen that movie?"

Whose=adjective. generally talking about the possessor of an object. "Whose coat is this?" "Do you know whose this is?"

A wonderful wedding

So about a year and a half ago, at Thanksgiving, my aunt told me a secret: she had signed up for an online dating site. After having been divorced for 30+ years, she was more than ready and more than a little nervous to begin the journey to finding someone with whom she could spend eternity. I was thrilled for her and excited to be her confidant in the sometimes-scary world of online dating. I had been considering that bold move myself, and together my aunt and I had a few good discussions about why this was going to be a good thing—no matter what, we told ourselves. It would be healthy and useful to get to know different people and to work on developing relationships. 

Fast forward to a few months ago, and while I've been on this roller coaster of dating craziness (which ultimately ended in my getting off online dating {minus Tinder, of course}), and I'm happy to say that my aunt found her perfect match. So it was with tears of happiness that we welcomed her new husband into our family a few weeks ago. 

My aunt just so happens to be pretty good friends with one Elder and Sister Oaks, so he performed their marriage ceremony in the Salt Lake Temple. It was so sweet. I knew that I couldn't remember everything he said, but I did make a strong mental note of two things he said prior to the official ceremony. He talked about how we choose marriage partners for their similarities as well as for their differences. I loved that idea. Obviously everyone is going to have differences, but I know that for me, I don't want someone who is exactly the same as me. I already have one of me. I just love that idea of choosing someone for their differences as much as for their similarities. 

The other thing he said that really struck me was this: he said to the soon-to-be-wed couple that in a few minutes he was going to pronounce them husband and wife, but no one can pronounce happiness or kindness or gentleness or selflessness or any of the other things that are required to make a marriage work. Those are things that you have to work at every day and learn to develop within a relationship. I just thought that was a sweet idea.

And so of course I bawled through the whole thing. It's me. But I loved Aunt Linda's reminder to "never, never, never, never give up." The fact that she found someone so great for her is proof that the Lord is always watching over us and that He can do anything. 

Here are just a few of my favorite pics from the big day:

The happy, happy couple.

My parents and quite possibly the funniest aunt-and-uncle duo ever.

Brother and sis-in-law with a photobombing cousin.

Aunt Linda with her kids and their kiddos. Love those matching blue ties, and their wearers.

Cute cousins!

Me and the sibs.

 Just brunching with "Dallin," as he introduced himself as.

Corner-of-the-temple selfie.

Beards much?

Sibling selfie, minus a few.

The temple on a perfect day!

This little guy. My heart.

So here's to never giving up. Here's to getting outside your comfort zone and trying new things to meet new people. And here's to eternity! So happy for you, Ron and Linda!