Be the Change you Want to See in the World

For the last two years I've wanted more than anything to do something big to make a difference in this world for good.  To make it a better place than it is.  To make a real impact for good. I heard and read stories of families who did this together and children learned valuable lessons serving along side their parents.  I've been praying over this off and on for these two years and at every idea I've come up with and been inspired by, all my best efforts to approach the idea have come to nothing.  The demands of my children and family have prevented me from "being the change I want to see in the world".  I even came to hate my life situation (partly because of this desire to be and do more, and partly because there are many problems being as introverted as I am and having boys as loud as mine are, which leave me overwhelmed and empty before my day is over) wondering what better opportunities I might have had if I just stayed single (which feeling also filled me with guilt just for feeling it).  I've been reading, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, and in it, while talking about how to figure out what profession you should persue as an introvert the author says (among other things) to, "pay attention to what you envy.  Jealousy is an ugly emotion, but it tells the truth.  You mostly envy those who have what you desire." (p. 218). At first I thought, "I don't envy anyone, I just hate my life how it is right now."  But actually while writing this post I realized I envy the people who travel to places where people really want the Gospel and they bring their family and serve God together and they make a real meaningful impact in people's lives.  But I'm a stay at home mom, and just don't have the means right now to do anything like that, and my kids aren't ages where I could trust them not to, for example, run off in the airport and get lost before we've even made it to Africa.

Well, praying over my calling or mission or role in God's work (whatever you wish to call it) one morning, God said, "Be the change you want to see in your home!"  I got up motivated and I wrote it on my mirror and made a sign for my kitchen, and then oddly enough the rest of my day ended up much like all the others.  Me perpetuating the things I don't like within my family culture just as much as my husband and children do.  I can't blame the kids they're just following the things they've learned from me and my husband.  But all of us seem to be stuck in a rutt unable to change the direction we are headed.  The inertia feels stronger than my ability to pull us in another direction.  I realized inertia this strong (ten years in the making) is going to take a lot of force to shift it in another direction.

The next day, praying now about how to follow this instruction, how to be the change I want to see in my home, I begged for grace to overcome my weaknesses, to make my weaknesses strengths, to get out of this damning rutt!  I felt like I need my home blessed and I wanted my Rabbi to do it.  I asked my husband and he approved.  I also asked if he would be willing to have Bible study in our home, and he said he would.  So I attended church and told my Rabbi and set up the blessing, and talked to the people I wanted to invite to this Bible study.

This will not only give me more motivation to study my Bible, it will do so much more.  It will motivate me to keep my home clean and organized, it will help me teach my children and be the example I should be and want to be and yet am not, it will help me learn more from the passages I study by discussing them with others, it will be the push I need to change my direction and get out of the deep rut I've carved together with my husband for the last ten years.  At least, these are the things it has the potential to do.  I'm not giving up on myself yet!

God bless you, and if you, like me just aren't in a position to be the change you want to see in the world, then first be the change you want to see in your home, then in your community, and on. When the time is right and you and your family are ready to take on the world more power to you!  And if you are already working to be the change you want to see in the world, then keep up the good work!  Shalom.

Grace and Repentance

Sorry for taking such a long break.  I feel like I'm in the process of reinventing myself.  I've changed what religion I identify as, one stage of life is ending and a new one beginning, and the dream I always thought I would be pursuing at this point in my life is not even in the picture and a new dream completely unlike anything I imagined (prior to several months ago) is beginning to take shape.  Anyhow for the past month this blog has been about the last thing on my mind.  But none of this is why you chose to read this post, though it does relate, so I'll show you how God's grace has been transforming my life.

Each Sunday I've been trying something different a while of just staying home trying to figure out the best thing to do as a family without going anywhere.  I've attended random churches, and I think we've found one that's a good fit at least for our current needs as a family right now.  I've realized some interesting contrasts by attending experimentally some other Christian churches, then contrasting it with a chance LDS meeting I went to on a whim.  The other Christian church was focused on the joy and the miracle that is available to us through accepting the atonement of Christ in our lives.  The LDS meeting was about repentance and was full of sorrow, and the hardship of life and the failings of us as humans, and the sorrow of these failings was the focus.  When we make our focus on the negative things in life that will be what our life will be full of.  When our focus is on the positive, the joy of Christ's grace to become a new person, a better person, in Christ we change and repent without realizing it.  We can't white knuckle our way to heaven!  If you have to "white knuckle it" to resist temptation your heart is still set on the thing you are tempted with and not on Christ.  If your heart is set on Christ, He will help you through His grace to become the new person He wants you to be.  I want to be clear grace is not the ability to be forgiven and never have to change anything about yourself.  It is by grace we are saved because we all are sinners and fall short of the glory of God.  But that grace is something we must accept and embrace and allow it to work in our lives, and as we do we literally become a new person.  I'm so completely different as a person than I was six or nine months ago!  It is all by God's grace that I've had the power to transform my life into something different than I ever planned or thought possible. 

I was going to write a separate post about all the life changes that have happened to me lately that distracted me from my writing for over a month.  But I realized as editing these two separate posts that they really are the same thing.  I have been shifting my focus and changing lately, this is what repentance is.  And through the grace of Christ I'm realizing greater purpose and happiness in my life doing things I never thought possible.  The story of my sabbatical from my blog is the story of God's grace being manifest in my life and me taking the time I needed to accept and act upon this gift.

For the last seven and a half years of my life I've been either pregnant or nursing a baby.  As this stage begins to wind down for many reasons, I've been overcome with the desire to make a difference in the world.  I even wept one night talking to my husband about this desire it was so strong, but without any clear direction.  I want to do something beyond raising children who will have the skills to make a difference in their world.  Don't get me wrong, I believe motherhood to be extremely important and I love it, but I also believe my example of how I use my time and what I do to change my world will also make me a better mother and motivate my children to find their niche to impact the world for the better as well.  I once thought that when this phase of life came along I would start offering private art lessons, perhaps to home school kids.  But there just isn't a demand for this, especially with the advancing pace of technology.  My skills are obsolete.  Now I've made the bold decision to become a lapidary (one who carves and polishes stone sometimes for jewelry, sometimes larger works like spheres, or small sculptures).  Thank goodness for youtube training videos!  I'm trying to settle into my new identities.  And I am full of happiness with this choice.  When I got just a few supplies and started working I knew this was the right path for me.

Hopefully as these aspects of life settle down a bit I should be able to write posts a little more regularly.  How has God's grace manifest in your life?  If you are resisting change that God wants for you, you are essentially rejecting His grace and Christ's atonement.  Embrace his love and his grace and let your life take the beautiful shape He has in store for you.  It is likely better than anything you could dream up for yourself.  May God's grace manifest in your life journey too.