Succoring Us in Our Afflictions

By Lisa Rector

Part of Christ succoring us is not only giving us strength or patience to endure out infirmities, but also allowing a moment when the Spirit confirms a comforting truth that heals us emotionally and spiritually. “This is the power the Savior extends to us to succor us in our trials.” (Darren Wilcox, October 2017 Ensign) This is the power that comes to us through His atonement.

For example, we know that when our loved ones die, we don’t really lose them. They are waiting for us on the other side of the veil. But in the midst of our grief and affliction, we are often so weighed down by our sorrows that, until we receive again the confirming witness of the Spirit, re-declaring to us what we already know, our darkness won’t lift and turn to light. But as long as we put forth effort—studying and praying to God and trusting in His son, eventually that confirmation will come and bring us relief. It may come in a light-bulb moment, when darkness turns to light, after we go through our own personal Gethsemane and experience the darkness and bitterness.

I have felt the darkness turned to light. I have had my own light-bulb moment when the Spirit confirmed a spiritual truth to my soul that healed me from depression. I know there is power in the atonement to heal us. The Savior truly does succor us in our afflictions.

Gratitude

This is something I wish was going around at my house more often this Christmas. Gratitude. 

Lately, I've noticed my oldest acting "entitled." How did this happen? It's an attribute I've striven as a parent for my child NOT to cultivate. A enormous list of wants for presents under the tree from this non-believer who has Santa's cell phone number and can text him at will and whim. 

Where is the gratitude for what is already in her possession? Where is the willingness to share? Does she not know there are people without homes, food, and no hope of ever having a cell phone? That there are places in the world where instead of wanting their two front teeth, they'd rather have clean water in their town/village instead of hiking miles to get it, sometimes mulitiple times a day. How does she not see the bigger global picture? 

More importantly, how do I get her to see it? 

The other day she threw such a fit, the third in a series this week, that I was ready to tell Santa to unwrap the presents and send them back. No gifts this year. Perhaps that would shake her back to reality. But then, how do we explain that to the Believer in the house? Your older sibling was so naughty she didn't even rate coal, instead she got nothing? That wouldn't go over well and I have no wish to spend Christmas Day with a ticked off tween on the rant. 

I bought a sign a few years ago, it reads, "Simplify Christmas. Celebrate Christ." HE is what Christmas is supposed to be about. Not a jolly red man in a suit, or a castout reindeer with a shiny red nose, or even the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future. (I really don't have any complaints with a Christmas Carol. Dickens message about caring for your fellowman is in line with Christ's teachings.) 

The season is about gratitude for God's Plan of Happiness and for Christ being born. It is about reflecting on HIS example and how we can make changes to become more like him. It is about sharing the joyful message, sharing HIS light, sharing what we have with those who are without. 

Yes, yes, you nod. That is all very well and good but you have nearly thirty years experience and maturity to draw on for your bigger picture perpsective. Your oldest child doesn't. 

True. And though I tell her about the sacrifices made on my behalf by my single mom and how I was aware of how much I learned about the cost and value of things which made me appreciate them, she doesn't get it. 

So, my question to you is, How do you help your child to cultivate gratitude and see the bigger picture, not just at this time of year, but all year long? What do you do to put HIM at the center of your life and your child's/children's lives? 

'Cause I'm all ears.

Otherwise, we might simplify Christmas next year to the point of no presents under the tree. 

Happy Holidays! May they be merry, bright, and full of light...and gratitude.  

The Great Christmas Race

by H. Linn Murphy

Every Christmas we join the mad rush to buy just the right Christmas presents around oh...Christmas Eve if you're my husband. It drives me nuts. I try to start doing things much earlier in the year, but it comes to no avail.  He's very rigid about what he wants for gifts (that is such a foreign concept to me. It should be a PRESENT, not an order) and won't make a list until about three days before Christmas Eve. The years I've bought things not on his list have been tough. You should have seen what happened the year I bought him a used row boat. A few weeks ago he almost sold it to some guy from the street.

One year I'd gone  to garage sales and gotten things for everyone I knew they'd like. The Hubs looked at what I'd gotten them and began what has become his new tradition. We have to do what seems like a spread sheet. There are rows for music, games, clothing, movies, books and miscellaneous. I plug stuff I've bought into its little slot and write down the price of that thing. Then he totals the line until we've spent basically the same amount on everyone.

It sounds all neat and democratic. It actually means that all those things I bought at garage sales or made don't fit neatly into any slot, and thus frustration. It means that he goes out to try and make his sheet total up. It means that after the beautiful dinner and the live nativity scene and the watching Santa on NORAD and taking Crazy Mary home, that we spend the rest of the night 'til around 5:30am wrapping presents. Which also means I'm stone dead for the whole of Christmas day.

And I hate it.

We're talking zombie apocalypse here. And the kids, until last year insisted on coming to get us up and the crack of freaking dawn. Last year was the first time ever that they decided to sleep in. Which gave me around three hours of sleep. Unfortunately now I have a new child--the dog, who wakes me up about 5:30am to play countless games of Keep-the-dog-ball-away-from-Heidi-while-still-making-her-stay-outside-to-throw-it. 

Last year I did one small change. I made the kids help me wrap presents (not their own, of course). It helped immensely. Then we were only up until about three am. So that's my dream for this year--early wrapping.

This is what I'd actually like to do:

*We start early. *We make things, or shop sales or maybe shop online. (What would actually be really hilarious is if we gifted them with their own stuff...to take to whatever place they decide to call home.) *Then if there are a few little things, we go together and have fun finding them. *We then wrap them together very early (before December) so that we can enjoy a Spirit-filled Christmas, full of service, music, good food, friends, and family and most of all, Christ. 

In fact, I'd almost like to celebrate Christmas on the 27th. After all, we don't actually celebrate Christ's birthday on the correct day anyway (it's actually around April 6th). Because that's when the buy Buy BUY season goes bye-bye. The massive doses of silly shows end (I absolutely HATE that Mr. Freeze from Frosty 2 and the song that goes with it even more. It has absolutely nothing to do with Christmas) and the pressure with it. It's that dead time which, if done right, could be filled with peace and joy and the actual celebration of Christ's birthday instead of Mammon's.

Please don't get me wrong. I love Santa and presents and so many other aspects of Christmas. I love the traditions we have. I just don't love the pressure for all of it to be perfect, instead of how we treat each other being perfect.
 
This is what will really happen:

Now they've got boy/girl friends or spouses or any number of other places to go on Christmas. All our carefully constructed traditions will systematically be blown out of the water and we'll find ourselves on Christmas Eve (or day) waving at the receding car like the parents on FIDDLER ON THE ROOF as their girls go off to the Ukraine or some other back-of-beyond place. It already started to happen that way last year. Somebody has to go to another house on Christmas since they came to ours on Thanksgiving. Somebody doesn't want to dress up for the Nativity Scene so they trundle off to the boyfriend's house. And suddenly it was just the youngest who only wanted to play video games. It was a little empty. I know that's life, and I know I used to wish they were more grown up about things, but this is now.

I worry about what will happen when the kids all leave. What will Christmas look like then? I already get a glimpse when we go to church by ourselves. Lots of times we don't even ride together. I guess there is such a thing as too much peace on earth. Maybe.

If I Only Had a Brain

I’ve been so scatterbrained lately that it makes it hard to read anything or write. It’s even harder to plot my outline for NaNoWriMo. I have six different projects I want to work on and about six first chapters that don’t have plots to go with them. All I want to do is write, but I can’t do that do that without direction.

I go through periods of mental disarray. But it’s even more frustrating because I want to be productive.

I also want to focus and read my scriptures, but that has become increasingly difficult. I can’t set mind to one task, develop a habit, and follow through.

As I sat in church this past Sunday, I pondered my dilemma. The topic in church was the Book of Mormon, and once again, I was frustrated over my scriptural study habits. But as the first speaker dove into her talk, a feeling washed over me, confirming that, no matter how often I do or don’t have an opportunity to read the Book of Mormon, I still know it’s true. I still have a strong testimony of the words, even though my memory might be lazy and I don’t always remember the chapters and verses I read. But I know the words testify of Christ and of his visits to America.

My thoughts brought to mind something I saw on a T.V. series. I am paraphrasing the actor’s words, but she said to another character, “I feel sorry for you because you can’t believe in something you can’t see.” That’s exactly how I feel. I can’t begin to understand those who don’t believe in God. I cringe when God and Jesus Christ are called myths. I feel sorry for those who cannot believe in something they can’t see. Do these people believe they have spirits? Do they believe there is a purpose to life? What do they believe about when they die? I’m sure they all believe something different, and that’s fine, but at least I know who I am, where I came from, and where I am going after die. I know this because the Holy Spirit speaks to my spirit and confirms a witness of the truth. This is something that can’t be seen, but is felt.

So back to my scattered brain. Even though I have a hard time lining up my priorities in life, and keeping my mind clear, I know and have a core base of truth to hold me steady.

My encouraging words? Hold on to what you do know, and life’s purpose and direction will eventually be clear. That’s the hope.

by Lisa Rector

Christ is the Reason for the Season

by H. Linn Murphy

About this time every year the pace kicks into holiday mode. We see ever earlier sales. Black Friday is now a holiday children recognize. The Saving Christmas shows pepper the TV, punctuated by ads for glitzy toys, diamonds, gigantic screen TVs, and gleaming sportscars. We run around trying to do, make, and buy everything in time for the Big Day. We run around like ants, busy with making Christmas. But we often forget that Christ is the reason for the season. We not only forget to celebrate His miraculous birth, but the most remarkable gift anyone ever has or ever will give to us: Eternal Life. We forget God's gift to us: namely His Son.

We see all these festive decorations and gifts and helpful hints about how we should celebrate the holidays, but we often fail to see Jesus. And yet we marvel at the people from His own time and place who didn't see Him for what He was. They were too blinded by politics, or disdain for his upbringing and origins, or by their own problems. The Pharisees who should have been His biggest supporters because of their scriptural knowledge, were instead some of His greatest detractors.

 So who did see Him? Not Pilate, who thought of him as a sort of discomforting rabble rouser. Not Herod, rich and selfish King of the Jews. Not the powerful or the knowledgeable. It was the small people--the humble shepherds and servants, the craftsmen shutting their shops for the night, the publicans, and fishermen, and women drawing water at the well.

In this age, knowledge of our Savior gets overshadowed by glitzy movie and sports stars, by the rumble of science disavowing His reality, and by the jeers of the inhabitants of the Great and Spacious Building. We find ourselves either defending Him at every turn, or, like Peter at the cock's crow, weeping at our lack of faith. Sometimes the frantic pace of our lives takes Christ's place and fills the emptiness we've left as we chase the dollar bill, elusive fame, or power.

In the holidays, much of the greed and selfishness comes to a head. The refrain of "Mommy, I want that," fills the frosty air. There have been times when I sat wrapping those last presents that I felt my children had never been such brats all year and I wondered why I was rewarding such wretched behaviors. The gimme children never seemed happy. They fought over everything, especially about serving others by doing their chores. The whole season depressed me. It wasn't until, like Christ, we started focusing on the happiness of others that we started to find our own joy. 

Maybe it's time to buck the crowds, walk back down that Spacious Building ramp, and hop across the stones in the river, back to the Tree of Life. 

I remember once when I was little (we lived in Y Mount Terrace back then--married student housing). I had a Penny Brite doll, which I really loved. One home evening my dad asked us a sneaky question. "What's your favorite toy?" Thinking that I was going to get clothes for her or something equally cool, I piped up with, "My Penny Brite doll is my favorite." My sister, probably sensing more than I did, mentioned something I knew for a fact wasn't her most special toy. Then Dad said something that chilled my childish little heart. "Well then that's the thing we'll give away." My mom then made gorgeous clothes for her, and a box with homemade furniture in it for the doll. Wow. I bawled and bawled. I thought that was a really wretched thing to do. We took those offerings upstairs and gave them to another, poorer family. At first I felt so betrayed. And maybe I was, in a way, since I wasn't allowed to make that choice on my own. But I have never forgotten the way I felt at seeing that other little girl's eyes light up. (Then, because I was about five and selfish, I plotted for a little while on how I was going to take it back--but never did. There is hope.)

Later we enjoyed several 12 Days of Christmas forays. One time we lived in Oregon. My parents had moved down to Arizona and left my sister and me up there because of jobs and school, etc. That Christmas was going to be a little bleak for us. But also Mom had left lots of friends without a champion. Patricia was one of those friends. This season was especially lonely for her. She'd recently lost her husband and was feeling the pinch, once remedied by my mom's kindness. 

So my sister Lisa and I decided to do the 12 Days of Christmas on her. We bought all kinds of things we thought Patricia would like: a back scratcher, cans of soup, slippers, books, goodies and several other items. We thought we were being so sneaky running up to her porch, dropping the item for the day, ringing the bell, and racing away. 

Then one day we got caught. We were hiding in her bushes when some woman we didn't know walked out to the front porch and yelled, "Hey! Whoever you are, Patricia moved. You can have all the stuff we didn't eat back again!"

I remember thousands of meals my mom made and took to other people. I remember baking bread and every time we took it out of the oven, without fail the missionaries were there for a slice. Everybody stayed at our house--Young Ambassadors, BYU Folkdancers, Up With People kids, German Club kids, the indignant runaway children of friends. Everyone. I remember my mom giving everything from her suitcase to women in Zimbabwe, only coming home with what she was wearing and a skirt for me. She went to do service, handing out massive amounts of clothing, food, and sock dolls she made by hand. I remember her and my dad cleaning out ICU's and orphanages in Bulgaria and taking food and water to Bande Atche (or however you spell it), the epicenter of the tsunami in Indonesia. And I think of all the presents I've given her that she's turned around and given to other people. My mom lives to give. Thousands of people bless her name. That's how I want to be. Someday I'll make it.

I hardly remember any presents I ever got. What I do remember are those I gave that took some trouble. I remember their faces and how it felt to do something for someone else. Imagine, then, how Christ must feel when we accept His offerings. When we come humbly to kneel at His feet and give our lives into His careful hands, it must fill Him with exquisite joy. 

What a great birthday present!