A Sister's Pride

My first few entries have been about the spiritual joys I've experienced lately.  But I also have other sources of happiness in my life that I want to share...one such source is my relationship with my younger brother, Matt.

For those of you not familiar with my personal life, Matt and I have been best friends since we were little kids.  Obviously we've still had little tiffs, like the time I almost drowned him during swimming lessons, or the time he chucked a half full water bottle at my face and therefore created a permanent bump on my nose, that was then gushing blood.  But those are just the little things.  There are millions of fond memories between him and me that don't involve us killing each other: swing dancing together for my final in my 9th grade P.E. class, getting in touch with our inner cavemen and hunting crabs with toy sand buckets and seaweed along the rocks at the beach, making up scary stories on the computer with some of our friends, shouting things in a made-up language out my bedroom window (somehow convincing a neighborhood kid that we were going to call the police on him), and making snowmen made of ice so that the juvenile delinquents that lived next to us would stub their toes when they tried to kick down our beautiful creations.

Honestly, I could go on and on about the common experiences and inside jokes and funny memories that Matt and I share.  But one that stood out to me recently was going back home to watch him in the school play.  Our high school was doing Shrek the Musical, and Matt landed the understudy to Shrek, even with him being only a sophomore.  And having been involved with the high school theater department myself, I knew what a big deal this was for Matt, not only getting to perform as Shrek on a few nights of the performance, but also the hard work that he would have to put into the show beforehand.  And being understudy meant that his learning of the blocking and lines and songs would all be secondary compared to the lead learning everything...which would explain why Matt only had one run-through of the whole show as Shrek before he had to perform.

But come show night, there was no possible way you could tell that Matt was the understudy.  He came out onto that stage with all the confidence in the world, getting all of the blocking and the lines, enunciating and speaking clearly so that jokes became all the more funny, and hitting all the notes in the songs he had to sing.  His chemistry with Fiona was flawless, his scenes with Donkey were a hoot, and not to mention, he had a Scottish accent that could have put Mike Meyers to shame.  

Sitting in the audience and watching Matthew shine was one of the purely joyful moments of my life.

I know that sounds a little cliche.  But when you care so much about another individual, and you see him excelling at something he worked his butt off for, you can't really help but feel joy and love and ultimately pride for him.  Matt opened the show with his first song, and I was almost in tears.  He had done something hard, and he had done it well.  In fact, people came up to me after the show, commenting on how great Matt had done, and instead of politely saying "thank you" or "that would mean so much to him" in response to their compliments, I simply said, "I know."  Yep, I know he was awesome.  Yep, I know he sang great.  Yep, I know he deserved every second he was on that stage.  Yep, that's Matt for you.  If he wants something, he'll get it...and he earned the respect of every single spectator in that audience that night.

Pretty much what I'm getting at is that this is my small tribute to my little brother.  I know we go through life with crappy days and stressful moments, and we can worry about everything.  But when I'm with Matt, all that stress and worry kind of takes the background to his funny jokes and our hideous dancing and our heart-to-heart conversations.  I'm always proud of this kid...whether he got the understudy or the lead, whether he's feeling inadequate in life or he won't shut up about how great he is, whether he chucks a water bottle at me or I try to drown him, or whether he has paint on his face from his ogre mask or he looks somewhat normal in pictures.  I love my little brother.  And I'm thankful that he has brought me an immense amount of joy in my crazy, hectic life.

I love you, Matt.

Through His Grace We Are Saved

I love this scripture:

"For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our bretheren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do" (2 Nephi 25:23).

This past month and a half I've been making a conscious effort to put God first in my life, and in doing so, I've become more aware of His influence in the small things around me and inside me.  I love this scripture because it tells us that God's influence is what saves us.  Nephi says that even after all we can do, it is only through Christ's grace that we are saved.  And that is powerful!  Brad Wilcox, a teacher at my university, gave a devotional about Christ's grace, saying that "the Lord does not make up the difference; He makes all the difference."  And I'm so happy that he does.  Christ doesn't meet you close to the finish line of the race of life, carrying you the distance that you were just too weak to make.  He walks with you the whole way; He encourages you; He loves you; and He is the one who makes all the difference in our lives.

Just a short story that relates:

A few members of my family ran a 5k for a Homecoming Race at BYU several years ago.  During the kids' run, my mom happened to witness a boy running to the finish line with his father jogging beside him in the grass by the track.  The boy was exhausted and seemed to just want to be done with the whole thing.  But the father was shouting encouragement at him as the boy ran his race.  "The ground is hot, son.  The ground is hot.  Keep on running.  Keep on going.  Remember, the ground is hot."  As my mom shared this story, I not only realized that "the ground is hot" was encouragement used to motivate the boy to pick up his feet and keep running so he wouldn't touch the "hot" ground, but that the father seemed to be even more excited than the boy about the race.  And I feel like that is similar to our relationship with our Father in Heaven.  I know there are times in my life where I'm like the little boy, just wanting my race to be over so I can rest.  But I believe that God is beside us the whole way, ecstatic about our progress, ever-caring and ever-present, and a comforting, strengthening companion who is involved in our personal struggles and triumphs through the whole thing.

I am grateful that it is through His grace that we are saved.  And I am thankful that I can feel the power of His grace from the start of my mortal race all the way to the end.

Go Forth With Faith

For many years I have struggled with the concept of God's love for me.  I have heard since I was a little girl that God loves us even more than our parents do with a perfect, infinite love.  I thought that was all fine and dandy.  But then how come I couldn't feel that?  Sure, I could see His love for other people - I mean, who couldn't love my family or my friends or the rest of the people in the world for that matter?  But how could I feel in my heart that He loved me?

So, today I had the choice to go to a Stake Conference session.  In my church, a Stake is just a large congregation made up of smaller congregations called "Wards."  In these types of conferences, we go to hear talks from our peers and our leaders who encourage us to continue faithfully in our mortal journey towards God.  Generally, Stake Conference has a session on Saturday night and then another session Sunday morning.  This Saturday session of conference however, was not in the evening but at 10:30 this morning...on a Saturday...the only day that I could have slept in this whole week.  Now, I'm not sure if you know this, but I like my sleep.  And the thought of getting up at 9:30 to go to an extra church meeting on a Saturday morning just did not sit well with me.  But in spirit of my recent goal to put God first in my life, I made the trek up to campus in my dress and boots in the cold rain and attended the meeting.

And I am so glad I did.

The speakers in this session of conference were enthusiastic and happy about bettering themselves in the name of the Lord; they encouraged the congregation to share the joy of the Atonement and Salvation with the rest of the world; they talked of personal experiences where they had seen hearts touched and lives blessed by God's Holy Spirit; and one speaker in particular spoke of rare, personal experiences where he had felt God's infinite love.

At this portion of his talk, my concentration deepened.  This was exactly my question.  How come these sacred, personal experiences of feeling God's love were rare?  I have regularly felt the warm contentedness of trying to live righteously...but the overpowering, humbling, and euphoric moments where I feel God is proud of me and truly, deeply loves me have been fewer and farther between.

My leader continued speaking.  He said that at many times this dilemma had confused him, and he wanted to feel these powerful expressions of love more often.  But, in pondering this dilemma, my Stake leader realized that these rare, precious moments that he experienced were enough to encourage him to stay the course and become a better disciple of Christ.

I was amazed at the humility of this man.  Here I was, resentful that I couldn't have these intimate connections with God all the time, and this man was simply grateful to feel God's abounding love in the first place.  Instead of needing constant heavenly confirmation, this man was content with the personal miracles he had already witnessed and continued on the road of discipleship.

And at this point in the meeting, I was starting to witness a miracle as well.

In my incredulity, I could feel the walls of my pride coming down.  At this moment, I became teachable and humble enough for me to learn from the Holy Spirit.  And here was the lesson: You don't need to have constant affirmation from the Lord to be happy in His work.  Faith is pursuing His course without a perfect knowledge of what is going to happen next.  Faith is relying on God to make up for the things that you don't know, and that is all the more powerful than following God only because it's logical.  You can't feel the miracles of faith without taking a step into the unknown.

As I was realizing the truthfulness of these statements, I became excited to show my faith for the Lord.  I had a renewed hope for the brightness of my future, and I understood that this lesson was a miracle answer to my question.  The rarity of the experiences where I feel God's infinite, overpowering love gives me the opportunity to press forward in my mortal journey with faith.  God is giving me a present each time I have a question or a doubt, because He is giving me a chance to prove my loyalty to Him without a sure knowledge of His way.  I realized, I have to practice faith in order to have my faith in God grow.

So, as the meeting ended and the congregation walked their separate ways, I was left joyfully pondering the mercies and miracles of God, excited about my new realizations and humbled by the personal experience I had had in the meeting.  I had a new found determination to obey God in faith.

And the crazy part was...I might have slept in and missed it all!