Sunday, April 10

Quote of the Day:

From Waking the Warrior Goddess:  Custom # 27  Practice a stress-reducing meditation every day.

Exercise Log:  I would opt for a beautiful “sunny” Sunday walk today but since it has been snowing continually for the past 62 hours in Salt Lake, I’m not exaggerating!, doesn’t look like it will happen.  I have some followers with the exercise goal, 16 marathons by June 28, which I’m excited about.  So far, Joe, Erin, Michele, Susie, Sue O. (will way surpass it!), did I miss someone?  Let me know, and I’ll add you to the list.

Like I said, it has been snowing continually for the past 3 days.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the snow- I love living with seasons and the changes that occur, but this has been rough.  I already feel penned in and watching the snow grow deeper outside my window and doors, while nausea abides inside me, is daunting.  Thank you Susie, Kathy Cahoon, Lynne, Laurie and Sue O. for making sure my spirits are always up!  Yesterday, I woke up and felt overwhelmed with “Why is so much expected of me?”  It’s so easy to feel like you are the only one going through trials, but then I start to go through my day and hear of what others have already endured or are enduring and I am given hope that there is a way to get through it.  “Sometimes…all you can say is, the day is done and I tried my best.”

I woke up in the night with this very panicky feeling, which is what happens when you go through a crisis.  All the sudden, you are overcome with this new realization about life, your condition or the future and it hits you like a slap in the face.  All the sudden, you realize that you hadn’t thought of that before and what if that could happen?  That’s when the stress-reducing meditation and prayer come in.  That’s when you have to calm yourself down, use whatever tools you have relied on in the past to deal with the intricacies of life, and give in to a higher power to get you through.  Like I’ve said before, we have that gift and privilege to access that power.  For me, it’s the Holy Ghost.  I have such a deep testimony that the Holy Ghost is our constant companion and will not leave us it we will follow the promptings of the spirit.  Whatever power you believe it, access it, because it is there for us!

I love  what Annette Bertsch said today about women, children and appearance:  “I liked your comments about how we worry too much about keeping up appearances. How true. How wonderful to have little children remind us through their example that its ok to look different and embrace life as it comes. They love you  the same regardless of appearance, and remind us of the important basics in life. No wonder why we are supposed to become as little children. . .”

This process of enduring to the end and being continually on the receiving end is exhausting.  I’m grateful to be included on the prayer roll but can’t wait until I don’t need it anymore.  Maybe we always need to be on the prayer roll  but don’t realize it.  My soul takes a dive when someone talks about another person’s cancer and compares it to mine.  I like hearing the positive stories but a spike of horror runs through me when I hear someone say something like “Oh, she had the uncurable kind”.

Today in one of the talks at church, Neal A. Maxwell’s was quoted:  “As you and I develop additional love, patience and meekness, the more we have to give God and humanity.  Moreover, no one else is placed exactly as we are in our opportune human orbits.”  I went home and pulled up this talk and I can’t believe how deep his thoughts are.  I will need to really, really read and ponder this talk.  But one thing that is clear and has helped me on this night when I was feeling down, is that we need to submit to the will of our Father, and we don’t know what the big plan is and there is comfort in that.  “Eventually our will can be “swallowed up in the will of the Father” as we are “willing to submit…even as a child doth submit to his father”.   I have to accept that my earthly knowledge isn’t broad enough to understand it all!