"He Wants Us to Be Happy" and Other Lessons I Learned Along the Parenting Path

“What in the world is stuck in your eyebrow? I’m hoping that’s smashed banana because the alternative is way grosser...”

“Oh no, I bet I don’t want to know what this is on the wall. And I just cleaned the handrails and yet now I’m sticking to them.”

“Please get clothes ready before you get undressed in the bathroom so that you don’t have to streak down the hall – what if a visitor was here?”

     The script for parenting doesn’t exist but the adlibbing that goes on is often entertaining, sometimes exasperating, occasionally disgusting, and always comes with twists and turns that would challenge even the surprise endings of an M. Night Shyamalan movie (I’m thinking of his early stuff like The Sixth Sense…)

     Being a parent has taught me things that I wasn’t prepared to learn. It has taught me things I wish I could unlearn (oh the bodily fluids I wish I could erase from my memory…) and it has taught me things I’m not sure I could have ever learned in another way.

     Most importantly parenting has brought me closer to my Heavenly Father. There is nowhere to learn more quickly about God’s unconditional love than as a parent. My kids can do things to scare me, disappoint me, anger me, and break my heart, but they cannot do anything to make me stop loving them. It’s nowhere near the truly unconditional love that our Heavenly Father has for us but it is the best glimpse that we can have.

     In the less-than-perfect moments that come far too often in our crazy home, I find that Heavenly Father may have had more than just unconditional love to teach us through our experience as parents.

    The other day I was sitting at the bench by our kitchen table and my one-year-old decided that he wanted to venture under that bench and then attempt to sit up, and then he bonked his head. I comforted him and then sent him off to another spot while I tried to finish what I was doing. He came back. And proceeded to do the exact same thing again. He crawled under and bonked his head when he tried to sit up. A few kisses, a few distracting toys and a room relocation (for him) later, I tried to again finish my task at the table (I think it might have just been trying to eat lunch after everyone else was finished). Sure enough the little dude was back in record time, attempting to again navigate the limited space under the kitchen bench and still, when he sat up, he hit his head. I finally looked at this stubborn little cherub and said, “Why do you keep doing the same thing over and over again and getting hurt?! “Buddy, you keep bumping your head, you don’t fit under there. I don’t want you to get hurt any more! Stop trying to go under the bench!” I tend to talk to one-year-olds about like I talk to anyone else, in case you thought the word choice didn’t sound age appropriate. But it was after I felt exasperated by my toddler’s deviant choices that I realized this is how Heavenly Father has to have felt with me so many times. “Carissa, why do you keep making that same wrong choice over and over again? Every time you do it, you get hurt and I tell you to do something different and you keep coming back, sometimes quicker than is even comprehensible, and you get hurt again, every time. I don’t want you to get hurt! Stop doing this!”

     This same toddling man (he’s quite a rebel, or at very least, a handful) is the hardest kid to take camping because he wants to walk into the fire! Not close to, not around, he wants to walk straight into it. Think of the movie A Bug's Life here with the fly that is going toward the bug zapper and says, “I can’t help it, it’s so beautiful” – that is my little man. I spend the whole smore’s festivities trying to keep him from visiting the burn unit at the hospital. I have saved his life more times than he will ever know.

Again Heavenly Father has to have looked at me and my choices and thought, “Why are you trying to walk into the fire? There are a lot of ways to enjoy the fire without walking into it. I love you so much that I have saved you more times than you will ever know. I have saved you from so much pain, sometimes physically, sometimes emotionally and have even saved you from spiritual pain. Stay away from the fire so that you can be safe.” I wonder with some of the impulsive follies of my youth how often a loving Heavenly Father, unbeknownst to me, stepped in and saved me from heading to the hospital or worse, heading to that place that is usually depicted with fire (and brimstone…whatever the heck brimstone is – I’ll probably Google it later…)

     One that occurs often at our residence right now is forgetting about other’s needs – especially the baby’s needs. That little one-year-old needs a nap every day. I need him to nap every day (remember he is the one that likes to bonk his head and walk into fires – and I haven’t even touched on his smashing-finger-in-drawers exercises or his insane need to constantly stand up in the tub). But it doesn’t matter how much I’ve stressed the importance of his naps. It doesn’t matter how many times we have had naptime at our house (this is baby #5!), it doesn’t matter that we have places you can go (like the basement or outside) where you won’t wake the baby even if you’re loud, we still have problems waking up the baby! He’s not the best napper and he’s a little bit of a light sleeper so often we have music or noise of some kind going on but he doesn’t sleep through three-year-old girl tirades of bossiness and he does not doze through banging pans or falling objects bouncing (or breaking) repeatedly off the tile on the kitchen floor and surprisingly he also doesn’t sleep well through the sound of slamming doors! Don’t these people care about their younger brother?! Don’t they care about my sanity – naptime is the most productive time of my day – I need it like I need water or air or chocolate. And yet, just today, we woke up the baby. 

     And with the ruined nap fresh in my mind it’s easy for me to imagine Heavenly Father looking down at me and thinking of all the times that instead of putting others’ needs first, I did what I wanted to do without any thought of how those choices would affect those around me. How many times have I forgotten to take care of those younger or weaker than me? He has to have noticed that often I am loud in my anger and don’t seem to care who it hurts. If God were capable of being frazzled then I would have been in the mix of those to frazzle him.

     Then there are my older kids at dinner. Prior to the eating of the dinner, I’ve spent time trying to come up with a variety of foods that might appeal to them, taking into account prices, healthy choices, taste preferences, time to cook etc. and then I have to shop for the ingredients and cook it and then (most of the time) I manage to have something edible set out on the table. Inevitably somebody, if not multiple bodies, make a comment about how they won’t eat it, how awful it looks, or else they just quietly look like they are dry heaving on the floor! These are not terrible children but the sight of a dinner that actually took time and thought sends them off the deep end – far away from kindness. Yes, we have discussed sacrifice, respect, gratitude, starving children, and what the pioneers did or didn’t have to eat…. We have had to make consequences for being rude and most of the comments have magically disappeared but the disappointment on the faces is still evident and all I can think is after all that I have put into this meal, is it such a big deal just to try it!? You can’t tell if you like it or not by looking at it! That is ludicrous. A crazy and unhealthy example of this pre-judging food items happened when one of my boys wouldn’t try cotton candy because he thought it looked like it wouldn’t taste good. It was after lots of coaxing and pointing out multiple times, “Come on – it has the name CANDY in it!” that he finally tried it and guess what? He liked it.

     God has to wonder sometimes with all the effort that has gone into His plan, with all the beauty in the world, with all the messages sent through prophets and scriptures, with the Holy Ghost there to testify of truth and of God, why won’t we even try it? Why won’t we try having faith? Why won’t we try to read our scriptures? Why won’t we try listening to the still small voice? Why do we look at the things of God and turn up our noses before we even give them time? And once we do have some faith, why not feast? Why nibble when the bounty is so great?

     This is a very different problem than the one I have with the previously mentioned one-year-old. My plea to him usually is “Don’t put that in your mouth!” (Some of the offending objects have been choking hazards, others include but are not limited to: a cigarette butt at a park, a cockroach and cat poop – I wish one of those was hypothetical. Oh dear, and yes there was brownish goo dripping out of the crunched cockroach when I retrieved it – sorry I had to share because I decided I shouldn’t have to be the only one eternally scarred by that image). But “Don’t put that in your mouth” has to be another thought Heavenly Father has had as he watches alcohol, drugs, and other awful things end some lives and ruin others.

     There are so many times that I’ve given direction or witnessed a behavior and had a “Heavenly Father experiences this” thought:

“No you can’t have it right now, you’re not ready for it”

“Yes I know that your brother gets to do that now because he’s older”

“You are different people and I have to discipline you differently”

“You need to take turns so that everyone gets a chance”

“Nope, pants aren’t optional”

“I’ve taught you how to do this, you’ve done it before, you should know how”

“You can’t play until after your homework is done”

“If you can just wait a little longer, it will be so worth it”

“Share”

“Turn it off”

“Pay attention”

“Listen”

“Don’t walk away when I’m trying to talk to you”

“Take out the trash!”

“Yes, you have to help clean up the mess that you’ve made”

“Stop teasing your sister”

     The lists could go on and on I’m sure. As I ponder these, I can see God and my relationship with him better. I better understand his commands and his concern for me. I’m humbled by the weaknesses that I see in myself as I parent my children. And for the record, I have fantastic children despite them having their own weaknesses.

     Those fantastic children and their example to me are another reason God gave us families. Because along with the love that we learn from having them and the lessons that we teach them that mirror some of God’s experiences with us; children testify of the reality of God through their humble teachable natures. Nothing comforts me more when I am tired and angry and sad and broken then a simple hug from a loving five-year-old. When my oldest son was knocked unconscious in a sledding accident and we thought we might lose him, nothing was sweeter than the tears of his brothers who didn’t want to lose him and nothing was more welcome then a 2-year-old who was awed by the fact that her brother got to ride in an ambulance AND a helicopter! She wasn’t concerned with the gravity of the situation, her innocence saw the only the goodness. Nothing has been more of a comfort than to see the simple faith that my children have as they go about their day.

     The other day I was down. I was particularly overwhelmed by the deceit and evil in the world. I was feeling helpless and a little worthless. I was feeling worried for the future of these sweet children I have. I was constantly holding back tears all day. It was an awful day until my now 3-year-old looked at me and said, “Heavenly Father wants us to be happy, Mom.”

     God used her to give me a message that I needed to hear in that moment. What a tender mercy from heaven and what a sweet spirit that little girl has.

     Heavenly Father wants us to be parents and have families because it’s here that we can have a piece of heaven on earth and be left yearning for more so that we will seek God and his kingdom. These children are His children and what a privilege to be able to watch over them and learn from them.

     It’s no wonder to me that the Savior said that, “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt 18:3) And that “little children do have words given unto them many times, which confound the wise and the learned.” (Alma 32:23).

     And even though there are so many eternal lessons that you can learn through being a parent, it’s also easy to miss if you’re not looking. It’s easy to go from day to day just getting through and not stopping to think of the lessons of the day. I know because I’ve done it. I’ve missed the little things before. I’ve been the parent that was taking on the role of the child that forgot to listen.

     And thankfully for each one of us Heavenly is not just any father – he is the perfect Father. He is infinitely patient so that even though he pleads with us to do what is right, he is always there for us when we do what is wrong, even if we do it over and over and over again. He sent His son because He loves us. He sent him to die for us and to be resurrected so that we all can live again. He sent His son to suffer for our sins and our pain so that we can never say, “No one knows how I feel.” He wants us to stay and listen. He gives us rules and commandments because he wants us to be happy. He doesn’t lose his temper when we stumble (like us mere human parents might). He continues to love each one of us no matter what. This doesn’t mean that he condones what we do. This doesn’t mean that there are no consequences for wrongdoing – there are. But I am convinced of what it says in Romans chapter 8 verses 38 & 39, “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

     God loves us and nothing we can do will stop that. God has a listening ear. He wants us to come to Him in our trials and in our joyful times. He wants to hear about our day, our struggles, and our triumphs. Because he is perfect and infinite our trust in him can be perfect.

     He is the model for which we should strive as parents to emulate.
     I firmly believe that the family is central to God’s plan and that there is nowhere to come closer to Him then within the walls of a loving home. I know not every home is ideal. I know that not every parent is even trying to be like Heavenly Father in how they parent. I know that some people never get a chance to marry and still others never have the opportunity to have children. I don’t know all the answers as to why this happens. I know that God loves his children. I know that different children have to learn differently. I know that sometimes things aren’t fair. I hold on to the faith that through the Atonement some day all things will be made fair. I hold on to the faith that if we just wait, there are great things in store and that in the end no blessing will be withheld from the righteous. I hold onto the belief that everyone can help to parent someone around him or her. I believe that the children on this earth rely on the goodness and faith of all the wonderful adult examples around them. And ultimately as a parent I have learned that I do not have all the answers but I rely on someone that does. And if I rely on Him, then I will have happiness and joy because “Heavenly Father wants us to be happy” – being a parent taught me that. (:

Losing Faith

          I find losing faith is an easy thing to do: if I want to try to lose faith today I can just turn on news, turn on almost any primetime show on any network, look at all the sadness on Facebook, visit the hospital, or read any internet page comment section (literally on almost any site). Through any of the aforementioned activities it can be quite easy to find myself losing faith in the goodness of humankind, losing faith in Christians who actually live what they claim to believe, losing faith in myself, losing faith that there is any intelligent life out there (that’s from those internet comment threads again – what horrible hole did these people crawl out of?), and even losing faith that there is a loving God watching over us. It’s so easy to let all of the noise everywhere, not just aid in losing faith, but eventually destroy it altogether.

            The Internet (ironically where I’m sharing this) is so good at spreading negativity, hate, and despair that Satan must love how user-friendly it is for him. The Internet is the perfect place to visit if you are looking to lose some faith today. Now, thanks to the Internet, everyone knows about every sorrow in every country the second it happens.

Now pornography is no longer just in a magazine to sneak somewhere but in anyone’s hand any day at any time. Not only that but the pornography on the Internet can now really “push the envelope” (isn’t that Hollywood speak for “ruin more lives, peddle more crap, distort love, promote violence, embrace profanity, spit on all things virtuous, profane God and his name, suck out the innocence of childhood, champion immorality, make the public think this is the new normal and do it all under the name of “art and free speech”? Yeah, it is.) Internet pornography pushes the envelope (and it already started with the envelope waaayyy off to wherever you push it) by depicting more than just naked bodies but rather violent and disturbing images of people doing things that I don’t want to mention on here. It also often exploits innocent children and even enslaved women on its pages of filth: sickeningly awful for all involved and faith-robbing for so many.

The Internet also lets everyone see when their opinions are not met with approval by those Internet commenting people (I really need to come up with a good name for them but most of the names I’m thinking of aren’t very nice, and you know what Thumper’s dad says about “If you can’t say something nice…”) but those people make their opinions known loud and clear on everything good and kind and moral thing in the world and it’s easy to want to cower rather than stand. The Internet shows us whatever news it wants us to see with the stories that it wants us to read. If I was the devil and wanted to sway a group of people to my side I would start with the people who run where everyone gets their info – get the news and the media. I don’t think all news and media are bad – heavens no, there are still some good people that work in media and occasionally good things produced by or shared through media, but I think in a broad sense most media caters and empowers everything immoral and does not generally promote godliness, virtue, morality or anything even close. And the Internet just makes media so much easier to access.

The truths and values that I embrace are mocked on every side and it’s not hard to find mocking in some part on nearly every Internet page. The Internet lets me see and hear the thoughts of my friends who have lost their faith and love to let everyone know how anti-religion and anti-God they’ve become. The Internet may be the easiest place to quickly lose our faith. Nothing seems good, nothing seems lasting, and preached everywhere is, yep you guessed it, a whole lotta nothing.

           

Losing faith is just so easy.

           

And, on the flip side, gaining faith takes effort and diligence and commitment. It takes standing when everyone else sits, it takes being unpopular, it takes pain and perseverance, it takes lots of time on your knees, it takes the kind of sincere prayer that involves heart, mind, and soul. Gaining faith takes asking hard questions and seeking hard answers until they are found. Gaining faith often takes relying on faith acquired in the past, holding onto knowledge you once had while situations test that faith and then working feverishly to push through trials and come out triumphant.

Gaining faith is not easy.

And yet it is simple and so worth it.

Gaining faith will requiring stopping and thinking. Gaining faith will require talking to God and really pouring out your heart. Gaining faith will require reading (not the Internet for heaven sakes!) but rather the scriptures and God’s word. Gaining faith will take shutting out the world by turning off all electronics and listening to the spirit and the promptings that it gives. Gaining faith will require sacrificing something that is pushing you to lose faith instead.

I’ve experienced losing faith. I know what’s it’s like to cry out to heaven and feel like there is no answer. I’ve cried over a loss or a friend’s loss. I’ve had doubt and fear and hate. I’ve even slid so far, at one point, down the path of losing faith that I didn’t know if I could say that I really believed in a loving Heavenly Father. I will tell more of my journey in future posts but I know what it’s like to let things pummel my faith until it is so weak and battered.

So today I challenge everyone to do what I am doing. I challenge everyone to gain faith today. It will be simple; unplug from the propaganda the world wants to sell you…and be still long enough to feel God’s love and act on a prompting he gives you. It may be as simple as praying for someone, it may be visiting someone, it may be calling or texting (that kind of “plugged in” is allowed), it may be something you could never have guessed without really listening. I know that acting on promptings has been the fastest and most sure way for me to gain faith. So let today, no matter where your faith is at this point, be a day for gaining faith.

Freezing in Fear

         So I have to preface this because it's been so long. But since I would rather have the post read than my preface I've decided to keep this part short and say a little more on it at the end. I have been petrified to post again. Ironically today's post is about fear. I think that I have been scared that no one would ever read anything that I posted and that it would just be a waste of time and simultaneously scared that anyone would read my post because I don't like putting myself "out there." I hardly ever post on Facebook, I don't often open up to people and I find that as much as I love to be outgoing, I have some serious walls that I put up too often. I am very self-conscious and so doing this is actually very out-of-character for me. So I (through a car accident, pregnancy sickness and generally busyness in life) have found plenty of reasons to not be able to post when really the over-riding for not posting was fear. I would not be doing this if the thought would leave me alone but it won't. For some reason this is something I need to do. I will resume a little more on this subject after the meat of my post and, of course, poke some fun at the irony of this post I felt compelled to share. Enjoy. (And don't tell me if there are any typos, that's one of my fears…)

Freezing in Fear 

I think fear is the number one hardest thing about this life. There are many hardships that come and sorrows and pain but the fear that precedes, accompanies, and then follows them are the hardest and most trying parts. I hesitate to write about this because I am not an expert on how to live a life void of fear – in fact quite the opposite – I am the expert on fear – a big fatty ol’ chicken. I was a chicken as a child, had fear take a short respite during those adventurous teenage and young adult years, and then I returned to my chicken-ness when I joined the world of mothers. The vast number of examples throughout my life that would prove my chickenhood could fill volumes so I’ll spare you the massive amount of cringing at my expense and only share one specific experience. The following example, I am ashamed to admit, happened only this past year.

Picture me frozen with fear, dangling by a small rope, looking down at the ground that seemed endlessly far away. I kept losing my footing. I wanted to stop, but going down was going to be as awful as it would be to just continue. I was petrified. I started sobbing (just as a side note, that doesn’t help you gain your footing). While sobbing, I starting yelling totally irrational things like, “Why did I do this? I can’t die! Who will raise my kids? My husband will not do a good job by himself!” More irrational thoughts flooded my mind and thankfully I didn’t let all of them spew out as well (like “Now I just know that after I die my husband will lose his mind and marry a dumb girl that is just going to be a dump of a mother and she’ll ruin my kids’ lives & it will be all because I decided to do this stupid climb!!!”). The list of irrationalities that bombarded my mind could go on. I was shaking and so very afraid.

Now realize that I wasn’t doing any of that crazy climbing that people do without a rope…okay so I wasn’t even climbing a mountain…okay so I was doing a challenge course at girl’s camp and it started with one of those rope-web-things like they have at the kids playgrounds. Now before you judge me too harshly, or laugh too much at my expense – it does go up a little further than the playground ones – 40 feet high or something like that. And yes, I was harnessed, wearing a helmet, & had a belay person, or whatever they are called. I yelled irrational things at that poor lady too like “ I weigh twice as much as you!” (She was teeny!) And, “There is no way that if I fall that your little body is going to keep me from death or severe maiming!” Oh and for those of you that think I am exaggerating, ask anyone who was there – it is quite a moment of shame and embarrassment for me. (That I am now publishing on the Internet – smooth move). And miracle of miracles, I did eventually make it up the rest of the web, across the stupid little boards in the air and all the way down the repelling cable to the bottom.  And so that don’t keep you in suspense too long -- I lived…barely. But at no point was it pretty. I share this for several reasons. First, I want to make it very obvious that I really am not an expert on how to handle fear. Second, I do however have some expertise in experiencing fear. And finally, I have found there are things that help me to lessen my fear.

            Back home, away from that horrid girl’s camp challenge course, I have other fears besides a ridiculous fear of heights and a fear of death leading to delinquent children. I have fears that as a youth I could have never imagined because almost all of my fears now revolve around my children. All the fears that I had in my childhood came screaming back into my life when I gave birth and learned to love more deeply and care more strongly than I ever had before. I want to add that I cared and still care very deeply for my husband as well and have fears related to his well-being and would never want to lose him but for me the scary freeze-you-stiff fears didn’t return until I gave birth to that first little beautiful boy.

            Since that day, the fears have seemed daunting. I think I knew that my husband could go on with out me, but here was a little person, with a wonderful spirit, straight from Heavenly Father, who was dependant on me to take care of him physically and spiritually. I could no longer die and feel that the world would not drastically alter – my death would affect him very profoundly. So now the fear of everything that could harm my safety was back. I was afraid of death, not because I feared there was no afterlife but because I feared for my baby boy’s life after my death.

            And then there was the thought of losing this little guy. I thought of those that I knew then and I think of those that I have known since who have lost children and my heart just aches so terribly for them. I don’t want to know what that’s like. I have a terribly good imagination and that’s as far as I ever want to venture into the world of knowing what it is like to lose a child. I am in awe of the strength that I have seen from those that have suffered that loss. And I fear because I wonder if I could be so strong.

            Adding kids didn’t help this fear of dying or losing children. I added two more boys and one little girl. And it’s hard to not spend my days worrying about everything from childhood cancer, to kidnapping, to molestation, to earthquakes, to bullying, to car accidents and choking hazards. It’s easy to add to the list of things to fear, all you have to do is watch the news. And the tragedy at Sandy Hook added a whole new fear I hadn’t even thought of before – I now had reason to fear every time my kids left on the bus. My kids are safe nowhere.

            And although I feel justified and realistic when I think that, I’m wrong when those are my thoughts, because my children are in God’s hands wherever they go.

How does a chicken like me wake up and face the world everyday? Why do I keep having kids when I fear so much for their lives? How do I send my children off to, gasp, public school!? Ultimately with the filth and sewage that covers this world growing new fears for all of us every day, why do I even bother to wake up at all?

The answer is really simple. The antithesis of fear really is faith. When I’m having an overwhelming problem with fear, the truth is that I am having an underwhelming problem with faith or rather an overwhelming problem with a lack of faith. Faith brings with it hope. Hope and faith will chase away all fear. It really is true that fear and faith cannot exist in the same person at the same time. (An idea expressed somewhat by both Joseph Smith Jr. in Lectures on Faith and President Thomas S. Monson in a 2000 talk "The Call to Serve" although they both refer to "doubt and faith" but to me fear and doubt walk the same path).

            I cannot offer any meaningful advice on how to rid your life of debilitating fear if you have no faith. I do not think it is possible. If the only things to comfort you when you worry about your children, your spouse, or your friends & family is the thought that statistically you can assure yourself that there’s a high probability that most of your loved ones won’t be defiled, maimed, killed, or stolen – then that is not a sure-fire way to rid life of fear. There will be no cure when the statistics change or don’t work in your favor or science fails to offer an explanation, a comfort, or solution. To those to whom this may apply I can only implore you to find faith or your life will always be full of fear.

            But to those of us that have faith but find it lacking in moments that seem so scary, I have found that there are so many ways to strengthen that faith, lessen the fear to work toward eventually having unshakeable, sustainable, faith where there is absolutely no room for fear.

            I realize that I cannot go into extensive detail in everything that will dispel fear so I will just mention the two best places to go to head-off fear: the scriptures and the Lord.             I have not done an exhaustive search of every verse in the scriptures that says, “fear not,” but even in my meager searches I have found the words “fear not” so often as to surprise and relieve me. The Lord repeatedly tells his people to “fear not.” In Genesis the Lord appears to Isaac and tells him, “fear not I am with thee…” The angel that appears to Mary says, “Fear not.” The angel that appears to the shepherds at the birth of Christ says, “Fear not…” In Rev. 1:17 it says, “Fear not, I am the first and the last.” And this is just a small sprinkling of the many “fear not”s that the Lord himself or through his messengers has said. I found many more that I have not sited here and I am quite sure that many, many, more exist on top of the ones I have discovered. All these verses remind me of the hymn, “How Firm a Foundation” that draws part of its lyrics from Isaiah 41:10. The hymn says, “Fear not, I am with thee; oh be not dismayed, For I am thy God and will still give thee aid. I’ll strengthen thee, help thee and cause thee to stand, Upheld by my righteous…omnipotent hand.”  Reading or hearing “fear not” feels more like a command than a suggestion. If the Lord had said, “I don’t think you should fear,” then that might be a suggestion, but it is very direct and as with all commandments that he gives us, the Lord gives us even greater promises. He says that he will give us aid and in both the scripture verse and the song he says that he will strengthen and uphold us. God doesn’t say, “Fear not, and sorry this world is ridiculously awful and scary and filled with worse monsters than you ever had nightmares of as a kid, so good luck with that command.” No! He promises to strengthen us and hold our hands through it all. In the hymn he says that he will “cause us to stand.” There are things that happen that are so awful that nothing save the compelling, pulling hand of the Lord, could ever give us the strength or the lift to stand again.

            I think of Peter, in Matt. 14:29-30 when he walked on the water out to the Savior and the faith that that must have taken and then it says that “when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me.” This is all of us at one time or another; all of us who start out with faith, who want to believe who have the seed of faith, and then when the world’s winds get boisterous and scary thoughts consume our minds, we start to sink. But that is not the truly beautiful part of the story. In verse 31, it says, “And immediately, Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him…”

            I love that is says “immediately” because when we call on the Savior, with faith, believing that he can save, he immediately offers his hand and helps us to stand.

            He really means it when he says, “I’ll strengthen thee, help thee and cause thee to stand, upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.”

            To go back to my humiliatingly awful, fearfully debilitating experience this last summer on that challenge course, I would be remiss to not state that these are the kinds of things that they were trying to teach me and remind me of through a very yucky object lesson. The lady (the teeny one) that was my belayer was talking about how the Savior is the one at the other end who keeps us anchored and safe no matter what the circumstances. And they talked about the helmet and the harness and how they were protective armor like the armor of God that we need to keep us safe from the sins of this world and the fiery darts of the adversary. And at the end (yes, remember I actually made it to the end) when all I needed to do was lean forward to head down the zipline (a task that took way longer than it should have and was admittedly horrifying) they reminded me that in life, there are so many times that we have to rely on others and on the Lord and take a leap of faith.

All of those principles are incredibly true, albeit irritating and aggravating to hear at the time. I look back now and can appreciate the things that I was taught that day and appreciate the fact that I survived and never feel like I have to do that EVER again.

            I think that it is how our life plays out in a lot of ways – especially the part where truth sometimes in the moment of fear, feels aggravating and irritating; that being irrational seems rational and that yelling crazy things at people seems normal. But deep down if our testimonies are rooted in sincere faith and if we turn to the scriptures and to the Lord when we have fear, then he will uphold us, give us strength and we will conquer that fear…or at least survive the course to face a new fear, maybe with a little more faith on another day.

-Okay so now you see why it was so ridiculous that this was my post and yet I've held back posting it because of fear. One thing the I didn't touch on in this post but I'm sure will revisit in another post is the fear of men or the fear of what other's think. I thought that it would surely lessen the older that I got but instead I find that it has merely morphed, taking different shapes and attacking in new areas. I try really hard to ignore it and to live a life not caring what others think but it still is a bigger struggle for me than I would like to admit.
Also when it comes to this blog I feel that my posts will not be consistent or regular but rather may come in spurts followed by intense famine. I don't know really why I am writing this (I still have to figure out how in the world to make it look cool) other than when I have been praying to the Lord to strengthen my testimony, this was one of the things that he wanted me to do.
I'm not going to have all of my posts be just experiences and although I have many hilarious "mom moments" I don't think that most of them will be on here. This blog really is about faith and I want to share the things that I discover on my journey with faith, with others.
I love history, more specifically I love LDS church history. I am enamored at the moment by the Joseph Smith Papers and I can't get enough of all of the testimony-building, amazing things I learn all the time by studying the past and specifically the past of my ancestors and the early saints of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I know that not everyone, even the most amazingly awesome members of the LDS will share that same passion and so part of what I would love to do is share in my relatively short way some of the things that I study and learn. I hope that they are a benefit to someone. And here's to bucking some of my fears out the door and posting this on the internet. (I'm cringing as I push the "publish" button…)

Why the name?

So I should have known better than to try to start my blog right before Halloween and Young Women in Excellence but hey, it’s not like my life is going to slow down any time soon. So my goal moving forward is to post once a week, hopefully on Mondays.

That aside, I promised to explain my blog’s name. “On the Brink of Unshakeable” is play on my last name “Brinkerhoff” combined with a goal that I have and where I feel like I am in the pursuit of that goal.

I have watched too many of my friends struggle in the gospel sometimes over fairly simple things and I’ve worried at how easily that could be me. I know that at this moment I have a testimony of my Savior and a loving Heavenly Father but I don’t feel like it is where I want it to be. While remaining full cognizant of the fact that a big part of the challenge in this life is to exercise faith and not knowledge, I want my testimony and faith to be unshakeable.

I think of the account of Jacob and Sherem in The Book of Mormon. Sherem came to the land with all kinds of flattering words (sound like the propaganda that perpetrates our lives everyday?) and he led the people away and sought out Jacob with hopes “to shake [him] from the faith.” But Jacob said that “…notwithstanding the many revelations and the many things which I had seen concerning these things; for I truly had seen angels, and they had ministered unto me. And also, I had heard the voice of the Lord speaking unto me in the very word, from time to time, wherefore, I could not be shaken.” (Jacob 7:5).

That is what I want.

Not so much the angels and the voices (though I wouldn’t be opposed to heavenly visits) but the ability to say with confidence that I cannot be shaken. That’s the testimony that I want. I feel like I am on my way. I have heard heaven’s voice. I have felt the spirit. I have had thoughts come to my mind that I know are not my own. I’ve had answers to prayers that brought peace and comfort in turbulent times. I believe the accounts of my grandparents and ancestors who exercised amazing faith and saw miracles. I believe the accounts of so many others who have seen angels. I believe that my faith is on the brink of unshakeable and that someday I will arrive at unshakeable faith and an unshakeable testimony.

In case you were left wondering what happened to dear old flattering Sherem, he was confounded by the words and testimony of Jacob. Jacob knew the scriptures and knew his faith. He had the kind of strength and courage that I hope to attain on my journey in this life. Sherem ended up wanting a sign from God and he was smitten to the earth (as his sign) and died after admitting that he was deceived by the devil.

The devil is everywhere in our world deceiving even some of the greatest people I have ever known into falling to paths that are worldly and will end with misery. I hope and pray for them. I hope and pray to help others to avoid that path and to not be deceived. I hope everyone realizes that I am in the middle of this battle and that I have doubts and questions and that is why I am merely on the brink of unshakeable instead of perfect in my faith. I hope that others whom the world is trying to shake will find answers and comfort and strength from the promptings and thoughts that are truly not my own.

            

The beginning...

I want to start by saying that I didn’t want to do a blog. I do some journaling at home (not as much as I would like) and most of my family lives nearby. I don’t like putting lots of images of my kids out on the internet (though I have no objection to others that do) and I wasn’t sure that I had anything of value to bring to the Internet market of bloggers. But when the spirit tells you to do something then you just have to do it. I am writing this blog so that A) my facebook friends don’t have to see as many lengthy posts related to what I think or feel on a particular subject but have the option to instead click on the article and read it, B) because I have so many thoughts and doubts and questions of my own that putting the things that I do believe out for others to see can be a testimony building and strengthening experience for me (sorry now you found out that some of my motives are selfish – at least I’m admitting it up front) and C) is I have no idea but the thought to start this blog was not my own, of that I’m sure. The spirit knows what it’s doing and I’m trying my best to trust it.

I hope that this blog helps others with faith and with their testimonies of Jesus Christ. Upfront I want to say that I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and most of my posts will be directly related to topics and doctrine of my church. I love the Lord and am striving to do what he is asking me to do. I am an active member and am currently serving with the 14-15 girls in the church. I have four kids and don’t think that we’re done bringing wonderful spirits and bodies into this world (you knew that was your next question.) I am a stay-at-home-mom and am not always joyously enjoying the journey but most of the time I am happy & loving what I do. I do not resent motherhood at all but rather find it the highest and holiest calling available on the planet. I’m sure I will have posts related more to that. I’m a BYU grad and have deep pioneer heritage. In a lot of ways I’m a very stereotypical Mormon woman. Some people would automatically think that I’m very “cookie-cutter” and a blind follower. Some would assume that I am weak and suppressed. With all of my faults – none of those things are included in the list. I believe that God needs, wants, & has powerful people on his side. If you want to find strong and brave in this world, don’t go looking in the dens of the unbelievers. It’s easy to be weak-minded, buy into all of the world’s views and be spoon-fed your ideas by self-serving individuals. It takes guts to swim against the tide, believe despite extreme propaganda for doubt and to stand up when others choose to sit. I am strong, I am opinionated, I am smart, I love to read, I’m trying to always increase in learning and I like to say things the way that they are and not apologize for truth. I don’t think God’s laws are negotiable and I think it’s ludicrous that as humans we think we are better or stronger or more important than God. I have my own thoughts, beliefs and ideas. I am empowered by my beliefs, not suppressed and I never follow anything without knowing what I am doing and why I am doing it. So I am really strong, I am an informed follower of truth and there is nothing “cookie-cutter” about me. Besides I love “Pride and Prejudice,” tons of old TV movies and shows (I’m sure that I will make reference to them over the course of the blog,) I love music from the 50s & 60s and am an avid college football fan (to the point that I listen to college football podcasts while I clean) – how many Mormon moms have that mix all together and fit in that exact mold? Ha!

So here it goes…(insert ominous music here)…the blog.

(Disclaimer: I make no guarantees to the consistency on the time between posts on here)

I will add to the blog as I get moving but felt that starting somewhere was more important than getting everything in perfect order first. And today all that I want to really say is a thought this thought that I had:

Why is it that so many people are leaving their faith because the world’s views and arguments and rhetoric and values have changed and the gospel’s values haven’t changed with it? Shouldn’t that be a testament to truth? I don’t want to have anything to do with a church or God who change based on perceived public opinion.

Coming soon: an explanation of my title and blog name…(try to contain your anticipation and excitement)