Naturally Renewing

There are mornings where just looking at the mountains causing such a stirring in my heart – I guess you could call it joy, or gratitude, or excitement for life – whatever it is, it makes me happy to be alive.

And I wonder if it’s because the mountains are a place I have always been taken to get away from the worries and stresses of life, away from school and work and the never-ending presence of other people and buildings and cars. A place I equate with being alone and at peace with nothing to prove and no one to prove it to.

Because as much as I love socializing and getting to know new people, there is a part of me that will always needs its space to figure out who I am away from the confusion of other ideas and opinions and theories and personalities and beliefs. How am I like these people and how am I different? Too many presences of other people pressing on my own sense of self overwhelms me, drowns me in its complexity, and I have to run to someplace devoid of the evidence of human civilization to slowly be able to let my own self seep through again.

I suppose that’s why I find such joy in riding my bike. Nobody can keep up with me, nobody wants to, I can look at the houses and the mountains and the trees and not worry about anybody looking at me.

Most days I go down to the trail by the river, pavement surrounded on one side by a darkly flowing river and on either side by trees, now changing color to match their cousins in the mountains.

This is heaven. The wind, the smell of water, the leaves falling and covering the path, no one expecting me to talk or think or do anything but keep those wheels moving, round and round and round and round, and it feels so good to run away from the things that stress me most.

And sometimes I find a place where I can walk my bike down to the bank of the river, and I leave my bike behind with my stress as I walk along the packed-down dirt and stones and plants. And sometimes I just sit and memorize the ever-changing pattern of the river’s flow, or the way the trees grow sideways off the bank on the opposite side.

And, if it’s not too muddy, I take slow steps into the river itself, letting the coldness of it flow over my sandal-shod feet on its way to where it’s going from wherever it’s coming from.

And while it would be interesting to find out where those places are, all that matters right now is that at this moment in time the water is running over my toes, cooling my feet and calming my soul. I watch the water as it goes, and marvel at how it’s always replaced by more water in a never-ending cycle of renewal.

And with that constant renewal of water comes a renewal of the worn-down pieces of my soul, and again I feel excited to be alive.

Inspired Mistakes

I’m scared of making mistakes. The fear of saying the wrong thing freezes words in my throat, and sometimes I so want to be that perfect person that even when I know I should act, I find the pressure of saying the right words keeping me from saying anything at all.

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: . . . a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-4).

A time to make mistakes, and a time to perform flawlessly. A time to demand exactness of oneself, and a time to relax judgment in favor of understanding and love.

The prophet Lehi teaches the necessity of “an opposition in all things” (2 Nephi 2:11). Misery and holiness, good and bad, life and death. Adam and Eve disobeyed so we can live with God forever. Heavenly Father allowed them to fall so that through the Atonement we may all be lifted up to endless glory.

“And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the Garden of Eden.” And what would he and Eve have been doing while stuck in there? “No good, for they knew no sin” (2 Nephi 2:22-23).

If we never mess up, we never learn how to avoid those same mistakes later on.

In my growing up years, I performed at many a piano concert. None of them went flawlessly, although most of them were close enough. Surprisingly, the passages I struggled with in practice were not the same ones I struggled with in performance. Why not? Because the difficult passages I practiced over and over and over again until they were my forté. Those passages I never messed up on I didn’t take the time to drill, and thus they became my downfall. They were not ingrained in my memory the way the more difficult parts of the piece were, so when the pressure was high and my nerves even higher I reached those “easy” passages and I stumbled. It was my weaknesses that became my strengths and saved my performances from failure.  

I remember one summer working a month of Sundays. When I finally went back to church, I realized for the first time how big of a difference that weekly spiritual feast makes in my temperament. I hadn’t been that cheerful at work in a long time. Would I ever be willing to miss church now? Heck. No.

Or the time on my mission when I did not have the health to work all day every day like I so wanted to. Anytime I felt well enough to be up and about, I made sure we got out of the apartment and worked. That was why I was there, after all. But somewhere in all my focus on the work, I neglected to take the time for my own personal studies. After a week-and-a-half, I recognized that my level of crankiness was lower than normal, and I thought: “Man, maybe I should start reading my scriptures again.” And back up my mood went. Have I missed a day of scripture study since then? No, and I never will. I understand now the necessity of feeding myself spiritually before I can feed others spiritually.

And I learned these lessons through messing up. I’m not saying that anything we ever learn comes about through the mistakes we make, and I’m definitely not advocating intentional mistake-making. All I’m getting at is that Heavenly Father is all right with us making mistakes. He’s provided us with that possibility as a way for us to learn.

“Behold, I will show unto the Gentiles their weakness, and I will show unto them that faith, hope and charity bringeth unto me – the fountain of all righteousness” (Ether 12:28).

We wouldn’t have reason to come unto Christ if we didn’t recognize our weakness. And how would we recognize our weaknesses if we never acknowledged our mistakes? “And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness.” Not for the sake of discouragement, but “that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me.” And then, of course, comes the promised blessing at the end: “then will I make weak things become strong unto them” (Ether 12:27). 

I see this in my life every day. For a girl who used to be so shy, I am surprisingly social. For someone who loves her independence, I am wonderfully dependent on my Savior. And every day I recognize new changes in myself, changes that have come about slowly through mistake after mistake. 

Our weaknesses bring us down so we can rise again through Christ. A time to fall, a time to be lifted up by the Savior of all mankind. Christ Himself “descended below all things, in that he comprehended all things, that he might be in all and through all things.” We have to fall before we can learn to trust the Savior to lift us all the way up to Heavenly Father. We have to make mistakes so that we can understand that we can never fall so far that the Savior cannot heal everyone affected by that fall. Mistakes are vital. They make us human. They are why we are here on earth – so that by making them, we can learn to give our burdens to the Savior and let Him bear the weight.

For more on this idea of mistakes and weakness, check out this inspired book: Weakness is Not Sin