Frodo, Ammon, and the Art of Being an Instrument

I’ve been realizing lately that sometimes I’m really weak (it took me a while, I know). Well, more like, I worry that I’m not good enough to do what Heavenly Father expects me to do, especially when it comes to service. What if I don’t know the right thing to say to comfort someone? And I think about all the times I fail to be friendly to someone, and I just feel so disheartened. But I’ve learned something lately that helps me feel better.

 

About a week ago I started reading The Lord of the Rings. Rereading, I should say. My goal this time around is to actually make it all the way through the third book. So far, I’m about 90 pages into the first one. I’m working on it.

 

In the meantime, though, I have managed to find some little gems of wisdom hidden within the pages of this book. Such as when Gandalf has just explained to Frodo what the ring he has inherited from Bilbo is. Frodo cannot understand how he has ended up with a ring of such great power and been assigned to so perilous a quest. Gandalf tells him, “You can be sure it is not for any merit that others do not possess: not for power or wisdom, at any rate. But you have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and hearts and wits as you have.”

 

Wow, Gandalf, thanks for the confidence-boost.

 

But when Frodo suggests that Gandalf take the ring, Gandalf refuses on the grounds that, knowing his own power, he would be too tempted to use the power of ring, thus enabling it to gain control over him.

 

So why do we care about this little story? Well, first off, because Lord of the Rings is awesome. But really we care because it illustrates an important concept. There’s another story, this one from the Book of Mormon, that also illustrates this concept.

 

When the sons of Mosiah meet up again after their missions to the Lamanites, Ammon starts going off about how much good they have accomplished.  His brother Aaron gets after him for bragging. In Alma 26:11-12 it says,

 

“But Ammon said unto him: I do not boast in my own strength, nor in my own wisdom; but behold, my joy is full, yea, my heart is brim with joy, and I will rejoice in my God. Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever.”

 

Do you see what happened there? Ammon knew that it was not him that converted the Lamanites, but rather, it was the Lord working through him. It was not Ammon’s strength. It was not his masterful speaking or his charismatic personality. It was his humility and the fact that he was listening to the Spirit and letting the Lord work through him.

 

So, how does this relate to ordinary people like you and me? Well, from what I’ve read, it sounds like Ammon and Frodo were just ordinary people (well, technically Frodo was a hobbit, but you get my drift). And, as Paul points out in his epistle to the Romans, ordinary people are the ones that the Lord works through; people who are humble and aware of their weakness, and also aware of God’s power and willingness to help them. As it says in Romans 1:25-27:

 

Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.

 

So yes, I am weak, but God is mighty. It is not myself that I need to have confidence in, but the Lord; confidence that he can transform my imperfect efforts into something magnificent. I may be only an instrument in his hands, but an instrument in the hands of a master can make something beautiful. And what can be more beautiful than something made by the Father of us all?

The Gospel and Doubts

The time I stayed in Jackson after summer ended was the first time I ever really thought to question if what my parents had taught me was true.

As a native Utahn, all my life I had been surrounded by people of the same religion. The way I saw it, what I believed was normal. Everyone else believed the exact same things, so why shouldn’t I?

Then I spent the fall in Jackson, Wyoming, surrounded by people with many different belief systems. Suddenly, the world was not so simple. While I had already known that most people in the world did not believe the same things I believed, I didn’t understand what that meant until I finally spent time living outside the Utah Bubble. It was then that I realized that not only do most people believe in completely different things as strongly as I believe in my religion, but also that most of these people consider what I believe to be, shall we say, a little bit . . . different. Weird, even.

For the first time I was forced to consider if I was a Mormon because it was comfortable, or if what I had been taught all my life was actually real.

I didn’t have an answer. I remember walking around the nearby neighborhoods, looking up at the sky and thinking, “God, are you really up there? Or am I just on my own?”

I received no answer. I saw no angels, heard no words spoken to my mind, felt no warm fuzzy feeling. I felt disconnected from God – if he even existed. But I kept going with what I had been taught all my life. I read my scriptures and went to church. I prayed, and as I prayed I told the Lord my doubts. I pondered and I tried to listen, but still I received no answer. I didn’t know what to do. It’s hard to give up something you’ve believed in all your life, but God just felt so far away.

But I kept with it, and as time went on I discovered a couple of reasons to keep going in the gospel, even when my testimony didn’t feel as strong as it once was. My testimony is stronger now, but  I’ve listed those reasons here, along with a couple more I’ve discovered since then as my testimony continues to have its ups and downs, in the hopes that maybe what I have discovered can help someone else who might be struggling with doubts.

1. Belief is a choice. This was the first thing I realized. I knew that I had had spiritual experiences in the past, even though I couldn’t feel that same intensity of the Spirit now. I also realized that I could either rationalize away everything I had felt, or I could choose to have faith. I finally understood that there would probably never be a time when I could honestly say that I knew – my testimony would always be based on the feelings of my heart more than on physical evidence (I know people like to say that they believe without the shadow of a doubt, but until I see an angel I highly doubt I will have that great of assurance that what I believe is true. So in the meantime, I make the choice to interpret certain events to mean that God is heavily involved in my life. I believe because I choose to believe).

2. “By their fruits ye shall know them.” One of my coworkers at the Jackson Trading Company made a comment implying that Mormons are sexist. His comment really got me riled up. Then I realized: it was because I wasn’t sure it wasn’t true. So I did what I always do when I freak out about things like that: I called my mom and cried to her. And then I studied it out and I pondered. And I came to the conclusion that the men I know in the church treat me with more respect than this kid did. The men in the church treat me with a lot more respect than a lot of the male customers in the store did, actually. Not that all non-Mormon men are sexist, and not that all Mormon men aren’t. But I have realized recently that the doctrine of the church is very pro-women. In the church I feel like I am viewed for all I can be, instead of as a sex object. The more I study the role and potential of women in the gospel, the more excited my feminist self gets. Seriously guys. The gospel is awesome.

3. I like the doctrine of the church. I like the idea of unconditional love and forgiveness. I like feeling that I am never alone, that there is always someone watching over me. I love the idea of eternal families. More than just liking these things, though, I can see how they make sense. What the gospel teaches makes sense, and it feels good.

4. Peace. During this period of time in Jackson I had the opportunity to go to a convert baptism. The branch president’s wife was playing prelude music, and I remember the feeling of peace I had as I walked into that room. Not because it completely overwhelmed me with its intensity; it was more that I recognized it as something I didn’t feel all the time. I realized that there was goodness in the church. This is the main reason I still believe. I think this is the main reason I will always believe. I may not always be happy, but I know that doing things like reading my scriptures, praying honestly, and going to church and to the temple bring an extra measure of peace to my life and make it easier to deal with trials.

My testimony has grown since this period in Jackson. Strangely enough, I stopped doubting when I started seriously struggling with anxiety. It’s a lot easier to believe in something when you have a need for it. I’ve realized over the months that the main reason I will always believe in this gospel is the peace, love, and joy it brings. Not that it makes my life easy, but it does make the hard times bearable. Knowing that I am loved no matter what and that there is a purpose to the suffering and pain in this life – and that there can be joy in this life as well – keeps me going when things get rough. This is what will keep me coming back to church even when I have my doubts.

I think this period of doubting made my testimony stronger. I had never understood before what it meant to believe something that others perceive as strange. Now I do – and yet I still believe. This kind of belief is stronger than the belief of something that is considered normal. I am more rooted in the gospel now, and it will be easier in the future to stick to what I believe even when no one around me understands why.

I do know now that Heavenly Father loves me. Sometimes he lets me struggle, but he is always watching out for me and he will always love me. Not because I deserve his love, but because I am his daughter and he knows what I can become. He sent his Son to suffer and die so that, imperfect as I am, I can be made clean and be reconciled to my Father in Heaven. You can put your own name in this paragraph and it will be just as true. This gospel is amazing and brings me so much peace and joy. There are still things I don’t understand, but I believe that the answers are out there and that Heavenly Father will help me as I look for answers.

And an additional resource for those of you struggling with doubts: http://www.lds.org/ensign/2013/05/lord-i-believe?lang=eng

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Venting in Nature: Finding Peace and Love

Sometimes life is stressful. Heck, who am I kidding? Life is pretty much always stressful, in one way or another. Some days I don’t know how I can cope with it without screaming my head off at someone – because I’ve noticed that when I am the most stressed about something is when other people are at their most annoying.

Over the past year I have discovered two things that are guaranteed to help me find peace and love. These things aren’t necessarily universal, but I do think they illustrate a couple of important concepts.

The first thing is being out in nature. When I lived in Jackson, Wyoming last summer, every chance I got I would go out to the Tetons (that’s Grand Teton National Park, for those of you who haven’t talked to me enough to have me talk endlessly about my favorite place ever). Coming back from those adventures – or sometimes even while still driving out there – I felt as if all the stress of the world had been lifted away. I remember when day in particular when work had just been a beast. As soon as I saw those mountains, I felt as if a physical burden had been lifted from off my shoulders. I felt at peace. I felt connected with myself and with God, and as a natural result of that I found myself caring more about other people than about myself.

The second thing that is guaranteed to bring me peace is venting my feelings to someone who will listen and try to build me up without judging me. As hard as it is for me to admit, sometimes I just need a good cry. And as soon as I let myself cry to someone the world seems like a much happier place. I am at peace, and as a result I am much better able to care about the people around me.

I believe that the reason these two things bring me so much peace is because they make me feel connected. Nature connects me to God, and crying to someone connects me to other people. Connecting to God and other people helps me to feel connected to myself. These three relationships are the most important things in life, and being able to feel the love that comes from them brings me peace and fills me with joy.

Not that doing these two things takes away all my trials. It doesn’t. But it feels me with love and makes my trials easier to deal with. It also makes other people easier to deal with, which can do a lot towards making life in general easier to deal with.

I’m not saying that if you’re not doing these two things then you’re not going to find peace. But I would like to suggest that you find your own way to connect to God. Prophets have recommended finding a quiet place to commune with the Lord. For me, the best place for that happens to be in a national park. For you, it might be your bedroom. Or the closet. Heck, even the bathroom works – especially if you’re sharing a room with a roommate (yes, there have been times when it’s been a habit of mine to pray in the bathroom. Sometimes it’s the only private place around). And as for connecting to other people, sometimes you’ve got to be willing to be vulnerable (if you have the time, I really suggest listening to that talk. Heck, even if you don’t have time you still should listen to that talk).

So take the time to connect. Connect to God, connect to the people around you, connect to yourself. It takes time and a bit of effort – sometimes it even takes a bit of courage – but it’s worth it. Really. And what’s more: you’re worth it.

Learning to Float

Last summer I spent as much time as possible at the lake. I love swimming – and mountains, and lakes – and there was something about lying on my back in the water, completely relaxed, not worried about work or friends or even about drowning, that soothed all my stresses away. But I learned early on that in order to be like that, I had to learn to let go. If I didn’t want to sink, I had to relax and trust the water to hold my body up. Even when it was windy and my body would move with the waves, if I could relax and trust the water I would stay afloat.

And, as I’ve been learning, so it is with life. Life is scary sometimes. As soon as we get complacent with our circumstances – jobs, relationships, location – things change. People move, we move, people change and move on and leave us behind. Nothing in life is constant, yet we all fear change. I fear change. I’m scared of starting over, of making new friends, of having to learn new skills, of the hardships I will have to go through in order to grow. What if I’m not good enough? What if no one likes me? What if I cry myself to sleep every night, and there’s no one around me I trust to let inside?

But that’s where the gospel comes in. God is constant, and I know that if I trust in him I will be safe. If I can stop trying to control everything around me, if I do my best and then trust in the Lord to make up the difference, then I will be at peace.

For me, trusting in God is a matter of letting go. Letting go of my worries, of my fears, of my stress and trusting that, because my Heavenly Father loves me and my Savior suffered so that he would have the power to make me whole, I will be okay. When I do that, then I can begin to see the beauty in life. Like when I lay on my back in a lake in my favorite national park and look up at the pine-tree covered mountain slopes and am so happy to be alive.

There’s another part to this, though. When you’re floating on your back, you can’t just lay there motionless. You have to swim. You don’t have to swim quickly – although sometimes that is enjoyable – but if you stay stationary you will start to sink. It might take a couple minutes, but it will happen. Application? To paraphrase someone important and famous, trusting in the Lord is not a sedentary act. You have to do things to make your situation better. The Lord will magnify your efforts, but in order for him to do that there has to first be some effort.

So I am working on learning to move forward, to let go of my worries and to trust that, because of my the most powerful being in the universe is watching out for me, I will float.

Leigh Lake - pretty much my favorite place ever

Give and Take

 I have issues with letting other people serve me. It takes a lot of humility to admit to needing help from other people, and too often I am far too proud to admit that I’m not tough enough to make it on my own.

And then there’s the matter of being a burden to other people. I feel guilty if I inconvenience them, and my first instinct is to pay them back in whatever way I can.

But the thing is, it shouldn’t be so much a matter of paying it back as it is a matter of paying it forward. It doesn’t help me if I feel guilty when someone listens to me cry because I’m not doing anything to serve that person. For one thing, I don’t always know the impact I have on someone – I’ve seen that in my own life, when people have blessed my life more than they could ever know, just by the little things they do for me – but also, maybe that person doesn’t need anything from me right now, but someone else does. And if that person ever does need me, then I can be there for them. Not in an “I owe you” sense, but rather in a “Someone is in pain, and since I am in a position to help make it better, I will do what I can to comfort them” sense. And that’s how I let others serve me – in an “I am in pain, and I can’t heal myself on my own” sort of way.

So it’s cyclical, too; everything in life is cyclical. Sometimes I need to be focusing on others, and sometimes I need to let others be focusing on me. That energy needs to be flowing back and forth. I can’t give without taking and I can’t take without giving. Once I send that energy out I need to be willing to let it come back in, and once I let it in I need to send it back out. It needs to ebb and flow, like the tide.  

Ebb and flow, like the tide. Although, I'll admit, this is a lake and not the ocean. Brownie points if you can figure out which lake it is.

I understand all this intellectually, and yet I still have a difficult time letting others into how I am truly feeling. The only person I feel comfortable turning to is my Savior because I know that he loves me perfectly. I know that he will always be there for me. I don’t trust other people not to judge me as weak or needy. Maybe it’s because as I child I thought I had to be tough, that I couldn’t cry when life got hard because that’s what crybabies do, and there was no way I was going to be one of those.

But the thing is, I am a crybaby. I’m a crier. That’s how I deal with life. I have a bad day, I cry, and then the next day I feel better (why is there such a negative stereotype about women who cry easily? It doesn’t mean I’m weak; I mean, excuse me for having emotions. Don’t the two greatest commandments have to do with an emotion? Because for all that love is an action, it is first an emotion. But I digress). I just don’t want others to think that I’m miserable all the time. I also don’t want to be a burden to them.

But an important part of this life is relationships with others, and the best way to build deep relationships is by being vulnerable (I highly recommend listening to this talk). I can’t give emotionally to everyone if I’m not letting anyone give to me emotionally; it will drain me.

Luckily, I’ve been getting better at this over the past couple of years, although I’m not quite at where I’d someday like to be.

In an attempt to find the balance between giving and taking, I’ve made a list.

I give: to my awesome roommates (meaning all of them), to my friends, to my visiting teachees, to the people who read this blog (at least hopefully that’s how you view this blog), to the people I sit next to in my classes, to anyone in my ward whom I notice sitting alone.

I take: from my family (although hopefully that one is both a give and a take), from those of my friends that I trust enough to let into my life (and thank you to those of you reading this who have been there for me. I love you so much. Heavenly Father has blessed me so much by placing you in my life). I take from Heavenly Father, and from Jesus Christ. I take a lot from my Savior; he’s already given me so much, I might as well accept that gift. Goodness knows I need it.

So I give where I can, I take when I need to, I live one day at a time, and maybe someday I’ll discover I have found the balance I need.

Worthy of Love

Today’s essay is about something I struggle a lot with. Perfection. Not because I’m not perfect (although that is most certainly true), but because I try too hard to be. I beat myself up over little things. It makes life difficult sometimes. We’re commanded to be perfect, right? To follow every command with exactness? Yet I seem to have such a difficult time with that.

But lately I’ve discovered a different way of looking at things. It stems partially from Brad Wilcox’s talk “His Grace is Sufficient” (which I highly recommend reading), partially from my experiences with meditation, and partially from specific trials that I have been going through lately. My new perspective is this: According to what we learn in the Plan of Salvation, we live on a fallen world. I tend to think of it as broken. And since we live on a broken world, it makes sense that we are a broken people. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t have worth. You do not have to be perfect to be loved. That is not love at all. Love is, by nature, unconditional. It’s seeing someone for who they really are – the good and the bad – and still wanting the best for them. Think of the scriptures in Moroni 7:45 and in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. That is how the Savior loves us. He is patient, he is kind, he is long-suffering, and he is the only one who has the power to not only heal us completely, but to make us stronger as he does so. His Atonement doesn’t just mean that we will be forgiven of our sins; it means that we can overcome our sins and our weaknesses and our character flaws and be healed from our sicknesses and physical ailments. In other words, it means that we can be made whole.

So I’ve been starting to see more clearly who I really am. I am a daughter of God, and perfection is not a matter of being punished for every little mistake, but rather a matter of becoming whole. So those little things I do wrong don’t matter as much as who I am becoming. And if I’m reading my scriptures and praying – earnestly seeking God’s will in my life – and looking for ways to serve others, then I will automatically grow into my potential – even if I mess up every single day. Which I do, and I will, but as time goes on gradually I will mess up less and less. I already mess up less than I did a year ago. By this I can see that God has been guiding my life, placing me in situations where I can learn and grow – both situations where I am stretched more than I thought possible, and situations where people are put in my path who lift me up and teach me and, most of all, love me enough that just talking to them brings me comfort.

And God loves me and will help me get to where I need to be. He blesses me even when I don’t ask him for blessings, and even more so when I do. Really people, God loves you so so much. I have felt that love for me during some of my darkest moments. It is what keeps me going when life gets to be more than I can bear. And he loves everyone that much. He loves you. Christ loves you enough to have suffered and atoned for everything that makes you less than whole; everything that leaves you broken – sin, weakness, heartache. He can heal you. “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).

Welcome to my blog!

In order to get myself to actually spend time writing, I told myself that I couldn’t work on homework until I had written for thirty minutes. So, in order to get anything productive done today, I have to first have fun. Man, I like this system.

Anyway. So this is my blog. It’s not about my life, though. Well, it is about my life, but not in a “I just got a dog!” sort of a way. More in a “This is what I’ve been learning about life and myself, and this is why it matters to you” sort of way. So probably this will turn into a collection of essays (and possibly a few poems, if you promise not to critique them too harshly), and hopefully they’ll be good because I am an English major. And hopefully they get better as time goes on because that is how life is supposed to work. Mainly I want to write something that will make a difference in someone else’s life, although I’m not sure that anything I have to say will have that kind of power. Really, I’m not sure I’m all that wise, or all that good with words. And anyway, in the end it comes down to whether or not you are willing to act on what you learn. So if something I write helps you realize something new, please promise me you’ll act on it.

So I have an old blog that I meant to share with people and then forgot about and now can’t remember the email address I made to go with it and can’t figure out how to find that out from the blog and even if I could, I wouldn’t remember the password. But I had already written a couple of posts for it that I think are pretty good, so my first few posts will be from there. To start with, here’s the intro:

Welcome to my blog! I suppose I should start with an introduction.

The main thing you should know about me is that I believe in Christ. I believe that he atoned for my sins, that he loves me perfectly, and that through his Atonement I can find healing. Having his love in my life brings me peace and makes me whole. It can do the same for you.

Other than that: I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (otherwise known as Mormons), I am currently a college student living away from home, I love hiking, writing, laughing, playing piano, making snarky comments, learning, and growing.


I also have several challenges. I am living away from home with roommates, taking classes, and providing for myself. I deal with all the stresses of college life and, like everyone else, regularly have other trials that come along.

The purpose of this blog is to use my challenges and the lessons I learn from them to bring others to Christ. If my words touch you in any way, I would love to hear about it. Heck, even if my words don't touch you I'd still love to hear from you. Constructive criticism is always welcome (the key word there being constructive). So, welcome to my blog, and I hope you enjoy it.