The worth of a soul; the worth of service

I've been thinking a lot lately about the worth of a soul, service, and the love of God. I have decided that the best way to share how I've been feeling is by sharing a letter that I wrote to my mission president while I was on my mission...

Monday, June 18, 2012

President B,

Sister R and I were talking about our missions this week while we were tracting in the good ol' Fairfield heat, and I told her how the mission has made me even more grateful and stunned by The Atonement. I told her an analogy for how I feel about my mission, and I want to share it with you too.

You know when there is one of those stellar hard-working perfect mothers that somehow seems to juggle all the things of life plus 3 young children? And then one Saturday, she leaves the house for a couple of hours to run some errands and leaves the oldest child in charge. So the oldest child comes up with an idea and tells the other two, "hey lets clean the house and make mom some cookies while she is gone so she'll come home and be so happy and know how much we love her." The other two are all for the plan, they are so excited because they have felt this deep love for their mother but never knew how they could possibly serve her in a way that would express it. So they go around the house trying to do the things that they have seen their mother do. They try to clean the floors like they've seen her clean them and stir the cookie dough just the way she does.

By the time their mother comes home, the children are exhausted, but thrilled, at the opportunity they had to spend a little bit of time being like mom. Mom comes through the door and sees her three sweaty, sticky children who are covered in flour and holding a plat of burnt cookies. It seems that all the furniture and things are in the wrong place, and with big grins on their faces, all three of them run up to her and yell, "welcome home!!!!" and wrap their arms around her, telling her they love her. She takes a moment and looks around her house--with everything in the wrong spot and tastes the cookie that has way too much flour and gazes into the eyes of her eager children and just weeps. Because it doesn't matter if the cookies are burnt or if the windows have smudges of windex all over them, because her children are looking up into her eyes full of love--having worked just for her. Her heart is full of gratitude to them just for trying.

That is how I feel about my mission. I feel like every night I have that moment with Heavenly Father. I get down on my knees and I look up at Him and say, "Well, Dad, I tried really hard to do the things that you do today. And I know the cookies don't taste very good, and I tried really hard to sweep the corners but somehow I didn't do it just right and there is still dust over there. But I love you so much, and I tried so hard. And so I hope you like it. I did all this just for you." And without fail, His response is always the same as that wonderful mother. I feel like He sits there on the floor with me and weeps. And He says, "these cookies are the best cookies I ever tasted" and "the corners look perfect" and the best one: "thank you so much for working all day. I love you." And somehow, even though I'm just as simple and small as those grimy faced kids, He makes me feel like what I did meant the world to Him. And I just glow at the idea that I could make my dear Heavenly Father happy and proud of His daughter.

Just as with those kids and their mother, I can look back at earlier times in my mission and see how the Savior has gone through after me and cleaned up the messes and mistakes I've made. I can see how somehow He knows how to make even my burnt cookies taste good. It is an incredible and miraculous thing to behold. His atonement is real, and His love for me is something I can't begin to comprehend, but something I can feel in a very real way every day.

Love, Hermana A.

This experience isn't unique. It isn't just missionaries that have important errands to do for The Lord. I know that everything that we do with the purpose of strengthening, uplifting, and serving others is The Lord's work, and it is important to Him. The Lord will never tell you that you are not enough. 

Whatever way it is that you are serving God or His children at this point in your life--I promise that it matters to Him.

I know that when you get down on your knees to talk to Him about how you are doing, He will come and spend time with you and tell you what you've done for Him is just the best thing that anybody has ever done for Him. He will thank you and love you.

There are no unimportant children to Him--so there is no unimportant service.

Happy Love Week: You need to love yourself more

I really believe that you can only truly love others if you love yourself.

In C.S. Lewis' book, The Great Divorce, Lewis tells the story of a bus ride between hell and heaven where those who were in hell are urged by inhabitants of heaven to repent and come with them. (If you haven't read it, do it. I l.o.v.e. this book).

There is a part of the book where a man meets the woman he loved on earth (she is asking him to come to heaven with her), and she explains that she doesn't need him now so she can now love him completely and fully. She no longer will love him out of need or any sort of selfishness, but she will love him, instead, just to love him. The man can't take it. He gets extremely upset and refuses to go with her because he can't let go of his need to feel needed. (This isn't a great summary haha. Sorry! Just read it).

In my brain, this part of the story taught me a simple truth--true pure love for another person comes when we love ourselves as well. This man was used to his wife needing him--loving him because it also benefited her. True love comes when we love someone just to love them--not when we expect something in return or because WE need it.

Side-note:

That is how I knew I would marry RBH. It was the first time that I dated somebody not because it made me feel good or it benefitted me and my happiness but because I really loved him and I wanted to do all I could to help him in his life. It was all for him. The crazy thing? I felt like he was in it all for me. (This paragraph would be my answer to somebody asking me how they know that somebody is "the one" btw...) (Second ps - I am not claiming our relationship is perfect. Even though, you know, it is ;) bahahah kidddding).

ANYWAY. One day my great friend Mrs. Lemmons told me that living Matthew 22:39: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," required you to love yourself. She explained to me that if you hate yourself, then loving your neighbor as yourself isn't really going to do any good. If you are planning on loving people a lot, you have to love yourself a lot too.

That was a moment for me. Okay. So let me get this straight--if I work on loving myself more (not to be confused with self-worship), then I will be more capable of loving others. So working on loving myself more isn't selfish...it is improvement in order to love and help others more.

If we're going to love people more than they deserve, then maybe we need to love ourselves more than we deserve.

All of a sudden that childhood conversation with my mom made so much more sense. Whenever anybody was mean to me growing up my mom would say something like, "they just don't feel very good about themselves today, do they?" (as I'm sure most moms said). I would always roll my eyes, but that was one of the truest statements she ever taught me. 

When you truly love yourself, there is no reason not to love others.

When you truly love yourself, you don't have motivation to be insensitive to those around you.

When you truly love yourself, you don't have to be afraid of loving others as you love yourself.

So maybe when we make goals like "I need to love my husband/kids/siblings/parents/mailman/coworker more," we need to change that goal to "How can I love myself in a more authentic way so that I am more capable of fully loving my spouse/family/friends/acquaintances?"

I know that I, too, need to take my own advice. I am certain that loving neighbors more than I love myself has been my #1 sin in the overview of my life. Not that I am amazing at loving neighbors...I just could probably write a "How To Guide To Self-Criticism." Unfortunately, I have returned to that sin before like a dog returns to its vomit. The good news is that "the trying" counts with The Lord. I am not perfect in loving myself. In a lot of ways, I have a lot of improvement to make. But I have gotten closer and get closer every day. That is what matters to Him; I know it.

So. In this time of celebrating love, I hope we all choose to love ourselves more. It is a choice. You may have to choose to love yourself over and over and over--but it is a choice and it will get easier to choose as you keep choosing it. I really believe that that choice also includes choosing The Savior. He is love, He loves you, and He will give you love for yourself if you ask for it. So, ask for it.

I am going to try to practice what I preach and make a list of things that I love about myself today. If this list is a temptation for you to compare, judge, or criticize yourself or me (aka not love yourself) then don't read it. That is not why I'm writing it. I'm doing it so you will go and make your own list. I am giving you a demo, and I am giving you permission to go and make a list of your own without feeling guilty, silly, or ashamed. 

You can share your list with me after you are finished--whether in comment or in private. I would like that a lot.

10 Things I love about myself today:

- I love that I have freckles on my shoulders. I think they're really cute.

- I love that it is easy for me to love other people.

- I love my height and the perspective it gives me.

- I love that I speak Spanish.

- I love that I have chosen a life of following Jesus Christ.

- I love that I can laugh so hard that I cry, and I love that I can sometimes make other people laugh so hard that they cry. 

- I love that I am a woman and that I have divine gifts and characteristics that are feminine. I love that I get to fill the role of daughter, wife, mother, sister.

- I love that my middle toe takes longer to curl down than the other toes because I broke it when I was younger. It is so funny and quirky and it kills me haha.

- I love that my body loves moving to the rhythm of music, and that at one point in my life I worked hard to dance well. I still love dance, and I love that my body can do it.

- I love that my soul feels free of grudges and grief; I love that I have had the strength to forgive in my life.

If you're having trouble loving those around you, I really hope you'll consider working on loving yourself.

Ill be honest--you need to love yourself more.

Go make your list, dude. You're up.

Happy Love Week - Things I Love

50 Things That I Love Lately...

Warning: there are a lot of links to click on. You're welcome.

1. Getting a "Difficult Level" Sudoku puzzle done. Sweet fulfillment.

2. Smith's Private Selections ice cream

3. Showing my primary class some of the free online Bible Videos (love btw), and them thinking that somebody had caught Christ's birth on camera...and me having to explain, "no, these are just actors not the real Mary, Joseph, Jesus, etc." Despite my explanation they all were absolutely in awe at seeing the baby Jesus saying, "I can't believe that is Him!" Oh, the sweet innocent faith of a child.

4. My gold crochet hook.

5. We now have 3 bookshelves. 

6. The merengue section of my Zumba class

7. The beautiful wonderful 2013 edition scriptures that RBH got me.

8. My hubs getting into grad school. YEAH BABAY!

9. Thermals thermals thermals all day every day

10. The adorably hilarious answers that my kids give me half in Spanish and half in English every week at primary. They kill me. 

11. Listening to RBH take phone calls in Spanish. He is cute cute cute.

12. You get a graduation application! You get a graduation application! Everybody gets graduation applications!!!

13. This picture of my niece with Loopy Mango yarn.

14. Not having to endure Chicago during this polar freeze. Sorry Ma and Pa. 

15. Having chocolate de abuelita regularly these days

16. Getting a free NY Times from BYU every day. I don't love NYT but I do love a good inky copy of a real life newspaper..I see you are trying to win me over, BYU...very clever.

17. Beating RBH at card games. We are competitive. Admittedly, he beats me too.

18. Hearing the mailman open and close the mailbox and finding that it's more than ads/bills. 

19. The Olympics!!!!!!!! And that SIX Blackhawks were in the gold medal hockey game. 

20. Recipe books with beautiful pictures. 

21. The day The Ensign comes in the mail.

22. Lily Myer's performance at the College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational

23. Coolest service idea EVER: 

24. Sis Burton is speaking at the next CES Devotional. Happy.

25. My KitchenAid. GUYS. You don't even know. You just don't even KNOW. I shine it weekly.

26. IKEA, my Swedish blood loves your Swedish blood.

27. This room in the temple.

28. This picture and this picture will one day hang in my kitchen. 

29. ALWAYS having the car to yourself on The Frontline. What the what. 

30. LoLo's. The best store ever. 

31. Overdrive, I might love you the most.

32. Puzzle table.

33. Alphabetizing.

34. Blurb books. I will finish you.

35. Our latest Family History project. 

36 NFL bad lip reading #2

37. This kid's stance on Common Core.

38. Supporting Religious Freedom

39. Belting it out with Los Claxons.

40. Being a Compliance Paralegal. I think I'm good at my job.

41.  The unifying of Mormon women worldwide. I just cant say enough. Yes yes yes yes. YES. Oh and yesssss!! :)

42. Getting comments on my posts (is that a hint? haha is that pathetic? haha no way)

43. Putting an egg in Ramen. 4 years of college and I never thought to do this?! What a fail. Thank goodness RBH taught me.



There are so many things to appreciate in the world.