Insights with Age

INSIGHTS with AGE- I will be 57 years old this week. Time is an odd entity. One’s body ages, but not their spirit or soul really. I suppose we feel the same inside eternally, maybe just a little wiser. I hope I am learning the things I need to learn while I am here. Things I would never have supposed and hope to remember:

LOVE-I know this is the most important item we came to earth to learn about and understand. It sounds so easy, but it much more difficult than we mortals perceive. It is not just an act, but becomes a part of you. It is not just what you give, but what you become. In Bend we lived near recently widowed Carla Donaldson. She shared a story with me about when her husband returned to her after he had passed away. She was in bed and could not move. He stood at the foot of her bed and wanted to let her know that “the most important thing here is love”, just loving one another. Mother Teresa (a hero of mine) said, “If we judge people we do not have time to love them”. Love makes us vulnerable, but also makes our lives far more beautiful to ourselves and others.

HAPPINESS- Chelsea said to me once as a child that “no one could make us happy, but ourselves”. I know this to be true, but at times struggle with melancholy. I feel things deeply. I over-think things and am perhaps a bit homesick for our heavenly home? I am not sure why, because do I know and appreciate how truly blessed I am. I know that “things” do not make us happy, in fact maybe the opposite. I see (and read) how happy the people of Africa who have nothing are. They do not focus on or worry about temporal items, but those around them. The top 10 countries that are ranked the “happiest” are some of the poorest. There have been studies on what makes truly people happy and they have found: experiences over things, having relationships or group connections where we meet together at least once a month. Buying a new item can only make a person temporarily happy and money up to $75,000 a year can help families be happy, so their basic needs are met, after that it does not affect our happiness. On people’s death beds their regrets never focus on the tangible, but on relationships and opportunities they missed out on.

RELATIONSHIPS-are the most meaningful part of life that bring us the most joy and the most sorrow. I believe that every person’s path we cross is not by coincidence in the grand scheme of things. I think we are all here to help one another home. Families are the most important relationships that we have, ones that perfect us, humble us and teach us all the qualities we need to learn…compassion, patience, understanding, truly loving unconditionally and many more. But each person whose life we collide with can create a moment of accountability as well. I know I have wandered through life not always realizing and appreciating my fellow man as greatly as I should.

BEING in the PRESENT- “the past is history, the future a mystery, but today is a gift and that is why it is called the present”….wise words from Kung Fu Panda. A cousin also posted that “focusing too much on the past manifests in depression, focusing too much on the future causes anxiety and focusing on the present brings peace.” I have not been good at this. I know I focus too much on the future and am always looking ahead. In small doses this is called organization, but I wish I had been more in the present and really savored each experience I was having. Hopefully I still have time to do better and others I love will as well.

WEIGHT- life is full of “weighty” matters, but one of them should not be our weight!!! I feel this with all of my heart. While it is good to be healthy and take care of our bodies, I believe that one of Satan’s tools to distract us from more important things is to have us worry about our weight. Don’t. Know beauty is not based on size. I read back through my journals and am horrified I was even worried about my weight when I was a very slim young woman and did not appreciate where I was physically pretty much ever. I was blessed with a healthy, strong body and should not have let thoughts of weight derail more positive productive ones. This is so disheartening. Do not make my mistake.

Wearing my wedding dress (lovingly made by my mother) over 37 years later (June 2016) with the back not zipped closed and the waistband girth increased with rubber bands for Miss Havisham's character in the book "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens. Live life fully with no regrets, don't let size or the past limit you.

I felt I should end this first portion of my history with my testimony. I am not sure how many years the next portion will cover (and someone else may have to publish it), but this is it for now. A random place to end at 57 years old, but it covers a lot of life lived.

I do have a testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I have had too many experiences to doubt that God does exist. I believe we have a loving Father in Heaven who cares about us more than we can comprehend and that He sent our older Brother Jesus Christ to earth to show us the way and help us home. Christ took upon himself our pain and anguishes as well as our sins if we will let him. I know a relationship with the Holy Ghost and listening to his promptings are vital to being led through earth-life's maze. I believe we still have living prophets and apostles on the earth, like in Christ's time, to help us not be deceived and that the scriptures are truly our "letters from home" to comfort and guide us along our journey here. I know that families are sacred and the most important organization and unit on earth, that families are also here to love and support one another on our journey's back to heaven. I believe it does not matter how long we live here, but that we do the best with the time we are given. That we are not here to check off a list of things that need to be accomplished, but that we are here to become what we need to become and grow more like our Father in our efforts. Cherish life and cherish one another.
Eternally, Mother Teresa