Sunday Lessons Covenants and Expectations
I had a really interesting day today. I mean, it wasn't like out of the ordinary weird, but just different lessons learned today than usual. My first lesson came to me during sacrament meeting, even though it happened last night. I was talking to a friend last night and I realized that I was being super sarcastic, which is my nature in general but there are a lot of people who can't handle it, it's irritating, or, I don't know, just a negative interaction, and I don't want to be like that, I don't want to be irritating to people or negative, and through further gospel study I've found that sarcasm is not ok, it's damaging to the soul. There's an August 2013 Ensign article that I listened to that really brought the idea home to me entitled "No Corrupt Communication," and the part that really struck a chord with me was "the Greek root for sarcasm is sarkazein and means 'to tear flesh like dogs.' One dictionary defines sarcasm as irony designed to 'give pain.' Sarcasm has many uses in our communication: it can convey aggression and insult, it can be used to dominate others, and it can communicate contempt and anger. Not all sarcasm is intentionally sinister, but it has a hypocritical edge because it requires us to saw the opposite of what we mean. Some use it for humor, but it often damages our relationships because it leaves our friends and family doubting our sincerity and confused by what we say." As I look at myself and the way that I talk to others and talk about others, this is a matter than I've been deal with for some time and I'm doing TONS better than when I first started on the road to self reflection, but last night I realized that I still have a lot more work to do, and starting immediately because I don't want to feel like I'm being a jerk because I don't know how to act around people. I want to make other people feel safe and leave our conversation feeling good about themselves, who they are and feel hope for the future. And so I'm going to work on that, with that specific goal in mind. When we are done talking I want people to feel good about themselves and hopeful about the future.
The other new thing that I learned today was how far I've come spiritually. I was asked to work in the nursery, and 18-36 month old class. I love the nursery, and I've worked in it before, but when I did it before, about 4 years ago, I was very self centered, very "oh I love the nursery, because it's such a hard job." And I feel like I did do a pretty good job because we had a lot of kids who cried their first few weeks and I was able to hold them and eventually get to the point where they loved nursery. And even today, the parents of this boy that is new and super quite, though well behaved, told me "oh he loves coming to nursery it's all he talks about all morning." And I thought "really? He's so quite." But it was rewarding to hear that, even though I've only been there for 2 weeks, it just made me happy to know that the nursery environment can bring happiness and good feelings to the kids and hopefully set them on a good path toward loving church. Anyway, now instead of having the attitude of "oh just let them play the whole time, as long as they are alive, that's all that matters." Now my attitude is more like "ok, let's get a good schedule, let's do a good lesson, let's do a good singing time, then we can play with toys. Let's listen to the primary hymns and bring the Spirit in." It's just interesting to reflect on my attitude change and how much I deeply love the kids and desire their happiness, whereas before it was just because I didn't want to go to my other classes.
I saw something on Facebook today that said "Expectations are just premeditated resentments" and I thought that that was so very profound. I know that in my marriage the disappointments of the expectations were huge. I mean, I don't think that all of my expectations were ridiculous, like I expected fidelity, help with the kids, and family time. And I guess that's where the difference comes in between expectations and standards. For my next marriage, I'm going to have a zero tolerance policy for issues such as porn, infidelity, and disrespect, but other than that, I feel like both parties have to have a deep desire to make the other happy. I fully intend on giving 100% to making my husband feel valued and appreciated and give copious amounts of effort to having a fulfilling marriage, and I think that's one thing that I gained from living through the madness of my marriage is seeing the amount of effort that it does take and commitment and just seeing relationships for what they are, not the fairy tale, not the prince charming story that is on TV, but the nitty gritty down and dirty daily living for 12 years. I think I've given up the idea of expectations from other people, I hope that they will act and live a certain way, and I will do everything within my power to help make it happen but if it doesn't then I will just move forward, whatever that means. Like my kids for instance, I don't expect them to be perfect or always make good choices. I hope they do and I will teach and support them in every was I can to help them live a righteous life, but they will make mistakes just like I do, and then when that happens I will love and support them like the Savior would, but ultimately their choices are exercises of their own agency, and I can only do what I can do. Tonight I saw a really great friend suffering the effects of "premeditated resentments," the tragedy that comes when someone doesn't live up to your expectations, and they never can, they can only be them and that's either good enough or it's not, and when there are deficiencies, and there always will be on both sides, we can either course correct, accept, or reject. And I'm really hoping that I'm aware enough to learn from the suffering of others and not be subject to that same fate. There's a really good Ensign article called "The Grapefruit Syndrome" that addresses this very issue and I found it to be amazing.
The last thing today was the sacrament meeting theme of "Covenants." I'm new to the whole covenant thing, and I didn't really understand a lot of what they were saying but there were few points that I found interesting. First was the idea of informal covenants, between just you and the Lord, and I've never heard it discussed like that before but I know that I've done that before, made my own promises to the Lord, I didn't expect anything in return, I just wanted to know that from that time forward I was promising to be obedient to a certain commandment, and it's always worked, every single time, and I've only done it a few times, but it was the push I needed to be serious enough to obey, but also I was ready enough that I only needed that small push, I was ready to be obedient but scared, and I've found those times to be intensely spiritual and growing for me. Another point was when they connected covenants with hastening the work of salvation. When considering our role in the hastening, we need to ask ourselves not only who needs to make the covenants, on both sides of the veil, but who needs help keeping their covenants. So not only bring new members but strengthening each other in the gospel. That's when home teaching and visiting teaching came up, and I fully love those programs, I came back to church because of my visiting teacher in Hawaii. She was amazing and I'm so grateful for the efforts that she made to reach out to me.
So overall, it was an interesting day, lessons learned that I hadn't anticipated, and a new connection with an old friend.
The other new thing that I learned today was how far I've come spiritually. I was asked to work in the nursery, and 18-36 month old class. I love the nursery, and I've worked in it before, but when I did it before, about 4 years ago, I was very self centered, very "oh I love the nursery, because it's such a hard job." And I feel like I did do a pretty good job because we had a lot of kids who cried their first few weeks and I was able to hold them and eventually get to the point where they loved nursery. And even today, the parents of this boy that is new and super quite, though well behaved, told me "oh he loves coming to nursery it's all he talks about all morning." And I thought "really? He's so quite." But it was rewarding to hear that, even though I've only been there for 2 weeks, it just made me happy to know that the nursery environment can bring happiness and good feelings to the kids and hopefully set them on a good path toward loving church. Anyway, now instead of having the attitude of "oh just let them play the whole time, as long as they are alive, that's all that matters." Now my attitude is more like "ok, let's get a good schedule, let's do a good lesson, let's do a good singing time, then we can play with toys. Let's listen to the primary hymns and bring the Spirit in." It's just interesting to reflect on my attitude change and how much I deeply love the kids and desire their happiness, whereas before it was just because I didn't want to go to my other classes.
I saw something on Facebook today that said "Expectations are just premeditated resentments" and I thought that that was so very profound. I know that in my marriage the disappointments of the expectations were huge. I mean, I don't think that all of my expectations were ridiculous, like I expected fidelity, help with the kids, and family time. And I guess that's where the difference comes in between expectations and standards. For my next marriage, I'm going to have a zero tolerance policy for issues such as porn, infidelity, and disrespect, but other than that, I feel like both parties have to have a deep desire to make the other happy. I fully intend on giving 100% to making my husband feel valued and appreciated and give copious amounts of effort to having a fulfilling marriage, and I think that's one thing that I gained from living through the madness of my marriage is seeing the amount of effort that it does take and commitment and just seeing relationships for what they are, not the fairy tale, not the prince charming story that is on TV, but the nitty gritty down and dirty daily living for 12 years. I think I've given up the idea of expectations from other people, I hope that they will act and live a certain way, and I will do everything within my power to help make it happen but if it doesn't then I will just move forward, whatever that means. Like my kids for instance, I don't expect them to be perfect or always make good choices. I hope they do and I will teach and support them in every was I can to help them live a righteous life, but they will make mistakes just like I do, and then when that happens I will love and support them like the Savior would, but ultimately their choices are exercises of their own agency, and I can only do what I can do. Tonight I saw a really great friend suffering the effects of "premeditated resentments," the tragedy that comes when someone doesn't live up to your expectations, and they never can, they can only be them and that's either good enough or it's not, and when there are deficiencies, and there always will be on both sides, we can either course correct, accept, or reject. And I'm really hoping that I'm aware enough to learn from the suffering of others and not be subject to that same fate. There's a really good Ensign article called "The Grapefruit Syndrome" that addresses this very issue and I found it to be amazing.
The last thing today was the sacrament meeting theme of "Covenants." I'm new to the whole covenant thing, and I didn't really understand a lot of what they were saying but there were few points that I found interesting. First was the idea of informal covenants, between just you and the Lord, and I've never heard it discussed like that before but I know that I've done that before, made my own promises to the Lord, I didn't expect anything in return, I just wanted to know that from that time forward I was promising to be obedient to a certain commandment, and it's always worked, every single time, and I've only done it a few times, but it was the push I needed to be serious enough to obey, but also I was ready enough that I only needed that small push, I was ready to be obedient but scared, and I've found those times to be intensely spiritual and growing for me. Another point was when they connected covenants with hastening the work of salvation. When considering our role in the hastening, we need to ask ourselves not only who needs to make the covenants, on both sides of the veil, but who needs help keeping their covenants. So not only bring new members but strengthening each other in the gospel. That's when home teaching and visiting teaching came up, and I fully love those programs, I came back to church because of my visiting teacher in Hawaii. She was amazing and I'm so grateful for the efforts that she made to reach out to me.
So overall, it was an interesting day, lessons learned that I hadn't anticipated, and a new connection with an old friend.
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