Once my mom was teaching a Sunday School lesson on Easter. I was like 14 and so still pretty stoked about the candy/new tights thing (let's be honest: I spent all week watching anxiously for an Easter package from Michigan), but I remember her preparing really carefully and discussing with me Easter's true meaning to her. She shared it with me again this year--that her understanding of the atonement has strengthened and her appreciation for it deepened year after year. There are some things I know about my mom: she loves people through food (etc.), she pays her tithing, and she gets Easter, loves it, wants us all to too.
And this is me having a hard time knowing what to write or how: my brother-in-law said once "I'm just hoping that this grace thing is as powerful as God promised." And that's where I am right now. After a period of really steady blessed spiritual growth, I find myself busy and exhausted and distracted. When I've found myself in places like this before I've started despairing and toying with the idea of my own imperfection as well as, like, the atheism option. And I wonder if I should be more stressed out. I find myself justifying cut corners and lapses and general haziness and part of me thinks that I'm in big big trouble and probably setting myself up for a huge fall and ruining my life and my chances at happiness.
But most of me says no. Most of me says that I'm a good and a righteous person who is trying her very best and has way more on her plate than is healthy and that I'm working on growing into me. Most of me says that I have a lot to learn about unconditional love, particularly in the form of divine love, and that not being able to do all the outward performancey things can help me get in touch with the inward commitment things. I can do better and I want to and will, but for right now, God loves me even though I haven't not fallen asleep in the middle of a prayer for months.
So Easter: lounging on the grass in the sun with Brian Doyle and adorable Tim reading about grace I felt it. I felt the Savior's love and I felt it deep and clear and remembered that it's always there.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Easter
Posted by Kjerstin Evans Ballard at 10:34 AM
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7 comments:
Sounds like a lovely Easter indeed. And I like the juxtaposition of performance and commitment. Interesting. (Sidenote: you and Tim should come to the Festival of Colors on Saturday.)
confession: I don't kneel to pray. I fall asleep in the middle of my prayers every night. I always have a lot to say, and I think He knows my heart is in the right place. I figure if the last thing I'm doing before I actually fall asleep is thinking of/speaking with Him, then I'm still in okay shape.
I really loved the honesty of this post.
This raises a question. If you fall asleep in the middle of a prayer, and consequently don't finish with "in the name of," then have you prayed in the savior's name?
Of course, I'm sure God hears any sincere prayer regardless of the formal elements of the prayer. On the other hand, there is presumably a good reason for the commandment to pray to the Father in the name of the Son, and its corresponding promise that anything we ask under that formula (subject of course to faith and expediency) will be given.
Maybe we should pray with "in the name of" in the beginning, a la the sacrament prayers.
On the other hand, someone I was just reading makes the argument that the point of saying a prayer in the name of the Savior is saying a prayer that he would say--following the spirit while praying to make sure you're not asking for anything that isn't in line with his will.
I think the "in the name of" at the end is more of a reminder, a formality.
I agree with Ke's last point there. And while I think that it's important to say the words and make sure we say them with intent, if we're trying to pray with sincerity, God will know that we're praying in the name of His son.
Hi, Ke. I'm Cabeza. You may remember me from such blogs as "we might be windmills." Shark directed me here.
... as I do all my friends with good taste.
Welcome! I do know of you, have probably read your blog, and am glad you're following.
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