I've been around long enough to know how things work. You live in the past and the present as well as a little in the future all at the same time. Today was like that. I have been preparing for my priesthood lesson for almost a month. And today I taught and now it is done and gone. Sometimes when you anticipate something a lot you go through a bit of a let down when it is over. Being around family brings some of those feelings too. You enjoy the moment so much because these folks are the most important part of your life, but soon it is over and they are all on their way back home and so are you. I don't know if you catch what I am trying to say, but it is a feeling about things that is pleasant and a bit unpleasant at the same time. Some things feel like such a part of you, but at the same time they are distant in both time and space. It would seem easier if I could control the lives of the people around me, but that is a part of the feelings that I am trying to understand and describe: you just don't have control over much of the things in your life. I guess that is the way that it should be. In a marriage should either one be able to control the other? Even with parents and children should the parents CONTROL their kids or nurture and teach and raise them to be able to control themselves? Tonight we talked a little about Jeff Jensen and his desire to control those around him. His perspective seems to be self-centered and he has to see everyone else with him in a dominant role. It isn't right for him and it isn't right for anyone else either. So this 'past, present and future' idea seems to fit. The past is done so we can't change it, only learn from it. I haven't gotten good enough to really control my present because it is too complicated for me. And my dreams of the future, even reasonable ones as opposed to fantasy ones never actually happen the way that I see them in my mind. So my life requires a lot of compromise and acceptance and settling, not because I'm flawed or wrong but because that is just the way that it is. And the more that I do compromise and accept and settle the more I find satisfaction and joy because the things that I am pursuing are righteous and good and simply require more then this mortal lifetime to acquire. Does any of this make any sense to you?
You think of someone dear to you that is not with you. And yet they are with you when you think of them. And each thought comes with its own emotion. One may bring joy, another will bring sadness. Another will excite you and another will be scary. Try it out. Think of people who are important to you and ponder the feelings that come with the idea of them. The 'idea of them' can be as real as they are, and needs to be treated with as much care as they do.
DOES ANY OF THIS MAKE ANY SENSE TO YOU?
It is interesting that you post this. Today has been a battle of wills with one of my children and all I could think about was how I don't have control over anything in my life. You make it sound as if not having control, while difficult, is actually a good thing. I understand what you are saying and I am learning for myself that it is true. HOWEVER, I don't have to like it. I do with that I had more control over some things. I guess that is where faith comes in. I have to remember that there is a Heavenly Father who IS in control. He has a plan. And I can't control it. I have to accept it. But that is hardest thing of all to do. Accepting.
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