There are times in my life when I feel that there is simply too much good to do, and there probably is. I suppose I need to hang on to the best things and drop some good things off my schedule. At any rate, there are days when I feel overwhelmed.
This happened in the beginning of January when we were asked to finish our visiting teaching by the fifteenth of each month. That's all fine and dandy because I like being a visiting teacher...except that I'm not sure that some of my assigned sisters like being visiting teachees.
I was frustrated so I started to complain to Andrew, which opened up plenty of other complaints. I just felt that I had too much to do with home teaching and visiting teaching and music and the primary and then Andrew was constantly being taken away from me to do fast offerings and taking the sacrament to bed-ridden members in addition to fulfilling his other callings and on and on and on. With school and work and parenthood and...I just kept listing complaints. Lesson learned: don't complain--once you start, you can't stop.
The next morning we heard some noise at our door. Andrew went to see what it was: a visiting teaching assignment. I had been assigned yet another sister.
It was about enough to throw me over the edge. Another thing to do!
Then I read my scriptures. 1 Nephi 3:5, "I have not required it of [you,] but it is a commandment of the Lord."
That's right, I thought, the Lord is asking me to do it, not people.
Verse 6, "...thou shalt be favored of the Lord, because thou hast not murmured."
Oh, great, I thought, there go my blessings...
Verse 7, "...I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them."
That's when I realized that if I tried, and depended on the Lord, I would get into the homes of the sisters that didn't want to see me...somehow. I just didn't know how. Truthfully I still don't know how and it kind of hurts that my phone calls go unanswered and unreturned and that one of the sisters said she doesn't even want to meet me. My thoughts were rambling through my head...
Good thing I never served a mission...I never would have gotten in a door. I would be the cursed companion that was passed around the mission from one unfortunate companion to the next.
And I wasn't really paying attention to what was on the page until I came to verses 15 and 16, " As the Lord liveth, and as we live, we will not go down unto our father...until we have accomplished the thing which the Lord hath commanded us....Let us be faithful in keeping the commandments of the Lord."
I can't tell you the end of this story because I still wasn't able to do 100% of my visiting teaching this month. No miraculous miracle occurred, other than that I was spurred on to try a little harder. Perhaps that's why these scriptures stood out so profoundly to me when I read them.
I think that one of the best examples of someone doing this (this=being faithful in keeping the commandments of the Lord and not being weary in well doing) is President Gordon B. Hinckley.
He served his whole life long. Always giving, always leading, always fulfilling any capacity that was his duty with a cheerful spirit. I don't doubt that being the prophet isn't always a fun role to fill. He probably worked harder in his old age than any other person, completely sacrificing his life for the gospel. He definitely had less time off than I have had.
I hope that someday I can be as willing to bend my will to the Lord's. I'm grateful for what I've learned from President Hinckley. I know that the words he spoke were the words of the Lord. President Hinckley was a great man and a wonderful example. I will miss seeing him and hearing him speak at General Conference but I am happy that he and his wife have been reunited. I imagine they were both rather lonely for each other. I know that President Monson will make a wonderful prophet and am looking forward to being able to sustain him.
Chill, love. What they never tell you is that you can send letters and make phone calls if you have to, if you can't make contact any other way. They also don't tell you that stastically speaking, 100% VTing means a face to face visit once every three months. Also... keep in mind that several of the talks in the last few GCs have focused very much on balancing your lives, including choosing the best things (your family) and not letting yourself get so overwhelmed with random church stuff that you lose sight of what it's really all about. Now, I know you're not losing sight at all... but don't lose perspective, either! What Heavenly Father really expects you to do right now is raise that little girl. At the end of it all, the rest will just be secondary to how that bit has come along. Besides, we can't be perfect in this life. And if some of your VT sisters don't want to be contacted at all, well, you tell the RS presidency and they're supposed to take them off the list. So be comforted! :)
ReplyDeleteAmen to what Heidi says. Nancy, you are wonderful. And so are you, Heidi.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Myrna. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks. It's good to know some of what you said, Heidi. I think we need a visiting teaching manual that tells you all this stuff--do they have one of those? They just kind of throw you in there once you get into RS, don't they?
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm really doing fine--it was just an "overload" experience that I had a few weeks ago.
(thanks mom!)