Just FYI

In case you were wondering, if you're "smart" enough to wrap your chicken breasts in saranwrap before you freeze them, in an effort to save time so you won't have to unstick them when you want to use them, you will spend approximately 20 minutes trying to pry saranwrap out from in between the parts of the chicken that have been frozen together. You know, just a helpful life hint.

Yeah, Baby

Life and Timing and Lack of Control

Not long ago I was talking to my dad on the phone. With a very few, rare exceptions this is an activity I enjoy immensely. While I no longer think my dad knows everything, he has the advantage of years of experience and has struggled with many of the same things I do. On this particular occasion we were discussing life, and how it never seems to go the way I want/expect/hope/plan for it to. I am hard-pressed to come up with even a single example of life working out that way. On the other hand, the list of things that have gone in a completely different direction than I thought they would is long. 

During this talk with my dad, I brought up something a friend and I had been talking about previously, about how very little of what we want for ourselves seems to be what the Lord wants for us. We both confessed to being concerned about this -- are we too stubborn? too prideful? not in touch with the Spirit enough? Surely I should be concerned that every single big life-changing event in my life has included a long period of denial before I finally resigned myself to it, and that none of my life plans have unfolded remotely like I wanted them to.

Just a little while later, that same friend was teaching in church and shared this quote from this talk by Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles:

"How fundamentally different my life is than I had sought to plan. My professional life has changed. My personal life has changed. But the commitment I made to the Lord -- to put Him first in my life and to be ready for whatever He would have me do -- has carried me through these changes of eternal importance... It never ceases to amaze me that even when we plan out our lives to match up what we think would please our Heavenly Father we very rarely get the plan quite right. It's a good thing he is willing to make changes to our plans even when we don't understand the changes. It allows us to grow and become so much more than we ever would have made of ourselves had we stuck to our original plan."

It struck me upon rereading it today: If an apostle of the Lord hasn't had his life work out the way he expected, I'm certainly in good company.

The difference is, I'm sure he has handled it with much more grace and faith than I have. Particularly lately. I have been struggling so much with finding purpose and direction in my life when I know whatever plans I make will ultimately just get interrupted or derailed. I struggle with flexibility and adapting myself and my goals to situations that are thrust upon me. I feel overwhelmed with the magnitude of the choices facing me and paralyzed at the thought of somehow screwing up and loosing opportunities I desperately want, personally and professionally. But, as my father has told me repeatedly throughout my life, making no choice is still making a choice. The irony of the situation is that by procrastinating or shelving making decisions I end up losing all the opportunities before me I'm delaying having to decide on and am forced to choose things I would never have wanted for myself.

The truth is that no one's life works out exactly the way they thought it would, because no one can know what's waiting for them just ahead, invisible around the bend in the road. We cannot control the decisions of others or the Lord's timing, both of which have tremendous impact on our lives.

However, Elder Oaks addressed this in another version of those same remarks:

"Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ prepares us for whatever life brings. This kind of faith prepares us to deal with life's opportunities -- to take advantage of those that are received and to persist through the disappointments of those that are lost. In the exercise of that faith, we should commit ourselves to the priorities and standards we will follow on matters we do not control and persist faithfully in those commitments, whatever happens to us because of the agency of others or the timing of the Lord. When we do this, we will have a constancy in our lives that will give us direction and peace. Whatever the circumstances beyond our control, our commitments and standards can be constant."

As much as I'm resisting what I'm being taught, I know that this is what I'm supposed to be learning. To let go of my rigid, detailed expectations and trust that the Lord knows what is best for me, and the best time for those best things for me.

"It is not enough that we are going in the right direction. The timing must be right, and if the time is not right, our actions should be adjusted to the Lord's timetable." 

Not that that faith and trust is a passive thing. It requires me to make those preparations so that I can take the opportunities that the Lord would have me pursue. And I also need to remember something my father said wrote:

"The lesson for me is that, certainly the Lord shapes us, but he does so chiefly within the circumstances we are handed and we choose. He helps us make the best choices based on his vision and our willingness to be shaped and to be patient. The lesson is that “this is a test,” and that as a test, it will hurt sometimes. In the end, however, the atonement is large enough to “wipe away all tears.”"

Sister Therapy

Amen.

Night Hiking: NOT a good idea

None of these are from this hike (my camera's  dead). They're from my mission.

It's officially fall here. It's been getting gradually cooler and the leaves have been starting to display hints of color for weeks, but this last Wednesday it was like someone suddenly flipped a switch and it was autumn in earnest. The daytime temperature dropped about fifteen degrees Fahrenheit and the nighttime temperatures dipped into the low forties. I woke up Thursday morning shivering (I only had one blanket on my bed and my bed is right under the window) with a cold nose for the first time since probably March. Since autumn is my favorite season this isn't really a bummer. I enjoy cardigans and sweaters and hoodies and I almost always wear long pants anyway.

But that's not the point of this post. Or rather, that's only to give you the necessary background for this post. Along with the gorgeous autumn leaves and the cooler temperatures comes the only thing I don't like about fall: less light. It gets darker faster. Well, a friend and I, hearing how gorgeous the canyon was with all the fall leaves, decided to leave right after work to go do a hike up there. We'd decided on a 3-miler that winds up the mountain, across the top of a small ridge, and back down again. Since it's not an up-and-down hike, we'd also have a 1.5 mile walk back to the car once we got back down the mountain: all together, 4.5 miles. We got there in pretty good time, and we started up about 5:30. The thing is, that hike is steep. And I am out of shape. Plus, I like to stop and admire the scenery from many different angles on the way up (and rest, because I'm very out of shape).

The rumors weren't wrong -- the trees were stunning and the views on the way up the trail and at the top were gorgeous, especially as the setting sun sunk behind the mountains. The problem is that we were only about halfway done by about 7, which is when (right now) the sun starts to set in earnest. On top of that, instead of hiking east to west so we'd be on the west side of the mountain coming down, we'd hiked west-to-east and were making our way down a very steep path in the rapidly fading light. And we hadn't thought to bring a flashlight. Or rather, we'd thought, but hadn't turned that thought into action. Let me tell you, coming down a mountain when you can barely see five feet in front of you is a little nerve-wracking. Thankfully (and with the help of some whispered prayers), we made it to the bottom right as full dark fell. That still left us with a 1.5 mile treck along the river at the bottom of the canyon to make it back to the car in the dark. With no flashlight.

Well, obviously this story ends well since I'm here to update about it. But it certainly wasn't my finest hour. Nor am I particularly anxious to reprise the experience. Once was one time too many. And it was great to sit in a car with headlights (the climb up did something painful to my left hip flexor, and the climb down made my knees and toes very unhappy). However, it was almost worth it for the chance to see the amazing fall foliage up close and breathe in the crisp, autumn air. On the other hand, my poor legs hate me today, particularly that hip flexor. I've been hobbling around like an old person and avoiding stairs (a challenge, since I live in the basement). Next time I'm going to take a sturdy walking stick with me. Gandalf's staff with the glow-y crystal would have been handy.