Lesson learned: He wants to see us succeed

When I was a freshman at BYU, I took Chem 101 from Dr. Zimmerman. I'm pretty sure this class was designed to weed out the strong from the weak. It was a huge class full of pre-med and pre-nursing students, and then the rest of us who were just trying to fill our GE requirement. This class frustrated me. We were graded on a bell curve. It wasn't okay for the whole class to get A's. It was expected that half of the class would get a B or worse. The professor got up, taught the material (aka read the powerpoint slides out loud), and then we were basically on our own to figure it out. The tests didn't match the homework problems. And Dr. Zimmerman had no idea who I was, didn't care if I showed up to class, and didn't care about how I did in the class.

Compare this to second grade.

In second grade, the teacher knows all of her students by name, knows their strengths and weaknesses, knows who their friends are, knows what they need to succeed, and knows where they should sit in the classroom. The teacher would be o-ver-joyed if all of her students got 100% on the test. The teacher carefully designs each lesson to meet the variety of needs in the classroom so she can best help each student. And the curriculum is intentionally designed so that all students will be able to succeed and will be ready for third grade.

Thank goodness life isn't like Chem 101. I'm thinking this life is a lot more like second grade.

Heavenly Father wants us to succeed. That is His sole purpose. He didn't set us up to fail. Why would He create a plan where only a teeny tiny percentage would be able to return to live with Him again? Yes, there are standards we must meet, and, yes, we need to put forth a lot of effort, and, yes, there are going to be difficult tests along the way. But Heavenly Father has set up everything in this life to help us, just as a second grade teacher wants to help her students.

In this last General Conference, Elder J. Devn Cornish gave a talk that explained this principal really well: "The God of heaven is not a heartless referee looking for any excuse to throw us out of the game. He is our perfectly loving Father, who yearns more than anything else to have all of His children come back home and live with Him as families forever. He truly gave His Only Begotten Son that we might not perish but have everlasting life! Please believe, and please take hope and comfort from, this eternal truth. Our Heavenly Father intends for us to make it! That is His work and His glory."

I love how encouraging and simple that is. This talk made me realize that more people are going to make it to the Celestial Kingdom than we may think. If we work hard, honestly do our best, and keep our covenants, we're going to make it.

So keep at it.

Lesson learned: There is help close by

Last week my second graders were working on opinion writing. They had to write an advertisement for their favorite drink and then present their writing to the class. Mostly everyone was okay with it, except for one girl. The idea of standing up in front of the class terrified her. When her turn came, she was already in tears and wanted me to skip her. I finally got her to come up to the front by telling the class to turn around and face the back of the classroom and offering that I could stand next to her. After she saw that no one was looking, she came up, she leaned up against my side, I put my hand on her shoulder, and she read her paper to the class. After she finished, she smiled, sat down, and the class gave her our class cheer— the ten finger woo.

I love that she did it. I love that she learned that she can do hard things. And I love that my standing next to her strengthened her. I didn't say anything. I didn't read it for her. I didn't tell her she didn't need to do it. I just stood next to her, put my arm around her, and she was able to do it.

In one of my favorite talks, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said, "My beloved brothers and sisters, I testify of angels, both the heavenly and the mortal kind. In doing so I am testifying that God never leaves us alone, never leaves us unaided in the challenges that we face... On occasions, global or personal, we may feel we are distanced from God, shut out from heaven, lost, alone in dark and dreary places. Often enough that distress can be of our own making, but even then the Father of us all is watching and assisting. And always there are those angels who come and go all around us, seen and unseen, known and unknown, mortal and immortal... Occasionally the angelic purpose is to warn. But most often it is to comfort, to provide some form of merciful attention, guidance in difficult times."

And in Doctrine & Covenants 84:88 it says, "I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up."

I love this idea. I like to believe that there are angels close by, right next to us, supporting us with their arms around us, helping us get through the hard things, just like I did for my student.

For me, I gain strength and confidence when I can actually, physically hold on to someone or be near them. Like when a friend puts her arm around me when I'm sad or when Trevor squeezes my hand when I'm nervous or when someone touches my arm when they're talking to me. I need that physical touch, that closeness, that proximity. But sometimes we don't have someone close by to hold on to. Sometimes we are alone. Or we feel alone. It's at those times that we can lean up against the heavenly help that is all around us to gain that needed strength, confidence, or comfort.

I know that help from the other side of the veil is available to us because I have experienced it. I felt that angelic help as I boarded the plane to go to Poland to start my mission. I felt it as I drove home after my appointment when I found out I was going to have a miscarriage. I felt it when the nurse told Trevor it was time for him to go before I went into surgery. And I felt it yesterday at school after I offered a heartfelt prayer in the bathroom during lunch when I wasn't sure if I would be able to finish what was turning into a rough day with my second graders.

Heavenly help is there. And it's close by.

Lesson learned: Stop trying to be someone else

I have the cutest student in my class this year. She is fair-skinned, blue-eyed, blonde, and adorable as all get out. She's a great listener, looks out for the students around her, follows all the rules, and is always smiley. Pretty much the student every teacher hopes for.

The past few days, out at recess, she's been joining the boys who play soccer and it is a hoot and a half watching her play. She runs around and looks like she knows what she's doing, but then as soon as the ball comes her away, she puts her hands up in front of her face, gets this terrified look, and just kind of freezes. Then, as soon as the ball goes away from her, she gets her game face back and runs around looking all tough again.

When the class was lining up to come in from recess, I asked her if she had had fun playing soccer. She got a big smile and told me, oh so confidently, "I love it! I'm the only girl but that's okay. I need to get lots of practice because this is my second year on a soccer team."

Her response made me smile. She didn't care that she was the only girl. She didn't care that she wasn't scoring. She didn't care that she wasn't as good as the boys. I loved that she was just out there, being herself, trying to get better, doing her thing.

The past little while, I have been wishing that I could be different. I wish I could be more adventurous, less sensitive, a bit braver, more outgoing, and not get as overwhelmed as easily. I want to be like that girl in my ward who always knows what to say and has cute hair, or that teacher who never gets frazzled, or my sister who is brave and independent, or like my husband who is always so optimistic and consistent.

I spend a lot of time comparing myself to others and wanting to be different. But I'm pretty sure that's not what Heavenly Father wants me to be doing. Heavenly Father put us all in this giant soccer game with our different personalities and strengths and weaknesses for a reason. It's okay to be the only girl. It's okay to be slower than the other players. It's okay to get nervous when the ball comes flying towards your face.

It's okay to play in the game and not be like the other players. 

I had a wise mission companion tell me once that I needed to stop trying to be like her or like Sister Spear or like Sister Free. I needed to be Sister Brown because God needed me to be in Poland. He didn't need two Sister Spears or two Sister Frees. He needed one of me, with my personality, with my testimony, and with all of my strengths and weaknesses to be there at that time.

Of course, there is always room for improvement and trying to strengthen our weaknesses, but I feel like I need to work on being proud of my personality and my strengths. So that's my new goal. Try not to compare. Focus on my strengths. Stop trying to be someone else. Be me.

Lesson learned: Unknowns can be blessings

Last week I experienced another first. I went to book club. (I'm getting in touch with my older lady mature side.) The book we read was a pretty intense true story about a boy in Africa. At one point in the story, the boy is trying to run away from soldiers who are shooting at him and he comes to a river full of crocodiles and has to swim across to get away. I was so anxious to find out if he made it across the river that I couldn't help myself and I actually skipped ahead to the end of chapter to see what happened. I know that's a major no-no, but I just couldn't handle not knowing. Once I was confident that he survived, I was able to go back to the middle and calmly read the rest of the chapter.

Sometimes I wish I could do that in life. You know, skip ahead to the end of the life chapter I'm currently in and just double-check that it will work out, then go confidently back to the middle of the chapter. But Heavenly Father doesn't tend to tell us the end when we're still in the middle. Instead, He lets us experience life as it comes but then lovingly gives us small assurances and tender mercies along the way to help us be confident in moving forward and to get us through the discomfort of not knowing how it's all going to turn out.

I've wanted to see the end of the chapter so many times in my life. I hate being in limbo land, before the decision is made, when I don't know how it will work out. It happened when I was in college and I couldn't sign up for classes because I couldn't decide on a major because I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life because I didn't know if I'd be working for 1 year, 10 years, or if I would need to support myself for the rest of my life. And it happened again when I was trying to decide if I wanted to serve a mission but I was hesitant to turn in my papers because I didn't know if I'd be able to be a good missionary, learn the language, and be okay living possibly super far away from home. And it really happened when I was feeling stuck in my "finding an eternal companion" chapter. (See that blog post here.)

In all of these situations, I just wanted to peek ahead and be reassured that it would work out, that I would be successful, that I was making the right choice, that things would be okay, and that there were good things in store for me. But, thankfully, Heavenly Father is in charge, not me, and He has shown me that there is a whole lot of goodness that can come from having some unknowns in life.

When there are unknowns, we are forced to be anxiously engaged in moving forward, we get to choose to be hopeful, we get to be diligent in staying close to our Heavenly Father through earnest prayer, we get to choose faith over doubt, we get to trust His timing, we get to learn through the struggle, we get to be brave and show courage, we get to turn to the scriptures, conference talks, and loved ones for answers and guidance, and we get to have experiences all throughout that life chapter that change us and mold us. These experiences and blessings wouldn't be ours if we knew all of the endings.

I recently have had to put this principal to test, yet again. A couple of months ago, Trevor and I started the exciting nine month pregnancy chapter. Sadly, this chapter ended up being a shorter chapter than we had expected. So we then turned the page to begin the miscarriage chapter and now we are on to the next chapter, which I'm not sure what to call yet. I have been tempted to be discouraged by this new chapter and I've felt that familiar unsettled feeling start to creep in as I so wish that I knew how this next chapter was going to turn out. But, instead of getting sucked into all of that, I am trying to draw from past experiences, remembering that it's okay to not have a set plan, paying attention to the feelings of calm and peace that are coming our way, and I am trying to look for the lessons that I will get to learn in this new chapter.

And I keep thinking of these words from one of my favorite hymns: "Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see the distant scene— one step enough for me." I know it's easier said than done (and I'm mostly saying this for my own benefit) but we do not need to be afraid of the unknown. We can trust the Author of our chapters and just keep reading along, page by page. It will all work out.