Filling My Cup

Today church was one of those great days when you feast on the extra helpings of the spirit you've been needing. Sacrament meeting was fab in and of itself. We have a lady in our ward who's from Portugal. She moved here to work so she can help her son go to school, and when he's done then she will move back to Portugal. She shared her conversion story and testimony, and she just radiated. It really helped me reflect on the depth of my own testimony. Sometimes it's so nice to feed Sam during sacrament meeting and have those quiet moments in the mother's room to really listen to the talks and bond with my baby instead. The next two talks were by a new couple in the ward, and they were about faith-totally a topic I was needing a lesson in! I visit teach the girl, and she actually was friends with Pat in high school. She gave a fabulous talk about how faith is part of everything that we do everyday. She talked about being a YW camp counselor, and a girl with developmental disabilities was in their group, and she told all the girls to find a quiet place to pray and exercise faith in Heavenly Father. This girl came running back crying, and Belinda, the girl giving the talk, was very concerned. She asked the YW what was wrong, and she cried "He's really there. I prayed to Heavenly Father that if He was really there, would He send me a butterfly, and I opened my eyes, and there was the butterfly." Typing it out now, it sounds kind of cheesy, but I could really relate to the miracle in this story, that Heavenly Father really is there, and how kind He is to answer the prayers of this disabled YW in the way that would best help her, and how He answers all of our prayers in the manner that best helps all of us. Our answers are suited to us because He knows us even better than we know ourselves. I also realized that we all have our own "butterflies" all around us, sometimes we just have to open our eyes and recognize them. Her husband's talk was hilarious, but he got passed the dreaded time's up note because we'd had a baby blessing and musical # leaving him with not a lot of time. It was really a shame, because for once it was one of those meetings that had gone over but hadn't left me totally annoyed with the current speaker making the meeting drag on!
In Relief Society, we did lesson 17 in the Spencer W. Kimball manual about chastity. I was somewhat less than thrilled when I read the lesson yesterday and saw the topic, because I think we've all been through our fair share of these lessons, many of which have been not so hot. However, today's lesson was great! We spent the bulk of the time discussing attitudes regarding chastity and what attitudes our children should have about it and how we teach those attitudes to our children. My comment was that I feel like my generation of YW grew up hearing "no no no" so much without any regard for the beautiful, reverent, appropriate aspects of intimacy, that I know many who have had a hard time flipping the switch from "no no no" to "yes yes yes". I really hope that I can find ways to communicate to my kids a few different things:
1. Your bodies are amazing gifts from Heavenly Father. I really liked the talk in conference a few years ago by Susan Tanner about the sanctity of the body. I need to go back and re-read it. I want my kids to have a great body image so they're never struggling with self-esteem and using their bodies in ways that they think will bring them more "worth."
2. Heavenly Father has set boundaries to bring us lasting joy and peace and prevent consequences of heartache and suffering. I definitely have some of my own stories to share of frogs I kissed that I wish I'd avoided, and I hope they can learn some of these lessons without having to endure the pain on their own.
3. Intimacy is a sacred and wonderful experience in the right circumstances. Now how I'm going to communicate that to my kids without having them be totally grossed out is beyond me, but I really think that prayerfully I'll know how to do this.
One of the points made in the lesson is that we need to teach our children about chastity, but also speak about it hundreds of times. We can't just pat ourselves on the backs after "the talk" and say I'm so awesome because I got that one taken care of. I've really recognized there are things I've already begun to talk about with Addie at age 2 that I know are laying the ground work for a positive future in this aspect. We already have discussions about being modest, about her awesome body that works so well, and about making sure that no one touches her inappropriately. I really believe that we have to start having these talks now so they're common place and can be built upon as she's ready to receive more. Ok, I've had enough chastity talk for now.

Here's hoping for a great week this week filled with wonderful job news. Last week was rough, so this had better be a good one to make up for some of the days that were not so hot. I think I need to take charge of the things I can be in charge of to be confident that some fun will be had at the Felt house this week!