My perspective on God

I’m having a hard time discerning when the transition happened. Was it a moment of clarity or more gradual like the wakening day? 

Thankfully, we weren’t a highly orthodox family growing up.  So that gave me plenty of room to figure things out for myself; I’ve never had to overcome familial teachings or culture.  More of that came from the church and my own limited understanding of doctrine. 

However, in high school, I clung to the church and its teachings—or what I assumed were its teachings—because I longed for the “ideal.”  I remember wanting so desperately what I considered the traditional, “happy” Mormon family and felt drawn to and fell in love with what I learned at church and even, I’d say its culture. I loved everything BYU and it was my focused goal to go there someday. I had quotes and posters all over my room with motivational thoughts and scriptures. I kept a journal, read my scriptures, and if there was a church gathering of any kind I wanted to be at it; I soaked it all up. I dreamed of having kids and wrote to and about them throughout my journals. I wanted to create the ideal within my life.

But I think growing up in the 80s shaped me in a way that led to self-righteousness and rigid thinking.  And looking back at old talks, books, and even seminary and leaders, I can totally see where I got those thoughts. I wanted to be “good.” There was a definitive right way and wrong way to live. Why I didn’t realize there could be a different way of thinking, I’m not sure. Except maybe that felt risky, unsafe, disrespectful? There were definitely all sorts of people I encountered who were doing life all kinds of ways.  Most of it looked pretty good, but I leaned heavily on wanting to be “righteous.” I think I just wanted a happy, peaceful life for my future family and somehow pieced it together that the church was my vehicle.  I cringe, though, looking back at how judgmental, pious, and self-righteous I have been throughout my life.  I feel now that it’s because I just didn’t have a strong foundation of who God was; I didn’t understand His nature and the basic doctrines of Christ’s gospel.  He was a far-off God that I couldn’t relate to; I just wanted maybe to please him, make him proud, prove myself? I was naive and young in my learning all through college and young motherhood.  I felt guilty for the choices I made that weren’t in alignment with gospel teachings because I felt I should know better.  But I didn’t have the wherewithal to recognize that I could ask for help and grace, that there was so much power available; I relied on my own willpower and grit, and I floundered.  Intellectually, I knew I didn’t have to actually be perfect, but I thought I should be striving for it.

I’ve listened to, read, and attended so many discussions of ideas that have been instrumental in shifting my thoughts.  So that’s going back years and years; my paradigm gradually began to relax through college.  And this is where it gets fuzzy.  I know as a young mom I berated myself for getting things “wrong.”  I think, looking back, this was new territory, and what I did affected not only me but my family.  I wanted to do all the things I dreamed of as a young person to create the family life I envisioned.  Many of the traditions and habits we started were good, and I’d do them all again.  But many times I’d overwhelm myself with expectations, certain that God was disappointed with me.  I had so many good ideas (ideals?) circulating in my head that I felt overloaded, wanting to do and be them all.  This kind of thinking made me tired and frustrated sometimes.  I know I had good intentions, I was just a little misguided.

I also used to fret over whether people came to church or not. Given the backdrop of my youth and the teachings I misconstrued, it weighed on me.  Although it’s taken many yeas to get to this point, I honestly can’t imagine stressing over it. I just trust that they’ll figure things out on their own and come to whatever conclusions they decide on.  I have absolutely no urgency for needing people to be anything—including myself.  The only urgency I feel is in feeling that I have so much to learn, so many people I want to help, so much good I want to do… I can’t WAIT to get up in the mornings and get so annoyed that I have to sleep.  I just love being up and doing God’s work, truly.  I have so much more energy now because I’ve taken everyone else’s life off my to-do list, including my husband’s and my kids’.  They all know what they need/want out of life; I’m free to do my own living and it feels glorious.

Like most of you, I’m way, way, way less judgmental since becoming a parent.  I can totally understand how a mom can want to strangle her child or how she can sink into depression and want to watch tv and eat all day.  I get that teens wear and say and watch and do whatever they want; nothing I say really changes any of that—if I care about agency at all, which I totally do.  I have strong thoughts about how and why we do things as a family, a couple, and individuals, but I’m trying to let people do their own lives and love them, parents, kids, all of them.  I want to align my parenting with the way God parents: full of love and allowance.

I absolutely don’t see this life as a test the way I did when I was growing up.  I see every experience in my day as a way to learn and as practice.  I feel like I’m just taking it one day at a time and learn a little bit each week or month.  I also feel like I’m in constant communication with Heavenly Father, and so it even feels a little forced to kneel down and pray, so formal and so extra when we’ve already been talking all day.  I don’t get down on myself as much anymore.  I just try to quickly acknowledge to myself and whoever it affects and to God: that wasn’t my best, got it.  I’ll try super hard to remember to not do that again, but I might still, oh well. That’s what I tell my kids, “Let’s try again.” And I feel like God is saying, “Perfect, let’s move on, we really have so much we need to do and that I want to show you.” And I agree; I hate wallowing and wasting time in regret. But that’s really the extent of my repentance process. It’s not stressful. I do it a million times a day.  But I don’t think of God being mad at or disappointed with me.  I feel like he’s my coach, and I just work side by side with him all day and try to remember all the things I’m learning so I can keep doing better moving forward.  Not so I can look better, but so that I can love and serve better.  I know now that I have his spirit with me all the time.  I don’t need to gear up for it when I have a question or need to ask for his help, I don’t worry that I haven’t read my scriptures long enough that day or even if it’s been a few days.  I just know he’s there, totally eager to help with anything.  And I mean this about God the Father, God the Christ, and God the Holy Spirit—interchangeably. 

But this has been my thinking for so long now that I can’t even remember when it changed. I’ve never been afraid of him or thought he was a harsh or judgmental God.  (When people make a big deal about the God of the Old Testament, I’m amused.  I can’t imagine a God like that; for people to debate about it feels like a complete waste of time.  Just ask Him who He is, it’ll take one second for you to know that’s not Him.) No, I just felt bad disappointing him because I love him so much.  But I don’t feel that way one bit anymore, not at all.  I just feel absolute love and confidence from him like he’s cheering me on and motivating me to keep going. I feel a deep love between us—me for him and him for me.  I see myself literally as a child, and when I mess up I see myself recognizing what didn’t work and maybe why I did it.   I give myself a ton of grace and just realize I’m human; I’m young, I’m still figuring things out, and I honestly feel like I’ll be doing this for a long, long time. :)  I feel a lot more peace about my shortcomings and misguiding thinking and the things I say or do that aren’t all that great.  I recognize that most of the time I’m acting out of ignorance or pain or fear (not from God, but from judgment of others maybe?) when I’m not my best self.  But I honestly move through things pretty quickly.  The times I feel anguish is when I’ve hurt someone’s feelings or said/done something without thinking.  There’s nothing about God in it, just that I feel so sad for not having been more sensitive or thoughtful.  Not to say this is always how I operate, just more now than in the past.  I still get stuck sometimes.

My mentors are humble people.  My favorites are the ones who do the ground-level work in the world, serving in small ways no one sees; I can’t dismiss the feelings of goodness I feel emanating from them.  I love it when people are honest and open, not glossy and fancy and perfect.  I always feel like we have most things in common.  I figure we all want to be noticed and loved.  I think we all want to contribute and belong.  I admire those who recognize this in others and who are trying to encourage and lift people.  I don’t care what they look like, watch, drink, wear, or do; I just love being around people who go about doing good and making the world better.

All I know is that the older I get, the less I care about most things that maybe I worried about as a teenager and even as a younger mom.  What I try to focus on now is knowing how to love better, like Christ does.  I want to understand people, I want to hear them, I want them to feel God’s love, I want them to know the God I know, I want them to access his grace and power and love and stop making life so hard for themselves.  I feel very little rigidity, and I feel like I’m only sure about maybe 4-5 things. I feel tons of peace even as I admittedly feel the heaviness of the world.  I just sense myself becoming a little softer, a little kinder, a little less judgmental over the years, and I really like the way it feels.  I feel a lot more confident because it feels like I have God’s power and love with me.  I’m not trying to earn it or prove myself to him or anyone, I’m just living with it all the time.

New mom

Like the first time around, I had a vague idea of what to expect because I was a reader. I’d never been around babies before and none of my friends had babies yet. I’d hear snippets of conversations from others more experienced, I’d see a bit here and there, but I honestly had no idea what it would feel like up close and personal until I actually had my own babies.  Fast-forward twenty-plus years and I feel like I’m doing it all over for the first time. Because as our sons gradually became more serious with their now-wives, it started to dawn on me that, as comfortable I’d become in my role as a mother, I was now venturing into unfamiliar territory. 

To be honest, I’m amazed at the ease in which I go right back into my mothering role when I babysit a young child, even this far removed from having toddlers of my own at home.  I know to cut up the food in small bits, and I use the little cups.  My board books take me back decades, reminding me of the comfort of small bodies next to mine as we read on the couch, and I relish the simple pleasure of young company as we water the flowers and watch the chickens together.  It comes back effortlessly, familiar and easy.

But this isn’t mothering in any way I’ve ever known.  Because I’m not their moms.  Not in the sense that I’m who they’ll want in a delivery room or who they’ll ask advice from as they raise kids.  They have their own mothers.  And yet there’s still mother in the title of who I am.

I think that’s because of the love that naturally comes as we see our sons choosing their life partners.  It’s inherent with the label. Out of nowhere, even as I was and am still getting to know each of them, I feel the same unconditional, overwhelming love I had for my own babies as I met and started to get to know them.  I didn’t know what to expect as we welcomed these women into our family; I just never realized I could love other children the way I love my own.  No one ever mentioned this to me, maybe it’s so obvious that no one needed to.

I pray for these new daughters just as I do my sons.  And when I do, I visualize little hearts exploding around them like the emojis we all know from our texts, hoping they can feel the love Todd and I have for them across the miles. It’s ridiculous, I know, but I like the visual; it makes me smile wishing that it could be for real, kind of like the glitter and confetti that spilled out of our jr. high locker notes. We love hearing them with our sons on the other end of the phone on late Sunday nights and having them come for long weekend visits.  We are constantly impressed with their accomplishments and learn so much from their perspectives: young and educated, fresh and forward-thinking. We love their blended personalities that are the perfect complements to their husbands; we couldn’t have arranged any better companions for them.

As far as what I’m to do with it all, it’s both complicated and straightforward: nothing much.  Just as I constantly asked more experienced moms for advice when I was a young mom, I’ve started asking some of my younger friends what they like about their in-laws.  Overall, the consensus is, “Don’t give advice and don’t talk about family members.” Fair enough.

I also ask my grandma friends what I’m supposed to be doing. Their responses make me laugh.  I’ve never seen my competent, wise, accomplished, able, resourceful, and experienced friends look so uncertain.  They shrug.  They regrettably have nothing for me; they still aren’t sure how to do it themselves.  Just like no one really talks about the realities of nursing, not many are forthcoming when it comes to parenting adult children.  Most of my friends just shake their heads and admit it’s the hardest part of all parenting.  But when pressed, they finally tell me to just love them.  There’s nothing more to do. Easy enough.  My only question then was how to love them so they know and feel it.

I heard a friend speak a few weeks back, and he answered this perfectly.  He mentioned how our young kids need our time while our adult children need our acceptance. Even as I sort of intuitively felt something of that idea in the back of my mind, I wasn’t sure how to articulate it.  Until he said it, I’d never heard it so succinctly, so clearly. It felt spot on.

I know I’ve always wanted my own in-laws to be proud of us and the family we’ve created.  I’ve wanted them to be happy with the wife their son chose all those years ago.  I’ve wanted them to be proud of the way we’ve raised their grandkids and lived our lives as a family.  That’s all I’ve ever wanted from them.  We can mostly work out things ourselves, we’ve figured out money, what jobs to do, where to move, how we want to parent, how to make our marriage work.  There are books, friends, and a million online resources to help us with all that.  But validation and acceptance, that’s something we long for from our parents as adults.  Luckily I’ve only ever felt love and warm acceptance from both sets of parents.

So now as a parent myself, I long for these beautiful new daughters of ours to know how thankful we are to have them in our family.  We know they have their families with their own parents, we get that.  But we welcome what they bring to ours, their traditions, their personalities, their perspectives, their ways of making a life for their new family unit.  We love hearing their opinions, how they see the world, what they hope for the future, and how they’ll do things in their own families.  They are miles ahead of where we started, so wise and polished at such a young age.  We marvel to ourselves all the time how lucky and grateful we are to have them in our family.

It’s only been a year or so that we’ve known these women.  But how can they possibly know how much we already love them and how much joy they’ve added to our lives?  It’s all the tiniest things.  Her cute little accent and how English is still a little confounding for her and how patient she is as our son tries to learn Spanish and as she tries to figure out all the games he wants her to play.  It’s the thoughtful way she knows exactly the right gifts to get us and how she makes her home so comfortable and warm and reflective of them.  It’s their intellect and their strengths, the ways they express themselves, their laughs, the way they instantly became big sisters to our other kids, their work ethic and drive, their adventurous natures and willingness to try new things, their love for the outdoors and exploring, how they look at our sons, the dreams they have for the future, their mothering spirits, the way we can just tell they will be fabulous moms.

I don’t mean to gush, but it’s so similar to the enthusiasm I felt as a first-time mom where I wanted everyone to see my babies. It just feels exciting to me, these additional children coming to us all these years later, the rest of our family filling in.  I’ve always been disappointed we couldn’t have more children, but I didn’t ever realize the fulfillment that daughters-in-law would bring.  I’m still so new at this, admittedly clumsy and awkward, with so much to learn, but I’m hoping to eventually get the hang of it.  Just love them. I guess I’m hoping they will someday realize how deeply we love them, how much they’ve added to our life just by being in it.  But I don’t know that they will until they’re mothers-in-law themselves.