Why I Fit

Recently I read an article written by a women who felt like she didn't have a place in her ward because she was a young, married women with no children.  She felt like she didn't relate to those around her and they didn't relate to her.  Because of this, she didn't like to be in Relief Society on Sunday and she didn't like the additional meetings at all.  She said she just didn't fit.

I'll admit.  It annoyed me.

You would think if anyone would agree with her, it would be me.  I've spent my whole life as a single female in a church where we constantly talk about marriage and family.  I've had to teach lessons on marriage or raising children as I've served in Young Women and Relief Society.  I've sometimes sat through those lessons on marriage and family with a broken and heavy heart and struggled to hold back the tears.  I've listened as well-intended sisters speculate as to why I'm still single and some who very bluntly tell me what it will take for my marital status to change.  I've attended many additional Relief Society meetings that had to do with families or couples.  But here is why I fit.

I'm a child of God.

That's why we all fit.  We forget sometimes that we are all here, trying to make it back home.  Every Single One of Us!!  We are all in the same spot.  We struggle with daily challenges and really hard things.  Those "hard things" are different for each us, but they are hard and we all have them.  We fit because there are times for each of us when we are doing everything we can but we feel tested and tried and we emerge from those situations stronger and more faithful.  Sometimes, though, we don't.  Sometimes we question and doubt and struggle. Sometimes we can be bitter.  That also helps us fit.  We've all been there.  We are brothers and sisters who can't make it home alone.  We need to help each other and love each other.

The reason I can look out on a congregation of women and feel like I belong is because I do.  The Gospel of Jesus Christ binds us together; the fact that we have the same Father in Heaven binds us together.  Our mortal journey is unique and tailored for each of us, but we are all trying to make it back.  This makes us the same.  This is why we fit!!

Mother's Day

This morning as I was getting ready for church I was listening as my brother-in-law and my nephews were upstairs preparing breakfast for my sister.  I'll admit that I started feeling a bit sorry for myself.  I was looking in the mirror in the bathroom as tears started to run down my face.  Things felt unfair.  In fact, I probably said that out loud.  This sweet feeling came over me and I almost heard someone say to me, "I have given you this gift to make things not so hard to bare."

I'm embarrassed to admit that it had never occurred to me that the times that my siblings and their families had been with me was a gift from Heavenly Father.  I love having them here and have always felt thankful that I have been a position to help out when necessary, but it means so much more now, knowing that He placed them here for me.

Perhaps I will never bare children in this life and maybe no one will ever call me mother, but I'm so thankful that a loving Father has given me opportunities to fill that void in my life.  It's true that a fullness of joy comes from ones posterity, but I will be forever thankful for the joy I feel when the sweet voice of a niece or nephew calls out to me, runs into my arms, or gives me a hug.

Look Forward with Steadfastness unto Christ

I have had a tough couple of days!!  I had to deal with some issues at work that were so hard and uncomfortable, I had a two hour expensive and painful dentist appointment, and then this afternoon something happened that caused an emotional breakdown.  As I was sitting here tonight, feeling a little sorry for myself, I was reading my scriptures, since I got up late and didn't get to it this morning.  I'll admit that I was half heartedly reading when I read, "Look forward with steadfastness unto Christ."  It was almost like someone was speaking right to me!

Of course I started to cry.  I've done that a few times times today.  I read it over and over again and had the same feeling each time, "There are better things ahead.  Hold on.  Don't give up.  Look forward, not back.  Be steadfast and He will help you.  You can do it!!" And I know I can.

I have always struggled with my weight.  I think I was 13 the first time I thought I was fat.  I wasn't, of course, but I wasn't as thin as other girls were.  Sometimes going through puberty does that.  By the time I was in high school, I had thinned out and I felt pretty confident in how I looked.  I remember as a junior in high school walking from the seminary building back to the school with my boyfriend.  Some kid yelled from one of the third story windows, "Hey, big butt" and that's all it took for me to be self conscious and to think I was fat.  One stupid comment that I have remembered for 25 years.

The result of that comment was that I started to panic about my weight.  When I panic about things, the result usually isn't very good and for some reason, what I'm worried about usually happens.  Suddenly by the end of my freshman year of college I had gained 40 pounds and that same high school boyfriend told me when he got home from his mission that I had "changed too much".  He said that the first time he saw me so I knew it wasn't my personality that had changed.  I had lost someone I loved because of what I looked like.  It was devastating.  

I went on a mission, not because he didn't want to marry me, but because I knew it was the right thing.  My mission was such a great experience for me.  While I did lose the 40 pounds, it was during my mission that I discovered so much about myself.  I loved the gospel, I was smart, sometimes I could even be funny, and people liked me.  I discovered there was more to me that what I had always thought.  In my final interview with my mission president, among other things, he told me how important it was that I never gained weight.  "It makes it very difficult for your husband to love you and stay attracted to you if you gain weight," he told me.  And I believed him!

When I got home I felt like I could do anything.  But in the back of my mind (sometimes not so far back) I remembered what he said to me and I panicked about my weight.  

In the first year after my mission I dated two guys pretty seriously.  One of them was actually engaged to someone else so I guess we weren't as serious as I thought we were, and the other just disappeared.  I suppose he thought it was better than telling me that he didn't want to see me anymore, but it wasn't.  My irrational conclusion to the failed relationships was that, of course, I wasn't thin enough and I knew that my mission president was right.  My weight spiraled out of control.  I rationalized that if a man could love me when I was overweight, then I wouldn't have to worry about it, and as the years passed, a lot of them, I concluded that I would never get married and somehow I was okay with that.  

I think I was 34 or so when I met someone.  I really liked him and I thought he liked me.  It turned out that he didn't but it took a couple of years for me to realize it.  During that time, I felt like a new person.  There was something about feeling loved by someone that made me better.  

Suddenly I was losing weight.  At first it wasn't even conscious, it was just happening.  I lost 80 pounds.  I joined a gym with my sisters and we were going at 5 in the morning.  I felt great.  While I really struggled realizing that this person I really liked didn't like me in the same way, I started dating, relying on online dating sites.  I met some crazy guys and some great ones, and then I met "him".  

He was tall and handsome and interested in me.  He told me he loved me, he was affectionate, and I loved spending time with him.  At first I felt like a love sick teenager.  I couldn't eat or sleep.  I continued losing weight but late nights made early mornings at the gym almost impossible.  He started to make comments about "all the beautiful women" he would see and I started to feel incredibly self conscious, but we continued to date.  We even decided to get married, but he changed his mind, saying that he didn't want to look back and realize that he'd settled.  

Six months later he said he'd made a big mistake, he knew we were supposed to get married and would I please give him another chance.  I did, but four months later we were sitting in a car and he mentioned that he was surrounded by all these beautiful women and he didn't know if he could be without that for all of eternity.  I had some good qualities and he thought that could make up for how I looked, but it couldn't.  We were through.

Every single day I thought about what he said to me.  Every day the reality of what my mission president said to me felt like it was shoved in my face.  During the next three years, I gained weight, a lot of it, and felt less than good about myself.  While I started and stopped several diets, I gave up, wondering what the point was.

Sometime near the end of last year I started feeling that I really needed to remember who I am - who I really am.  I know that Heavenly Father loves me and that I am His daughter, but I struggle to see myself as He does.  I wonder why that is true.  Why do the things other people say about me carry more weight than what my Heavenly Father knows about me?  Why do I let it?  How can comments from a few people about how I look make more of an impact in my life than hundreds of comments from people who love me?

I see commercials all the time about weight loss.  I was part of a facebook group about it.  The message is always the same - you can't be happy and people won't love you unless you are a certain size.  That's simply not true. Those people who really love me do so because they DO see me as Heavenly Father does. I am entitled to as much happiness as anyone else and I can feel it.

This year I want to spend time discovering what it is about me that my Heavenly Father loves.  I want to be able put aside the comments of others and always remember that He loves me.  I want to discover how remembering that allows me to be truly happy and how the knowledge of who I really am propels me to not let Him down and to really become that person that He sees.  

Laughing

One thing I am certain that I love is to laugh! It's something I don't do nearly enough but the last couple of days have been filled with much laughter.

On New Year's Eve I was at my parents house. One little known fact about the Keddington Family is that a few hours or minutes after bedtime (8 pm), we get incredibly slap happy! I think I may be the worst. I cannot control my laughter and occasionally can't even breath.

We played Scrabble and since I could easily be the worst speller in my family, just for me, it was played by spelling all the words phonetically. We should have taken a picture of the board because we came up with some pretty good words and did a whole lot of laughing in the process.

I love clean, funny movies or books where the story makes me laugh out loud. I love to be with friends and family where there is much laughter.

2012 - A Year of Enjoyment

I can hardly believe it's January 1st, 2012. I can't even remember the last time I was actually awake to ring in the New Year, but tonight I find myself sitting in the living room, lit only by the Christmas tree, wondering.

I've had most of this week off and have done a whole lot of thinking. While I had plenty of lazy time, I spent a lot of time at the temple. One of the days I was there, I read a scripture. I've been thinking about it a lot ever since. The scripture is found in 2 Nephi 9:14. There is one line that says, "the righteous shall have a perfect knowledge of their enjoyment". This caused me to think about a comment from President Hinckley that "life is to be enjoyed, not just endured".


2011 was a year of enduring. While I suppose it would be easy to blame that on some individuals and even some circumstances, the truth is, it was all my own doing. I made it that way. My sister asked me at some point during the summer what, besides spending time with my family, really made me happy, what were things I did that made me laugh, and how often did I do those things. Even thinking about that conversation brings tears to my eyes because I didn't know how to answer her.


So, this week, one of the many things I've been thinking about is who I am. Now, I know who I am. I know that I have a Father in Heaven who absolutely loves me and I know that I am His daughter and have potential to one day become like He is. I also know that I am part of an incredible family who supports and loves me in spite of me. But, if someone were to ask me what my favorite book or movie is, or what music I enjoy or artist I love, I don't know the answers to those things. I love books and movies and I certainly love music, so these should be easy answers, but I don't know. What about my favorite food? Is answering "something I don't have to cook" even an answer?

Tonight, I sit here by the light of the Christmas tree, wondering and determined that 2012 will be a year of enjoyment as I discover the answers to these questions. This year for 365 days (dare I even commit to that number?) I will discover me and what I like and probably things I don't like. While my New Year's resolution continues to be the same as it is every year, to end this year better than I was at the beginning, I want to do that by enjoying, not just enduring. I want to be able to say in 2012 I discovered things about myself that I didn't know and became better in the process.

Birthdays

This week will be my 38th birthday - one year closer to 40! It's kind of crazy to think about, actually. I don't feel almost 40. When I got my haircut last week the very young stylist asked me how old I was. When I told her she said, "No way! You can't be that old!" This really made me feel good until I went to buy a new computer (mine has been broken for a month) and the twenty something kid helping me pointed to one and said, "My mom really likes this one so you probably will too." Your mom? Really?

I have to admit that about this time every year I start to evaluate my life. I think about the year that has past and wonder about the things that took place. There was actually a point at this time last year where I was confident I would be married by this birthday. Earlier this year it looked like I might even be engaged by my birthday. But.... And while it's easy to think about the fact that I'm 38 (almost) and don't have a husband and children, which is something I will continue to wish for every year, there are a lot of great things that happened from May of 2010 until May of 2011. Let me share just a few of them.

• I graduated from college! It took 20 years, but I finally did it. I cried when I submitted my last assignment. I couldn't believe I was finally finished.



• I fell in love - twice. Well, not exactly twice because it was the same man both times. And actually I had never fallen out of love with him. I never knew one could experience that kind of love. It made it impossible to concentrate on anything, kept me daydreaming constantly, and made me a better person.



• I experienced a broken heart - a really broken heart. This sounds like a ridiculous thing to report, but the result of that broken heart was a much better me.



• An entire year of weekly temple attendance. What a blessing this was for me.



• My job changed twice. I changed stores in September and in April of this year, my workload changed dramatically as the responsibilities of the distribution center were added to my job description.



• Had an absolutely fantastic Christmas season. I attribute this to weekly temple attendance.

I'm sure there are more, many more things that happened since my last birthday. The bottom line is that I had a lot happen. Some of it was incredibly difficult. Some of it still is. But I know absolutely that I have a loving Father who is so aware of me. I don't understand why things happen the way they do, but I know that He does because He sees the whole picture. While I am nowhere near the spot I thought I would be at this point in my life, I am at the spot I should be. I'm looking forward to the events of the next 12 months, the things I will learn, the experiences I will have, and the person Ihope I will become.

School

Tonight I am pretending to do homework while I'm actually watching the BYU basketball game. It's nice to have a bit of a break, actually. Most of my evenings since school started on the 3rd of January have been spent doing homework - a lot of it!

I ended up having to drop my class in December. Crazy retail made it just about impossible to do anything other than work and I wasn't really looking forward to failing this class. So, I have 6 weeks and 5 days left of school. I can hardly believe it.

2 o'clock church

For some reason in my stake, our wards meet at 10, 12, and 2 rather than 9,11, and 1. I'll be the first to admit that while 10 is better than 9 and 12 isn't so bad, 2 is not my favorite and that's what we changed to today. I did forget, however, one reason why I like later church - the preparation that takes place Sunday morning.

With church at 2 there is no rushing to get things ready. Finishing touches on a lesson can take place with ample time. There is no speeding through scripture reading and there is plenty of time for thinking about what I've been reading. I can read through the assigned scriptures for gospel doctrine as well as the relief society lesson and feel like I can actually contribute to class. There is time to practice the songs I have to play for choir, which I'm sure everyone is grateful for, and even a little time for any other music I'd like to play through.

While it's true that a lot of these things can take place after church, doing them before helps me to feel better prepared for the Sabbath. So, while I'm sure I will do my share of grumbling about church from 2 to 5, I am thankful for the blessing it was today.

2010

Wow! I survived! I can hardly believe Christmas has come and gone, the holiday shopping season is over, and 2010 is quickly coming to a close.

During this year I experienced things that I hadn't in years as well as a whole bunch of new things, I did a lot of growing up, and I learned a ton. Some of those learning experiences were painful but some were amazingly happy.

I'm thankful for all that happened this year. Honestly. And I can't wait to see what adventures await during 2011.

Day 70 - A Change of Heart

This morning I read Alma 5. I love that chapter. Every time I read it I ask myself those questions and wonder if I'm in a better spot than I was the last time I read it. As I read today I started thinking about my heart.

It's been through a lot this year. It loved someone in a way and more deeply than it ever had before. There were times when that love was overwhelming and it was hard to imagine anything happier.

Then it was broken. There were times when I wondered if my little heart would ever heal. Could it recover? It didn't seem possible.

But it was! The result of experiencing a broken heart has been a changed one.

While going through all of this a dear friend shared this quote with me. Speaking of the Savior, Elder Bruce and Sister Marie Hafen write that "the height of His infinite capacity for joy is the inverse, mirror image of the depth of His capacity to bear our burdens. And as it is with Him, so it can be for us. Our sorrows and sacrifices carve and stretch the caverns of feeling within our own hearts. And as these caverns are enlarged they expand our soul's capacity for joy."

This is what my heart experienced. It was stretched and carved and it hurt while that was happening and at times I didn't think I could bear it. However, those enlarged caverns have indeed made room for more joy and happiness than I have ever experienced before. While I'm sure there is still more carving and stretching ahead, I'm so thankful for the change that took place this year in my little heart.

Day 69 - An Amazing Team!

Tonight I am thankful for the amazing team of people with whom I work. They have helped to make this season so enjoyable and have made for some pretty fantastic days. Everyone is working so hard and getting so excited over the great things that are happening. Thanks so much you guys!!!

Day 68 - The Holiday Season

Since 1996, the year I came home from my mission, I have worked in the mall. Christmas was not fun. I dreaded it. It seemed like the worst in people came out at Christmas, rather than the best, and dealing with the public during that time of year made me less than jolly which I sadly admit made it harder for those around me to experience the true meaning of Christmas.

This year, however, things are different. I'm not working in the mall, which has made things seem less hectic, customers are still a little fussy, but not as much as usual, and I am enjoying the season more than I have in almost 15 years.

My days have been full, especially the last couple of weeks, but not just with work. I've been able to attend concerts, sing with my family, visit good friends, secretly deliver some gifts, attend the temple, participate in our ward Christmas program, and come home at night totally exhausted.

This year feels like what Christmas used to feel like. I am so very thankful for that!

Day 67 - Oh So Much

I have oh so much to share but I am totally exhausted! The last two days have been filled with thankful things. More tomorrow...

Day 66 - Final 15 Hour Day

Tonight I am so thankful that my final 15 hour day of the season (I hope) is over. And actually, it was a pretty good day.

Since one of my full time supervisors is out because of some knee surgery and since it's finals week, we've been pretty short handed. We were running around like crazy tonight, which made the day pass pretty quickly. I also have fantastic people who worked their tails off and will continue to do so for the next 7 shopping days (apparently my math was a little off last night).

Day 65 - Nine More Shopping Days

Tonight I am thankful that there are only 9 more shopping days left until Christmas.

Day 64 - Still and Quiet Time

Tonight I read a conference talk from last October. The talk was by Sister Matsumori and it was on the Spirit. She made a comment that I loved. She said that "if we provide a still and quiet time each day when we are not bombarded by television, computer, video games, or personal electronic devices, we allow that still, small voice an opportunity to provide personal revelation and to whisper sweet guidance, reassurance, and comfort to us."

This evening I am so thankful for the still and quiet times in my life. I'm thankful for the whispering of sweet guidance, reassurance, and comfort that has come to me. I'm grateful for gentle reminders of who I am and that I'm not alone. I know that taking advantage of those still and quiet times are necessary as we work to be better.

Day 63 - Good Friends

Today I got a Christmas card in the mail. As I read the kind words written by two people whom I dearly love, I was filled with so much gratitude for all of the good people in my life. I am surrounded by those who make a difference for good and feel blessed to have so many I consider as friends. Thank you!

Day 62 - Stars

Tonight, after having dinner with my family, I walked outside. It was dark, and since there are very few lights in Mapleton, the stars were amazing!

I love to look at the stars. When I was little I wanted to be an astronaut. I thought it would be cool to be the first woman in space, but someone beat me to it.

Earlier in the year I went to the planetarium at the gateway. We watched the move in 3D about the Hubble Telescope. It was incredible. It reaffirmed what I already knew to be true - that all was created by our loving Father in Heaven.

I'm thankful to know that. I'm thankful that when I look up at the stars I am reminded that He loves me - so much in fact - that He created those stars for me to look up at and remember Him.

Day 61 - A New Mattress

Last night I spent the night in Bountiful at my sister's house. I slept on the couch. I woke up this morning for only the second time all year without pain in my back and hips.

For a while I figured I was just getting old. I would wake up in the morning so sore that I could hardly move. Then in September I was in Lake Tahoe for a conference. I woke up in the morning with no back pain and realized I wasn't getting old. I just have a terrible mattress! However, I really wasn't ready to purchase a new one.

But, waking up this morning, feeling 30, not 80, even after running up and down the stairs several times with Haden on my back, convinced me that it was time to buy a new mattress. So, maybe in the middle of this crazy next few weeks of the holiday, I'll see what I can find.

I'm thankful that sometime in the next little bit I will have a new bed to sleep in.