Thoughts of Gratitude

Happy Thanksgiving! It is too bad Thanksgiving is less than one month before Christmas. It seems that so many times this holiday just gets rolled into all the holiday preparations. I mean, we get together with family and have a feast, and we get a long weekend away from the stresses of work, but the very next day after Thanksgiving we have the biggest shopping day of the year in preparation for Christmas. I know our family usually spends all day Saturday getting a Christmas tree, trimming the tree, putting up all the holiday decorations, etc. Really fun family traditions right? But my question tonight is when do we get a chance to feel thankful?

In fact, as the economic difficulties have hit so many people this year, I am sure for some just the thought of trying to get ready for Christmas is overwhelming. Gratitude is easy to overlook. It is a lot easier to see what we are lacking than what we have. For me the week of Thanksgiving has come this year with little to no recognition of all my blessings. Not that I don't try to live my life with an attitude of gratitude. I do. I know I am happier when I am grateful instead of wishing and wanting more. I simply wish there were a little more time in all our traditions to be thankful, to teach gratitude to my children, to emphasize the blessings we have without feeling like we need more.

Sometimes, if not many times, the holidays can be a time of wishfully feeling like we are lacking somehow, even if it is wishing we had more so that we could give more. Giving more to my children seems to be the theme of my wish list this year. However, when I look around, they really have all they need. They have food a plenty, a nice home to live in, more clothes than they really need, tons of toys, a family that loves them, a mother and father that are committed to one another, great friends that surround them, really what more could children need. Do they really need a commercialized Christmas to make them happy?

I fall prey to the feelings of wanting Christmas morning to be really special. Having them wake up Christmas morning to find wonderful presents that Santa has brought. Seeing the light in their eyes when they find the present that they have really been wanting and the excitement of making them happy. My children, however, are still young enough that they don't have that expectation. My Christmas traditions can be different. So, my question is how can I make my Christmas really special for my children with very little money?

For the next three years, Doug and I have committed to a very strict budget. We have a plan to get out of debt and stay out, but to do this, sacrifices must be made. One of them is that I can either blow my whole budget out of the water and have Christmas for my children, or I can sacrifice, stay on track financially, and have a very sparce Christmas. I don't think my children will care or remember one way or another, but I need to have some ideas of what to do to make it a wonderful, memorable holiday for all of us, for my sake.

I need to carry the spirit of Thanksgiving into my holiday season. I am thankful for my Savior and although He is the reason we celebrate, He is often lost in the hustle. I want this year to begin a new era for the Jensen family, where were are no longer worried about what we are going to give or receive for Christmas, but how do I do that? I want this to be the year we truly worship and thank God for the blessings we have instead of dwelling on what we might think we are lacking, but that's difficult when there are so many parties, functions, and holiday preparations to be made that worshipping is side stepped for things that are not as important.

So, tonight I am starting with a thankful list. I am making it a tag that I am giving everyone. I want everyone to make a thankful list. Then, I want you to contribute your ideas for celebrating gratefully on a budget, teaching about & worshipping our Savior, and generally de-commercializing Christmas in our homes. So here goes...

My Thankful List

First of all, I am so lucky to have such a great husband that loves me unconditionally. How blessed I am to have a man who loves his children. He loves them with all his heart and sacrifices so much for all of us. He is my best friend and I know that I am a better person because of him. He has taught me and shown me compassion, empathy, unconditional love, and how to be happy no matter the circumstances. He truly sees the best in those around him and tries to bring these qualities out in others. He is concerned with others feelings above his own and truly lives a Christ-like life. We all have our weaknesses and of course being his wife, sometimes it is easy to focus on them, but when I sit and reflect on the person I married I can't help but be filled with gratitude for the blessing of having him in my life.

I am so grateful for my children. They are the joy and light of my life. I am so grateful that I don't have to work outside the home and I get to be so closely involved with the everyday happenings of these amazing little spirits. I am grateful I have had the opportunity to create life and be a mother and when I remember the eternal responsibility that I have been intrusted with, I am in awe.

I am grateful for the power of prayer. When all else fails, pray! Usually I try to remember to pray before everything fails, but how blessed I am for the understanding and knowledge that prayer to a loving Heavenly Father is grounding, is edifying, is powerful, is rewarding, and is a blessing that no one can take away. Along with prayer is the ability to use the atonement in my life. What a blessing to be able to give all our sins away and have them remembered no more. I have been made clean and that would be impossible had my Savior not died for me. I may not have forgotten all my sins and I may beat myself up over some of them, but I KNOW when I repent sincerely, my sins are washed away.

I am grateful for the opportunity that Heavenly Father has given each one of us to become like Him and inherit eternal life. I was thinking today of how much having an eternal perspective has changed my life for the better. I am so grateful for the direction of the Spirit in my life. So many of my decisions would never have been made had it not been for the knowledge that I was being directed by the spirit. I would never have moved to Washington, never would have served a mission, wouldn't even have met my husband and if I had met him I doubt I would have married him, probably would have only wanted two children, would not be living in Oak Harbor right now, and the list goes on and on. Where do people turn for direction without the gospel? I guess I know the answer to that question because I lived enough of my life without the guidance of the spirit and I definitely remember the how it felt to "build a house upon the sand".

Which leads me to another huge blessing in my life. I am so grateful that the Lord helped me back into full fellowship of His gospel. Coming back was a rocky road, but definitely worth the trip. It has been over eleven years now since I started that journey back, and I will always be grateful for every person that lifted me up along the way.

I am also grateful that we always have sufficient for our needs. We are taken care of. The Lord hears our prayers and everytime we have a need, somehow it is filled. Often, my prayers are not answered in the way I would have expected or how I would have wanted, but looking back, we have always been taken care of. There is no reason to fear and no reason to doubt. Our needs will be met and we will not suffer more than is for our good when we are faithful. I am also grateful for the reassuring peace the spirit brings when I feel anxious or afraid.

I have so many temporal blessings that I would feel ungrateful if I did not add them to my thankful list. I served my mission in Argentina and the whole time I was there and most definitely when I returned I KNEW how rich I really was. There is nothing like a third world country to put some perspective on how amazingly rich we really are. Even the poor of our country live better than many, many people in the world. It is so easy to forget when wealth is all around us. WE ARE RICH and I have so many temporal blessings!

So, that's it for now, but I tag everyone to make a THANKFUL List of their own. Have a wonderful holiday and enjoy your families!

For What It's WORTH!

I taught a lesson today in Young Women's on individual worth. I think some of my best lessons are ones that I need to hear. I needed the Lord to confirm in my heart and remind me that I am of infinite worth. Satan really likes to lie to us. He tells us all sorts of things...you are not good enough, you are not important, there is nothing special about you. He tries to get us to compare ourselves to everyone else and somehow we always seem to come up short. He wants us all to tear each other down and gain a false sense of importance from being negative about everyone around us.

The Lord however, has such a different way of viewing us. He sees us with such love. In my lesson, I listed about 15-20 lies that Satan likes to tell us about the worth of souls. I had them on pieces of paper on the chalkboard and I had the girls write down all the negative things that they remembered telling themselves in the past. We read some of the lesson together and then I started taking each one of those slips of paper off the board and with gusto ripping them up and throwing them away. At the same time, I bore my testimony of all the reasons why these lies weren't true while continuing to throw them away. I know the Spirit bore testimony that what I was saying was true.

Yet, even tonight, I was struggling with some of these same lies that I was rebuffing in my class. I used an example of a baby to help the girls understand just how wonderful their spirits selves really are. Most people are really drawn to babies because their true, beautiful, non-judging, unconditionally loving spirit selves are so close to the surface. They are so full of light and love that you can't help but love them. I know that we too would be amazed if we could see our own potential. Why is it so hard to see?

Satan is also really good at distracting us with unimportant things. So many times I find myself struggling with not bad and good choices, but good and better choices. During the adult session of stake conference, as I was listening to one of the talks, I had the distinct impression that I didn't truly try to seek the Lord's will in my day-to-day activities. I felt like there are so many times I am caught up with doing what I want to do, that I forget that there are certain things the Lord would have me do, that maybe I am not doing. I am not choosing between bad choices and good choices necessarily as much as good choices and choices with eternal consequences, such as...missionary work, strengthening my family relationships, practicing patience, kindness, and love, etc.

After last Saturday night, I committed to try to start each day asking the Lord what He would have me do. For about 4-5 days last week, I started my morning with a sincere prayer asking the Lord what He would have me do during the day. I am telling you, my day's went so much better. I don't remember anything significant happening, nothing sticks out in my mind, but my relationships with my family flourished, I had patience with my children, and I felt the spirit more abundantly. Then, Sat and Sunday roll around, I completely forget my sincere prayers. I have struggled both days feeling the spirit, with relationships with my family, I have struggled to have patience, I have struggled with feelings of inadequacy, and the list continues. Last Sunday, I set some spiritual goals and I was pretty successful in accomplishing them for about 4-5 days. It is so easy to get off your own band wagon, isn't it?

So much of the gospel is about remembering. I wonder how many times it says the word remember in the scriptures. It is hard to always REMEMBER. I had one of the most edifying sessions of stake conference just one week ago, but now here I am a week later trying to remember why it was so amazing. That is why studying and praying EVERYDAY is so important. It is too easy to get distracted with the unimportant, with the things of the world, with the time wasters, with our own weaknesses, and with the lies that Satan would have us believe.

At the end of my lesson today, I had each of the girls take their own personal LIE list and rip it into tiny pieces. I told them that they needed to quit listening to the lies that Satan would have them believe. That they needed to "remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God" (D&C 18:10). I know the Lord loves each one of us more than we can imagine. He wants us to glimpse the greatness that is inside us and do our personal best. When I remember, I am humble and my eyes are opened to the true potential in each one of us. When I am weak, I see the faults in others to falsely elevate myself.

I definitely need to work on remembering!