A thought

I can’t really decide what to do with my time at the moment- both girls are in beds- I don’t know that either is sleeping, but so be it. Should I create? Clean? Make lists? Instead of any of those, I shall write out a little something that’s been rolling around in my head today.

It was started by this.

If you don’t feel like going over and reading it, it’s a post about a mom struggling to listen to conference in a house of normal kids. And by normal I mean not so likely to sit down reverently and watch 4 hours of conference for 2 days. She wonders, although not in these words, what the point is- why bother wrangling kids for 8 hours and get little out of conference rather than just bypass it and read the talks later?

Now, our conference experience was actually really good, Z did a great job of either playing quietly, keeping herself entertained, or sitting and listening like I asked her to when President Monson spoke. (“He said The Holy Ghost, mama!” “He said Jesus!”) But I think about church on Sundays, where, even though Z does a great job during Sacrament Meeting, most of B and my time is spent entertaining one girl or the other, peeling off stickers, reminding Z to whisper, reading books. Sunday School for me is hanging out in the hall with Audrey, because it’s nap time and she has a tendency to shriek loudly when she’s tired. Sunday School for B is wrangling youth to be quiet, listen, and learn something. The third hour we trade- he gets Audrey, I get the youth.

I’ve been thinking about worship lately, and wondering how exactly it fits into what I’m doing on Sunday. I’ve made a greater effort to pay attention to the hymns I’m singing, especially if they’re ones I know by heart- those are the easiest to get to the end of and realize you have no idea what you just sang. But as we were reminded in conference, “the song of the heart is a prayer unto me”. I’ve tried to start singing in the same mindset as praying. I try to focus during the Sacrament, something I have intermittent success with. But what about the rest of the time?

In Dallin H. Oakes’ talk he spoke about service, and how our experience at church can be broadened, enlightened, enhanced, by our service to others. Instead of complaining that the talks didn’t speak to us, or no one talked to us, or whatever, we should go and talk to people, reach out, serve. And I realized that we (I) can worship Christ at church by serving as He would serve. My time in the hall can be worshipful if I’m listening compassionately to someone who really needs a friend. If I’m consecrating my time to preparing to bring the Spirit into the YW meeting. If I teach a class or support a teacher in the way that He would.

That’s helping me feel like I’m not completely wasting an opportunity, which is kind of how it’s felt lately.

That’s really all I have to say about that- um, bye.

3 thoughts on “A thought

  1. I think that’s a great idea, Maryanne…I think that the whole “what would Jesus do” thing can be lame (frequently), but we can really do it in our lives. I try to act how He would act, and am not always (usually) successful, but it’s like the labyrinth, I think, where trying is the point.

    I hid from the missionaries in the grocery store today…not very Christlike…

  2. Maryanne on

    Brandy, have you read the book In His Steps by Charles M. Sheldon? I haven’t yet, but it’s the true story of what happened in a congregation 100 years ago when the pastor challenged every member to attempt to do what Christ would do in every situation. I’m wondering if that’s where the whole “What would Jesus do” meme actually came from.

    Anyway, we can only do what we can do, and just keep trying to do more and better, right?

  3. I haven’t read it; I’ll put it on my list. Thanks for the suggestion 🙂

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