Tree of Life Mothering

Just in case you feel somewhat blue about a new school year starting, and want to inject some mama bear chemistry inside you to remind yourself of why you homeschool, I present these videos. I remember hearing about this story, “The Children’s Story,” featured in these videos, a while back when I heard Scott Bradley speak. The story is a terrific reminder of why education for liberty is so important. Even though the title of the story is “The Children’s Story,” the story really isn’t for children. Watch this with your older kids and/or spouse and discuss. Let’s not the government educate our children!

Since it’s back-to-school time, I am posting a bunch of videos about education. See my post here for a TV special made in the 80s about why it’s important not to trust government with educating our children. This post showcases the videos from the 2014 Agency-based Education Conference. The above video shows Neil Flinders, who wrote Teach the Children: An Agency Approach to Education. Supposedly this is the book that inspired Oliver DeMille to write A Thomas Jefferson Education.

The video above features homeschooling mom Mary Biesinger, on how to mentor your children in their life’s missions.

In this video, Mark Cluff talks about the Sudbury Valley school model.

Quin Denning shares his journey as an educational maverick in the above video.

In this video, Oak Norton, founder of Agency-based Education, shares his proposal for creating an educational system that increases parental control and decreases the amount that taxpayers pay for education. As I know that not all parents want to or can homeschool, I appreciate his “local control” model.

Because I love Audrey, I am posting her video at the ABE conference 2 years ago.

Then because I love Aneladee and the commonwealth school model, I am posting her video as well. This is the model that I have participated in for my children for the past 10 years.

Here’s the next installment from my new novel, Dates with God. This is  Chapter 3: Part 2, Jill’s Letter #3, in which Jill loses a battle because of Pinterest, and then gets interrupted when she writes about it.

Jill’s Week #3

 

Dear God,

 

Two days ago I had a lost battle. One of my goals is to get dinner on the table by 5:30 PM. It had really been a rough day with the baby teething and the piles of laundry. I finally got him to take a nap but it was 4 PM and I was exhausted. This kid is like the Energizer Bunny on steroids. When he is in pain he just gets more active so he can distract himself I guess. After I got him down, I thought, “OK, I’m just going to take a little computer break and then I will fix dinner.” So I went to Pinterest. I saw that my online friend Aspen of UrbanEarthMom had posted this really awesome picture of the most darling all-in-one diaper cover. We’ve been talking back and forth about how hard it is to make one for less than $5. I had to text her right away to get more details. Then she told me of an online place to get the supplies for less than $5. I had to check that out, and while I was doing that I wanted to be listening to my favorite podcast. Before I knew it, Lacy came to me asking if I could pour her some cereal. It was 6:45 PM! The older kids were eating the cold cereal that I got for the weekend’s breakfast, and to top it off, nobody bothered to help her! I yelled at them for getting into the cold cereal when they knew I was saving it for the weekend, when Rob and I sleep in and let them get breakfast. I also yelled at them for not helping their little sister. I really don’t want to do a Lost Battle Analysis about this. I know the mentor’s going to ask if I did. I don’t know what to say for any of the questions.

While we are at Nauvoo last week we visited the Land and Records office so both my husband and I could find the actual pieces of land where our ancestors lived in Nauvoo. I noticed that much of the database was prepared by Dr. Susan Easton Black. She’s a former professor of religion and church history at BYU. She was also the wife of the bishop of our BYU married student ward, Dr. Harvey Black. I fondly remember her giving talks in sacrament meeting. So then I started to miss her. On my way home from Nauvoo, I was checking my yahoo email messages and found out that she was speaking that very next day in Salt Lake City with her new husband, George Durrant. Wow, I didn’t know that they had gotten married! Talk about an interesting couple! Both of them are public speakers and authors. Both of their previous spouses passed away a few years ago. I was excited to realize that I would be home in time to attend the fireside, and it was about marriage, so that meant it was a perfect date night for us, especially since we hadn’t been on a date in over a week because of the vacation. Thanks to my friend Melanie who sent the email, somehow subconsciously knowing that I was missing Susan and would love to hear her speak!

Both Susan and George talked about how important it is to please your spouse. George said that his goal every day is to serve Susan so that she is always glad that she married him. I thought that was so sweet! Susan spoke about how the Ten Commandments are a super guide to marriage. If you are keeping all of the Ten Commandments, you will improve your happiness and your marriage.

Coincidentally, Susan and George finished a mission at Nauvoo, but now they are going back later this year. We just  missed seeing them there! They say they want to be “serial missionaries.” I found this cool video by Susan about the Nauvoo Temple. We got to go there and do temple work. My 3rd-great-grandfather even helped to lay the foundation stones of the temple; she even mentions him in the speech.

It’s a new week and time for a new chapter in my new novel, Dates with God. If you haven’t been reading Chapters 1 and 2, click on the “blog” tab above and then scroll to the earliest blog post with the title of Dates with God so you can catch up. This is my novel that I wrote based on the Eternal Warriors/Mothers who Know class. I am serializing the book. Now that I am back from my vacation and have dependable wifi, I hope to have a regular schedule. I will publish Emma’s letters on Tuesdays, Jill’s letters on Wednesdays, Kate’s letters on Thursdays, and Lauren’s letters on Fridays. These are all fictional characters. The stories are based on my own and my students’ experiences, with names and any identifying features changed of course. I also threw in a bunch of my own imagination as well.

Here’s today’s excerpt, Chapter 3, Part 1: Emma’s Letter #3

It’s a new week and time for a new chapter in my new novel, Dates with God. So I am posting Chapter 3 this week in four parts. If you haven’t been reading Chapters 1 and 2, click on the “blog” tab above and then scroll to the earliest blog post with the title of Dates with God so you can catch up. This is my novel that I wrote based on the Eternal Warriors/Mothers who Know class. I am serializing the book. Now that I am back from my vacation and have dependable wifi, I hope to have a regular schedule. I will publish Emma’s letters on Tuesdays, Jill’s letters on Wednesdays, Kate’s letters on Thursdays, and Lauren’s letters on Fridays. These are all fictional characters. The stories are based on my own and my students’ experiences, with names and any identifying features changed of course. I also threw in a bunch of my own imagination as well.

Here’s today’s excerpt, Chapter 3, Part 1: Emma’s Letter #3, in which Emma discovers how the Chemical Scale applies to her, deals with her husband’s revelation and starts to battle resurfacing emotions of not being enough.

Emma’s Week #3

 

Dear God,

 

Wow, have I ever noticed myself sliding down the chemical scale this week, over and over. The Chemical Scale is a way to measure where you are in the process of giving up on your values as you slide into self-betrayal, or doing something that goes against your values. I never knew before this class that my brain chemistry actually changes as I betray my values. In class I learned that a “zero” on the Chemical Scale is the place to be. I don’t know why it’s not called a “ten” instead of “zero.” Ten sounds better than zero. But apparently not in this class. Here in the class, zero is the place of peace, of joy and clarity. Kind of like nirvana. Zero = peace. Hopefully I will remember that so I don’t think of ten as the ultimate place to be. Level 0 is the place of mindfulness. This is when I am in my prefrontal lobe. I’m pretty sure that’s where the Holy Ghost lives within us. If I am there, then I can feel the Holy Ghost, because that’s where he goes when he influences me. The chemical scale involves stages of self-betrayal that lead me away from that place.

 

Level 1 = Feeling an initial chemical spill in the mind or elsewhere in the body

Level 2 = Feeling a build-up of negative feelings that come from the spill with increased believing in the legitimacy of these negative feelings

Level 3 = Feeling a flash of temptation to do something bad

Level 4 = Having a stupid conversation or rationalization

Level 5 = Saying “forget it” to my value or original goal and giving in to the Level 3 temptation by doing the dirty deed that shows I am acting against my values. So for me that is eating more than my predetermined ration of sugar for the week.

Level 6 = Feeling stoned or mindless because I am no longer in the prefrontal part of the brain, but in the animal or hindbrain

 

The whole thing makes me think of my Grandma. She was always saying things like “What were you thinking?” or “Did you lose your mind?” whenever Joey or I did something dumb. Now I know that we actually had lost our minds, at least temporarily, by getting to Level 6.

 

I actually felt that mindlessness this week. No surprise there. It happens every week. Maybe every day. Nobody ever told me that being a mom is a combination between running a marathon and riding a roller coaster,all day, every day. There can be no end to the calls for help, even when I am asleep. It is as easy for a mom, who is home all day everyday with little children, to lose her mind as it is for a ball to drop. I am up against constant distraction and constant demands for service. Hence I always have all these swirling emotions inside me. Until I took this class, I never knew how to write about this constant pulling away from mindfulness or how even how to attempt to explain my inner world. But now that I have this knowledge, I am hoping that by writing about it I will get it cemented in my brain what it feels like to fight to be mindful.

 

Hopefully then I will not repeat the slide from mindfulness as much because I will notice it and and stop it. Two days ago I spent too much time on the Internet for too long. I got grumpy and if my kids talked to me I felt like they were interrupting me as objects that I verbally pushed aside. Sure, I won my Girl Goal of not yelling or swearing at them so I met the “letter of the law” and had a “perfect” day but I didn’t keep the spirit of the law. The spirit of the law is to have connection with my children and keep that mental connection even if we are doing different activities or are physically disconnected by being in different rooms. Then when they interrupt me I will treat them kindly. I didn’t do that when I stayed on the Internet too long. I’m thinking I need to change one of my Girl Goals to limiting the Internet to after 2 PM and then only be on for an hour.

 

In my scripture reading I noticed the scripture in Helaman 10 about Nephi causing a famine in the land for his people. God gave him the power to do that. What leader would hurt his people like that by starving them? That question made me think about why he would do that. The answer I came up with was that he did it for a greater reason, which was to help them remember Thee, God and turn to Thee, with reliance and obedience. It made me think, “Hmm, I’m the leader over my life and my kids. At least I’m striving to be. Would it be OK for me to cause a famine of electronic media for me and my kids?” I think so. So we are going cold turkey. No screen time for the kids. At least for a week. Then I will reevaluate. It just makes me and them so stoned. I want to cut it out completely for a while and then maybe we will reintroduce it in small amounts after I have made new rules and created a family economy for its use. I don’t want it as the be-all, end-all of rewards. But I don’t want them to feel so deprived and curious about it that when they move out of my home, they gorge on it either.

 

I felt a chemical shift today when I went to my cousin’s wedding. She looked so supremely divinely gorgeous! Her dress and hair and decorations were everything I wish that I had had at my wedding reception. It was a garden setting, with roses in bloom, trellises, a gazebo in the center of the yard, a huge canopy for shade, and then a live band playing from an actual bandstand, a huge fountain, and a wooded backdrop. The full dinner buffet was incredible. She had her pictures developed of the wedding party outside the temple, after the temple ceremony held that morning, and they were on display, in full color, lavishly framed. I was sooo jealous! I felt the negative chemical spill, not just spilling, but welling and swelling inside me. Definite envy.

 

I happened upon an old family friend at the wedding so we went for a walk. It was brisk! She is definitely in shape and I had Anna in my babywrap so I got a vigorous work out toting that 18 pound load as I kept up with her. We walked along the brook through the forest and then came back. I noticed when I came back that I was back at zero. I no longer felt the envy.

 

I’ve learned from watching my mentor in the class do LBAs [Lost Battle Analyses] that people can go back and forth between levels on the scale. She’ll ask people, if they are having a hard time identifying levels during an LBA “When were you last at a Level 0?” Sometimes people stay at a level past 0 for a long time. Or sometimes they stay between Levels 1 and 2 for days, or they will go from 2 to 3 to 4, then back to 2, all in one day.

 

That makes me think of Clark. He finally came to me, sobbing, one night and said he had gone to the doctor and asked for some Prozac. Then he got the prescription filled on the way home and started taking the drugs.

 

What?! This was like a hailstorm out of the blue on a summer picnic (which actually happened to me in July last year). This is the man who acts like he has no feelings, suddenly bawling his eyes out. He told me this long story of how he thinks he’s been depressed for years, maybe even decades. It’s all making sense now. No wonder he hasn’t even started looking for a new job. I don’t understand it all and part of me wants to deny it. But I have to say, hey, maybe this is why the fence gate stayed broken all last summer. Maybe this is why he never cleaned the garage. Maybe this is why he never gets to my honey-do list.  I’m trying not to take it personally but it’s hard. Is he depressed because I’m not fun enough or beautiful enough or positive enough? Is it because he can’t father children biologically, or because I can’t give him children biologically? The doctor never would tell us whose “fault” it was for not being able to get pregnant when we tested for infertility.

 

He cried. I cried. I told him it wasn’t supposed to be this way. I didn’t think when I entered into our marriage covenant in the temple that 15 years later, I would be living on my grandfather-in-law’s inheritance because my husband was too depressed to find work and addicted to video games. He told me, “I’ll let you go, if you want honey. You can leave me. I wouldn’t fault you for it.” That made me cry even more. I didn’t say anything. That night I prayed to Thee like I never had before and the next morning I told him I was staying.

 

God, please stand by me and strengthen me. Or rather, please help me to stand by Thee and my covenants. I need a husband to help me raise these kids. I don’t want to be a single mom like my mom was. My kids need a father, not a zombie. I want to have a husband who leads me and them, not a guy who drags us down. I did make a covenant to my husband when I married him and I’m sticking to it. I hope. I’ve heard about young men and the “failure to launch” phenomenon. I wish he had that problem when we met so I would have noticed and steered clear of the guy. He showed no signs of these problems he has now. Now I am stuck with him. He was launched in the right trajectory. Is there such a thing as “crashing after launching” for middle-aged men? Is this what a Mormon mid-life crisis looks like?

 

Thank goodness for my goals. They help me keep my mind off of Clark. I am so grateful for that! I am learning things I never knew before about myself.

Love,

Emma

Here’s Chapter 2, Part 4 of Dates with God: Lauren’s Letter #2 in which Lauren unloads her recent aggravations.

Lauren’s Week #2

 

Dear God,

 

I’m having a hard time with the content of the lecture in the first week’s class. How does satan cause us to forget? I am still thinking about it.  Don’t we just choose what we remember and forget? Then this past week’s lecture was about the chemical shift. I’ve felt my own this past week. Here is what I can remember. There’s no way I can forget these!

– I felt furious disgust at my neighbors for letting their dog poop on my yard, again! Why are they so clueless and/or rude?!

 

-I felt bugged that I went to a midwifery conference and an acquaintance there saw a little 2 year old running by us and asked me if the kid was mine as he almost tipped a microphone over. Doesn’t she know I would never bring kids to a conference and then let them run around? Does she really think I would be calmly standing by letting my own child wreak havoc?

 

-I felt mad that I read untrue comments about the benefits of circumcision on a blog

 

-I felt super critical of James this past week. He’s back to wearing his hair the nerdy way he did when we were first dating. What is up with that?

 

-I felt annoyance when Austin came to me, asking me to help with his Scouting stuff. Can’t the Scout leaders do all the helping?

 

-I felt jealous that my friend Carla has a prettier blog than I do

 

-I felt critical of my mom. Will she ever write down what my address is so she doesn’t have to call me every time she wants to send the kids a birthday card?

 

-I felt mad that I was attacked on a blog, misquoted, and misrepresented.

 

-I felt mad when I read that C-sections are on the rise. Women’s bodies are not broken! They have not suddenly become less able at giving birth. It’s just that our culture does not encourage women to believe in their bodies so they can give birth naturally.

 

No wonder I often feel like I am going crazy! I have all these chemicals swirling in my body! Disgust, anger, jealousy, criticism, annoyance, and more!

signed,

 

Lauren

 

I am sooooo sorry to be so late in posting this week’s installments of my novel, Dates with God. I just got back from our family road trip to Nauvoo late last night.I had hoped to post more during the trip, as I promised, because I knew I would have my laptop and my hotspot on my phone. But my hotspot service was spotty the five days we were in the car (there and back). Then when I was in Nauvoo we were gone sightseeing and temple-going every minute of the day. Then I dropped into bed late at night with no ounce of strength for blogging coherently. I posted some excerpts on Friday as I was zooming across Kansas in our family van using the laptop and my hotspot. This technology is amazing! When I tried the same deal on Saturday as we blazed through Wyoming, heading home, my Internet connection would not work. So this technology doesn’t always work, but it’s still amazing. 

Anyway, we are back home safe and sound, full of stories of our ancestors and church history. Here’s Chapter 2,  Part 3: Kate’s Letter #2 in which Kate loses to cinnamon rolls and starts learning about NFP.

Kate Week #2

 

Dear God, I think that for a long time I’ve had these feelings I’m learning about but I just didn’t know what they were, or how to describe them, so I ignored them. I lost my battle with staying under 1500 calories today. Hannah decided to make cinnamon rolls on Saturday night. I absolutely love them. I taught her how to make them when she was 6 and now she spontaneously makes them while watching Anne of Green Gables. It brings back sweet nostalgia of being in high school and having Anne  marathons with my friends on weekends, gorging on sugar. Anyway, so Dave was at a meeting and the older kids were watching so I sat down to watch. Before I knew it I had eaten 3. It was only 9:30 when I started, next thing I knew it was 10:15. Aargh! I completely forgot about my 1500 calories goal and my bedtime goal, so I lost two of my battles. A double blow from satan!

 

I’ve just got to face it that sugar is a huge weakness for me and when I have it I start to lose control. In my scripture study I found a scripture that perfectly applies to this. In Alma 49, the Nephites show wisdom and strategy in fighting. They realize that the Lamanites will try to come back and attack in the places where the Nephites were previously weak. So they strengthen their weak places and surprise the Lamanites. This chapter also made me think of a movie, The Scarlet and the Black. It has two of my favorite actors, Christopher Plummer and Gregory Peck. I watched this movie with my older kids for our homeschool study on World War II. It’s based on a true story about an Irish Catholic priest, Monsignor Hugh Flaherty, who lives in Rome and helps put Jews into hiding. He is put on house arrest in the Vatican by the Nazi German forces who have taken over Italy. But he can’t stand staying in hiding and wants to occasionally get out to do his life-saving work. So he puts on different disguises, like a cleaning man, a food vendor, and then even a nun’s outfit. Eventually the Nazis figure out his strategy and they start copying him by disguising themselves in their attacks on him. This taught me a powerful lesson: the enemy not only figures out our weaknesses, but he also figures out where we are strong. Then he starts being really sneaky in our strong areas as well, with clever disguises. So we have to be constantly on our guard.

So in my life I have started to apply the idea that the enemy will first attack where he thinks I am weak. I know I have a weakness for 1. staying up late and then sleeping in 2. sugar, 3. food in general, 4. Internet time, and 5. fun girly movies. All of these things can be disguises for satan to attack me and make me forget my long-term, important goals, like avoiding sugar, studying the classics to get a great education so I can inspire my kids to do so, and getting to bed early. As I was thinking about Alma 49 and this class I realized that the way I strengthen the weak places in my life is by using the Captain’s Log of questions, specifically the prophecy question every day. That’s the question where I ask myself “How is the enemy going to attack me today?” When I ask myself that question it forces me to acknowledge my weaknesses before Thee. It forces me to realize that I have weaknesses and that I must address them every day before Thee so I can ask for They help in strengthening them. Writing this question out and answering it helps me to be humble. I’ve decided that if I write this question out, in addition to the question, “What do I need to be prepared to fight back and win such an attack?” in my journal, then that’s how I strengthen my weak places.

 

I’ve decided that I also need to have three times a day when I ask myself what am I fighting for and why I am fighting. I am setting alarms on my phone to go off three times a day where I ask myself those questions and give the answers. I don’t just ask them of myself verbally. I write them physically out in my journal. That is a way I can use my body to show satan that I am more powerful than he is. It’s also a way to keep my goals in my frontal lobe of my brain, the forefront of my mind. That way I will be much less likely to forget my goals.

 

Also in Alma 49, I read about the story of Captain Moroni’s battle strategies. He strengthened his weak places by fortifying the walls around the weak cities. If the walls had only one entrance, then when the Lamanites tried to get through the entrance, the Nephites were prepared to shoot arrows from above, on top of the walls. This allowed the Nephites to increase in the “gift of discernment,” so that they easily detected intruders and then quickly defended themselves. In other words, the Nephites had terrific border patrol.

 

What was the result of this strengthening of the borders? The Nephites had “all power over their enemies.” More than 1000 Lamanites were slain but zero Nephites were slain. Some of the Nephites were wounded. I might get a little wounded in my battles with satan as well, but if I do my Power Actions, and ask myself the prophecy question from the Captain’s Log of questions every morning with an answer on how I am fighting back, I will have my own form of border patrol to give me a gift on discernment for intruders and “all power” over my enemies. I will not be slain spiritually! I will have all power over satan, my enemy! I can see more than ever before how my daily scripture study and other Power actions are my own personal form of border patrol.

As far as the Girl Goals go, I have figured out recently that I need to change one of them. I want to write about that before I forget. We’ve never used birth control. We’ve been blessed with 8 beautiful children who came close together. I didn’t get married until I was 28 and at first I had a hard time getting pregnant. Once they started coming, at age 32, I didn’t dare do anything to stop them, knowing the agony it took to get the first one here! Maybe that’s partly why I’m fat– I seem to have gained 20 lbs with each one. I used to alternate between regular clothes and maternity clothes and then I gave up. The maternity clothes became my regular clothes, and I even outgrew the medium and large size ones, when I wasn’t pregnant. Then I had to start wearing women’s plus sizes and even extra plus sizes. So that part of having babies hasn’t been glamorous, but I’d have to say it’s worth it. I’ve always wanted to have as many kids as I could. They are a joy to me and I wouldn’t trade them for anything. But, now that Dave has cancer we have to rethink the family planning. Do we really want to have any more?  I really don’t want to bring a child into the world knowing that his father could die soon.

 

Ugh, I HATE cancer! The word itself is so ugly! Even uglier than the word ugly. Why did it have to rear its head in my life? Why does it have to rear its head in anyone’s life? Can’t we all just live healthfully to a ripe old age and die from being old? Cancer has become an epidemic. I never thought about it before but all of Dave’s grandma’s siblings, all 7 of them, have died of it, one kind or another. As well as all four of my grandparents, and ten people in my ward in the last 2 years. I’ve been researching and praying about it. What causes it?  Is there anyway to prevent it?

 

Dave and I have been talking and praying about having another baby with his cancer looming over us. We feel it’s best to end our open womb policy. I’m really sad about that, actually grieving. I love babies and I’ve always loved the idea of having more. Of course they are a lot of work but I’m used to it. I’ve always felt that there is nothing else I would rather be doing than having and raising and babies. But maybe my time of having more babies is over, at least for a season. If the chemotherapy works, and of course I am praying that it will, then the doctors say that it takes two years for the drugs to leave the body before it’s safe to get pregnant. We’re trying to decide what to do instead. After class last week we were hanging out talking. Somehow the topic shifted to having babies. I mentioned we were talking about sterilization because of the cancer. I asked a woman in the class, Stacey, about it and she suggested I look more into the risks involved, as well as the Church’s position on it. She said she had a lot of information about it and would email me the links later.

 

Then Lauren barged in and told me not to bother with natural family planning. That kind of surprised me because I know she’s into lots of natural stuff like natural birth since she’s a home birth midwife. I asked her why and she told me all of this stuff. The more she talked the more I felt she didn’t know what she was talking about. She kept telling me stories of people who said they used it and it didn’t work. Later that week, Stacey emailed me some information. I am so glad she did. Stacey can be really quiet but she really knows a lot. She shared with me that natural family planning is not just the calendar or rhythm method. That’s what Lauren thought it was. Stacey explained that every woman has a different day of the fertility cycle that she might ovulate and even one woman can vary from cycle to cycle. So it doesn’t work to just count days and guess when one is going to be fertile. A woman has to learn what the different signs of fertility are in her body and watch for them and track them. She said that NFP is 99% effective, and much safer than hormonal methods or sterilization.

 

So now I’m looking into it. The more I study it, the more I like the idea. I like the idea that it doesn’t involve any artificial chemicals, like the Pill. I was on the Pill when I first got married and after a year I went off. It gave me the worst migraines. A lady in my ward just had a daughter in the hospital with a stroke. This woman is only 22! The ER doctor attributed it to the Pill. The funny thing is that the daughter isn’t even married and was put on the Pill by her regular doctor to help her with weight loss! He didn’t even tell her about the risks, like strokes, or tell her to read the package insert that details all the risks. I started meeting with Stacey over the phone so she can teach me more about NFP. She’s told me about some books to read which I just checked out from the library. So I am learning all about fertility signals and I think it’s really amazing that just like the earth and trees go through seasons, so do women’s bodies. So now I’m going to start tracking my signals. This is all so new to me so I’ve been thinking of having “tracking my fertility signals every night” as a Girl Goal but I don’t want to drop the exercise goal,  the get up goal, and the 1500 calories a day limit. I guess I’m going to have 4 Girl Goals. I can handle it! I am also thinking about going off sugar but I know I am not ready for it yet. But if I’m going to stick to 1500 calories I can’t have much sugar anyway.

 

I did a lot of study on what the church leaders have said about artificial birth control . I noticed when the Pill just came out, a lot them came out against it. Now they don’t say anything about it. Why is that? Do the teachings of those prophets no longer apply? I’ve prayed about and I feel like at least for us, this is the right choice.

 

I am feeling kind of nervous about starting NFP. Is that the satanic spin, or is that just the feeling of embarking on the unknown? For this week’s homework, we were supposed to start noticing satanic spins. I’ve made a page in my journal to note every time I feel it. I think it’s any time I start to feel fuzzy-headed, antsy, apathetic, bored, or lazy. It’s when I don’t feel like working on any of my duties or honing any of my talents. I feel it especially when I am at the Internet and want to keep clicking to get a new “hit” of excitement and interest, because I am bored, instead of walking away and finding one of my kids to have fun with or reading a hard book so I can get a great education, or sharpening my drawing and music skills.

 

Here are some evidences of the times I have felt the satanic spin this week:

 

-my sister called to invite me to a party to celebrate her husband’s promotion. I started feeling really depressed about Dave’s future and that a job promotion is the furthest thing from our minds.

 

-they served cheesecake at the Relief Society meeting and the next night it was those giant chewy chocolate chip cookies at pack meeting. I felt so left out as I tried to make small talk while everybody was devouring them. I felt depressed and deprived and frustrated that I have constant sugar cravings and that giving into them just makes them grow.

 

-I saw on Facebook that Kara just lost 30 lbs. I felt envious and even more depressed.

 

-Someone at church asked me if I am pregnant. I wanted to burst out in tears! I know it’s about time, based on my track record with my other kids, and I do look pregnant, but still. Why are people so rude and presumptive? I would never ask somebody that. I wait for the person who I suspect is pregnant to volunteer the information, even if she looks 9 months along!

 

-A lady from the ward came over after her daughter’s wedding reception, bearing a tray of leftover wedding cake, asking me “You have lots of kids right? I have some leftovers for you!” She sang that out triumphantly as if she were Santa Claus delivering wholesome organic Florida oranges to our doorstep. Ugh. I stared at the cake, with the fondant icing and the roses, and thought about looking her straight in the eye and icily saying, “Satan sent you here, didn’t he?” but I didn’t. I know she meant well. She went on to say that she had three different flavors of cake to share, as well as some mints and chocolates, white and milk, with the temple imprinted on them. She said she knew that we have the most kids in the ward so she immediately thought of giving ALL the leftovers to us. I thanked her for thinking of us, and oooh boy, was I ever tempted. Part of me wanted to take the chocolates and run, but I found the reasonable part of me politely telling her that my family likes to limit sugar because it causes behavioral problems (most of them in me!–but I didn’t tell her that part) so we couldn’t have any of it. I don’t have “no sugar” as an official Girl Goal yet but I know it ultimately does not help me feel good. It makes me feel grouchy and I just want more and more. Some people don’t seem affected by it but I certainly am. So hooray, I won an “unofficial” battle!

 

She looked very frustrated that she couldn’t just dump the contraband on me. I was actually quite pleased with myself for doing the right thing. The old me would have been cheering her and sending the kids out to bring it all in from her car. Then I would cut the cake up, and freeze it in portions. Then I would thaw it a week at a time, sneak it during the day when the kids weren’t looking, and eat it with ice cream after the kids were all in bed, every night, multiple servings each night. I’ve done that quite a bit in the past. That has been the nightly ritual that Dave and I use to unwind while we watch something on Netflix. I can definitely say that the annoyance I felt at this woman who thought she was doing a good deed for me was a definite chemical shift. I felt a chemical spill of annoyance mixed with a chemical spill of frustration that I knew the Holy Ghost was telling me not to accept the gift.

 

Later, a day or so after the thwarted sugar invasion, I was doing research about cancer online. There’s so much out there about it. I went from the peaceful feeling of Level 0 on the Chemical Scale, to Level 2, of painful overwhelm, in less than 2 seconds. I was encouraged by a statement I heard echoed many times. “Cancer is 100% preventable by diet.” The question is, what diet? So many people disagree on what a healthful diet is. I feel like Joseph Smith wondering what church to join. I know the Word of Wisdom is a good place to start of course. We could eat more vegetables and grains around here and much less junk food. I have to say, Dave does love his junk food. Give him his Dr. Pepper and his Doritos and his M and Ms and he is one happy camper. One thing I read went even so far as to say that cancer is caused by sugar. I don’t know about that. That sounds way too extreme.

 

OK, enough about diet and my victory over Sister Sugar in the ward. I want to talk about a lost battle. Two nights ago I lost a battle, getting into bed by 10 PM. I finally got the kids tucked in at 9:07 and I wanted to unwind in front of my favorite blogs while I drank some herbal tea. “I am just going to read a few posts, then I will go get ready for bed,” I told myself.The next thing I knew, I looked at the clock and it was 10:24 PM. What, how did that happen?

 

So I was thinking about it the next day, as I went to do my Power Actions in the morning. I asked God to speak to me through the scriptures to help me with answers as I did the Lost Battle Analysis for my journal writing that morning. So, I reread Alma 49 this morning, as well as Alma 48, and I got some amazing answers! I read about strengthening borders again. Alma 49:8 says that Moroni built walls of stone around the cities of the Nephites, in order to protect them from the Lamanites, the enemy.

 

So just like I wrote earlier, In order to protect myself from my enemy, the Lamanites in my life, I must erect a strong border, my power actions. That’s the way I build a wall to protect myself and my family and strengthen my borders. I am seeing that these actions must be more than just my prayer, writing, and reading. Those Power Actions are akin to building a wall with a watchtower on it for me every morning. But then I have to climb the watchtower so I can see the enemy. For me, that means looking over the plans for my day in my journal, which doubles as my planner, and asking myself three crucial questions:

 

1. How will the enemy attack me today to get me to fail at my Girl Goals and Power Actions?

2. When will be my most vulnerable time to his attacks?

3. What is my plan to be prepared and fight back?

 

If I had done that in the morning, and then checked it throughout the day, I would have reminded myself of my plan for the day that I made last night, and I would have seen that at 9 I was planning on doing some sewing and then that I was planning on getting ready for bed at 9:30 PM.

I also noticed a contrast between Amalickiah and Moroni in Alma 48. Amalackiah blinded the minds of his people and hardened their hearts (vs 3). That’s how he got power over the people. By contrast Moroni does not blind his people’s minds but “prepares” their minds to be faithful unto the Lord. He is a leader who brings his people to the Ultimate Leader, Jesus Christ.

 

I love vs 17 because it says that if all men were like Moroni, the devil would have no power over the people, ever! He only has power as we let him. I define power as the ability to create lasting change. Satan can exert the satanic spin on me. Just like the Lamanites attacked the Nephites no matter how righteous the Nephites were. But satan will exert no power over me, or lasting change, if I remain strongly connected to Thee through my Power Actions. So I thank Thee so much dear God, for giving me these Power Actions so I can maintain my connection with Thee through the wilderness of mortal life.

 

Love,

Kate

 

I am making up for not posting something from my book until today, Friday, by giving you two excerpts today, and then two tomorrow. So here is the next installment of Dates with God. I started posting pieces of this new novel of mine last week. Check back to last week’s posts so you can meet all of the characters and their first letters to God. I wrote this book as a collection of four  fictional women’s letters/journal entries that they write when they take the Mothers Who Know class. So, may I present Chapter 2, Part 2: Jill’s Letter #2, in which we see Jill’s husband have a temper tantrum.

Jill’s Letter #2

 

What am I fighting for?

 

I am fighting to save my eternal marriage and family. I remember when I was just married. It was so easy to talk to Rob. The love flowed so completely and easily between us. There was no second-guessing or wondering how he would take things or feeling like he is a hypocritical grouch. I could always count on him listening calmly and lovingly. Now things have changed. We get into fights so easily. I wish I could go back to the good old days, or even when we were dating. I was looking at pictures from then and all the happiness I felt back then came rushing into me. How things have drastically changed! When I was about 10 or so, I remember being scared of some of my friends’ dads. Now Rob is one of those grumpy old men that I was scared of.

 

I learned about the satanic spin of the mind last week in class. The mentor asked us to watch for it happening inside of us over the next week. I definitely saw it happen in this house.

 

I was in the basement, refinishing an old dresser to make it look distressed in a vintagely charming way for the girls’ bedroom. I was also taking pictures of every step so I could put a tutorial about it on my blog. I had this complete vision in my mind of just how darling it would look! Rob was upstairs, trying to find something. Then I heard his voice boom out,

“Where’s my racquet?”

 

I remembered he said he was going out to have guy time with his friends to play racquetball.

 

“Check the shed!” I called back to him. I took a peek through the basement window to watch him go fetch it. He was gone in the shed for a while, then he came back out. As he walked across the backyard in the snow, he accidentally stepped into one of the holes the kids had dug in the yard last fall and never filled in. He tripped and fell.

 

I expected him to start yelling about falling in the hole when he stormed through the back door. Instead he launched into a tirade about racquets. “That’s not the racket I wanted. It’s my racquetball racquet, not a tennis racket!”  He started jumping up and down and threw some toys that were on the coffee table, against the wall, breaking the glass of a picture frame in the process.  I ran upstairs to talk to him. When he saw me he yelled, “You are such a dope! Don’t you know the difference? Why do things have to be so disorganized around here?”

 

I stood there looking at him, a grown man, acting like a two year old. It was actually quite comical. Normally when he has done this in the past, I get sucked right in and start yelling back. This time, I noticed a shift in my body’s chemistry. It was this feeling of anger towards him. It brought back all the memories of all the times he has raged. I had this thought inside me of “I’ll show him!” I felt my heart beating faster and my mind scrambling for what to say. All the kids were staring at us.

 

“If only Curtis could see you now.” I said to him. We then had a bitter argument that probably lasted for 15 minutes. Everything he said was about how he would be nicer if things weren’t so messy and why was I such a lousy housekeeper. Everything he said just proved more and more of what a jerk he is. Doesn’t he know that the housework is never done and I was taking a break?  I finally decided to walk away and he kept following me, yelling the whole time. I went into the bathroom and locked the door behind me. He kept yelling through the door. I decided to turn the shower on so I couldn’t hear him. I took a long time in there and started crying. I was just hoping the girls would take care of the baby, who had probably woken up with all that yelling.

 

That’s another thing I hate, besides his yelling. It’s that I cry because he’s so mean, and even if I am ever mean to him, which is hard for me to be, he never cries. It’s like he can “get” to me so quickly, and I will usually change and do what he wants, but I can’t get to him or change him or hurt him. It’s so unfair! After I came out the kids said that he had left with Brother Fielding to go play racquetball. I guess he decided to rent a racquet. All that fuming for nothing. He could have just simply decided to rent a racquet right away when he couldn’t find one and save all the ranting, and the broken picture frame, and his tripping. Jerk.  After it was all over he came home and acted like nothing happened. Double jerk. He definitely owes me an apology. #ican’tbelievehowmuchofajerkmyhusbandis

 

I spent the rest of the week replaying the event in my mind, wanting to call my friends and blab all about it and ask what they would do. But I didn’t. It’s really none of their business. I have had this habit when we have problems between us that I go call my mom or girlfriends and get them involved. I am changing that. He has told me many times that it’s like I am a walking poll, going around and getting everyone’s opinions on our marriage’s current events and issues.

 

Why am I fighting for my eternal marriage and family? Why do I want to be eternally sealed to a jerk? It’s because I know that Rob really isn’t a jerk. That’s not his real self. Whenever satan starts replaying memories of Rob being mean I remind myself that that’s not really him. Nevertheless, it’s not OK for him to treat me this way. I want to get the old Rob back, the Rob who laughs with me, roughhouses with the kids, and asks me what he can do to help me. I still have hope I can get him. I ask Thee God to please help me know how to get him back.

I’ve been having some super fun family bonding time this week hence the lack of blogging since last weekend. I can’t wait to share what I have been up to with my family and what we’ve learned. Maybe I can get to that next week, but no promises! Our homeschooling classes start up soon so I will have to be getting ready for all of that. Anyway, here’s the next installment of my new novel Dates with God: How Four Mormon Mamas Beat Satan Using the Book of Mormon. In this excerpt, Emma writes a letter to herself and reveals the scars of her childhood. She discovers how the Enemy uses her past to get her to feel lousy and interfere with her marriage. Here’s Emma’s Letter #2. Note: I am aware of some typos and odd characters in the text. I will be working on getting rid of those when I get some help. I’ve worked on it and for the life of me, every time I go to delete these odd characters the cursor moves to the beginning of the line. So I will be cleaning those up. If you have comments or feedback about other issues in the story, please comment below.

Dear Self,

 

If people came to your home they would be so surprised. Most people think of you as mild and mousy. OK, well, it’s true you don’t aspire to be the next diva American Idol sensation. But you also aren’t mellow or mousy with your kids. You’re more like a lion, no, make that a witch.

 

How do you think you can stop your anger problem? The class this week was about noticing chemical shifts in ourselves, which precede changes in moods. I’ve noticed many times that right before you started yelling you felt the build-up of stress and overwhelm. It was so interesting to really notice what it feels like. It’s like this swelling inside me that is quickly gaining momentum.  I also hear these voices in my head, “You shouldn’t have adopted these kids. You know they would be better off with their birth mothers.” It’s been so freeing to realize that this voice is not really me, it’s really satan! Maybe you can get to the point where you recognize the voice before the heat of the moment and do something to reverse the negative energy. I’ll let you know when I learn how to do that.

 

I’ve been wondering how satan can put his voice in our heads? How does that work? I guess it’s because he’s a spirit. Just as the Holy Ghost, as a spirit, can speak to our spirits, so can the evil spirit. I noticed this scripture:

 

“And it came to pass that the people began to wax strong in wickedness and abominations; and they did not believe that there should be any more signs or wonders given; and Satan did go about, leading away the hearts of the people, tempting them and causing them that they should do great wickedness in the land.” 3 Nephi 2:3

 

So how did satan “lead away the hearts of the people”? I think it’s because he could speak to them as spirit to spirit, or spirit to heart, and that’s how he tempted them and caused them to do wickedness. I/you learned in class that the reason we fall for his temptations often is because he can speak in my own voice, so I think it’s me talking when it’s really him. I am learning things I never knew before about myself and my inner world.

 

This class has really opened up some old wounds. I had a dream last night. I was pulling on Clark’s arm, asking him to come with me to see a little girl. I kept tugging and tugging and tugging, and he kept resisting. He would not come with me. Finally I opened a door without Clark standing by me and saw a little girl in the corner of the room crying. The little girl looked up and kept sobbing and stared at me. She was actually me, at the age of 4.  I woke up and I started crying in real life. Then all of the memories I had of being 4 and scared came back to me.

 

I lived in Indiana and my parents were not there for me. I remember a lot of yelling and fighting and hitting. I also remember being left alone in charge of my younger brother while they were out night after night, drinking and doing drugs. Lots of times Joey and I had no food in the house and I would put him to bed by telling him stories, and then I would cry myself to sleep. Sometimes we could find some food, like stale bread and canned beans. My dad left us when I was 10. I sometimes cringe when I hear that song “I am A Child of God,” because I was not born to parents “kind and dear.” Maybe that’s why I have a hard time connecting to you God as my heavenly father. Finally when I was 12 my grandma intervened and came and got us to come live with her in Utah. My mom ended up dying of a drug overdose and we still don’t know where my dad is.

Anyway, I lived with Grandma until I left for BYU the fall after I turned 18. I guess Grandma is the closest thing I have to knowing what you must be like God. Hey, I just realized something. Grandma is the “kind and dear” parent that I can think about when I sing that song. I do have a parent “kind and dear”! She is the one who figuratively heard that little girl crying in my dream and came to her rescue. That dream reminded me that we are all little children at heart who just want to be noticed, loved and happy.

 

I think maybe I am always at a Level 1 or 2 on the Chemical Scale [see page 21 of Like Dragons Did They Fight by Maurice Harker and Lucas Reynolds]. I have gone for decades not knowing this. It is like I have been going through life blindfolded, not knowing that satan has been attacking me every moment. I have this constant dissatisfaction going on. I think a lot of it stems from orphan envy, and then satan builds on that with Level 1 and Level 2 to turn it to frustration and then anger. Then I lash out at my kids. This envy stems from when I was a kid. I feel like I spent my whole childhood feeling like I was on the outside looking in. First it was in Indiana. I was on the outside of a happy family life, looking in symbolically at some of my classmates who had cheery family lives. It’s like I was standing on their porch, freezing cold, looking in the front window at happy family scenes around a glowing fireplace. Then I moved to Utah, and my physical life got better. I had plenty of food and attention from Grandma. But I still felt emotionally off. She loved me plenty. But I never felt completely “whole.” I felt like I didn’t have a “real, forever” family like the Butterfields, my childhood friends. Mark and LaVonna Mae Butterfield were grandma’s neighbors. Their daughter Cindy was my exact age to the month, so we did a lot at school and church together. More on LaVonna Mae in a minute.

Adjustment from life in Indiana to suburban Mormon Utah was hard. Grandma lived in a ward with tons of kids. I wasn’t used to going to church and being around other kids, except at school. I had never played at a friend’s house before. I didn’t even own a dress or very many toys. The girls my age in the ward and neighborhood were into clothes and boys and hair. I felt so different from them. I was only used to thinking about surviving. One of the first thing I noticed was that the girls all had fluffy bangs.  I remember thinking, “What is it with this Utah hair?” Grandma got me some dresses for Sunday and nice school clothes. I remember finally feeling accepted because I fit in, at least with my clothes. She took so much better care of me than my parents ever did! For once I felt I had a remotely normal childhood, as mu[[

Looking back I realize that I still felt poor and orphan-like as I kept comparing my life to Cindy’s life. I still felt like I was an outsider, looking in, despite the Butterfields’ welcoming acceptance of me. LaVonna’s girls took me in like a sister. LaVonna Mae was like a third mom, next to my grandma, and mom. I close my eyes and remember sitting in her 70s Harvest Gold formica kitchen, drinking red punch and eating her homemade mint brownies and laughing with her girls. She was the Relief Society president, homemaking queen, and fashionista maven of the ward. She sewed all the girls’ matching dresses, curled their hair perfectly for every Sunday, and taught piano lessons.

 

LaVonna Mae was a would-be Hollywood starlet who was part of a singing sisters group in Los Angeles in the 60s. She also had a stellar swimming and track career in high school while she pursued the training to become a classically-trained concert pianist and vocalist. That didn’t keep her busy enough, so she had a budding acting and modeling career as well. She had the athleticism of Esther Williams, the voice of Marni Nixon, the figure of Grace Kelly, the talent of Katherine Hepburn, the likeability of Lucille Ball, and the fashion sense of Audrey Hepburn. She appeared with a few lines in several movies. Her Type A overdrive mixed with her natural talents and good looks propelled her onward and upward to center stage, which she managed completely graciously. She was the female everyone wants to hate at because she is so perfect but the more time you spend with her the more you can’t help but love her because she is so pleasant and generous.

She left her glamorous careers, yes, careers in the plural, to marry and settle in Utah to a life of Mormon motherhood, full of diapers and dishes. But in true LaVonna Mae style, she plunged right in and made motherhood just as fulfilling and attention-gathering as her former careers. She had two boys, then Cindy, then Christy, Allison, and Ashley, and then four more boys for a total of 10 kids. Her girls were like sisters to me. LaVonna Mae was like a third mom, next to my grandma, and mom. I close my eyes and remember sitting in her 70s Harvest Gold formica kitchen, drinking red punch and eating her homemade mint brownies and laughing with her girls. She was the Relief Society president, homemaking queen, and fashionista maven of the ward. She sewed all the girls’ matching dresses, curled their hair perfectly for every Sunday, and taught piano lessons. I still remember seeing her family march up to the front row of the chapel on Christmas Sunday, with all of the little girls wearing matching velveteen dresses and holding Cabbage Patch dolls they had received from Santa that morning. I had no such luck and my cheeks burned with envy. LaVonna Mae had a way of always looking perfect. She made the mommy roles that Julie Andrews portrayed look like negligent, underachieving slipshod caretakers. For some odd reason, I feel like LaVonna Mae is always watching me, to see if I am living up to her s

LaVonna Mae was fun, but she was also about business. The only time we relaxed was when we ate her baked goods. Most of the time, we were working. In the spring or summer, we either planted the garden or picked raspberries or other harvest from her garden and orchard and helped her with canning. In the fall and winter we made dolls, blankets, and wooden toys to donate to homeless shelters. We also worked on writing skits and sewing costumes to present the skits to old people in nursing homes, complete with LaVonna Mae’s favorite songs, like “The Surrey with the Fringe on Top.” LaVonna Mae was the executive producer, piecing all of the song, dance, and instrumental music numbers together and having final say on the scripts we wrote. She had practically her own orchestra to play for the show because she taught each child to play piano starting at age 4 and then required that they learn the violin plus one other instrument of their own choosing. She graciously let me join the family troupe of performers even though I gave up on her piano lessons. She was amazing in every way, in personality, industry, service, kindness, feminine fashion, beauty, homemaking, and being a wife and mother.

 

LaVonna Mae had a way of always looking perfect and going over the top. If she was asked to make cupcakes, she would produce wedding cakes. She wrote her checks in calligraphy, made Faberge eggs out of sugar and frosting for Easter, gingerbread houses for Christmas that looked like the Von Trapp family villa, and her girls’ hair like they were going to the prom every Sunday. I am still friends with the Butterfields and Cindy and I message each other on Facebook a lot. She still lives in Pineview, so does Christy. They each have an upwardly mobile husband and a bunch of kids. I have always wanted to buy a house in Pineview and live there too so we could raise our kids together in such an idyllic environment. Houses there cost a lot more, and we’ve never been able to afford it. If I could somehow talk Clark into using his inheritance money to use as a down payment and he got a job within commuting distance, to replace the inheritance money we are living on, then we could afford to live there. But we would have to use some of the inheritance money to get us out from under the water with this mortgage. Right now, with him out of work, there’s no way I could risk taking on that size of a house without a regular paycheck.

 

So I realized the other day how much this longing, this intense desire to move there affects me every day. Satan uses it to build on with more negative feelings. He takes the frustration I have at being stuck in this cramped old house, faraway from what really feels like home to me, Pineview, and mixes it with envy for a big house with marble countertops, vaulted ceilings, sub-zero fridge, and bull-nose corners, and then he keeps building it until it is anger. Hmm…I am going to have to figure out how to deal with that. I am not sure yet.

 

I’ve also realized that mixed with this unsatisfied longing is my poor-orphan-on-the-outside-looking-in emotional framework which affects me everyday. I still feel socially inferior to my “peers,” like all the moms in my ward. On the other hand, I have never felt intellectually inferior. I’ve always known I could hold my own academically. I have prided myself that I’ve known, even before college, that Jean Piaget is a male, the difference between socialism and communism, how to spell voila which most unlearned people spell “wallah,” and despite the common misconception, that most chairs you see on pool decks are not “lounge chairs,” but “longue chairs” which comes from the French phrase, chaise longue which means “long chair”. But I’ve always felt like socially, I was still a bit backward. Like I don’t know how to give a tip or make small talk with strangers, and I am absolutely petrified of ever being called to serve in the ward’s Young Women presidency. I don’t know how I would relate to a gaggle of teenage girls. These themes of wanting to move and feeling socially inferior are like undercurrents that satan is always playing with to help me miss battles.

Yesterday, I missed a battle with saying my evening prayer. I was in bed when I remembered I hadn’t said it. Then I thought, “Oh, I need to say my prayer.” I felt soooo tired. Like I would fall apart if I even tried to sit up. I did not want to do it. I lay there for about 5 minutes, wishing the situation would somehow go away. “Really?” “You really forgot to say your prayer before you got into bed? How could you?” Uggh, I hate the misery of those kinds of conditions. I got up in the bed and knelt under the covers and started to say my prayers. Then I fell asleep. I woke up and started again, trying to remember where I left off. Then I would start over again. I kept falling asleep and then waking up, looking at the clock and starting over. First it was 11 PM then 11:13, then 3:34 AM, then 5:17, then it was the alarm at 6 to wake me up. At some point my legs collapsed underneath me and I was sleeping on my stomach. I would have gotten more sleep if I just had gotten out of bed in the first place and said my prayer the first time I realized I missed it!

 

In the morning, I hit the snooze button because I was soooo tired. Then when I finally got out of bed I had missed my get up time, which is one of my Girl Goals. It hit me that’s how it feels to be stoned, that feeling I had when I was so tired and craving sleep. I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t realize that I was giving up on my 6 AM wake up time. I totally have now lived what we talked about in class last week, with that story of the Lamanites drugging the Nephites’ water and the Nephites getting stoned! I was in my limbic or animal brain, and all I cared about was getting more sleep. I remember hearing in class about how when we are in the animal brain all we care about is satisfying basic animal instincts, such as sleeping, eating, and reproducing.

 

In class when we were talking about the chemical scale of emotions that happen during self-betrayal I felt so superior, like “Oh I never experience that. I never get stoned. That’s for other people who use drugs and alcohol, not me.” Oh my gosh, how silly I was being. Or was that really satan putting that thought in my head, and I just thought it was me, so that I would have my guard down for the next time he whispered a lie to me? He is so sneaky! I did my lost battle analysis (LBA) and realized that the lie or Dude Moment came last night way before I would have initially thought that it did. When I was in my bed writing in my journal, I got a text message, and then I replied. I texted back and forth with my friend and when we were done, I snuggled under the covers and fell asleep. When I did the LBA I realized that when I heard the phone notify me of the text I heard the thought, “I have to read that text!” That was a lie from satan! I did not have to read it right then and there! Who is more important to talk to in that moment, God, in the form of my letter to God, or whoever might be texting me? If I had stayed on track, writing to God in my journal, not getting distracted, I would have remembered to pray next because that is my habit, to pray right after I write, and then check off my boxes. That lie I heard was satan talking to me, that wasn’t me.  I also did a LBA on the praying in bed scenario.

 

Q5 or Question 5 “Where and when were you when you experienced the ‘Forget it’ moment, Level 5 on the chemical scale?”

I was in bed, starting to fall asleep.

 

Q4 or Question 4  “Where and when were you when you experienced the ‘Stupid Conversation’, Level 4?”

It was when I was in bed, after I realized I hadn’t prayed, and before I dozed off. It sounded like this,  “No don’t pray, just lie here. I’m so comfy. I don’t want to get out of bed. I can’t get out of bed. I know I should, but I don’t want to. You can just say your prayer right here. Don’t worry about it.”

 

Q3 or Question 3 “Where and when did Level 3, the Dude Moment, happen?”

“You don’t have to get out of bed. You can just pray right here.” Maybe that’s true for some people, after all it does say on that Gospel Standards chart for the Primary kids that “I can pray anytime anywhere,” but in my specific situation I was not awake enough to stay awake to get through the end of the prayer, even though I was kneeling, and not lying, in bed. Getting out of bed would have helped me to rouse enough to pray in a wakeful  mode.

 

As I wrote that, I realized that the Dude Moment actually happened a lot earlier. The clue is that the Dude Moment usually involves a lie. As I thought about this I remembered a lie I had heard from the enemy earlier in the day. Usually I don’t let the kids watch a movie after 7:45, so we can have lights out way by 10 PM. But they asked for a movie at 8:15 and I heard this voice say, “It’s OK, just let them watch it. It doesn’t matter.” So we didn’t have everyone in bed until WAY after 10:45 because they still wanted me to read to them after the movie was over. That made me be really sleepy when I finally got to my journal writing. Like I wrote earlier, another lie or Dude Moment was when I heard a text message come in on my phone, and a voice said, “I have to read that text.” I realized that was putting someone else before God. In that moment, texting back and forth with my friend was more important than my nightly appointment with God to connect with Him by writing Him a letter and praying.

Q2, Question 2 “Where and when were you when you experienced the ‘Build-up of Negative Feelings’, Level 2?”

Hmmm…I think that happened all day. I had been going from errand to errand and kid to kid and duty to duty and had not taken time to nurture myself at all. So when that text message came I felt starving for some attention from a friend.

 

Q1, Question 1 “Where and when were you when you experienced the ‘Chemical Spill’, Level 1?” I haven’t figured that one out yet. Hmmm…maybe it was early in the day when I noticed the kids had spilled nail polish on the living room carpet and I yelled at them. Yeah, that’s another Lost Battle, because I lost my temper. I’ll be doing another LBA for that. I am thinking of maybe changing my goal about not getting angry. Maybe it would be better to have goals that help me feel more nourished and at a Level 0 so that I am less likely to get angry. I will have to think about that more.

 

I am grateful to God for the Lost Battle Analysis process. This is something I can do the rest of my life as part of my journal writing to keep me in my frontal lobe and on God’s covenant path. I plan on using this the rest of my life so I can be a better warrior for God. I can see how just as I get stoned when I am extremely tired I can be stoned when I get angry. I can see that I can prevent the stoned-ness from happening by being more discerning to those little signals along the way and acting on them.

 

Love,

Emma

 

Like I wrote earlier, I am aware of the formatting problems, odd characters, and the “s” that has no letters next to it to make a word. I have tried deleting it and it won’t delete! I will have to get my tech assistants (my R.M. son and his teen siblings) to help me.