To lift my spirits.

Okay. I've been tossing and turning in bed for an hour, knowing if I got up that early I'd be regretting it later. But now, I've still been awake that long and haven't done anything with the time that my kiddies have been snoozing soundly. And that's a panicky feeling. It's like when they used to nap at the same time, I'd run around the house like a chicken with its head cut off trying to figure out what on earth to do with that limited window of time. And then I'd get so overwhelmed with all the possibilities that I'd just get narcoleptic and have to sit down and stare blankly at the clock until one of them woke up again. It's a weird thing. One of them will undoubtedly be stirring in no time, even though on regular days I'd still have an hour or so before they awaken... but they sniff me out. They know when I'm awake and enjoying some me time. So I've been laying there in bed listening to the sounds of the house and the loud thoughts in my head. And I figured it was time to get up and write. So they'll stop being so loud in there.

This post might not be for you. But I know it's for me. And I need it. I need to write it. So forgive me if you read it and you don't really need it. Sometimes we all have to be a little selfish. And so I'll be selfish for a moment.

I have this thing about me. I go into these weird sortof funks. Not the no-showering and no-getting-ready-for-the-day kind of funk, (sorry to tell you that's doesn't really set me apart at all among preggies). But I'm very effected by what's going on in the world. To an emotionally debilitating point. I hear a disturbing story on the news and it will make me go crawl into my bed and put a pillow over my head and cry. Sometimes it will have that effect on me for days. And I can't snap myself out of it. I'll pretty much cry about it on and off all day long. And Jason will get home from work and my eyes will be all red and my face all puffy and I'll have tears brimming at the surface. And he'll ask if I'm okay and then I'll start crying again. And he'll ask what's wrong and I'll say, "the world". Like, isn't it obvious?

I try not to watch the news. Period. I avoid it like the plague. And actually plug my ears and close my eyes and do the la-la-la thing when we are channel surfing and stop there, especially when I'm heavy with child. Maybe you think I'm not up on current events. But I have a husband who is and he has come to act as a sort of filter for his wife. It's a good system.

I've always been extremely sensitive to certain things. And there's not a hint of judginess or soapbox about me divulging what I am here. Like the fact that I could only get through a book and a half of the Hunger Games series and I had to put it away forever because it was too violent for me and just left me feeling disturbed. I mean, everyone loves the Hunger Games (besides my sis and me) so I'm kindof a loner. And the fact that we'll be at parties and one of the husbands will flip on a UFC fight and everyone will watch and the wives will continue with their chatting amidst the head butts and round houses to the face and my husband will find me in the bathroom crying to myself, all alone. I'm being totally for real. Okay, I was 12 weeks pregnant when that happened too, but still. I remember being like 12 years old and staying in a hotel with my family and my dad was channel surfing late at night and flipped it to the news and a guy was getting beat up on a surveillance video. It wasn't particularly gory or gruesome and didn't last long. But I quietly went into the hotel bathroom and completely lost it. Curled up into fetal position and had myself a good cathartic cry. The bathroom is a good self-deprecating place to have a good cry because you're forced, (even when you take precautions not to) to spot yourself in the mirror and see what you really look like when you're ugly face crying. And you realize it's nothing like those Maybelline models in the water-proof mascara commercials who have sultry expressions on their faces with a single tear rolling down their cheek. I mean, you have to face the music if you're crying in the bathroom. I'm telling the truth when I say if I feel anything about this attribute of mine, I have felt it to be a burden to me. Because things just affect me completely differently than they do the people who surround me. And people have their conversations, Oh my gosh did you hear about that guy who did such-and-such to his so-and-so... he's going to prison for life... and then continue on their conversations about reality TV and what they recently saw on pinterest and I slip into a dark, dark, withdrawn trance; unable to wrap my head around the alarming control that Satan has over so many. I'd like to numb myself from it all. When I was 8 months pregnant with Lucy we went to that Batman movie Dark Night in the theaters. And while Christian Bale was pleasant to behold, I slipped right into one of those funks, about how much evil there is in the world. Especially Gotham City. I could give you literally hundreds of examples. Sigh.

I feel totally overwhelmed at the amount of suffering and wickedness in the world and the atrocities of mankind. I feel helpless and fearful and angry. And I'm fully aware that the amount I am exposed to in my life is such a small, minute fraction of it all. But I just cannot bear what people are doing to each other, what people are doing to children, what people are doing to their own children. I've always been more emotional and disturbed when children are involved, but since becoming a mother and holding my own little ones, it's an entirely new realm in how I'm affected. Watching the movie The Kite Runner on my husband's recommendation when Lucy was a baby left me a sobbing mess for at least two solid weeks. And I hated him during that time for renting it and bringing it home. It could have been a week later and I'd just start crying out of nowhere when we were watching a basketball game on TV, and I'd be forced to give him a steely glance and leave the room. And he knew it was because of The Kite Runner. People think I'm missing out on a lot of things, because I run away screaming and flailing my limbs from movies like Braveheart and Schindler's List. But those people just are not me. I know myself well enough to know what I can and can't handle. And I'll be the decider of what I'm missing out on and what I'm not in life. And I don't want to be put into a padded room before the age of 30.

Needless to say, I am in one of those funks this week. All everyone is talking about on the news and in social circles is the recent events that took place in Washington that have hit so close to home for us Utah residents. What that man did to his wife and his two boys, and the family members left behind. Add in the other headlines about local rapes and other etceteras, etceteras and it sends me into a downward sneaky hate spiral of despair. My husband and I are raising the purest daughters possible and bringing another into the world in a couple short months and I just start to feel like I am not cut out for the emotional grit required to raise children in this world. Because I start to think of all the bad things that could possibly happen throughout their lifetimes and I'm overcome with fear. I know where those thoughts and feelings come from and I know they don't come from a good place. I know the Lord believes in me. I know He needs me to be brave and courageous and faithful.

*The good news is, I told my husband, with tears streaming, those exact words last night while we snuggled, "I just don't think I can raise children in this world. I don't think I can emotionally handle it, mother love mixed with everything painful in this life that they'll inevitably be exposed to to some extent or another is an awfully huge burden to bear, " to which he looked into my eyes and tenderly replied, "I have to wake up at 5 AM tomorrow morning." And then I said, "Are you sure that's how you want to respond?" And then he redeemed himself by saying, "I'm sorry. I think you're exactly the kind of mother this world needs a lot more of." And then I cried some more. So you'll be happy to know I do indeed have the best cheerleader in my corner who tells me the things I need to hear. When I can get him to focus. Love him.*

So I'm giving myself a pep talk here. Not because I'm going through any real personal trial in my life in particular. But because I just need a lift.

I was just called to be a Gospel Doctrine teacher in my ward. Last week was my first week to teach and I'm teaching again this week. This year we are studying the Book of Mormon. (We rotate between the Old and New Testaments of the Bible and the BOM.) This calling is a saving grace to me. Because I'm forced to study the scriptures more than I normally would. And it is so good. So so good for me.

This week we are studying 2nd Nephi chapter 4. It's a much needed chapter. Nephi was a prophet who lived on the American continent around 600 BC. He had a rough go. His brothers wanted to kill him pretty much continually, which I'm happy to say I can't really relate to. Unless you count that time I kept pushing Vanessa's head against the wall when she wanted me to leave her alone. But I shoved that head of hers over and over and over again. Until she broke. And then she screamed, and was like, Don't you understand how much I hate you?! And ran out of the room crying. And I was like Whoa. I think I was 10 and she was 8ish. Anyway, Nephi wrote the following:

26 O then, if I have seen so great things, if the Lord in his condescension unto the children of men hath visited men in so much mercy, why should my heart weep and my soul linger in the valley of sorrow, and my flesh waste away, and my strength slacken, because of mine afflictions?

27 And why should I yield to sin, because of my flesh? Yea, why should I give way to temptations, that the evil one have place in my heart to destroy my peace and afflict my soul? Why am I angry because of mine enemy?

28 Awake, my soul! No longer droop in sin. Rejoice, O my heart, and give place no more for the enemy of my soul.

29 Do not anger again because of mine enemies. Do not slacken my strength because of mine afflictions.

30 Rejoice, O my heart, and cry unto the Lord, and say: O Lord, I will praise thee forever; yea, my soul will rejoice in thee, my God, and the rock of my salvation.

31 O Lord, wilt thou redeem my soul? Wilt thou deliver me out of the hands of mine enemies? Wilt thou make me that I may shake at the appearance of sin?

34 O Lord, I have trusted in thee, and I will trust in thee forever. I will not put my trust in the arm of flesh; for I know that cursed is he that putteth his trust in the arm of flesh. Yea, cursed is he that putteth his trust in man or maketh flesh his arm.

35 Yea, I know that God will give liberally to him that asketh. Yea, my God will give me, if I ask not amiss; therefore I will lift up my voice unto thee; yea, I will cry unto thee, my God, the rock of my righteousness. Behold, my voice shall forever ascend up unto thee, my rock and mine everlasting God. Amen.

And a simple and short verse from the Old Testament, one of my favorites. Joshua 1:9. Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.

Pretty much sums it up.

We had a wonderful lesson last week in Relief Society (the women's organization of our church) about courage. The teacher asked us to pray for courage to face every day opposition. And I have been. The lesson was timely and perfect. I've been given a tremendous amount of blessings that I feel totally undeserving of. I read the scriptures and am in awe at the courage and strength of the followers of Jesus Christ in the face of such indescribable adversity and suffering. I'm not asked to leave all of my possessions behind and move into the wilderness or cross the plains. I'm not asked to build a ship and cross any great waters, I'm not asked to go preach repentance to people who will try to stone me. I'm not living without food or heat in the winter, I'm not faced with disease or sickness of any kind. I'm not having babies out in the desert and then expected to just pick my newbie up and continue on my trek like it's no big deal. {Oh the horror} I don't even have to do it without an epidural! All that's really expected of me is that I have courage and faith as a mother living on the earth at this time. All I'm asked to do is to teach my children to love the Lord and have faith in His plan in spite of how much worse the world will inevitably get. I have to remind them as they grow into adulthood that we are on the winning side of a fight worth fighting, and there is so much good in people and so much unseen heroism on a daily basis. Maybe my task doesn't seem like it should be so daunting in comparison to so many others. But it daunts me. And I can't do it by myself. I am dependent on the Lord. And the first thing on my to do list today, before the laundry and grocery shopping for the day, is to buck up.

I feel better. I feel bucked up. Thanks for reading.