Today as you know is Wesley's birthday. I love the picture of him that I've posted to the left. It was taken during that spring break trip to Florida when Katie and Gary moved there for graduate school.
I love this picture because every time I look at it I am reminded of the hopes and dreams I had for him when he was born. I hoped that he would be strong, courageous and pure in heart. I hoped that he would be a warrior for virtue and goodness. I hoped that he would have a desire to know and serve his Father in Heaven.
However, my hopes and dreams for him have not entirely coincided with his hopes and dreams. Not that he dreams of being a bad person, its just that he in his youthful arrogance has decided that goodness and virtue are ok when its convenient. I'm not saying he's a bad kid. You and I both know that there is tremendous potential there. I just wish he didn't have to learn everything the hard way. He is just too much like his mother, having to explore the world in his own way and on his own terms.
I am so grateful that Heavenly Father gifted me with parents who were patient with me and who loved me through it no matter how much their hearts were breaking. I pray that I will be granted the same patience to endure Wesley's youth.
Another one of the Christlike attributes from Elder Hales talk is Christian Patience.
"Christian patience. In His own sorrow and suffering, the Savior waited upon His Father. With patience for us, He waits upon us to come to ourselves and come home to Him."
As I was thinking last night of what I wanted to write to you about, I thought a lot about patience and how patience applies to the Christmas story.
There's something about anticipation that's hard to beat. When we anticipate something -- especially something really big -- we tend to build it up in our mind. Sometimes, our mental build-up reaches the point that the anticipated thing, event or person has a hard time meeting our expectations (I am so guilty of building things up too much in my mind). What a let-down when that thing, event, or person doesn't quite measure up to what we had in mind. I think that is the main reason I have had such a hard time coming to terms with the fact that Dad decided to go on that trip to Las Vegas instead of being in Arizona when I came to visit the spring before he passed away.
Since the previous December when he was so sick, I had many impressions that he wouldn't be with us for much longer and so it became so important for me to see him and I built it up in my mind of how the visit with him would go. Odds are that it might have been a tender mercy from Heavenly Father that Dad made the choice he made because I don't think Dad could have lived up to the experience that I had built up in my mind.
So last night as I was mulling that thought over, I thought about what it must have been like for the Jews to anticipate the coming of the Messiah for over fourteen hundred years or so, with each year adding to the intensity of their expectation. This gave me an idea of what the Jews -- God's chosen people were expecting when they imagined what their "Messiah" would be like.
Throughout the Old Testament, God promised the Jews that He would deliver them from their problems by sending a king to establish God's Kingdom on earth.
As we know from reading the scriptures, patience was never their strong suit. That ever present human cycle of enslavement and oppression resulting in humilty and then deliverance. Only for the people to forget. That cycle continues today. Patience is not an easy attribute to acquire. It requires us to relinquish control and put our trust in the Lord and to be humble and obedient.
President Monson gave a wonderful talk at the General Relief Society meeting in 2010 called "Charity Never Faileth."
He said, " There is a serious need for the charity that gives attention to those who are unnoticed, hope to those who are discouraged, aid to those who are afflicted. True charity is love in action. The need for charity is everywhere.
Charity is having patience with someone who has let us down. It is resisting the impulse to become offended easily. It is accepting weaknesses and shortcomings. It is accepting people as they truly are. It is looking beyond physical appearances to attributes that will not dim through time. It is resisting the impulse to categorize others."
I love President Monson. He truly is inspired of the Lord!
Mother Teresa once said, "If you judge people, you have no time to love them."
Patience with others is just another expression of LOVE. Heavenly Father and Jesus have patience with us (in my case mountains and mountains of patience). Patience is an attribute that we can cultivate as a gift to our families and ourselves. It's the gift that keeps on giving.
I'm reminded of the Christmas Carol, "I heard the Bells on Christmas Day." Longfellow had endured all manner of tragedies in a short period of time. So much so that he began to despair that God had abandoned him. But then he heard the bells one Christmas morning and it reminded him to look deep into himself and REMEMBER!
"Then peeled the bells more loud and deep: God is not dead, nor doth he sleep; The wrong shall fail, the right prevail."
The right will prevail and we will be blessed with the righteous desires of our hearts. We just need to remember that it will take patience and that all things happen in the Lord's time.
A couple of years ago the Mormon Tabernacle Choir did a performance that featured the story of how Longfellow was inspired to write "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day." I thought it might uplift you on this December Day.
I love you mom!
Till Tomorrow,
Holley
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