Opposition and the soccer field

Today I have two journal entries to share.

Sunday, September 18, 2016

Reading Elder Oaks' April 2016 conference talk about opposition gave me a useful insight this morning. I was trying to read with annoyingly persistently loud children--Jay and Rose were playing with/shouting into loud beepy crackly walkie talkies after breakfast this morning while I tried to read this one talk. I kept asking them to go to the basement, stop pushing the ringer button, stop shouting into the walkie talkies, etc., to no avail. They kept coming back and ruthlessly creating too much noise for me to think. I did even know what I was reading, and I was feeling totally peeved and frustrated. "Why can't doing the right thing that we are supposed to do every day be a little easier?" I thought peevishly. Then in a lull from the noise, some of the words in the talk I was reading broke through and made sense. Elder Oaks said:

"it is opposition that enables choice and it is the opportunity of making the right choices that leads to the growth that is the purpose of the Father’s plan."

After pausing briefly to appreciate the situational irony--me facing opposition while I read about opposition--I was taught: Opposition doesn't create personal growth; it creates an opportunity for personal growth. We take that opportunity when we choose to follow Jesus' example amidst opposition: choose to be patient, choose to be kind, choose to be positive, choose to serve, choose to pray, choose charity. Rather than continue fueling my frustration by battling loud children, I chose to leave the family room, in spite of my sore morning-after-race muscles, for the quiet of my bedroom to finish reading and pondering.

Every instance of opposition gives us an opportunity to grow by choosing not the easy route, but the right/kind/Christlike way. It is easier for me to choose the Christlike way in big defining obvious situations, like refusing to drink alcohol and choosing to keep the Sabbath day holy. It is harder to remember and notice the smaller daily situations of opposition that present me with the valuable opportunity for personal refinement and growth if I will just remember and choose to act as Jesus Christ would act. Like when my kids are being wild, or stubborn, or messy, or when they misbehave. There are other instances but I can't think over Amber's crying right now. I left the family room to finish writing this and she found me.

Tuesday, September 20, 2016:

Today was hard. Jay was home from school due to last night's fever, but he felt fine so he was a bit more inquisitive and high maintenance than I was prepared for. He was very sweet and tried to help me out with Amber, but I had to keep telling him to stop and rest so he could get better. I vacuumed the whole house this morning (it takes nearly an hour--we have a lot of carpet) and right after I finished, Amber had dumped a baggie of pretzels onto the carpet and unloaded about 30 books off the bookshelf. An uphill exercise in futility kind of a day. When Rose got home from school, Jay still felt good so I had him do his homework and then let him go out to play wildly on the tramp with Rose. After dinner he felt feverish and headachy again. That's exactly how Amber was last week--an on again off again fever. 

This week Amber has been in recovery mode in the food department. Since she barely ate anything last week, her appetite is big now. I think that contributed to her mood swings today, but I didn't realize it until after she was in bed for the night and I had some quiet time to reflect. Amber spent a large portion of the day crying loudly. She would eat a snack and then demand something else, turning every single question into a battle of wills. She yell-cried and I held my ground and it went on and on and on for 15, 20+ minutes! Over and over all day. I was so emotionally fried by 5pm! Well, that happened long before 5, but Jeff didn't get home till 5:40pm today, nearly 12 hours after he left this morning. Those cross country parents take forEVER to pick up their kids, and Jeff has to wait around till every kid has been picked up.

Jeff walked in and asked, "how are you doing?" to which I replied, 

"I think I need to go on a run, and I don't know when I'll be back." 

"As long as you come back," laughed my loyal husband gallantly. I assured him I would.

I had dinner all ready right when Jeff walked in, so I left the serving up of that fancy grilled cheese and tomato soup to him and split out of this crazy house to run five miles in the west country of Grandview. Alone. By myself. It wasn't quite as peaceful as I hoped, it being harvest season and all (various types of heavily laden trucks roaring past at regular intervals, plus more than the average amount of commuter traffic out there). And there are always dogs. My quads are also still sore and tired from my race on Saturday, making my would-be post-long-day-rage-speedy-run a tad slower than normal. I couldn't run quite as long as I needed to in order to decompress, so after 5 miles I swung around back behind our house and stopped at the soccer field to milk every last sweet drop of my alone time. 

It was gorgeously tranquil back there. I stretched and did the minimum essentials of my core exercises--even 5 push-ups--and then just laid there on my back in the cool grass, looking up into the fading light of the blue sky and finally feeling peaceful--settled--inside. Amber's day of screaming and crying really scrambled my wits and that 15 minutes of time in the still silent, still soccer field were balm to my introverted soul. 

I came inside at 6:50pm, assisted with kids' bedtime, showered, heated and ate my grilled cheese and tomato soup dinner, and felt completely at one with the world once more. One hour at the end of the day is all it took. One hour to exercise and shower and be alone with my thoughts. I felt SO much better! 

{end journal entry}

Usually I try to write some sort of conclusion for blog posts, but the more I study good writing, the more I'm realizing that good writers let readers draw their own conclusions. So even though I have plenty to say on these topics, I think this time I'll step back and let these two journal entries swirl together and speak for themselves.

 Rose is getting freckles! 

I ADORE FRECKLES!

 "Nuh!" --Knucks!