Ok so you probably can see that I type in a large font, that is because I legit cannot see the regular font hahaha. I prob need reading glasses but I am only 37 and def in denial. Speaking of needing to see things bigger, lets chat about that. So I have come to start to prioritize my thoughts and worries on religion and life in general. I have given myself permission to let go of the dumb rules that I made up in order to be obedient and I promise anyone reading this that you have dumb rules too. For me some of my funnier yet dumber rules are that……crap I cannot believe I am going to admit to these. One, you must kneel down to pray in order for it to count more or be more respectful. Now I do think that the act of kneeling does show respect, but in the excess I was doing it I was feeling somewhat degraded and it was from my own doing- such a dumb dumb OCD move on my part. I think that there are some things church related that are heavier and hold more weight but a simple prayer as I am putting my makeup on or waking up is still very loving and respectful. I think of it like calling my mom to let her know I am thinking of her. She does not care that I am putting mascara on as I am letting her know that she is a priority in my life. She is just happy to hear her daughters voice and to know I thought of her. Not all prayers need to be an emotional deep plea. Sometimes when I call my mom it is a “hey mama whats up?” and other times it’s a “I need advice and a safe place to talk and let it all out”. That is now the way I pray and its not even every night or every morning thing and rarely do I kneel. Once upon a time I would wake up at 2 A.M in a total panic because I forgot to pray, so I would get out of bed, kneel down and pray. Did God expect THAT???????????????? DOUBTFUL!!!!! No wonder why a few days after I stopped doing anything religious that my hubby told me that those few days were the most relaxed days he had experienced in YEARS!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHH, what a pain in the booty I was to be married to!!! Don’t be a Mormon pain in the tooshi for your loved ones y’all!!! So glad I am figuring this out before I make my children hate the church. Speaking of the husband, here is a too much info for ya but gonna tell you anyway, excited? It is pretty juicy…………hahahaha. You wanna know what is NOT SEXY…when you are smoochin’ with your man and STOP to PRAY because it is getting late and just incase the smoochin’ leads to the good stuff you need to make sure you get your nightly prayer in FIRST. I am laughing so much writing this, like who does this???? I will tell ya, people who are afraid of God do these crazy things. If I swore I had to immediately kneel down and ask for forgiveness and some days there was no point to even stand up (life can be stressful, eek!). I also HAD to sing CHURCH songs at night to my babies, I mean that for sure sounds like a normal rule, wouldn’t want to ruin my kids with “Twinkle little star” or something from “Moana”. My list actually goes on of my rules, rules that showed I was obedient but actually lead to misery.
All of this has brought me to ask myself WHY do we do these things? Why do I need to keep the sabbath holy? Why are we encouraged to read the scriptures? Why is it good to pray? So here is what I have come up with. Now these are my own thoughts and they feel right so I am just gonna run with them (and y’all can prob see why I needed to reassess my beliefs and expectations of myself). Keeping the sabbath holy is for…….wait for it…….ME. It does not rip God apart if I am cleaning my house on a Sunday, but He knows that I would benefit from relaxing. He knows that I am a total RED personality (start googling if you don’t know what that means, thank me later) and that is because I am a GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO like a million GOES all the time that I need to chill ONE day a week. I do not feel like I am doing God a favor by keeping the sabbath holy, I always believed that it showed obedience and that was the purpose (keep in mind that is coming from someone who had to pray before hanky panky) and I am sure that there is a level of obedience in it, however the BIGGER reason must be because He loves me and wants me to recharge and spirituality helps the soul recharge. So doing things on the sabbath that allow for my soul, mind and body to recharge is for ME more than God feeling good that I sat and did nothing because it was Sunday. Feel me?
Scripture reading…..here we go. I struggle. Like really really struggle with this. I have in fact read the Book of Mormon cover to cover more than once. Its nice. But it does not resignate with me. I have TRIED so many times to just love reading them, and I don’t. They cause me stress because I cannot figure out what they are saying (and no I do not want to get the study guide that I can read alongside them, I already am struggling to read them and making it homework will not make me love it more). And then I have to re read what I read (this English language, re read and read right next to each other-goodness). So it just becomes a place of boredom and stress for me and I am pretty darn sure that is not the purpose of them. But WHY are we asked to read? Again it is not for Gods benefit. It is for us to feel the spirit and to better understand our beliefs, right? Each person probably has a different answer for their “why” and that’s ok. You are for sure not wrong for reading them and you are not wrong if you don’t read them. I have a friend that said he was determined to read them every day to “check the box”. Well on vacation he forgot to pack his scriptures and therefore could not read them. He was so sad about this but realized that reading them solely to check the box was not benefiting him anyway. What a huge thing for my friend to realize. You benefit almost ZERO from doing anything to just check a box. So I have found what works for me. I enjoy putting a conference talk on my phone as I clean my house a few times a week. I actually ENJOY that, so that is what I do. I have found the CUTEST people on YouTube who teach a lesson each week and that is our church (thank you covid), and my hubby does the sacrament for me and him. Our kiddos are too young to NEED to take it (before they were born my husband said he wanted them to remember the first time they take it and so they will start if they want when they get baptized). When we first began doing sacrament at home I felt like we HAD to use white cups and plates and HAD to be in church clothing. But THAT is not the point in my heart. Taking the sacrament from home has actually changed my feelings on it a bit. It is more purposeful from home and it means we remembered to do it from home even though it would be easy to not do it BECAUSE we don’t currently attend church. It is more deliberate and sweet for me now. We do it after the kids are in bed ,often I am in my pajamas. The plate is usually white but the cup is either pink, blue, orange etc. And its sweet and it is our way of telling Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ that we remembered them. And that is bigger than the color of the cups.
Until next time.