The Help...

Thoughts on life today...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Help

So I have just spent the last 45 min (I was only allotting myself 20 min, but went over because it's a hard book to put down) reading "The Help". I'm not too far into it, but have gotten far enough, that the secret meeting to help write the manuscript have begun between Aibileen and Skeeter.  The whole time my body has been tense, because they are doing it in secret...in secret from what I keep asking myself? From people who think that blacks are inferior to whites.  I have been amazed and sick because of the way that the people judge and treat one another. It is amazing to me that even in today's society we judge and criticize on a regular basis (myself included). I recently took on a challenge to not be critical for a solid 24 hour period. I have done this before and it has taken me up to 7 days to be able to complete the task. I got the idea from John Lund in some of his marriage seminars.

Well, the other day in my hardest PE class full of 9th graders who often don't agree that the activity I have planned is "fun" enough for them. I have no idea some days how to please them, which results in me getting frustrated with them. Well, I told myself and a few of my students my new goal!  I had to start my stop watch over about 5 times in that period alone and multiple times since. It has been a week and one of my students asked how it was going...I said, "It's not! I can't do it right now. I think I'm too stressed.  Too much going on to not be critical." When I said those words, I thought to myself, "What is wrong with me that I can't have self-control when I'm stressed to not be critical for a full 24 hour period?  I must really have something wrong with me." And then of course the natural woman that I am brushed it off and justified it saying, "I am too stressed!  I'll do it at the new year or something."  Well, it's been about 10 hours since that comment was made by my student and my response given and it has bugged me all day that I had to make an excuse as to why I can't be uncritical for a 24 hour period.  So I'm starting again right now, timer is set and I'm determining, that even among one of the most stressful weeks in the year, that I can go 24 hours, at some point without being critical.

Which brings me back to The Help...what a great book.  What a great way to say, "There is a problem." without saying, "You are all jerks and look at yourselves...." but by going about it in a different way. I think that is why I like to read it. Not only is it so fun to read and well written, it is just a different way of saying the thing we are all thinking or not thinking, but should be thinking, and reminding us of what is important...Human life!

I have been thinking a lot about life lately and have wondered why we have the trials that we do. I was engaged about 2 years ago and went through the most pain I have ever gone through and in that experince I learned what the reason is that we must all experience pain in one way or another; because we are here to grow.  I have talked with different people, from different times in my life this week who have reminded me that we all have our problems. We all suffer in our own way and if we weren't going through the thing we are currently going through, then we would be growing and learning by going through something else, because we have a Heavenly Father who loves us and wants us to be fulfilling our purpose here on the Earth which is to grow. I was just reading in 2 Ne 3 and 4 and all the father's blessings that Lehi gives his sons before he dies and he tells them to do what is right, follow their younger brother and they would be blessed.

Laman and Lemuel in the very next chapter rebel and completely are cut off from their brother Nephi.  They will go on to have their trials.  Christ suffered for their sins as He suffered for Nephi's and mine and yours, but the difference is that Nephi too will go his way and have trials.  His trials won't be the same as Laman and Lemuel's because he will need to grow in the way the Lord provides for him to grow, because he is following the Lord.  Both parties have trials, but both parties have different trials, because they both are choosing to live differently.  Nephi's trials will in turn help him grow and learn what the Lord wants him to and after he learns the next thing, the trial will have been useful and be taken away...until Laman and Lemuel come to themselves, their trials will continue to hurt them, because in a way they are self inflicted, because it is true that "wickedness never was happiness" and so they can't be happy and learn from their "trial" as long as they are continuing to live in the unhealthy lifestyle that is not conducive to happiness...so what have I learned?  That when we are faced with a trial, it is better to just learn the thing you are supposed to so you can learn, grow and move on from the pain quicker...but the fun and ironic part (but the part we're here for: to grow) is that yet another trial will come, because if we aren't progressing and growing, we are digressing...so in the end, no matter what there will be trials, but the difference between Laman and Lemuel trials and Nephi's is that though Nephi will continue to have trials until he goes the way of all the Earth, he will continue to learn and grow, rather than be stagnant and digress, because when you put your trust in the Lord, He protects you, blesses you and helps you grow into who you are supposed to become; a child of God, meek, submissive, lowly and you will be happier though sore trials come upon you, because you trusted in the Lord.  In the end the Savior is our "Help".