Where is the Pavilion?

The following are excerpts from the talk I referenced in my last entry by Elder Henry B. Eyring, titled "Where is the Pavilion?", from this past October's Conference.  I've listened to this talk several times.  It's exactly the perspective I need to have in my life right now for what feels like this enormous holding pattern we've been in waiting for Shaun's career to take off.  Or maybe, holding pattern or not, it's exactly where we need to be for the time being.

"That incident illustrates another way we can create a barrier to knowing God’s will or feeling His love for us: we can’t insist on our timetable when the Lord has His own. I thought I had spent enough time in my service in Rexburg and was in a hurry to move on. Sometimes our insistence on acting according to our own timetable can obscure His will for us..We remove the pavilion when we feel and pray, “Thy will be done” and “in Thine own time.” His time should be soon enough for us since we know that He wants only what is best...Submitting fully to heaven’s will is essential to removing the spiritual pavilions we sometimes put over our heads. But it does not guarantee immediate answers to our prayers...The Lord’s delays often seem long; some last a lifetime. But they are always calculated to bless. They need never be times of loneliness or sorrow or impatience."

I don't know if I have actually had a prayer yet that submits fully to the Lord, without my own agenda backing it up.  Maybe it's time that my insistence on any sort of time table be put to the side, and I say "thy will be done... in THINE own time."  I really feel like I have had a spiritual pavilion over my head that clouds me from feeling God's love.  While I try to recognize gratitude for blessings, I always feel like maybe I've done something wrong, and that that is why we have not been given the blessings we have prayed for time and time again.  Or maybe we are just being blessed in a different way right now.  I think by removing that pavilion I will be able to better recognize how the Lord truly is blessing us, even if our personal desires for a home and good job haven't quite come... may never come.  Elder Eyring goes on to say that if we can remove the pavilion between God and us, our perspective becomes more outward focused verses inward driven.  We can move closer to God because we are thinking of ways to serve his children.  He continues, 

"But if you go for the Lord to bless others, He will see and reward it. If you do this often enough and long enough, you will feel a change in your very nature through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Not only will you feel closer to Him, but you will also feel more and more that you are becoming like Him."  

This is my prayer tonight.  I'm grateful for inspired leaders who speak to us, as representatives of God himself, and speak directly to our hearts, giving us the message we need to hear.  I don't know what the Lord's timetable is for our lives, and perhaps His plans are way better than anything I could even cook up, but I will submit to His will, and His time frame.

See the full talk here https://www.lds.org/ensign/2012/11/where-is-the-pavilion?lang=eng

January Blues

Don't you ever just wish January through March could be the part of your life that gets put to a cute song with only the highlights shown?  Like playing in the snow with your kids, making Valentine's, and sitting by the window with some cocoa watching the snowfall.  This is how I wish my winter would unfold.  And then, after a warm and fuzzy dose of such images, you're back to warmth and sunshine, flowers and greenery.  I get so down when day after day I'm stuck inside with only grayness outside my window.  Truth be told, all the other images of winter are dredgeful (I don't think that's a word but it conveys an image that seems appropriate to me) in my book.  The cold brisk walks to and from my schools for meetings, the kids with pent up energy because it's too cold to go out, the lack of sunshine... sigh.  So if you're wondering why we Calderwoods haven't been posting?  Well, there's not much to post.

My new goal:  Get rich quick.  Take a cruise to somewhere warm and tropical every January/February so that I have something to look forward to besides the far away Spring Season.  And even if I don't get rich, I think I'm going to have to do this next year or at least the year after.  We'll go for Shaun's birthday!  Yes, I like that idea very much.

Truly, I would like to get rich (who wouldn't, right?).  Then we could also buy a home.  We just aren't quite there yet when we figure what a monthly payment will run us in this market.  But interest rates are good.  If only Shaun could get that promotion he's been promised sooner vs. later.  No, instead they've cut everyone's hours back so that he's now only working four days a week, which means a pay decrease.  We are grateful he still has employment, but seriously?  Every time I feel like we take one step forward, we then are sent two steps back.  Please keep Shaun's job and job opportunities in your prayers.  I feel like a broken record.  It's been my prayer he'd find meaningful employment since he graduated in 2009.  I'm not sure why the Lord is teaching us this ever so long lesson on patience, but I want to ensure it's not because of something we are failing to do.  We are trying to be prayerful and obedient in all we are asked, but we are keenly aware that sometimes the Lord's answer is not to answer even your righteous desires.  For some, that may mean wanting children and being unable to do so.  For others, it might mean being single when you so badly want a companion to share your life with.  Or a mother wanting to stay home with her children but circumstances do not allow it (familiar?), or in this case, wanting to have a good steady job and continuing to wait and work for this goal.  Elder Eyring gave a phenomenal talk this last conference about not becoming discouraged when our righteous desires aren't answered in our time frame.  I think I need to re-read it about right now.  I need to keep a positive attitude and remember gratitude, while humbly asking the Lord to hear our righteous desires and help us understand His.

So there you have it, this is why I don't post.  I'll end up waxing not so profound about the same thing I've waxed on about for the last four years.  I do ask you keep us in your prayers.  We know we are fortunate in many ways, but we look forward to moving forward.

Happy 2013!  Let's get on with this whole winter thing already.  If it's going to be nasty, at least let is snow so it's pretty too.  The in between stuff I just can't tolerate anymore.  I'm ready for my movie reel highlights... or my cruise... or BOTH!