Mistakes will be Made...

I have been thinking a lot about the past. Everyone has a past, old and young. Some pasts are as tainted as a water supply next to an arsenic factory. Some are without much experience. Some are smooth and joyful. We all have pasts.

Visualize it: You are out in public and in walks a piece of your past, someone who is tied perhaps to mistakes you made. Maybe someone you were not very nice to (or wasn’t very nice to you). Perhaps it is someone who you are frankly embarrassed to see, because in your mind you think that the first thing they will do is walk up to you and make it all known what mistakes you made, how you were, what a jerk you were, etc. Now, you cannot tell me that at least once in your life, while out and about, you haven’t looked at the door and feared someone like that walking in. I do it, and I am positive we all do it. Maybe it is just embarrassment for our mistakes, or maybe it is fear that we will never be able to be forgiven for stupidities. We all have someone, the last person we want to see walk through that door.

Human beings seem to bear that cross of past mistakes, often unnecessarily. This brings me to one of my favorite movies, Les Miserables (spoiler alert). Think of Jean Valjean. He had a tainted past. Although he received forgiveness, and went on to become an incredible man in a position of power, he always had his head looking over his shoulder, convinced that people would find out his sins and not see him for what he actually is. The investigator, Javert, was constantly on the hunt to catch Valjean. Only when Valjean finally stops trying to run Javert, Javert leaves him alone. I believe the Javert in our life isn’t somebody else trying to hunt us, but ourselves hanging our own life and fears over our heads. Think about it, as soon as Jean Valjean finally stopped running, and faced the fact that he had made mistakes in life and agreed to surrender himself, Javert, rather than arrest Valjean,  jumps off of the bridge, realizing that his life of hunting Valjean was a failed effort, because Valjean, once a convict, proved himself a good man.

We are our own Javert. We often don’t let ourselves move on. We all make mistakes in life, and we are supposed to! From the beginning of time, man has made mistakes. All the way back to Adam and Eve. They ate the forbidden fruit. Why? To receive knowledge of good and evil. Was it a mistake? YES! God said no. That is disobedient.  Was eating the fruit a necessary step in learning? YES! I then ask the question. If an all knowing God knew that Adam and Eve were going to have to eat the fruit to move out of the Garden, then why did he put them there in the first place? Was He teaching a lesson to them that in life, you won’t be perfect and mistakes will actually be a powerful way that we learn? Adam and Eve went on to be very righteous people. Did the painful experience of being cast out of the garden motivate them to live better? Personally, I think so. I think that to a certain extent, God not only expects us to make mistakes, but wants us to so we learn from them. Mistakes have the ability to be one of the most powerful teachers that we have.

Don’t misunderstand what I am saying; you are still obligated to try your best. I can’t go out to the streets and beat someone up just to have the learning experience the mistake of assault charges carry. We must try our best. Only when we do the best to be a good person do we have the forgiveness for our mistakes. That having been said, why do we constantly beat ourselves over the head for things that we are supposed to do?  We can’t walk through life beating ourselves up, that prevents the learning. Think of life as us hiking up a mountain with buckets of paint. We are going to spill paint. It is impossible not to. Maybe you position yourself poorly, or don’t watch your step and stumble and spill some. It would be stupid if after you spill, you shake your head the rest of the way and beat yourself up for the paint you spilled miles and miles before. That seems ridiculous! As ridiculous as holding your past mistakes over your head.

People from your past will walk through that door. You will see them at the grocery store, and they frankly might not have forgiven or may even still hold your mistakes over your head. You cannot control that. They will always be there. Just realize that you are meant to make mistakes. If you learned from your mistakes, and are now a better person, then whoever it is walking through that door is at fault if they don’t see who you are rather than what you were. Your mistakes shape you. They don’t define you. What defines you are the lessons you learn from your mistakes. A favorite proverb of mine says “a just man falleth seven times, but riseth up again.” Forgive yourself, and rise up.       

 

Everybody has their Demons

I am a firm believer that every single person who walks this earth has their demons. For some, they desire to quit smoking but can’t seem to beat the addiction. Addiction is their demon. For others, they are not happy because they want something more, or feel like something is owed to them. Greed is their demon. For many, a demon is the inability to show love to others. The list of demons goes on and on. It is always interesting to hear someone talk down on another person for their struggles and trials in life, when you can see their demons so clearly that it might as well be hanging on their shoulders. Point is, everybody has their demons, they are all different, they are all important to conquer, and it doesn’t do any good when we look down on others for their demons when we know we have ours. Don’t look down on others for sinning differently than you do.

I was able to conquer a demon this week.

Deciding what I am doing for school has been a demon for me. The school decision is haunting. Being young and married ten-months ago, the school decision comes down to a lot more than just what campus I like or what program is good. There is money. There are plans on how I can continue working to make enough money. The school decision is huge. I have not only been unable to truly decide on school, but even when I would take the steps, I never felt good about it. I felt good about going to school, and getting an education to fulfill my dream of becoming a screenwriter in Hollywood. The one thing that never fit was the where of it all. This has been the demon on my back. It has caused grief, and stress. It truly has been a trial to me.

This has weighed on me for a while. Saturday, my wife and I received a phone call. Westminster College, a Midwest liberal arts school brining a campus to Downtown Mesa, was having an open house. I had slept in that day, and had ten minutes to shower and get there. It was a rush, but they had mentioned that everyone who goes gets a free t-shirt, and who doesn’t like that? We hurried and went. We saw the renovated building, we heard about the program, and talked to them. They mentioned financial aid, scholarships, grants, and it looked like I might have a shot to get a good education at a decent price. I spent the weekend researching college list after list, comparing school options that I have, money, and everything. I scheduled a meeting with Westminster to meet with them and get a specific plan for what tuition would cost. I went in there knowing that we had a budget, and as good as I felt about it, if the price wasn’t right then I wasn’t going to go. I talked with them, and they were able to put together a package to save me a lot of money. It was a shock to me to receive that much money, but it was a huge blessing. Long story short, I am enrolled at Westminster College and couldn’t be happier.

This experience reminded me of the struggles we face every day. We all have demons that will weigh on our souls, cause us stress, and ultimately keep us down for a while. It will require a good amount of faith to wait out the storm. While we wait for it to end, we will also have to go about our life. Even though we are weighed down, we need to still do what is right and live our lives. Eventually, something will come up that will be the key to helping us out of our slump. Mine was that open house. Yours may be going to see a friend, reading a certain book, calling a family member. Once we do that, then we are able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. It is then that we have to have the strength for a final push. My final push to conquer my demon was what seemed like hours of research and reflection. I looked at list after list of colleges. I even arose late in the night because I felt like finding my answer was important enough to put off sleep. That final show of faith is what then rewards us with joy. Then, I found out that I was going to be taken care of, after all the struggle. My demon was conquered.

We all have demons. I know that no matter what, you just have to hold on. Keep living your life and doing good for others. When you have that final push, when you think your strength is run out, that is sufficient, and you will conquer your demon. Odds are that you, much like me, have more than one demon. We all have multiple. In life, we must conquer them one at a time. Trying as hard as you can is enough. Sometimes it will take you longer than others, but realize there is no race. We are not valued on how fast we get rid of our demons; we are valued by how constant our effort is at trying to rid ourselves of them. Keep trying. Your demons in the end will not be able to defeat you, as long as you are at least trying.

One step back, One leap forward!

I have thought a lot about the big picture in life, and the idea of putting trust in the Lord.

I always notice people who are caught in good situations in life thanking the Lord for their good fortune. People who have bad luck blame their misfortunes on the higher power. It always seems so black and white without a medium. We are all living looking at one side of the coin rather than being on the edge of the coin where we can see both sides and how they coordinate in this big picture we call life.

I have had some interesting experiences with my job as a junk removal worker. This job has been a huge blessing and has allowed me to work and provide some financial security.  Over the past month, I have noticed some discomfort in my leg, and was encouraged to get an MRI. Sure enough, my vastus medialis (part of the quadriceps), was 80% torn. My doctor made it apparent that the risk of tearing the muscle completely was too high, and my days as a junk removal man were over.

This was a bit of a downer. Just as quick as I had found this job and began to really enjoy it and see the benefits, it was taken away. The scramble came to find a replacement and train him to take my job for me. It was not fun picking someone to take the job I enjoyed, and it was even less knowing I had to train them. We found a guy, he agreed to start, and I spent a few days training him. My feeling of misfortune grew and grew.

When I was near finished on my last day of training him, my replacement and I had a good conversation. He told me about his reaction to getting the job. He had been thinking for weeks about leaving Arizona, and had come to the conclusion that he had no idea what to do right now in life. He said a prayer that he could know where he needs to be in life right now, for he was confused. At that moment, he received an e-mail with an offer to start working a junk removal job, the same job that I had left vacant. He knew at that moment this was a good thing, and he felt then for the first time in a while that he knew where he needed to be.

I thought about this. My misfortune is the answer to his prayer? Then I thought about that statement. Misfortune? What misfortune? I have so much to be thankful for. Sure, I am unemployed for the next month until school starts, but at what price? My misfortune resulted in someone finding their place. I remember when I took this job; I thought and prayed to know how I could use this job to do the most good. I had thought I would do well by donating useable furniture to a needy family, using my truck to clean a yard, helping someone move. The possibilities were endless, and I did do a lot of good. I didn’t know it at the time, but the most good I would be able to do with that job was to give it up to someone who really needed it.

Life is strange, and it is funny how it works out sometimes. Just remember, just as my moment of small loss was the huge gain of another, which is so often the case. We may have to take one step back so someone else can take two leaps forward in life. Next time you pass through a trial and take a step back, look for who it is that you allowed to leap forward.

One mans trash...

This week was interesting.

I had a fantastic experience through my work. I am working this summer as an employee of a junk-removal company.  As you may have guessed, this job has provided all kinds of experiences for me. From disgusting to awesome, I have seen it all.

This week, I was cleaning out a rental property. The owner had decided to sell. As I entered this house, there was a very distinct smell, garbage everywhere, and it was more than apparent that the place had been doing no more than gathering dust for months. Amongst the trash, I found many clues as to the type of people who must have lived there. They were a worldly people, who often consumed their time with drinking and drug use. It was a house cleanup that caused heaviness of the soul. I was saddened someone would live that way.

I walked into a closet in one of the bedrooms, and there I saw a neatly hung-up military uniform, and a bible. It was a latter-day saint King James version of the bible, with an inscription on the inside cover. This bible was gifted in 1989 from this man’s parents. I looked up the name, and found it to be a war hero, a man who was a decorated veteran, and had passed away in 2010. I decided to do some research on this man; because I did not feel that a bible and uniform were very fitting of that house, which had shown it had been in possession of nothing more than people who did not live a life with any morals.

I found out about this man. He was a noble man with high morals. He lived to serve, enjoyed the outdoors, and full of integrity. He had been married a few weeks before his death to the woman that lived in the house. From conversations with several people who know the woman, she was a selfish person who used him for his military benefits. Shortly after he died, she had a boyfriend move into the house, igniting the moral decay of what once was the home of a hero.

I spent about an hour on the internet trying to find the family of this man. The next morning, I received a phone call. It was the brother of this man. His family had had some trouble finding out the details of their brother. They hadn’t heard from him for a space of years. His brother searched and searched for him, only to find out that he had passed away. I talked to this man for a good amount of time. He has nothing to remember his brother by, and I was more than grateful to mail them the items I found. They had often called their brothers wife, but she would ignore them, and not help them out at all. She wouldn’t so much as send them a picture. It was a good thing to right this wrong, and give them the bible and uniform that had belonged to their brother.

This experience taught me many things. As I sorted through the most important lessons, the one that came up over and over again was the idea of creating experiences that bring us closer to our spiritual side. I remember when I first saw the bible. My immediate reaction was to take it home myself. Although this was better than throwing it away, it wasn’t the right thing to do. My second impulse was to donate this bible. Perhaps, someone would have bought it, and it would’ve changed their life. A good outcome, but still not the right thing to do. It was my third option that I would find the family, and contact them. That was going to be difficult. This man had a very common American name, and that was the only lead I had. It seemed a large mountain to climb, but I felt that it was the right thing to do. I found the man, had a talk with him, and he was incredibly grateful. As we talked, I felt like I was edified spiritually. This man now had a connection to his brother who had since passed on. The family also took great comfort that this man, whom they thought had strayed from the faith, had this bible with him until the day he died.

Much like this experience, we have to make experiences for ourselves. We so often find ourselves praying to God that we can have a spiritual experience, or that we can do some good in the world, or help someone in need. Every day, like the bible, these experiences fall into our laps in a most unconventional way. The way we can let these experiences work for us and fuel us is by acting. Not only must we act, but we must act in the right way. We should stop, and try to view every option and all the outcomes. Sometimes, our first and second option won’t give us the spiritual manna we need.  Sometimes, our third and fourth option won’t. We need to think of what option will fuel us, and do it. Spiritual experiences don’t fall into our laps, but opportunities to make spiritual experiences do every single day. Seize them.

Welcome to my Blog

I love writing. I keep a journal, I love writing as a hobby, and now I venture into the world of blogging.

I was a missionary in the wonderful country of Chile from 2009-2011. During my service there, I would write my family a detailed e-mail every week. I treasured these e-mails, and many people read these e-mails. That was almost two years ago, and I still treasure in my heart every single experience I had in the North of Chile. Recently, I found myself thinking about why I appreciated my experience in Chile so much, and I believe because I wrote it, I was able to process it, and appreciate it. Thus, I will take this approach on life.

I love writing of spiritual discovery. For me, every Sunday is a form of manna for my soul. It’s Wednesday, and I am starving!