but then we woke up and it is fast sunday. I had some chicken thighs in the fridge I needed to cook, and I wanted to try this tandoori chicken recipe - so we had a mid-east feast at noon (tandoori chix, tabouleh, hummus, homemade naan, indian rice pilaf and fruit). It was amazing (or I thought so anyways).
rich and I both talked in church -he in young mens (his calling). Me in relief sociecy (not my calling). This is my talk:
When I think about Mary, the mother of Jesus, I think about
her from my perspective – which is that of a young mother. At this time in my life, I have two girls, 4
and 2. I want everything for them. I want them to be smart and kind and motherly
and athletic and beautiful and nothing short of perfect. I spend most of my day every day trying to
accomplish that goal. I also focus my
spiritual growth on that goal, each day asking God to guide in helping my girls
become the people God wants them to be.
So, when I think about Mary, the mother of Jesus, I see her
experience through mommy goggles. I
think of the burden she had to raise Christ, the son of God. She knew of the prophesies concerning his
coming. I can’t imagine the weight she
must have felt when she realized that SHE was the receptical through which he
would come! I wonder how she went about
making sure that Jesus grew up to be the Man he was supposed to be. To find out what she thought, I turned to the
scriptures. There really aren’t a lot of
scriptures about Mary. But there is one
section in Luke Chapter 1 that really stuck out to me.
After the Annunciation she goes to visit her cousin
Elizabeth. In her conversation with
Elizabeth it is recorded:
Verse 46: And
Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord,
48 For he hath regarded the low estate of
his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call
me blessed.
51 He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath scattered
the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
These scriptures gave me the answer to my question of how
Mary went about raising Jesus, Listen to the words of these scriptures: “my
soul doth magnify the lord” “he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden”
“he that is mighty” “fear him” “he hath scattered the proud” “he hath put down
the mighty” “he hath filled the hungry with good thing; and the rich he hath
sent empty away”
Mary’s words indicate that the reason she was chosen as the
Mother of Christ was her HUMILITY and lack of pride. Mary was meek, lowly and obedient. She knew God did not choose her because she
was the best mom prototype around. He
didn’t choose mary because she was the most learned in scripture and thus could
teach Jesus everything he needed to know.
He didn’t choose her because of her family, because of her beauty,
because of any of that. He chose Mary
because he knew she was willing to submit to His will. Her job was to do what God wanted her to
do. Her job was to listen to the
promptings of the spirit and to direct Jesus according to the will of God.
Her quality of humility is further exemplified in the manner
of Jesus’ birth. If I was pregnant with
the Son of God, I would think that we would be giving birth in the Taj Mahal of
birthing centers. I would expect to be
waited on hand and foot! But Mary didn’t
expect anything. Christ was born in a
stable of some sort, his first bed a manger.
The first visitors were shepherds.
That is humility.
I think
Mary likely continued to teach Jesus with Humble Obedience for all of his
growing up years. Of Jesus’ home life,
elder Robert J Matthews says: The
atmosphere of the home was one of obedience to the Lord as commanded in the
divine law. It was at home that Jesus probably received his first lessons about
the history of Israel and of past deliverances of his people by the hand of the
Lord; here he also undoubtedly learned of the hopes and expectations for the
future, as written in the scriptures. The preparations of his parents each week
to observe the Sabbath, their attendance at the synagogue, their observance of
feast days, and their preparations and conversations each year as they made
ready to go up to Jerusalem for the Passover would be impressive object lessons
to the young Jesus.
Mary’s humility led her to strict obedience to God’s
commandments. By living the way God
wanted her to, she was able to help Jesus become the man he was foreordained to
be. It seems to me that the traits Mary
exemplified should be magnified in each of us.
As I mother, I often have to catch myself and remember that my Children
are not mine. They are Gods. It is not my job to turn them into musicians
or scientists or what have you. It is my
job to help God shape them into the people he wants them to be. I need to let go of the natural man, let go
of my pride and the “vain foolishness of the world” and simply ask God to
direct me, then listen to his direction.
I need to carefully follow the commandments.
But I think we can take it one step further. We can allow God to direct us in the way we
nurture our own characters. If our
objective is to feel better about ourselves, we will never become what he wants
us to be. We do as King Benjamin warns
us in the book of mormon: yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the
Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient,
full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to
inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.
Mary was a supreme example of the type of woman we should
want to become: pure and clean so that she could be a receptacle to the will of
God. I hope that we can remember why we
are here, and let go of our own will so that we too can be filled with the will
of god.
After church we decided to have some neighbors over. We had the Rich's over for dinner, they live 2 houses down and across the street. They have a 3 year old and 1 year old (both girls). Anna lisa is an exercise instructor, so I like to get together with her.
That's pretty much it. Richard is really excited about the pictrues from the game camera his dad got off the mountain in the uintas.
1 comment:
The Game Camera Pictures seem to be his scriptures, no just kidding
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