Last Sunday we had the chairs of the ward temple committee speak to us in sacrament meeting. One of them was talking about a trip she had taken out to Winter Quarters, and read us some journal entries from a woman who had traveled west with the early Saints, meaning that she stopped for the winter at Winter Quarters. While traveling to Winter Quarters she had given birth to a baby boy, and though he was healthy for about 3 months, he became sick and died in about 6 days. She buried him in a graveyard that held other saints who had died, though without a marker. Then in the spring, she continued on to the Salt Lake Valley.
The point of the talk was that sometimes you have to just keeping moving on, even when horrible things happen. And as I was listening, I started thinking about something else, that was somewhat related to the talk, but was kind of the opposite, if I'm going to be honest.
My thought was, that we need to continue our lives as they are now, without stopping living because we think that something else is going to come along. For example, going back to the early Saints, they kept living as if they were going to continue living how they were. In the first 16 years of the Church, the Saints moved from New York and Pennsylvania, to Ohio, then to Missouri, to Nauvoo, and eventually moved westward to what became Utah. And yet at every place, they built houses, started businesses, and made a life for themselves, instead of thinking that they would just have to pack up and leave again.
I think that this is applicable to us in a slightly different way. We need to plan for the future--it's a fact of living--but we can't let our plans for the future stop us from living in the present. When I apply for a job, I send in my application, and then I continue living my life as if I hadn't. There's no point in stopping because something might happen. Another example, I'm single in a society where marriage is really important. So, for a long time I had a mindset that I couldn't do certain things if I wasn't married, or in a relationship--like go on vacations, to plays, concerts, and movies. But I've eventually come to the conclusion that, while I still hope and desire to get married someday, I don't have to stop my life or hold back on things just because I'm still single. If I want to go to a play, then by golly, I'll go by myself (and I have!). I'm planning a trip to Canada this summer, by myself, and I'm looking forward to it. Sometimes I like to share an experience with others, like going to a Josh Groban concert with my mom, or seeing a play with my roommate.
Basically, what I'm trying to say is love the life you have, and live like it's the one you will always have.
No comments:
Post a Comment