Amazing Grace

This is a repost from my journal blog. But I thought this one was worth sharing here as well. 

Dear Journal,

I just spent the best $3 iv'e ever spent in my life.

This is what I spent it on:
I am blown away by the feelings that this movie has inspired in me. It happened the first time I watched it 5 years ago and they are even more powerful than before.

I've been doing a lot of thinking the last several days. A lot of thinking that has been motivating me to change.

Monday afternoon I came home from school with some of the worst feelings I have had in a long time. I was physically sick and mentally and emotionally exhausted. I had some of the most negative thoughts about myself that I have had since my mission. My mind was racing and I could not stop the horrid, negative thoughts from replaying over and over again. I couldn't stop it. So the only thing I knew how to do was read my scriptures and sleep. So at 4 in the afternoon I slept to get rid of the thoughts I couldn't control. Before I feel asleep I read the scriptures. And I was struck by this verse:

"And I set guards round about the land, that [they] might not come upon us again unawares and destroy us; and thus I did guard my people...and keep them from falling into the hands of our enemies" (Mosiah 10:2).

Immediately the thought came to my mind: what "guards" have I been placing in my life, that the enemy might not come upon me unawares and destroy my ability to serve God? I had a really strong realization that in order to not fall prey to such awful, horrid thoughts and feelings about myself I needed to set up these guards in my life.

Fast forward to Thursday afternoon. I went on a hike with an elder from my mission. In our conversations we began to talk about values. The things that are part of us. Our mission president used to use the example of a man who woke up late. What part of his routine would he forgo to get to work on time? Would he skip a shower? Ironing his shirt? Breakfast? Kissing his wife goodbye? Finally he would ask, would he skip putting on his clothes? Of course not, was always the reply. That is how you find out what you really value he told us. What will you never ever ever compromise on? As Stephen and I were having this conversation I had a powerful realization about myself. In trying to identify my values--those things that are an uncompromising part of me--I realized where I fall short again and again. I could identify the values that I believe are a part of me, things that are such a part of me that I will never compromise on them. Modesty is one. Pondering/thinking deeply. But my list was not nearly as extensive as I would have liked. I thought through my priority list. In my mind, this is what I had decided were my priorities:

My relationship with God

My relationship with my family

Church service

My relationship with others

School

Work

But as I ran my mind back through my day I saw very clearly the obvious disparity between my actions and my priorities. And I realized that priorities weren't enough. Because priorities get out of order often. I wanted these things to become values. To become things I will never, ever compromise on. I want my relationship with my Father in Heaven to something that is an essential part of me. And only then will it ensure that it remains a priority in my mind as well as a priority in my actions. I need it to become who I am. 

Tonight, as I watched this video, with so many thoughts and emotions from the day and week and semester, I was inspired to be better. I don't need to fight against slavery. But I need to fight for goodness. In the movie, William Wilberforce is told that he has the opportunity between praising God or changing the world. He replies with something to the effect of, I would change myself first. And later realizes that the best way to serve God is to make that change in himself and then go forward and change the world. And he does. And it is a part of him. 

I don't know if I will ever change the world in a large way. But I can change myself. I can shape myself to be a person who doesn't compromise on my values. Because they have become who I am. And I want that thought to motivate me. To change my actions. To get me up in the morning. To give me the energy to work and try and keep going no matter what. 

One of the most touching moments in this movie was when this man who was tortured by his memory of what he had done, who penned the words to Amazing Grace states, "Although my memory is fading I remember two things quite clearly. I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior." I love it. I know it's true. And that is what makes life matter. 

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saves a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found, once blind but now I see.  

MIA

Well hey!

I've been pretty absent from the blogging world lately, but my life has been insanely crazy. So that is why :) And I wanted to write this big long post today about some of the things I've been thinking of but I wasted too much time playing around on the guitar and now I have to go to bed since I have to get up at 5 tomorrow for clinicals. Yay! I get to see more babies born tomorrow :)

But here are some of the things I've been realizing so much about lately:
-God loves me. All of the time. And given His track record of the first 23 years of my life, these next few are going to be pretty great :) I don't know why I always forget how much He takes care of me. I just need to trust Him in that.

-My relationship with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ is a relationship. It's not a one sided thing. It's not an only on Sunday or when I'm reading my scriptures or saying my prayers thing. It's an every day, constant thing. They're there when I need to talk with someone or tell someone about my day or just let out all the dramatic and ridiculous things I want to say. They are always listening. And They are always on my team. They want my relationships with my friends to work out. They want my dating life to be good. They want me to do well in school and clinical and work. They want me to be happy. Isn't that so cool? This line really stuck out to me in the hymn we sang in church on Sunday: "I have loved thee as a friend with a love that cannot end" (Hymn 185).

-Life is beautiful. If I never had anything to stress about I would get so bored of it. If I didn't have to wake up at 5 every morning my conversation with myself each morning wouldn't be nearly as entertaining. :) If I didn't have to spend 50+ hours in scrubs every week I wouldn't appreciate jeans nearly as much. And if I didn't get to have hands on experience in the hospital I wouldn't be as motivated to study. And if I didn't have struggles with relationships I wouldn't have so much incentive to look inward and see how I can change and improve.

Here is the song I've been obsessed with lately:

And the cool thing is that I already know my ending. And it's going to be beautiful. 

I have a long time yet.

Dear Journal,

Today, while I was eating lunch at Dad's office, I had a really cool experience. I was really stressed. I was super tired. And I had so much to do. And the next two days don't offer much of a break at all. But suddenly I had a very clear perspective. I realized that I don't even have to do any of these things if I don't want to. I realized that it was okay if I didn't get perfect grades. And it was okay if I wasn't even close to top of my class. Or if I felt behind because I havent done nursing things for 2 years because of my mission. And actually, it would be perfectly okay if I didn't take the NCLEX right when I graduated if I didn't feel ready.

Obviously I want to do all of these things. I want to be prepared and confident in school, I want to be ready for a job when I graduate. But today Heavenly Father reminded me that I don't even have to complete everything in a certain time frame.

It was such a beautiful reminder that this life is about my journey. MINE. Not the other 63 nursing students. Not the rest of the sisters from my mission, not my cousins or friends. For me this life is about my journey. And it's about my becoming. And God knows the best way and the best timing for me to become. So if my life doesn't go the way I tried to plan it, that's okay. Because as long as I'm becoming better and making progress on this journey it doesn't really matter how long it takes me or what happens along the way. I'm so grateful for that :)

I also need to write about my conversation with Tiffany about confidence and eggs :)

But now I need to go to bed. I have clinicals in 7 hours...

Goodnight!

LOVE

Tonight I watched Divergent.

I wasn't planning on it. I got home from work and my roommates were at a neighboring apartment and so I went to join them. And they were watching it. So I just stayed.

I was so grossed out by all the violence. Killing, especially when done via knife or gun, is really hard for me to handle in movies. It makes me feel really deeply and it almost makes me get more sensitive. I'm not sure I quite understand it. It makes me not know what to do.

In the movie there is a love story. Between the two Divergents. And it's cute and perfect and wonderful. But after the movie I had all this bitterness towards all boys. I realized it as I was talking to Allegra. And as we talked about it I realized, and she taught me, a lot of things. I used to love love stories like that. I would get all giddy over them and day dream about them. But now I get frustrated and have all these angry feelings about them. And I think tonight I may have understood why.

I learned a few years ago that romance and relationships and love were not what I thought they were. I learned that intellectually first, and then I felt it. But I only felt what it was not. I felt like the thing I had dreamed about and wished and hoped for didn't actually exist. It wasn't real. It was something made up in the movies and in the books. It didn't actually ever happen like that in real life. I understood that. I internalized it. And I tried to be okay with it.

Every once in a while i felt like I got a glimpse of what true love actually is. What it is in reality. And in those brief moments it made me happy. Not like the happy, giddy, dreamy feeling I got after watching Mr. Knightly and Emma, not the hope for something fake. Rather it was a deep happiness. And I got a glimpse of what that deep happiness would look like when I found that real love.

On my mission I learned a lot about love. I learned what it meant to love a companion even when sometimes you were so frustrated with her you could hardly be civil. That was when real love came in to play. When you kept loving them and put their needs ahead of your own.

But coming home I think I fell back into this jaded perspective of love. Things just didn't work out the way I wanted and I've been starting to let myself believe that it would just never feel the way I wanted it to. I want to stop that. Because I know it's not true. Allegra said something that made me really think. She said, "I think romantic love is very very close to love you feel for a friend."

I actually don't know how I feel about this right now. So i'm going to stop writing it. But those are my thoughts thus far.

Lately

Merry Christmas!

This Christmas has been an interesting one for me. Very different than any Christmas I've had before.

Perhaps it's because I recently returned from my mission so my perspective is different. Perhaps it is because the majority of my siblings were not here for Christmas. Perhaps it is because I am in a different phase of life. But whatever the reason, it has made me ponder a lot.

One of the things I've thought a lot about is gifts. I did a pretty poor job getting gifts this year. I hate being that person who sends gifts late or who just has to give coupons or pictures of a gift you will get. My family has never really been in to gift giving much. I don't think gifts have every really been ways we express love to each other. So it's always been a little funny to give each other gifts, half of them not arrived yet, some of them not even purchased. (*Note: this excludes Jen, she's the best gift giver of the fam). But with friends it's a little different. Especially with my roommates. They are really good gift givers. So in my stress to return the thought and love they'd show me with their gifts I thought a lot about the whole tradition of gift giving. Why do we even give gifts to each other? The first response in my head was to remember the gifts given to Christ from the wise men. However, my Dad answered that question differently. He said it was to remember the Gift our Father in Heaven gave us in sending us His Son, Jesus Christ. Wow. What an incredible thing to try to emulate. That was a perfect gift given in pure, perfect love. I decided I want my gifts to be more like that from here on out. I may not be able to get the most expensive or fancy gift, but I want to give meaningful gifts. And perhaps that means gifts of time and service more than gifts of things. And some day, when I have a family of my own, I want to start a tradition of skipping the physical gifts of Christmas to each other, and instead show the gift of love through service. To each other within the family as well as to people we choose to serve that year, whether it be humanitarian trips, service at shelters, or something of the kind. #sharethegift


Something else I've been pondering on a lot recently is time. We have such a short amount of it. This Christmas I've wasted a lot of time. It's the first time in years that I haven't had to work during Christmas vacation. Or had homework due (in high school) the week I get back. So I've done a lot of staying up late and sleeping in and watching way too many movies. And it isn't fun. It feels really useless and ineffective and like I'm wasting precious time. This week I'm going to try to do better. I'm going to schedule my time and exercise and practice and read good books and put Heavenly Father first in my day through scripture reading and prayer. I think because I've seen so many movies with intense, dramatic plots and crazy love stories and dangerous situations I've decided that life really is so so simple. It's all about who we become. And we become by doing. And we have our entire lives to do. We can develop talents and personality traits and characteristics. And that is what it's all about. Trials give us opportunities to test those qualities. Easy times give us the opportunity to show faith and dedication and to build them. And it all comes down to how we choose to react and how we choose to act. I want to act and not be acted upon. I want to react in positive, patient, kind ways. I want to choose to become instead of letting my circumstances choose for me. And it all happens in small, simple steps.


Anyways, to move past my thoughts, here are some updates on my life:
School: I found out my capstone placement for next semester! Capstone is where you get to specialize on a specific unit by working all semester there with a preceptor nurse. You work with your preceptor whenever he/she works. You have a required number of hours that typically turns out to be about 3 12 hr shifts/week. You get to put your top 3 preferences. And I got my first choice. Labor and Delivery at UVRMC!! Wahoo!! I'm so so excited :) I get to help mothers bring their beautiful babies into the world all semester long. It's the best thing ever. But it's going to be a huge time commitment. Which brings me to my next update...

Work: I work at a nursing home in south Provo. And lets just say that I don't love my job. I don't mind what I do (I mean, I think very few people love cleaning up bodily wastes but I actually don't mind it) but I really dislike how it is run. We're always short staffed, we're always running crazy, I never know my schedule until the first week of the month and it changes randomly and it's really hard to plan around and... I could go on. But the point is, currently I'm looking for another job. It's rather difficult because I don't know my school schedule for another 2 weeks so it's hard to apply to jobs when I don't know if I'll actually be able to work their hours. But it's going to work out.

Dating: Boys are the worst. I mean, sometimes I love them. But lately they've just caused a lot of drama and frustration in my life. I've realized so much about myself, however, that I'd say these experiences have been worth it. I've learned that I have a long way to go before I could ever be ready for marriage. I need to become sure of and confident in who I am. I need to know that I'm okay, that I can be a valuable part of any relationship, and that I'm confident that I am becoming who God wants me to be. I need to be secure and confident on my own before I can be ready for a relationship. I think that in the past month or so I've begun to reach a healthy spot in that aspect. I have a long way to go, but it makes the dearth in dating okay because I have a future goal or objective I'm working towards.

Social life: This area of my life has been a roller coaster. Having a lot to do with the above section, I'm still learning to be confident and sure of myself. I'm learning who I am and becoming okay with the things I"m discovering about myself. Or setting goals to change them.

And that, folks, is my life. Pretty great if you ask me. Take out financial stress and dating stress and social stress and I think my life would be perfect. And if those are the only things I have to worry about that I'm doing just fine :) I'm so grateful for this phase of my life and the time I have to learn and grow and become. And I'm excited to see what 2015 has in store.

Kindness

When I was in high school I went to DC with my choir. It was a fun trip but, like usual, I was super shy and nervous the whole time. I remember one specific experience before we even got there though, we were on the plane and I was talking to the two people sitting next to me and when I found out we had an hour bus ride after we landed I made the sarcastic comment, "oh joy!" One of the women sitting next to me (who happened to be in my home ward) have a surprised laugh and made a comment along the lines of, I'm glad Rebekah's human too :)

When I was a junior in college my second year in the nursing program i was carpooling to salt lake with a group of nursing students and some how people started talking about getting frustrated. And one of the guys said, Rebekah have you ever gotten mad before? And the girl next to him said, how funny would it be to see Rebekah just EXPLODE at someone! I assured them that I did, in fact, get upset and frustrated but they didn't really believe me.

Tonight, on my way back from Idaho, I was talking to my favorite member family from my mission. They were telling me about an elder on their ward right now and asked if I knew him. I said, I don't have very kind feelings towards that elder. And they laughed and said, what?? Sister Andelin?? Ha that validates everything!!

What do these experiences have in common? They all are evidence that I am not very good at showing my true character hah. But in all seriousness, tonight especially has made me really ponder on what type of person I am. Obviously to a lot of people around me I come across as this angel child who always loves everyone. As much as I wish I was that, I actually often have very unkind thoughts about lots of people. And I think rude comments in my head. And I gossip. And I'm actually not that nice. But I realized today, I want to be that kind. I want to be as nice as everyone seems to think I am. I want to love others and serve them and want to do it because I genuinely care about them and about my Father in Heaven, not because I'm supposed to feel that way or do those things. I want to become that type of person, not just do those kind of things.

I was listening to President Uchtdorf's talk today on my drive and I was struck with this principle:

"Many of us have a difficult time seeing ourselves as we truly are, and even successful people overestimate their own contribution and underestimate the contributions that others make.

It might not be so significant to overestimate how well we drive a car or how far we can drive a golf ball. But when we start believing that our contributions at home, at work, and at church are greater than they actually are, we blind ourselves to blessings and opportunities to improve ourselves in significant and profound ways."
“Lord, Is It I?”
http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/10/lord-is-it-i?lang=eng

I want to stop overestimating my goodness or my contribution to the world. Instead I want to understand myself, weaknesses and strengths, and then begin to develop the qualities I want to have.

Thoughts on how to accomplish this?