Starting Small

Posted by Tamie on Wednesday, April 9, 2008

The kids love this little laundry basket hole from the kitchen to our master closet. Tanner gave us another laugh the other day. Daniel got a 1964 powder blue Mustang for his 16th birthday. I was standing with the boys watching him pull out of the garage when Tanner gasped and excitedly said “I think it’s going to be a Transformer!” I just love seeing the world through Tanner’s eyes.



Conference was inspiring and motivating but by the fourth session my list of things to work on was feeling a little overwhelming. I reeled myself in and decided rather than get discouraged and not do anything, I would just make one goal to start with.

My goal was a meshing of several talks and promptings: Elder Wirthlin reminded us that when we are weary, we will be strengthened as we serve others. Elder Bednar encouraged us to make our prayers action oriented and Elder Ballard encouraged us to enjoy the moment.

My goal is to say a focused prayer before bed each night asking the Lord to help me think of one act of service I can do the following day. Again, rather than becoming overwhelmed about all the things I could do, I ask the Spirit to help me settle on one thing then I write it down. The next day it is on my mind and I feel a sense of accomplishment when I do it. I should add, these goals are very small and attainable; an email, a phone call, a blog.

This may be a second goal but I feel less overwhelmed if I include it in the first goal. It is that I say action prayers when feeling unable to go on during the day—“help me get up for my walk, help me build a track with Jordan, help me get dinner going, give me strength to kindly change one more diaper, help me drop this and enjoy my kids . . . .” I have felt more focused and energetic (that may be too strong a word :-)) in attending to the moment.

Of course it’s only been a couple days but they’ve been great days and I’m excited to continue my own little “experiment upon the word.”


Comments (1)

Your matching orange is darling! I love it, your family photos ALWAYS make me smile. They are so REAL, I mean...what 4 boys will stay still and all smile at the same time? I just love your little guys. Tanner is a crack up. Your goal is awesome! You are so service oriented I'm sure you probably have a hard time deciding which one to do. Love you.

Posted April 14, 2008 at 10:14 AM by Blogger Cyndi