Just go, you'll be grateful you did.

Our Stake (the local region of the LDS church here in Grand Blanc, MI) hosted famous author, Anita Stansfield for a series of lectures this past weekend. I had the chance to go listen to her for 3 hours on Saturday. I almost didn't go. Adam is out of town and I had to find a babysitter. Something inside me said, "GO." So I did what I had to do and I did.

Since this is practically my journal, I want to write a few things here that meant a lot for me to hear. Things that she said, inspiration and encouragement that she gave. And I want to share it with you, that you may be uplifted as I was.

Her first lecture/presentation/talk was about how "God's Love is Absolute and Unconditional." A few bullets:

- We cannot base our worth on circumstances out of our control. This hit home.

For instance: A woman bases her worth on how immaculate her home always is. This is what she does. She cleans and organizes and is known for it. Then she gets ill or someone close to her has a crisis or she becomes a single mother and just can't clean like she used to. She feels worthless.

Another example: A woman (or man) bases her/his worth on how good or righteous their children "turn out." Not to say that we, as parents, should not do everything in our power to raise good, polite, obedient, righteous children, because we should, but we know that these little creatures come to this earth with personalities and wills carved as deep into their beings as the Grand Canyon is into Arizona. Or deeper. An example to the example: The Book of Mormon prophet, Lehi, and his wife, Sariah. They raised Nephi and they raised Laman. Same parenting, same rules, same love and affection. Those boys were like oil and water. One good, the other rotten.

So, don't base your self worth of circumstances out of yourself or out of your control. It's dangerous. It isn't right. So what do we base our self-worth on? That we are daughters (and sons) of our Heavenly Father. We are everything to Him. As my niece just posted about on her blog, we are "spirit daughters of the most creative being in the universe." That should mean a lot to us.

- This famous, accomplished woman told us that, up to a certain point in her life, she had never had a conversation with any woman, young or old, where she didn't feel inadequate in some way. Wow. Do I feel like this? Am I always comparing myself to others? She called it a plague among women. And it is. When we wake up on our worst Tuesday and look at ourselves in the mirror, we feel fat, ugly, unkept, irresponsible, like a slob... and we do something awful. We think how bad we look now compared to how everyone else looked on Sunday in Sacrament meeting. Our Tuesday Worst vs. Their Sunday Best. It's unfair. Then Sis. Stansfield hit the nail on the head and said, "How does that make our creator feel?" When we are so harsh on ourselves, I am sure it is hurtful to the One who loves us so much and created us after His own image.

- "The errand of angels is given to women," she said. And she shared some stories that really touched my heart. Here's one:

Her son was on a mission and had just hit rock bottom. She read it through the lines of an email he had written her earlier that day. He had just been transferred to a new area and was placed with a very difficult companion. It was Labor day weekend, which to her children was a bigger deal than Christmas itself. Her heart was heavy, life was stressful in more ways than one. She wanted to reach out to her struggling son somehow but couldn't. She could email him back, but it wouldn't reach him for a week, since he could only access a computer once per week. She felt prompted just then to check her other email account, the one with all her fan mail and stuff like that. She had already took care of all that the night before and didn't want to check it again, just as they were about to leave for their family trip they took each year. But she felt like she should. There was an email from a woman, it began with praise about her books, as they usually do. She skimmed it and went on. But she felt like she should read the email. She did. This woman mentioned that an Elder Stansfield was just transferred into her stake. Anita's struggling son. So she emailed this woman back with some words of encouragement for her son, which were delivered and which truly brightened his day. This woman and her husband continued to look after him, helping he and his companion out when they could, having them over for dinner at their home. It was truly a blessing. If this woman didn't write her email that morning when she was prompted to do so and if Sis. Stansfield wouldn't have followed the prompting to check it, these people's hearts would have remained miserably heavy. We need to listen for these spiritual promptings and act immediately.

The second lecture was about Emma Smith and the work she has been doing on her behalf. Wow. This is another blog post in itself and will come after I read Anita's new book: Emma, Woman of Faith.

The third was about Balancing our Lives.

Here is the exercise:

Make 3 lists.

The first - List all the roles you have in your life. This should be a pretty long list.

The second - Your top 5 time-takers.

The third - You top 5 priorities in life.

Do lists 2 & 3 coincide? They should. If they don't, you have some work ahead of you.

The prophet, Brigham Young said when we leave this life and stand before our creator we will be asked these two questions: What did you do with your relationships? What did you do with your talents? Nothing else really matters.

And just as I was wishing that I could have so many wonderful, spiritual experiences in my life like she has, she reminded us to pray each morning for revelation. Pray that we will be guided to know what we should be doing every moment of our day, so that we may enhance our relationships and develop our talents.

I think I will.