The Keepsake Catastrophe – Step 12 Practice these principles in all you do

I’m not a big keeper when it comes to most things, but I have absolutely no judgment when it comes to photos of my children and the paper treasures they’ve generated over a family lifetime. Anything that reminds me of how much I treasure them is a treasure to me—photos, programs, certificates, awards, little pieces of art, and all letters to Santa along with his midnight replies. I’ve kept any little writings that give some insight into their precious personalities. For years when I would come out of my bedroom in the morning there would be a note on the ground saying, “Mom, please make sure I’m up by ___ o’clock. I have a rehearsal (a morning side, a review session) at school!” (We will save discussing my mothering skills for another day.) Every so often, after a family feud, I would find a repentant note saying something like, “I’m sorry I was such a brat. I really do love you!” You guessed it. I saved it.

My tenderness for all things memorable has created a bit of a problem. It’s a problem I’ve kept hidden in a very large upstairs closet for years. Though this closet is out of the way it often cries out to me—“Nannette, you are a treasure saving junkie! Get a grip! Get some sanity! You may be able to hide your neurosis in a closet, but that does not make it any less of a problem.”

Now that I’m living in recovery from compulsive eating the Lord is doing some excavation work on other aspects of my life, and this is one of them. Thankfully, recovery is an ongoing phenomenon. I have heard it shared many times that those struggling with addiction are addicted to “more”—more of anything. My collection of treasures certainly bears this out.

I’m grateful I have not passed my propensity for saving on to my daughters. They seem to have a keen eye for the savable and the expendable. They also have digital cameras and know how to use them, and when the refrigerator door has no more space for one more drawing by one more budding artist they simply take some pictures and send the originals on to a better life, better for moms anyway.

Though I’ve got miles to go, I have come a far piece. I began this cleanup nearly three years ago. One of my daughters and I packed our bags and loaded a car with boxes of photos and took a weekend trip to the home of another daughter and spent a day and a night and a day doing a quick initial sort. When I returned home I kept at it. Every Monday afternoon I take a box of “scraps” down to my daughter’s house, where I can receive all the encouragement and sanity I need. Thanks to her gift for clear minded evaluation, decades of photos are almost in order, by year, in shoe boxes and ready to be scanned. All doubles and photos of trees in forests long forgotten have been thrown away. The digital age of being able to scan the photos and papers and then scrapbook on the computer may bless my life yet. Now I’m going through paper treasures I have saved for one of my sons. I don’t want to pass the mess on to him or his wife. His three boxes are becoming three orderly journals. We’ve actually had a great time skimming over our past. “By littles” my chaos is beginning to take shape. With the help of the Lord and His angels no mess is too big. No mess is too small.

I’ll never forget the first time I shared with someone just how compulsive I was with about saving treasures and what a mess I had created. I also shared with her what a crazy perfectionist I was with the use of my time. I showed her the schedule I had created for myself that frankly six Nannettes couldn’t possibly pull off. I thought my recovery friend was going to simply tell me that I was nuts, but she didn’t. She listened to me and then she said, “Nannette, you must be so precious to the Lord. I can see that you want to please Him with everything that’s in you.” I was really taken back by her comment. She was actually saying that some of my craziness has its roots in my compelling desire to do good—that the Lord knows our hearts. Knowing He loves me and understands me makes me want to “put God first” ahead of other treasures or desires, good as they may be, and allow Him to put all things in their proper place.

There is one thought that has given me courage to throw things away, and this is it. The Lord is a great keeper. All my life I have been taught that the Lord is a good forgetter. If I repent He remembers my sins “no more.” What a blessing! But, as a young mother there have been thousands of moments I wanted to somehow keep, somehow capture and never ever forget. Impossible! There is no way you can possibly capture all the good—I don’t care how good a photographer, videographer, journaler extraordinaire you are! It can’t be done. I have finally had to imagine that Heavenly Father and Jesus are also infinitely tender toward all the good—They are the first ones out with their camera snapping and videoing all the good. In fact they’ve got Heavenly technology we can’t even imagine, love for us we cannot even comprehend, and a great eye for keepsakes. If our Father in Heaven loves all His kids half as much I love the ones He lent to me, He’s chronicling not just our big milestones, but every precious step we take in the right direction. He’s like me. I’m depending on it! Anything that reminds Him of how much He treasures us is a treasure to Him.

By Nannette W. posted Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Copyright 2008 by Nannette W. All rights reserved. Making or sending copies is permitted if the page is not changed in any way and the material is not used for profit. This notice must be included on each copy made or sent.

Point of Choice – Step 11 Personal Revelation

I want to wake up early and spend time with the Lord before I spend the day with His siblings.  I’ve struggled with this desire my whole adult life.  I like the idea of “early up” when I’m “up,” but many a morning I battle against “early up” ‘because I’m “down” snuggled in my covers.  This morning my internal alarm went off just before the “early up” alarm on the dresser, the one I often ignore except for the few seconds it takes to turn it off and return to my pillow.

This time was different though—“This is the Point of Choice, Nannette”—In the haze between sleep and wake these words lit up my mind and could not be ignored—The Point of Choice.

So here I am in the wee hours of the morning with time to spend with God.  My pen, my notebook,  a little “Jenny Oaks Baker” playing ever so quietly, and my Book of Mormon and a few other things I like to study, all smiling at me like children knowing they are going to receive a little quality time today.

Point of choice—I bet there’s a point of choice when it comes to any good the Lord would have us do.  It doesn’t have to be “early up.”  Everyone doesn’t feel the call to rise at the crack of dawn, but I imagine that for all of us there is a call to do something that we have met with resistance.  The point of choice is just that moment in time when we can, if we will, choose to figuratively throw off the covers and put our feet on the floor and switch on the light.  It’s a single choice—something simple that sets in motion some good work the Lord wants to do in us and through us.  It’s the next right thing. It’s a barely measurable point in time when, with a single small act, the Lord can make the most of our time.

There must be hundreds of points of choice every day, and if well cared for these little choices bring a little more health, a little more love, a little more service, or rest, or peace of mind, a little step in the right direction in any area of life.

The Point of Choice—Something worth watching for today!

By Nannette W.  Posted Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Copyright 2008 by Nannette W. All rights reserved. Making or sending copies is permitted if the page is not changed in any way and the material is not used for profit.  This notice must be included on each copy made or sent.

Heart-deep Recovery Lesson 3: Plavix or Me on Plavix! (Part Four of Four)

One of the biggest frustrations of my aftercare is all the medication I have to take. I now have one of those pill containers marked with the days of the week to help me keep the whole thing sorted out, the kind of thing peoples’ grandparents use. Imagine that! The prescriptions that seem to make the most visible difference are the ones for Plavix and aspirin–the blood thinners. Bruises, bruises, bruises! I hate it! I called the doctor and told him I must surely be getting too much blood thinner because I was covered with bruises. He took no pity on me whatsoever.

I was pretty angry until one day, after I’d bumped my hip on the kitchen counter, stubbed my big toe, hit my elbow on the door jam, and accidentally slammed my head in the door going out to the garage (OK, maybe that all took two days), it dawned on me that the problem, the real problem, was not the blood thinners, it was me on blood thinners. Plavix and aspirin don’t make bruises in and of themselves. I have bruises because I’m a klutz and on blood thinners every klutzy thing I do becomes visible.

I can get rid of the bruises by getting rid of the Plavix and put myself at risk or I can get rid of the bruises by being more conscious of what I am doing.

So, instead of spending my energy trying to rid myself of all the indicators God has put in place to help me see the truth (even though the truth is colored black and blue) I choose to live in gratitude for all the clues, the things He’s placed in my life like Plavix, and children, and callings, and challenges that make the truth plain. With my awareness, He can help me make the changes I need to make in life.

Conclusion
We overcome this world by degrees. A heart attack or any kind of earth life attack is an invitation to change, to be a little different, and to reach out to the Lord for direction and power over things we’ve never ever considered. Jesus is the Lord of my progress, my conversion, my change. Because of Him and with Him, in matters of the heart both physical and spiritual, I do not have to be what I have been. So Nannette, the pickax and the Plavix are not the enemy, and if you listen, you’ll know that they speak to you for Him.

By Nannette W.
Posted Sunday, September 5, 2010

Copyright 2008 by Nannette W.
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Heart-deep Recovery Lesson 2: Who’s to Blame? (Part Three of Four)

“You’d be surprised how many people have heart attacks with a snow shovel in their hands,” I heard over and over from the hospital personnel.

“That’s it!” I thought. “Let’s blame the sledge hammer and the pickax.”

It’s the most “natural man” thing in the world to search for something or someone to blame—something or someone that Is Not Us! Many people pay a therapist to “peel the onion” and see what lurks inside. King David humbly invites the Lord to take an intensive look when he says “Search me, O God, and know my heart” (Psalms 139:23). My cardiologist went in with a camera and tools for excavating. The point is to look beyond the obvious.

As we say in addiction recovery, our problem is “a symptom of other causes and conditions” (A Guide to Addiction Recovery and Healing p, 21). And so it was with the condition of my heart. It wasn’t really about the sledge hammer or the pickax, the high blood pressure or the extreme discomfort. Even the enzymes in my blood were not the enemy. They were all indicators.

All recovery, cardiac or otherwise, requires that we look for clues deep within, beyond the hammer and the ice or whatever person, place, thing, or situation we’re tempted to blame. It takes courage to locate the real blockage—the actual thing that has us stuck. Today I’m grateful for physical and spiritual clues—even painful ones—that help me take positive action on the condition of my heart.

By Nannette W.
Posted Saturday, September 4, 2010

Copyright 2008 by Nannette W.
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Heart-deep Recovery Lesson 1: Who Me? No Way! (Part Two of Four)

“But I have such a healthy life style today!” I announced to the cardiologist as I lay in bed breathing from an oxygen tube. “I exercise and eat right! I’ll have you know I’ve lost 97 lbs!”

“Past sins and heredity,” he responded with a grim smile.

Years ago I remember sitting in a hospital waiting room listening to my mom give her family history of heart disease to the physician’s assistant right before her angiogram and quadruple bypass surgery. I remember thinking. “Nannette, you really should take this personally.” I didn’t though. I didn’t get it ‘til now.

I really am a product of the strengths and weaknesses that have been passed down the family line along with all the actions, good and bad I have taken over a lifetime. I’m certainly grateful I did not weigh 97 lbs. more when I had my heart attack. Repentance is real. We can turn around. Change is real. With direction and power from God we can break cycles that are generations old, but healing the heart whether physically or spiritually, takes time and patience and willingness to cooperate. I have learned that I can’t ever take the health of my heart for granted. The way I live today both physically and spiritually has the power to reach across the years and counter what I have inherited and what I have inflicted upon myself.

My heart attack was an invitation from the Lord to do just that and though it’s been hard, I’m grateful for the wake-up call. My life’s work is to come unto Christ and overcome what all of us are challenged with, heredity and our own past sins.” So, “Yes Me!” “Why not me!”

By Nannette W.
Posted Friday, September 3, 2010

Copyright 2008 by Nannette W.
All rights reserved. Making or sending copies is permitted if the page is not changed in any way and the material is not used for profit. This notice must be included on each copy made or sent.

Heart-deep Recovery (Part One of Four)

One January 25th of 2010 it somehow got to be afternoon and I hadn’t exercised yet. After lunch I started contemplating, “Just how am I going to go about getting just enough exercise to appease my conscience today?” I got a little creative. My husband had left to run some errands. Out in the street in front of our house was a thick slab of ice. He had been working on it for days, trying to clear it out so we’d have more available parking. Our house faces north and I’ve often joked that we live in a glacier. Every year, as the grass greens up and the daffodils bloom in the yards across the street we still enjoy enough white on the lawn to build a good size snowman.

Well this January afternoon that thick slice of dirty, frozen, white winter called my name. I had never used a sledge hammer, but I knew where it was kept, and the idea of swinging and making my mark on that ice filled me with some kind of delight. I opened the garage door and grabbed the tool. This activity was going to count for gym time, so I gave it everything I had. My goal suddenly became not simply to get a little exercise but to have that ice entirely broken up before my husband returned. I knew I didn’t have long so I went at it hard! There was something very satisfying about swinging that sledge hammer–the centrifugal pull on my shoulders, the power of letting it fall on the freeze and the sound of thick ice cracking. About half-way through I glanced in the garage and noticed that right there next to where the sledge hammer was kept was a pickax. “Why not,” I said to myself. “This might be even more effective!”

As my husband rounded the corner I was done breaking up the entire sheet of ice and was finishing my afternoon workout by shoveling pieces of ice into the street for quick melting. My very surprised husband was happy to take the shovel and finish the job. Pretty satisfied that this twenty-five minute extreme workout could compensate for an hour at the gym I walked into the house.

As I entered my room a sick feeling I had never experienced before washed over my body. I knew that I was not only done exercising, I was done in! I was not in what you might call a great deal of pain, but a tremendous weariness seemed to emanate from my chest and fill my entire body.

I was removing my wet clothes when my friend Pat called. I put the phone to my ear and lay down on my bed. As she chattered away the feeling grew worse until I excused myself for a minute. I had a borrowed blood pressure monitor and it came into my mind that it was time to try it out. It registered 191 over 115. Back in October a doctor had given me a prescription of nitroglycerin after a less severe rise in my blood pressure. I went back to the phone, reported my findings and told my friend that perhaps this was the moment to put one of those small white pills under my tongue. I called my husband in, chewed up an aspirin, and asked my husband for a blessing. The pressure came down a few notches. I called my doctor who thought it was simply the result of my intense exercise. He suggested I give it a little time and all would be well.

“That’s good,” I thought and proceeded to make dinner. I continued to check my blood pressure every hour. Not much changed. Determined I was not going to spend the night in the ER, by gum, I took charge of the situation. I tried the “don’t think about it” system…the relax and make dinner system…the relax and watch a movie system. But at midnight my blood pressure was still extremely elevated, and my daughters, who are registered nurses, insisted I go to the emergency room. After several revealing tests, the attending physician insisted that I spend the night. I was admitted into the hospital. I soon realized that the only thing I was going to be in charge of was one of those nice beds with a thin mattress and a remote control.

I’d started the day feeling like a young 55 and now I lay in a hospital bed feeling old and trying to wrap my mind around what was happening. The blood work confirmed a heart attack. The next morning the angiogram revealed a blockage in my heart and the cardiologist placed a stent in one of my arteries.

I left the hospital with a 172 page Heart Care Handbook, prescriptions for eight medications to lower my blood pressure, thin my blood, and prevent cholesterol from playing havoc in my arteries, and finally, a referral to cardiac rehab. Wow!

Often the Lord is subtle and I have to really be on the lookout for what He might be trying to teach me. Other times there are events in life were His message is loud, clear, and unmistakable. This was just such an event.

By Nannette W.
Posted Thursday, September 2, 2010

Copyright 2008 by Nannette W.
All rights reserved. Making or sending copies is permitted if the page is not changed in any way and the material is not used for profit. This notice must be included on each copy made or sent.

Potato Peels Are Just The Beginning – Steps 4-10

Who knew a few potato trimmings could cause such trauma in the kitchen! The day of rest turned into the day of the big mess with just a flick of the disposal switch. With chicken gravy on the stove and the taters my daughter had cleaned and seasoned baking in the oven, Sunday dinner looked like it was going to be a great success. I glanced into the sink as I passed by and noticed a few potato trimmings way down in the disposal. “Oh, it doesn’t look like there’s much there. I bet it will go down the drain just fine,” I said to myself as I flipped the disposal switch. I had an immediate second thought about my decision, but it was too late. Within seconds I knew I had created a giant problem. “Why oh why hadn’t I just reached down and pulled those scraps out and put them into the trash?”

My husband walked through the kitchen just as water with hundreds of little tiny potato peelings began welling up on one side of the double sink. The memory of the Sunday I put brown rice down the drain came to my mind. My husband just shook his head. He was silent, but “here we go again” was written all over his face. “Don’t you worry!” I assured him and invited him to leave the kitchen. I grabbed the plunger, ran the water and the disposal and plunged for all I was worth. Nothing! “Maybe if I just let it sit for a while something will break through,” I thought as I worked toward dinner. I could see that I was getting nowhere.

Eventually my husband and my son-in-law got into it. We did all the things people do. We ran more and more water. We ran the disposal again and again and of course, we plunged and plunged. We stopped up the disposal side of the sink to create some resistance and plunged and plunged some more. Nothing!

We used a pail and got all the water out of the sink, disinfected the area around the sink and sat down to Sunday dinner. We took a short break and for thirty minutes and we all pretended there was no problem. I sat and visited and ate and hoped that something miraculous was going on down in those pipes.

I won’t bore you or disgust you with all the details of the next two days. Suffice it to say that today our sink works. No small thing. One husband, one son-in-law, one neighbor, two plumbers and a lot of money later, the water flows freely.

I’ve learned a thing or two about our plumbing. A little disposal worth of potato peals can a very large mess make if those peals are trying to get down a small already mucked up pipe. The plumber says that once a month we should fill the sink with water, turn on the disposal and run water through the line to keep the pipes cleaned out!

This little experience with a plugged up pipe in the house made me think of the brilliance of Steps 4-10. I am like that pipe! Many of us come to apply the 12 Steps because in some aspect of our lives we are stuck. We can’t move forward and it isn’t for lack of trying. We are aware of many of our imperfections. Most of us have done some confessing. We’ve told God we wish we were making greater progress. We’ve said we were sorry and asked for forgiveness on several occasions, and we try not to go to bed angry. But we are still stuck.

When I first read through the 12 Steps I thought to myself, “Well, I kind of like the first three and the last three, but I’m not doing the ones in the middle. The following are the Gospel principles represented by the middle Steps:

Step 4 “Truth”
Step 5 “Confession”
Step 6 “Change of heart”
Step 7 “Humility”
Step 8 “Seeking forgiveness”
Step 9 “Restitution and Reconciliation”
Step 10 “Daily Accountability”

Today I see that not being willing to take those steps thoroughly and dabbling about with repentance is like using a plunger on a plugged up drain that is ultimately going to require a fifty-foot plumbing snake and daily maintenance.

The fellow that unplugged the sink was finally able to get to the root of the problem. Tuesday morning I woke up to a sink where the water could run freely, something I won’t take for granted again.

That’s the purpose of Steps 4-10 too. As I do the work required I discover a kind of water that runs more freely in me too. It’s the “Living Water”, the life changing water the Lord promised to that ancient “Woman at the Well” in John 4:10.

Now I truly don’t mean to offend by comparing our emotional and spiritual inner workings to the plumbing in my house. I know it’s not a very pretty picture, but it’s a picture the Spirit used to get my attention.

As it turns out, the potato peels were not the real culprit. The real problem was a pipe with years and years of build up that had to be cleaned out. It’s the same with our personal cleansing. Eventually, if we want to get unstuck we have to surrender to the process that promises to clean out the years and years of accumulation and free us to move forward.

By Nannette W.
Posted Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Copyright 2008 by Nannette W. All rights reserved. Making or sending copies is permitted if the page is not changed in any way and the material is not used for profit. This notice must be included on each copy made or sent.

The Bird Clock – Step 12 “Having Had A Spiritual Awakening”

There is a transformation that takes place when a woman moves from being a “forty-something” year old mother of teenagers to being a grandmother. One of the early signs of this change is the acquisition of little eccentric things around the house. It’s quite unexplainable, but grandmothers purchase things to hang on walls and sit on shelves they wouldn’t have considered bringing home in the past. Quite often these are fragile things that little children find fascinating but are not allowed play with: figurines, music boxes, lava lamps, doorbells that play Christmas carols etc. Clocks are high on the “top-ten-list” of grandmotherly acquisitions. My Grandma on my Dad’s side owned a cuckoo clock. It just wasn’t grandma’s house unless that cuckoo squawked out every new hour, on the hour, all night long, followed by a little German folk song. My Grandma on my Mother’s side had a cat clock on the kitchen wall. As the seconds ticked away the tail of the cat which hung below the clock wagged back and forth, and the big round eyes on the face of the cat clock looked left and then right in concert. Strange but quite captivating.

A novelty clock was my first peculiar purchase when I became a grandma. I’m sure I have made others, but I think one becomes so accustomed to being a grandma that we stop noticing. The transformation is almost imperceptible. And our home decorating is not the only sign. One day we simply decided our own mother was perfectly sensible in wearing an apron when she cooked Sunday dinner, and we get one of the many we have inherited but never worn out of a drawer, and we tie it about our waste. More and more often we hear ourselves saying to young people, “Well, when I was a little girl…” Hot cereal is a treat, and finding a pair of sensible shoes is a thing to celebrate. Who knows how it is accomplished. Only God can make a Grandma.

This week I had an experience that involved my bird clock. I share this experience at some personal risk, the risk of revealing that my mind is also showing my age. The other evening I was eating dinner on the back patio. While I was eating I heard my clock announce the hour of the day. Each hour is sounded off by a different birdcall. Several other times in the last ten years I’ve heard this particular call while I’ve been outside close to my house. My mother has a similar clock and lives just across the street. “Perhaps there are others in our maturing neighborhood who own the same clock,” I always wonder. This particular call is so mechanical I can hardly believe there’s a real bird that makes such a noise. I was in a hurry to finish eating and get to an evening appointment. I glanced down at my watch. It read 6:20. “What, my clock must be broken. That bird call is not sounding on the hour.” Then came the great awakening. “Wait a minute! Could that be a real bird! Could it possibly be that every time I’ve been outside and heard that call it’s been a real bird?” My mother phoned while I was taking this in. “Oh, you mean the Morning Dove,” she laughed as I told her about “my moment.”

The next day as I was riding my bike I heard the call of the morning dove again. This time I didn’t wonder which grandma in the neighborhood had just bought a bird clock. No! I looked around and sure enough, up on the telephone wire was the real thing. I was suddenly mindful or awake to something that had always been a reality.

Step 12 speaks of having “a spiritual awakening as a result of Atonement of Jesus Christ.” As we apply Steps 1 through 11 the cumulative effect is a growing spiritual awareness. The before and after distinction is so great that sometimes we say we have come from a place where we were spiritually asleep or dead. This spiritual awakening is directly connected to Jesus. Over time and with hard work we become awake to the Lord. We become acutely aware that the Savior we have read about, and sung about, and been taught about all our lives is more alive and interested in us as individuals than we ever dared imagine.

As a result of applying these Gospel principles to my everyday life I am waking up. I’m beginning to see and feel and hear His persistent witness, to me personally, that He is alive. Through the Holy Spirit I’m learning to recognize His voice. I’m learning to feel His presence. I have experienced His desire to give me direction and power in any aspect of life where I struggle.

My experience with the Morning Dove reminds me of my experience with the Lord, who the Apostle John called “Morning Star.” With the little dove I became suddenly and keenly aware that the call I was hearing was the voice of a living thing. Now that I’m conscious I hear that little bird call many times each day. My awakening to the Lord has been a gradual process but just a real. As I sit hear writing with my office window open I can hear the call of a nearby dove. I think the Lord must intend the little bird and his call to forever remind me that my living Savior is very much alive and always near!

By Nannette W.
Posted Sunday, May 31, 2009

Copyright 2008 by Nannette W. All rights reserved. Making or sending copies is permitted if the page is not changed in any way and the material is not used for profit. This notice must be included on each copy made or sent.

The Yellow Bedroom

In my home there is a room that in hindsight seems to have had a dedicated purpose. This room is affectionately known as the Yellow Bedroom. When I moved into this home in 1975 I had just had my first child, a little girl, and this small room with pale yellow walls became the nursery. Over the next thirteen years four more babies were introduced to our home and given a place in the Yellow Bedroom.

As the children grew older they began to occupy others rooms of the house and the mission of the little yellow room expanded. Over the next many years it became a place of safety and nurture for step children, my Grandma who had broken her hip, my mother as she recovered from quadruple bypass surgery on her heart, friends of my children who were here to attend school, and a place of recovery from addiction for two foster daughters and one Great Dane who came a puppy and evolved into a small live-in pony. No matter who occupied the Yellow Bedroom they become fully a part of our family.

There is something very sacred to me about inviting someone to be a part of my home and family. This experience has come to me through the blessing of childbirth and also as God has simply delivered others to my home for a time, and time after time it has seemed just right to invite them to be a part of us.

One day while I was reading the scriptures I ran across an ancient term for this experience. In the Book of Mormon we are told of a man named Zoram who leaves Jerusalem and travels to the Land of Promise with the family of Lehi. Zoram is given the great opportunity to move out of a city that is going to soon be destroyed and “have place” with Lehi’s family. The stipulations are that he must remain with the family and be true to his oath – keep his promises. (see 1 Nephi 4:34)

As I read about Zoram I was struck with the truth that the Lord’s offer to each of us is very similar. He has extended the opportunity to you and me individually to “have place” with Him. He says, “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14:2-3) To have place with someone is “to occupy the same space or location, to occupy the same position, class, capacity, character, situation, state, station, and to have the same job or work.”

Over the years I have come to terms with the fact that I cannot “give place” in the Yellow Bedroom to everyone my heart goes out to. Today the sweet little room is my place for prayer and study and writing. It comforts me to know that our Lord has “many mansions,” and that there is no shortage of room, no lack of “place.” As with Zoram, the only stipulation is that we remain committed to The Family and continue to grow in our ability to keep our promises.

The result of doing the will of the Lord, of keeping His commandments, of living true to my covenants is to “have place” with Him. That’s no small reward. It is to occupy the location, be gifted with capacity, and share in the work of God.

By Nannette W.
Posted Thursday, May 14, 2009

Copyright 2008 by Nannette W. All rights reserved. Making or sending copies is permitted if the page is not changed in any way and the material is not used for profit. This notice must be included on each copy made or sent.

"Who’s Character Is In Question?" – Step 7 – Humility

Recently, while I was on my knees speaking to my Heavenly Father I was struck with a thought that made me pause. It seemed to be a call to rethink the kinds of things I say to the God of the Universe. What came to me was that often in my prayers I pray for Heavenly Father, the perfect Father of my spirit, to be kind, to be patient, to be aware of me, to be cognizant of my children, to care for the earth, and to be mindful of our country and our economic situation. “It sounds, Nannette, like you are praying for God to develop His character in your behalf.” Heavenly Father’s character, His nature is already divine. It’s my nature that must change. My prayer time would be better spent “humbly asking Him to remove my character weaknesses (see Step 7) so can more fully enjoy His divine nature. Paul advised us to “…be a partaker of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). I can be assured that His patience and long suffering and loving kindness are well in tact. It’s my character that needs an overhaul, not His.

By Nannette W.
Posted Monday, April 6, 2009

Copyright 2008 by Nannette W. All rights reserved. Making or sending copies is permitted if the page is not changed in any way and the material is not used for profit. This notice must be included on each copy made or sent.