"What would you do if you were stuck in the same place and everyday was exactly the same...and nothing that you did mattered?"
Oh ya, you better believe I'm quoting Groundhog Day.* If you have not seen it. Repent! Or, at least, watch it. Probably don't actually worry about the repenting part. Because maybe, you'll wake up, and start over tomorrow like today never happened.
I've never served a full-time mission, but I'm guessing that there were days you felt like that? There've been day's like this for all of us. There will be more days like this... (mama said. Mama said, mama said.) You woke up, hit that alarm, and thought everyday was just like the day you left behind. And wonder to yourself whether you will find any way to make a difference. . .
I know that one simple act of kindness, can change the world for one person. I can testify to that. But, the ripples that beat forth from your moment of positive action, and the consequences that follow should not matter. If we pattern our acts of giving, all our gifts and service (chores, tasks, callings, smiles, offerings and love) after the Saviors infinite and eternal sacrifice then there is no limit to the good we can do! Because we won't care who "gets the credit." How can you possibly begin to foresee the impact your sphere of influence will have on future generations, if you don't have the faith, desire, or will to put forth the effort for the one. What if the individual you need to love is yourself?
You may be stuck in the same "routine" of what feels like "ordinariness." Yet, CS Lewis would contend that there are no ordinary people. To which I would agree because we are all children of Heavenly Parents with a spark of divinity burning in our spirits. To those that feel "the seeming ordinariness dampen their spirits. Though actually coping and growing ... [they] experience a lingering sense that there is something more important they should be doing and that their chores are somehow not quite what was expected- as if, for instance, what is quietly achieved in righteous, individual living or in parenthood is not sufficiently spectacular." What leaves us feeling underwhelmed? For some of us, life is just spectacularly miserable and hard when living through trials, carrying burdens, living with health problems, caring for loved ones long term health problems, working, providing for a family, paying off debt, school... etc etc.
Elder Maxwell explains that, "What seems commonplace seldom is, and ordinariness is so often a cover for extra-ordinariness." Therefore, I would encourage you to heed this counsel, "We need not pray for great opportunities, but rather the willingness to do little things in a great way.” For by “small and simple things great things come to pass.” Learning as Paul did, "in whatsoever state I am in therewith to be content." (Phil 4:11)
Leo Tolstoi wrote:
“Jesus Christ teaches men that there is something in them which lifts them above this world with its hurries, its pleasures, and fears. He who understands Christ’s teachings feels like a bird that did not know it had wings and now suddenly realizes that it can fly, can be free, and no longer needs to fear.”
Terry Warner continues:
"When men commit sin, they cause damage in the lives of others. That is one reason why sin is evil. And when men are hurt, they invariably turn and hurt others, and this hurt is passed on to still others. Thus, when a person commits a sin, he initiates a chain of suffering and sorrow in the lives of others that grows like a pedigree chart, in geometric expansion. In a few generations of social interaction, our having hurt another person may have filled the whole community with vengeance and sorrow.
On the other hand, when I face a moral choice for action and do not yield to Satan’s enticements but rather to the Savior’s, I effectively say no to a world in which other people must suffer, even if it causes me inconvenience and self-denial.
Consider why the Savior is able to forgive those who sin. He can forgive me because he has suffered the pain, grief, and remorse that I will suffer in this life and because he suffers all of the pain and grief and sorrow that I inflict upon other people. He empathetically bore their sorrows in the garden, including those sorrows which I cause. He has a right to forgive me on condition of my repentance, for he has been the recipient of what I, in sinning, inflict.
It follows from this that in committing a sin I not only say yes to a future filled with other people’s suffering, I also say yes to the Savior’s suffering. I say, “I care about myself more than you. I esteem your suffering as nothing and hold my gratification to be all that is important to me.”
Now if you are young, uncynical, idealistic, you have yearned for this selfish way of living to come to an end, for the doctrine of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” to pass out of fashion, for what is called the “law of retribution” and the “law of the jungle” to cease to govern society.
How can this way of living be brought to an end? In the millennium Satan will be bound, as the scripture states, by “the righteousness of the people.” (1 Ne. 22:26.) When he tries to entice them to hurt one another, they will not yield. When he seeks to use their bodies and their lips as instruments for spreading sorrow among men, they will ignore him. And thus will he be rendered impotent. Oh, he may go off in some corner of the universe and throw a tantrum, but he cannot cause havoc in men’s lives, because his primary instruments for doing so are our physical bodies.
One day I hope to meet the Savior and he may well ask me why I was the agent of sorrow for my brethren and for him. What shall I say? “I was caused to do it. I got off to a bad start. My brothers beat up on my sisters and my sisters beat up on me and we didn’t even have a dog. I had acne when I was a kid and couldn’t get a date. My parents were so poor that they couldn’t send me to college, so I had to work at a menial job. I could never get myself called to a leadership position in the Church. Other people inflicted trouble upon me. I only passed on the sorrows.”
What will the Savior say to me? I think he will say, “Each of us had cause to do harm to others and I more than anyone, for I suffered more than anyone. But I expected more of you, my son. I expected you to return good for evil. I expected you to lay your life upon the altar, not of Satan’s program for the destiny of men, but of mine.”
Listen to the Savior:
“And blessed are all the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.
“And blessed are all they who are persecuted for my name’s sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“And blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake;
“For ye shall have great joy and be exceeding glad, for great shall be your reward in heaven; for so persecuted they the prophets who were before you.
“And behold, it is written, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth;
“But I say unto you, that ye shall not resist evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also;
“And behold it is written also, that thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy;
“But behold I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them who despitefully use you and persecute you;
“That ye may be the children of your Father who is in heaven. …” (3 Ne. 12:9–12, 38, 39, 43–45.)
If you are young, uncynical, idealistic, then the warning that “what the world needs now is love, sweet love” means something to you, because to you the Savior’s teachings truthfully suggest that no force, no vengeance, no psychological or social pressure exerted on other people can result in good. Good can only be wrought in the lives of others by the power inherent in the act of returning love for hate and kindness for hurt.
When we have the power to abuse another, or to retaliate or to take from him, and yet refrain from doing any of these things, we make the greatest impact possible upon his conscience. We stir in him a desire, if one can be stirred, to return kindness for kindness.
The Savior’s gospel is not merely a code of restrictions. If that is all one can see of it, he hasn’t seen it in technicolor. The gospel is a positive enterprise, an active quest of liberating and blessing and healing others and thereby irrevocably altering what would otherwise be a tragic future; for when we engage in this enterprise, we give others courage to be better—a courage that could not be awakened in any other way.
If you want to alter the world’s course for good—for the realization of your dreams—the most powerful force at your disposal is love.
As you act upon them you will find yourself acting not because the rules are dictating what you should or should not do, but because of love for other people. You will be honoring the rules, but not because the rules are being imposed. And when you make this discovery and become motivated by love, you will learn what freedom is, for freedom is not the absence of such external restraints as rules and laws; it is the presence of such internal factors as selfless desires."
Enjoy your new beginnings! Have patience with yourselves. We don't become "saints in one season." Remember the small and simple things, charitable acts and service are what will keep us rooted and grounded in the Gospel, and unified as Saints. Dismissing the simple things, the true things, the primary answers, will lead us away, line upon line, into the captivity of our fallen brother, Satan. Am I right? Or am I right. . . or am I right. right right right.... (yet another Groundhog Day reference lest you think I've fallen away into a mental state of disarray).
Most important to consider in your reflections, you're not alone as you do the heavy lifting. Or the everyday living. One simple act or refusal to act, can break a cycle of violence. One choice to see another persons humanity can brighten the light within another soul. I've been feeling as of late the truth that peace is not always of this world. Peace comes NOT through answers and solutions. Or maybe I'm just too great at finding problems! Peace comes through the light of Christ, the Comforter, and the love of individuals.
Tomorrow can be different. Even when the world around you stays the same. The one thing you have control over is an Offering of infinite worth. "Clean hands and a pure heart." Attitude and effort. Grace shall be, as your day.
*I realize it is not actually Groundhog Day, but I was at book club tonight and this subject came up. It reminded me of something I wrote a while back. So I added some thoughts and there you have it. Ground Hog Day revisited. Isn't that the point? (In reference to the movie that is).
