I have been thinking a lot lately about whether or not I am living up to my full potential and I definitely feel like I am slacking! It all started when I received one of the greatest compliments ever. I teach Relief Society every 2nd Sunday and my last lesson was seriously prepared in 15 minutes while I locked myself in the bathroom because it was such an insanely crazy busy week and I kept thinking I would have time and the next thing I knew I didn't have any more time. I literally looked at the suggestions for teaching and followed every last bit of it. I didn't even have time to read the lesson and so when I got up to teach the lesson I was stressing out like CRAZY!!! I was shaking I was so nervous. Well the lesson turned out to be really good and I felt inspired through most of the lesson and trusted my instincts as I went with the flow of the group and luckily the sisters were sharing their thoughts which I loved.
After Relief Society was over I was getting ready to walk out and one of the sisters came up to me and told me she needed to introduce herself to me because she always felt so inspired by my lessons. She told me that she was baptized in 2001 and after 8 years she was finally going through the temple for the first time and a lot of it had to do with me. I was shocked, I mean wow! So then she told me that a few weeks prior I taught a lesson and talked about the value of raising our children and that in the true eternal aspect of things our kids weren't really our kids but they are Heavenly Father's children and he has trusted us with them and it is our responsibility to help them return to him. When I said this in class it was completely out of the blue and I didn't know where it had came from, but I felt like it was good to be said. Well this sister told me that when I said that she went home and cried for hours and sat down with her kids later that night and apologized to them for being so hard on them and she promised them that she would change, she told me that since that day she was more patient with her kids, she hadn't yelled at them and she truly had changed who she was as a parent because of what I said. I was crying with her at this point and I told her that the Lord inspired me to say that and she should really be grateful to him for putting the words in my mouth. She then told me that the reason she is able to go through the temple is because she is so excited to come to church and hear my lessons and that I have been such an inspiration to her. I went home from church feeling incredibly humble and ashamed that I had spent such little time on my lesson and here there are people that are expecting me to give them quality and truly thought out lessons and not a lesson that I prepared for ten minutes in the bathroom the day before!
She isn't the only person in my life who has complimented me with things I have done halfway. I can't tell you how many assignments in college I buttpulled, but I was awarded with the Outstanding Education Student Award. How many enrichments did I pull together at the last minute? There are so many times when people tell me how amazing I am at something and how much they admire me, but why? (I promise I am not trying to sound cocky at all) I truly believe that the Lord has blessed me with the ability to do things well and to grasp knowledge quickly and I am blessed with the ability to teach others.
So with that in mind I got to thinking about all the other things in my life that I do halfway and I still get great results, so imagine if I put my full effort into what I do. I am the worse at studying my scriptures and saying my prayers every day, but imagine if I did how much better would I be. How much more gosple knowledge would I have? How much better of a mother and wife would I be? I feel like because I am able to pull things together and draw people to me that I don't try as hard at being better as I should.
I also have been feeling like the Lord has big plans for me and that Satan knows that I am easily distracted by unimportant things, like reading a book in a day or playing on the computer, and that if I were better at my time management and staying focus on the truly more important things in life then I could be so much better!
Sorry for the lenght of this post, it is just something that has been on my mind lately and I needed to get it out.
If any of you have a preschooler at home you know how much kids love the book Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! This book is Madison's all time favorite right now. Well in this book the Pigeon is trying to convince you to let him drive the bus and no matter what he says you have to tell him NO! On one of the pages he says, "I never get to do anything!" and we still tell him he can't drive the bus.
