Testing...

To recap for my non-facebooking blog follower(s), I posted a link to the scriptures and commented: "seashmore knows the Lord gives us tests and is very grateful she has the answer key." And then I commented that I don't think it's cheating. I'm hoping the friend who got a laugh out of my answer to his questioning God on where the atlas for life is at sees it.

I've been tested a lot in my life, and not just recently, either. However, a recent one (past year-ish) is being assigned to work with the someone who "helped" me to recognize what it feels like to be offended. Plain English: when I first met this person, they neglected to do something, which really offended me and provided me with further (false) evidence that I am one who falls through the cracks of organizations. They had no idea this happened; they still don't. Since it was my struggle to deal with, they probably never will, either. But I figured out how to get over it. Which was good, because what I saw as a similar neglect happened about halfway between the time of the first one and now. I laughed at that situation because I recognized it's similarity to the first. And was glad to see that I had learned my lesson that it does no good to feel offended.

So it's kind of funny that this someone I was so hurt by (it happened while I was particularly vulnerable) is actually helping me become a better person (again) by agreeing to help me with another one of my tests. A test I'm not entirely comfortable blogging about. To sum it up: I spent an hour in tears pouring my soul out to someone over it. Thankfully they were able to straighten me out enough and offer the solution.

Irony always makes me laugh, often on the inside. (Thankfully.)

Last night, President Monson gave a wonderful talk about not judging people. I took a lot of it to heart. When he quoted Sister Teresa ("If you judge people, you have no time to love them."), I knew what the Spirit was telling me through his message. It was like I was trying to hide behind a glass door. There is someone in my life who I have been rather judgmental of. I felt I had enough information to make the assessments I made, but President Monson gave a gentle reminder that the Savior has commanded us to "judge not." Simple as that. So I decided last night, during that talk, that I would cease to judge this person. It is not my responsibility to assess this person's character; it is my responsibility to love them. Which, for a number of reasons, is easy like an alcoholic's Sunday morning.

Since the Lord knows how much I appreciate irony, it came as no surprise that when I met with the rest of the Compassionate Service Committee to do our monthly visits, we would be visiting the home of the very person I had decided to stop judging not 24 hours before.


And the reason I included the link to the scriptures is because, during Sunday School today, our stake presidency began and ended the class by reminding us that the answer to any (and every) problem is in the scriptures. Which is a nice motivation for me to continue working towards my goal of reading the Standard Works cover-to-cover.