M. Catherine Thomas

People have a right, even a need, to suffer. Suffering will often propel us to God, where we learn life's most precious mysteries. We may forever try to get between our children and their painful experiences, whether we created the pain or not. But there are some lessons that only pain can teach, and for us to try to remove all pain...is beyond our stewardship and control.
The mouth is the portal of creation, and we must become conscious of speaking as though God Himself were speaking – because if not, we create chaos and lies. We must make the decision TO BE OUR WORD, and what we say we mean, and what we say we do, because WE SAID IT, and that’s WHO WE ARE.
With a little effort, each one of us can identify our own personal demons. Which thoughts take me on that downward path? Those are my demons, and we are not talking figuratively.
We must feed the mind continually with God’s things or we will not endure the testing of the mortal probation. “Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not” (D&C 6:36). “Cheer up your hearts, and remember that ye are free to act for yourselves” (2 Ne 10:23). “Let your hearts rejoice” (2 Ne 9:52). The decision to be happy and trust the Lord opens one’s spirit to the counsel and comfort and the presence of the Lord.
We can make our trials much worse than they have to be. Paying attention to the dark side can make hard trials harder or create trials where there don’t have to be. Satan is enticing each of us to consider his things – his temptations, his worries, trying to demoralize us. But here is one of life’s major tutorials of eternal significance: we have the power to turn him off. We substitute higher thoughts and prayers. We must use our agency; God will not intercede unless we invite the Spirit.
It is a matter of what one is tuning to, to what one allows time and space in one’s mind. Satan would have us believe that we are victims of our own emotions, and that these emotions represent reality. But none of us is a victim – we were given dominion over Satan and over his thought-world. One’s mental world is very powerful – maybe all powerful.
One needs to take care not to feed one’s mind with the media: television, movies, videos, magazines that speak for the telestial world. These neutralize our faith and are the agents of the adversary, even those things that are spiritually shallow. If we want effective faith, we must learn to guard the mind carefully and be very picky, to allow in, insofar as possible, only that which is Christlike in all its wonderful possibilities.
As we change inwardly, our circumstances change outwardly. When we begin to give ourselves to full discipleship, our circumstances do change. We can live knowing, through the details of our life, that our life is in Christ’s benevolent hands.

New

I start a new job tomorrow. I'm nervous about it, so I turned to M. Catherine Thomas for help [she's pretty easy to talk to].
She said, "What I know is that you have wasted a lot of time, as I have, feeling inadequate, shrinking back a little when new opportunities-even ones that you wanted-were offered to you; never feeling that you had measured up or could. Many experiences that might have become sweet memories have soured because you didn't feel that you played your role well enough. You've clipped your own wings time and time again, even when your spirit longed to fly."
Also, "We decline to acknowledge the divinity that is developing in us through the challenges that life has presented to us for this very pupose. And we are ready to argue-in a most ungodly way-with anyone who tries to tell us something to the contrary."
And, "Your mission is your path to personal fulfillment. It was arranged in the life before based on the things you wanted to learn and to contribute; it is written in your soul. So that when you are involved in what you personally came to earth to do, you may feel flashes of, 'Ah, this is the reason I was born.'"
[from the essay "When We Come To Ourselves", Selected Writings of M. Catherine Thomas]

Imperfect parents

The trouble with parenting is that we aren't perfect. But maybe that's how it's supposed to be...
Elders Maynes' and Elder Robbins' general conference talks got me reviewing my years as a mother to three girls; I feel truly uncomfortable as I remember some of the times I didn't do very well. Sometimes when I look at their childhood pictures I search their faces and think "Oh, I hope you were happy!" In spite of my weaknesses, my daughters have become wonderful adults.
My favorite author, M. Catherine Thomas, talks about all of this in her essay "Love and Fear." She asks, "How may a woman who fears that she has made serious mistakes with her children, or maybe with anyone she has loved, enter into the rest of the Lord?"

Whether you read this from the perspective of an imperfect parent or as a child with imperfect parents, some of the peaceful answers she has found are most enlightening:

• Each parent brings to her parenting personal weaknesses which will provide opposition for her children. Although we do not want to be the source of even a part of our children's opposition, most of us are, in one way or another. That is a sobering observation, though not surprising. But...God knew ahead of time the failings, the confusions, misunderstandings, weaknesses, and spiritual infirmities of each of his children. [Then] he prepared our personal gospel plan, allowing the experiences of mortality, but at the same time provid[ing] certain compensations and blessings and talents which would present themselves as we struggled with the opposition along life's path.

• Children's personalities are not initially created by their parents; they have their own unique personality chemistry, which they bring from the premortal life. Much of this peronality formation exists beyond the parents' control. As children grow, they gradually become responsible for what they do with the opposition in their lives. Although children are born to imperfect or even emotionally sick parents, they have access to divine resources to help them overcome and benefit from their imperfect environment. They may have counterbalancing spiritual gifts, character traits, special blessings, or solutions that will present themselves on life's path again and again as they grow. The children then gradually become responsible to partake of those solutions that the Savior offers them individually.

• No mother, not even a sick mother, can deprive her child of the celestial kingdom. A person's exaltation is ultimately his own responsibility, not his mother's. We must avoid thinking that our children's salvation rests solely on us. We are but one component in a multifaceted plan.

• With all our hearts we do not want to be the cause of suffering for our child; but where suffering is inevitable, we find solace in the knowledge that all people must suffer in order to learn life's greatest teachings. People have a right, even a need, to suffer. Suffering will often propel us to God, where we learn life's most precious mysteries. We may forever try to get between our children and their painful experiences, whether we created the pain or not. But there are some lessons that only pain can teach, and for us to try to remove all pain...is beyond our stewardship and control.

• Mothers can learn that love must be governed by intelligence, patience, and faith, not anxious emotion. Overanxiety can block the Spirit. We do not perfect others with our fear, or even with our love. Perhaps I have liked thinking that my anxiety was a measure of my spiritual sensitivity or my love, but I have had to admit that really it was either neurosis or lack of faith, or both.

It has helped me a lot to read these words - imagine, a woman like Catherine Thomas feeling how I feel :) I also value what Elder Robbins' said at the end of his talk about our effort to develop Christlike attributes: "When your children or others feel of your love and see your behavior, it will remind them of the Savior and draw them to Him."

Catherine Thomas

...when we wake up, we realize that the mouth is the portal of creation, and we must become conscious of speaking as though God Himself were speaking – because if not, we create chaos and lies. We must make the decision TO BE OUR WORD, and what we say we mean, and what we say we do, because WE SAID IT, and that’s WHO WE ARE.

The Book of Mormon prophet Jacob said, "I will unfold this mystery unto you; if I do not, by any means, get shaken from my firmness in the Spirit, and stumble because of my over anxiety for you."
Overanxiety can actually block the Spirit. Maybe that's why the Savior of the world reminds us, "Be still, and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10).

The quest, cont.

Jesus Christ lives, he is merciful, he is conscious without interruption of each of us. He invites us to become conscious of him.

Consider all those gathered at the throne of God; they will be those like you and me, ordinary people, who have tried to endure the crosses of the world. There won’t be one person there who hasn’t suffered contradictory trials, a profound sense of inadequacy, and periodic mists of darkness. It will have been the Savior, with his incomparable grace, often unacknowledged by the very one he was helping, who pulled each one through the tutorials of the mortal probation, making it possible to be fitted for the greater things of the world to come.

The quest, cont.

As we change inwardly, our circumstances change outwardly. When we begin to give ourselves to full discipleship, our circumstances do change. We can live knowing, through the details of our life, that our life is in Christ’s benevolent hands. The magic words are: “Father, I will serve thee, no matter what.” The pursuit of discipleship to the Lord Jesus Christ – and all that entails – is finally the only thing that gives life meaning.

Brigham Young describes this consecration: “I will tell you one mark you have got to come to, in order to do right. If you can bring yourselves, in your affections, your feelings, your passions, your desires, and all that you have in your organization, to submit to the hand of the Lord, to his providences, and acknowledge his hand in all things, and always be willing that he should dictate…then you will be exactly right; and until you come to that point, you cannot be entirely right.”

The quest, cont.

It’s important to know that we could not protect ourselves against Satan if it were not for the priesthood and the Atonement. Satan would have swallowed us whole, and we would even now be angels to a devil were it not for the power of the Atonement, which makes it possible to protect ourselves from being recruited by Satan.

With a little effort, each one of us can identify our own personal demons. Which thoughts take me on that downward path? Those are my demons, and we are not talking figuratively.

We must feed the mind continually with God’s things or we will not endure the testing of the mortal probation. “Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not” (D&C 6:36). “Cheer up your hearts, and remember that ye are free to act for yourselves” (2 Ne 10:23). “Let your hearts rejoice” (2 Ne 9:52). The decision to be happy and trust the Lord opens one’s spirit to the counsel and comfort and the presence of the Lord.

The quest, cont.

Another thing that the adversary seeks to get us to do is to obsess over problems and deprivations; this mental path is made very compelling. Many of us are drawn to negative thoughts and memories unless we have practiced otherwise. But really, obsessing, worrying, stewing over things won’t change them; going over and over them in our minds finally deepens the mists of darkness that blind the eyes and harden the hearts.

We can sense that the adversary’s missile is approaching before it penetrates its target – one’s spirit. We must quench it before the assault affects our physical and spiritual chemistry, setting up hormonal and other emotional processes that can be so hard to recover from. “Father, help me, help me!” This flooding with urgent prayer puts up the shield of faith, deflects the fiery dart, and protects the follower of Christ (D&C 27:17).

We can have thoughts ready to substitute that bring up our spiritual energy and remind us of who is really in control in the universe. We don’t have to give our power to Satan.

The quest, cont.

We can make our trials much worse than they have to be. Paying attention to the dark side can make hard trials harder or create trials where there don’t have to be. Satan is enticing each of us to consider his things – his temptations, his worries, trying to demoralize us. But here is one of life’s major tutorials of eternal significance: we have the power to turn him off. We substitute higher thoughts and prayers. We must use our agency; God will not intercede unless we invite the Spirit.

It is a matter of what one is tuning to, to what one allows time and space in one’s mind. Satan would have us believe that we are victims of our own emotions, and that these emotions represent reality. But none of us is a victim – we were given dominion over Satan and over his thought-world. One’s mental world is very powerful – maybe all powerful.

One needs to take care not to feed one’s mind with the media: television, movies, videos, magazines that speak for the telestial world. These neutralize our faith and are the agents of the adversary, even those things that are spiritually shallow. If we want effective faith, we must learn to guard the mind carefully and be very picky, to allow in, insofar as possible, only that which is Christlike in all its wonderful possibilities.

The quest, cont.

Each trial is designed to expand awareness and sensitivity to spiritual things, and to carry us with power toward greater godliness.

Elder Neal A. Maxwell said “For the serious disciple, the resulting urgency means there can be few extended reveries and recesses and certainly no sabbaticals – all this in order to hasten God’s relentless remodeling of each of us.”

Often in the midst of trials we’d just appreciate some clarity. Sometimes clarity is not offered; the veil is let in place. Elder Maxwell explains, “If everything in one’s immediate context were constantly clear, God’s plan would not work. Hard choices as well as passing through periodic mists of darkness are needed in order to maintain life’s basic reality – that we are to overcome by faith.”

Brigham Young called for us to be faithful even if circumstances are “darker than 10,000 midnights.” Someone once asked him “Why are we left alone and often sad?” He replied, “To practice [a person] to be righteous [even] in the dark.”

The quest, cont.

Our experiences are designed to teach us to go the distance and to come up to the full measure of our godly creation.

Our spirit knows when we’re not going the distance in a responsibility, a relationship, a commandment. This knowing about our failures clouds our spiritual processes and constitutes the mists of darkness. A benevolent universe conspires to bring to pass the experiences which will jolt our conscious mind into awareness, because it wants to show us what is not working. Without that awareness, we cannot change.

One of the most important functions of life’s experiences is that they reveal ourselves to ourselves – if we are open to the truth. Elder Charles Penrose taught: “Each individual must find out his own nature, and what there is in it that is wrong, and bring it into subjection to the will and righteousness of God.”

Elder George Q. Cannon said “If there is a weak spot in our nature, or if there is a fiber that can be made to quiver or to shrink, we may rest assured that it will be tested. Our own weaknesses will be brought fully to light, and in seeking for help the strength of our God will also be made manifest to us.”

Each experience has a hidden question: “Will you accept this new revelation about yourself and about Me and my purposes?” Then we might reply with our spiritual knowing, “Thank thee, Father, for being honest with me.”

Spiritual contradictions and the quest

I just started reading a book from the Gospel Scholars Series, Selected Writings of M. Catherine Thomas. I can't move forward in the book until I get each chapter written down in my own notes. I'm going to post here some of my favorite parts. This is from the chapter entitled Spiritual Contradictions and the Quest for the Lord Jesus:

As things happen to us that disorient us spiritually, we do not feel “spiritual” – especially if we think we’ve created the trouble ourselves, or if we’re angry at someone else who has made trouble for us, or if we do not understand what the Lord is doing. We often do not see or feel a spiritual purpose in what is going on.

We might feel that the Lord has breached our trust in him. We may be tempted to abandon our faith or refuse to serve or cooperate with this God – to want to keep our distance from him. We may even try to manipulate him by being angry and petulant and uncooperative. We may feel that our trials are a sign that we are being punished or are somehow inferior spiritually, that there is something intrinsically wrong with us, or that spiritual experience is for other people, not for us.

How are we to understand this God?

My purpose here is to tell you why we should seek this Jesus and why we can trust him, even when he doesn’t do what we want him to. Nephi’s brothers murmured “because they knew not the dealings of that God who had created them” (1 Nephi 2:12). We can forgive the Lord and trust him by learning more about his dealings.