Reflections

I just read some important thoughts on a post of a friend. She was talking about verbal abuse. What she said has me thinking about some experiences I have had, mostly the wrong things I have said to people. It is so hard not to kick ourselves when we know we have hurt people, without meaning to. The deal is, we don't control what hurts others, they, or the person, controls that. Let me explain:

Everyone has had experiences in their lives that have shaped their way of thinking about things. We all have different backgrounds and some of us come from different cultures. Even different areas of the United States have different customs and ethnic backgrounds. I come from the New England area of the US. That is the area the pilgrims called "New England" because that is where they were from. My ancestors are from England and France, Ireland, and Scotland. Here in the mid-west where I currently live most of the people are from Germany, Norway, or Sweden. (Hence, my married name Nelson-my husband has ancestors from Sweden, Czechoslovakia, and an area that no longer exists-Bohemia.)

In "New England," which includes Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, we have a slight accent on our r's. We eat grinders and casseroles and a lot of seafood. We have a love for the Atlantic ocean, and our Appalachian Mountains covered with pine and maple trees. We have many historical museums about the early days of the United States, and we are mostly country folk with a love of wooded areas.

Back to my explanation. My parents were married for about eight years when they decided to get a divorce. I was five years old. I won't go into any details but I thought that it was my fault when my parents split up. At five years old that was a lot to carry around. Most of the time I was a busy and happy five year old, as the years went on though I became very shy and quiet. I was so afraid of being noticed. I tried to hide my face with my hair, I tried to not say anything in groups, I took long walks by myself in the woods in the back of our house. I didn't like being around people. I could not communicate well at all with others. Heck, I tried to avoid it. Now I believe it was because I was angry with my parents for the divorce and I could not change it. I felt it was my fault and could not make it better.

When I joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints I came to know that it was not my fault and that I could do nothing to change what had happened. I came to eventually accept that everyone has problems and sometimes those problems affect others in a not-so-positive way. The only person who can "make" me happy, even when all these other situations get in the way is ME. It is not what other people say to me, or what other people do (that are in my life, like family), it is how I react to those things. I can choose to be angry, or sad, or I can ignore them or the situation completely if I choose. But the point is that it is my choice. No matter what the experience or situation is, I can choose the way I am going to deal with it. Whether the person was wrong in what they said or did, it doesn't matter. We each have to deal with these things and the only way to be happy about any of it is to choose to be happy. We can choose to let things hurt us, we can choose to not let things or words, hurt us. If we choose to be hurt, then we have a problem or issue that needs some attention. The reason the situation or words said that are hurting us, could be because of something that happened in the past. Have you heard the phrase, "It hit a nerve?"

We can not control other people or their choices! We can control our choices and we can forgive others for their mistakes or their "bad" choices, whether those choices are verbal or physical.  Isn't that what the Lord has told us?... to forgive others their trespasses? Other people do not know what is hurtful to us whether it be words or actions. They do not know our past or our experiences, or our problems that we are dealing with. They do not know! How can we hold someone responsible for "hurting us" when they have no idea what that act or word is? The answer is that we can not hold others responsible for our pain, since it is our choice to feel that pain in the first place.

So, my point is to "Forgive others their trespasses." It is the only way we can all live together. Work on your issues, and improve yourself to be more like the Savior-Jesus Christ. He loves us the way we are, we need to love others the same way. Develop that Christlike love. Don't you want others to forgive you when you make a mistake? I know that I do and I have since accepted my parents for who they are and for the choices they have made, whether I like those choices or not. Everyone has free agency to make choices and I would not trade that for anything, not anything.

So, I feel that we need to choose to be happy more often, and to forgive others a lot more than we already do.


Love to all,
Shari Nelson