Loving My Family – Right Where They Are

Loving My Family - Right Where They Are
Loving My Family – Right Where They Are

This last month my daughter had her baby dedicated at her church.  It is interesting, a few years ago I might have felt bad for her “choices”, possibly even thinking that she was making the “wrong” choices.  It is not be accident that I am getting better at “Loving Family Members – Right Where They Are”.

Thinking about my mixed-faith family:

One of my focuses over the past few years has been on learning to soften my heart around all members of my mixed-faith family. Less criticism, less judgement, more patience with myself and them. My goal was to learn to love them exactly where they are. To have eyes to see the good in their lives. Observing the progress I’ve made brings internal peace, and I sincerely loved baby J’s dedication. Truly feeling only love and appreciation for being there.

It was beautiful how their congregation spent the first 10-15 minutes of their meeting standing on their feet, singing and worshiping Jesus. How warmly we were welcomed! How my daughter has been accepted and loved by her congregation! I loved how they have embraced my daughter and her baby’s dedication. 

Finding common ground:

I am able to see all the good things that my daughter is experiencing in a different faith, and it feels really heart-warming.  I continue to love my daughter and now have added respect for finding her community. 

We have found common ground in our mixed-faith family, and it’s based on stronger unconditional love and respect for each other’s choices.

Feeling peace and love:

How are you doing with your mixed-faith family? Take a second to check in with your emotions. Do you feel peace and love towards them and their choices or do you feel worried and anxious?

If you feel worried about your spouse or child and the decisions they are making, I can help you see how YOU may be the one impacting your relationship.  I can help you develop the skills needed to master your mixed-faith relationships. 

Intentionally developing new skills and “muscles” for ourselves. Understanding that we aren’t responsible for choices our spouse or our child make. Appreciating that we are only responsible for how we respond to them.

I can help YOU learn the skills that lead to increased peace and love with all members of your family. 

If you find yourself in a similar situation, click here and we can chat!

Making Decisions For Others

Making Decisions For Others

Making Decisions For Others

Several weeks ago, I bought a workbook titled, “Heavenly Parents: A Couple’s Guide to Creating a More Divine Marriage“.  (More info to come on this.)

Even though my husband no longer participates in the LDS faith, the marriage we’ve created together has always been based on principles that we learned from church. Consequently we usually enjoy taking marriage courses together.

After I bought the workbook, I looked through it and liked the 12 principles, one for each month. However I thought there were too many General Authority quotes for my husband and he probably wouldn’t like it. 

So I didn’t show it to him…

I’m a super mind reader – NOT!

I read his mind and decided for him that it wasn’t something he would be interested in. He would think it was “too churchy”.

A week later, he found the chapter that I had printed and asked about it.

It turns out that he loves the principles! He is perfectly capable of overlooking quotes that I thought he wouldn’t like. Even though I had the best of intentions in mind, I was just protecting him from a non-issue to him. That old “I assumed” problem we all trip over once in a while. Sure enough, it came and bit me once again. Perhaps this assuming has happened between you and another person?

This kind of mind reading and then editing information is something that we all do in marriage.  Making decisions for another is never a great idea. In a mixed-faith marriage, assuming we know what our no-longer believing spouse is thinking, can result in missed opportunities.  In this case, I would have missed out on conversations with my husband. Conversations that would bring more of the unity and closeness that we both want in our marriage. 

Lesson learned (again) – DON’T “assume”, simply ASK!

Learning to Love As Christ Loves

Love as Christ Loves

Learning to Love As Christ Loves

Have you seen the multi-season series about the Life of Jesus called, “The Chosen”? It portrays events in the life of Christ from a whole new, much more relatable perspective. I have learned so much that after finishing season 3 last week, I went back to and started Season 1 again. Each episode helps me learn to love as Christ loves.

I love watching the character who plays Jesus. He shows love in such a genuine way to love as Christ loves in the series.  As a result of the watching this character of Jesus, I am learning about what loving kindness, charity and the pure love of Christ looks like.

Lessons On Love Learned At Church

For a long time I was confused by what I learned about “love” at church.  Over the years, I’ve heard so much about service and sacrifice, which is part of the pure love of Christ.  Unfortunately, I was always worrying if I was loving or sacrificing enough.  I even had a mental checklist of service to perform, and I worried that I wasn’t ever doing enough. I just thought I was really bad at love.

Watching the Jesus in “The Chosen” series show love and compassion is teaching me that I can do it too.

Preparing for Church

In preparation for church recently, I took a few minutes to quietly meditate on upcoming parts of the day. I mentally went down my planned activities for the day. These included; Sacrament Meeting and Relief Society. Our daughter and grandsons coming for dinner, planning my week, taking part in a workshop on marriage with Lee. 

I thought about the people I would be with. I thought about how I always want to show up as a little bit better version of myself. 

Practicing Love At Relief Society

During Relief Society a few weeks ago, the lady who sat behind me was introduced as new to our Ward. I turned around and introduced myself, and invited her to sit next to me.  Throughout the meeting I thought about what I could say to her when Relief Society was over. I simply wanted to get to know her a little better.

I was just curious

The question I asked her was, “ tell me the story of how you came to be part of our Ward?” I didn’t want to assume that she was married, had children, etc. We had a delightful conversation about where she lived and what she was doing, and that she has three fur babies and no human babies yet. 

I went home feeling great about how easy it was to talk with someone when I was not simply checking the box, “speak to someone new”.  I genuinely enjoyed getting to know her and I caught a little glimpse of my better self.  Perhaps I was actually “loving as Christ loves”.

How are you doing at becoming the “better self” that you want to be?

What are you learning about love from Jesus Christ?

It is challenging to accept others’ choices and not be disappointed. Or perhaps even “loving” them when the people we love choose different paths than we’ve chosen.

Perhaps I can help?

I coach faithful women affected by family members losing their faith or leaving the LDS church. It’s a really rough time. From my own personal experience, and from the experiences of many others I have worked with, I know how tough this time can be. I would love to help you negotiate this overwhelming time. We learn that loving choices are always available to us.  In conclusion, mixed-faith marriages or families are not new or unique, however personally experiencing this situation can be super disorienting.

If you are in this type of turmoil, perhaps now is the time to get some help?  We can discuss where you are and we can talk about learning to love as Christ loves.

I invite you to set up an appointment and we can just talk about what’s on your mind and in your heart.