Loving Family Members – Right Where They Are

Dedication

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. 

My focus for the last few years has been learning to soften my heart around my mixed-faith family, love them exactly where they are and have eyes to see the good in their lives. I can see the progress I’ve made because I sincerely loved baby J’s dedication and felt only love and appreciation for being there.

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

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.

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?

It’s a BRAND NEW month, and I have space for two new 1:1 coaching clients. We meet weekly for 12 weeks, just the two of us.  Each week is personalized for where you are and what you need. 

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. 

Because that’s exactly what it is – developing new skills and “muscles” for ourselves. Understanding that we aren’t responsible for choices our spouse or our child make – but we are 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. 

SIGN UP HERE AND LET’S GET STARTED!

Making Decisions For Others

One Way - My Way

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

Even though my husband doesn’t participate in my faith anymore, the marriage we’ve created together has always been based on principles that we learned from church, and 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, but thought that there were too many General Authority quotes and that my husband probably wouldn’t like it. 

So I didn’t show it to him…

I read his mind and decided for him that it wasn’t something he would be interested in because 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 and thinks that he is perfectly capable of overlooking the quotes that I thought he wouldn’t like.

This kind of mind reading and then editing information is something that we all do in marriage.  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 that 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

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 love watching it, and after finishing season 3 last week, I went back to Season 1 and started again. I love watching the character who plays Jesus. He shows love in such a genuine way in the series. I especially enjoy watching him because the character of Jesus is teaching me what loving kindness, also known as charity and the pure love of Christ, looks like.

For a long time I was confused by what I learned about “love” at church.  I heard so much about service and sacrifice, which is absolutely part of the pure love of Christ.  Unfortunately, I was always worrying if I was loving 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.

Before I went to church yesterday, I took a few minutes to quietly meditate on the parts of the day in front of me. I mentally went down my planned activities for the day; Sacrament Meeting, Relief Society, 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 and how I always want to show up as a little bit better version of myself. 

The moment came during Relief Society when 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.  During the meeting I thought about what I could say to her when Relief Society was over, to get to know her a little better. 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 crossing off “speak to someone new” on my checklist.  When I genuinely enjoyed getting to know her, I caught a little glimpse of my better self. 

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

What are you learning about love from Jesus Christ?

Sometimes, when people we love choose different paths than we’ve chosen, it can be a challenge to accept their choices, not be disappointed or perhaps even “love” them.

I coach faithful women affected by family members losing their faith or leaving the LDS church. It’s a really rough time – I know from my own personal experience and that of many others I have worked with.  I would love to help you negotiate this overwhelming time. We learn that loving choices are always available to us. 

If you are in this type of turmoil, perhaps now is the time to get some help? 

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