This is the Prosper Stronger podcast, a community where LDS women gather to cultivate covenant connections and strive to be devoted disciples of Jesus Christ.
Welcome back to the Prosper Stronger podcast. This is an episode that has taken me a long time to get to, which is crazy because my life has been crazy. I had a plan. I knew exactly what I was going to be recording and when I thought it was all going to work out. And then like often happens to so many of us, it didn't. It has been five weeks since I've recorded a podcast episode. Five amazing, fun, stressful, exhausting, overwhelming, joy-filled, tear-filled weeks.
And the truth is, I wasn't sure I'd record another podcast episode ever. Because it was so much going on and I honestly lost all my motivation. And when I shared this with a friend, I just said, I don't know, I don't even know, should I keep doing this podcast? And her response was yes, we need you to keep doing this podcast and you need to tell us how you lost your motivation and how you were overwhelmed, why you felt so exhausted and let us know that you're normal and that this is life and that we can keep going.
And so here I am today. Telling you exactly that I had completely lost my motivation. The adversary was working very hard on me by giving me all kinds, of amazing, fabulous things to do and time with family and so many things that when we look at what we have to do in this life and how we prioritize, it was so easy for me to say, oh, it's okay if I don't get to that because I need to spend my time at XYZ or ABC needs be here. And although that was true, all of it was true. Looking back over the last four and a half, five weeks, I was more exhausted, more overwhelmed. And completely pushed to my limit, I was stretched so thin that I honestly didn't think I could keep going.
I literally thought I better warn my family that I might have a nervous breakdown. There's just too much happening here. So sometimes too much of a good thing is still too much. And I literally could not tap into the spirit the way I like to, the way I have experienced in my life. And I felt that I was missing it. I knew I was missing it. I was missing that connection and that made me even more stressed.
And so today, what did I do? What made the difference today so that I can be here recording this episode for you and for me? Today I looked at my to-do list and I put it aside. I didn't even give it a priority at all.
Instead, I went up to my quiet place, the place that I have put aside and created where I study the scriptures and the words of the living prophets, where I pray and write in my journal. I went up to that place and I knew I had a long list of stuff that had to be done. I was still honestly in my bathrobe. My hair hadn't been brushed, my teeth hadn't been brushed, but I went up to that space.
And when I went up there, I didn't know what I was going to study in the scriptures, I didn't have a plan. I wasn't working on a big project. All I knew is that I needed to be in the scriptures. I needed to reconnect, to plug in, to charge up, whatever it was, however you want to call it. I knew I needed to be in the word of God.
And so I said a very short prayer. And then I went to my scriptures and you know what? They were open. They were open to Doctrine and Covenants section 136. I had looked up something just like one verse for a class I was teaching, not even a religious class. I was teaching a ballroom dance class.
And so I had looked up a scripture about dance and it had been left open, but my eyes didn't go to the one about dance. It went to a different verse. It went to a verse that said,
"Let him that is ignorant learn wisdom, by humbling himself and calling upon the Lord his God, that his eyes may be opened, that he may see, and that his ears may be opened so he may hear. For my spirit is sent forth into the world to enlighten the humble and contrite."
And I don't know why, but that just jumped out at me. Because, in the last few weeks, many times, in the chaos, I had prayed to Heavenly Father, please help me open my eyes that I may see and my ears that I may hear so that I will know what I need to stop doing and what I need to start doing. How I can create more order out of this chaos, how I can slow things down, how I can simplify. How I can reconnect.
So this verse caught my attention. I thought, huh, okay, so I still need the help. I know I need eyes to see and ears to hear, but now what? So I flipped back to the beginning of the chapter and truthfully, I am not somebody that can remember exactly where every scripture is or where every story is.
I can generally remember the concepts and the ideas and the teachings, but I'm not that great at remembering the references. When I turned back to the beginning of this chapter, I was surprised at what it was. Here in section 136, this is Brigham Young giving instructions to the Saints in Winter Quarters before they prepare or before they leave to go across the plains to enter into the Salt Lake Valley.
And in my head, I thought, really, this has nothing to do with what I'm dealing with in my life. Weird that I feel this is the section that I'm drawn to. And so I started reading it and it was all the details. It was, okay, here's what you need to do. You need to get your seeds ready. You need to get your wagons, your provisions, your clothing, all of these things. And he precedes it with this quote, or the scripture says,
"And this shall be our covenant. That we will walk in all the ordinances of the Lord."
So he's teaching the people that as we do all of these daily things, these sometimes menial tasks. We will do so by keeping our covenants and walking in the ordinances of the Lord. And as I continue to read, it hasn't hit me yet. He was talking about how they're going to divide up the companies and how many were to be in each company and how they're going to decide who goes and who doesn't. All of the things that I thought, this is just. It's just the details of the tasks at hand, of how they prepare for the journey.
And I wasn't getting it. Truthfully, I was reading it, but I wasn't getting it. So I kept going and it talks about, okay, now as you gather up all your things and prepare or prepare for putting in spring crops. We're going to do that. Let each company bear an equal proportion according to the dividend of their property.
I'm like, okay yep. What does that mean? I'm not entirely sure, but okay. In taking the poor, the widows, the fatherless, and the families of those who have gone into the army, so the army, that's a Mormon Battalion, right? That the cries of the widow and the fatherless come not up into the ears of the Lord against His people.
Let each company prepare houses and fields for raising grain for those who are going to be left behind, right? All these things. So this is all temporal, it seems. Here we are, we've got to make all these temporal preparations. And that's what I feel I've been doing these last few weeks. So much of it has been just so temporal.
I can't even count how many meals I have prepared and how many people I've hosted and how much, like just the sheer amount of food. It's not just meals, it's meals for 20, 30 people for 10 or 20 days. If I have to make one more dinner, I think I'm just going to collapse. I don't even have any ideas of what to make anymore.
I've done everything I can think of, not to mention all the zucchini that's been coming out of my garden. I've given away five zucchini in the last 24 hours and I still have 13 left. What to do with all this zucchini? And he makes a point of this actually, because further in the chapter. He talks about being wise stewards.
He says, this is interesting. He said, thou shalt be diligent in preserving what thou hast, that thou mayest be a wise steward. For it is the free gift of the Lord thy God, and thou art his steward. There were so many things in this chapter that were speaking to me. About the temporal tasks, the temporal busyness that we have to deal with just because we live here on earth, because we're trying to take care of our families ourselves.
We're trying to do everything to get ready to send them to school. We're trying to take care of our children or our grandchildren. Or if you're like me, I've got children in college. I have married children. I have one that came home from her mission in the last few weeks, one that is not sure what he's doing, and he's between high school. And college, is he doing a mission? Like all the questions, everything.
And then I have one that just barely got out of elementary school and he's starting in a brand new school for junior high. There's just so much to do. Keep up the yard, keep up the house, make sure that we're taking care of ourselves, right?
There's so many things. Do our callings, do our ministering and all the end of summer activities, all these temporal things. And yet we are to be wise stewards. And what happened is I realized that I had been exhausting myself with the busyness of all the things. Now, truthfully, as I look back, and even while I was in it, I knew this was happening.
And I was trying to figure out how to manage, how to make it through. And I'll be honest, I don't know that there was a lot that I could have done differently. But there are a few things that I could have done. That would have made a big difference. My to do list would have been the same. All the people I was feeding, all the food I needed to make, the same.
Preparing for school, helping my children prepare, the same. The food, the bounty coming out of our garden and fruit trees, the same. But, I could have done one thing in particular, actually two things, that would have made me better able to handle it. That would have helped me connect and stay empowered with my Heavenly Father's help.
And I could have done better. I was trying, I was doing some things, but I could have done them differently and I could have done them better. We all have seasons in life like this. They might be a week. They might be a day. They might be several weeks. They might be several months, and they might be several years.
We all have crazy, busy seasons. And what do we do about it? How do we stay focused as we go through these busy seasons? The answer is simple, and it came to me, I've known about it for years. It's always the answer every time I have one of these seasons. The answer is to put God first. Keep our focus on Jesus Christ.
And I will tell you, I was trying to do that, but I was doing it casually. I was doing it as a secondary thing to my to do list, to all the stress and anxiety of everything that had to be done. And I had got my order wrong. I needed to go back to put God first. And interestingly enough, this chapter about them preparing the early saints, preparing for their journey across the plains is what helped me get back in this faith.
And I think the chapter itself was helpful. But I wouldn't have gotten to it if I hadn't put aside my to do list and made the time to show up for the Lord. In my space that is set aside in my bathroom with my unbrushed teeth. That was what was required was to put him first, not just in my mind, but in my time, in my day.
And so I learned things from this chapter that I never even thought would have applied because I had put my Heavenly Father first, the gates were open, my eyes were opened, my ears were opened, and I could better understand. And as I read about the Saints and their responsibility to bring in the widows and the poor, my heart was touched.
Because one of my ancestors was one of the widows at Winter Quarters and her son who was a young baby born at Winter Quarters. They stayed there for a couple of years. So he was a young child, a very small child before he crossed the plains and as he crossed the plains, these were my ancestors that they were being told they needed to care for, along with all of their temporal needs, they needed to serve. They needed to do the Lord's will and the work of keeping the covenant, of caring for one another, of lifting one another's burdens, to mourn with those that mourn, to help. And I loved this and it spoke to me and I looked back over these last five weeks and realized that Heavenly Father had blessed me with opportunities to serve and these brought me joy and they were unique opportunities.
And they were delightful. As I did those, He buoyed me up, which helped me keep going through these last few weeks. Service is such a huge part. Caring for others is such a huge part of filling our souls and helping us stay in the covenant and stay connected to the Spirit. And so that's one of the ways we can put God first and create more order in our lives is to make sure that we include service.
The interesting thing here is that as the Lord gave these commandments or these directions to the early Saints, He knew they were out of their comfort zone. He knew they didn't even have permanent places to dwell. He knew the situation they were dealing with, and He was giving them a lot to do. But then, He went on to help calm their fears, to help empower them so that they could do all of these things.
Service was one of the things that they needed to do. But then He continues, and I'm going to look at my notes because Like I said, it's just today, I am finally back into the motivation and feeling the spirit today. And I, after He's given all of these instructions, these temporal instructions and to care for one another, be in the covenant and follow the ordinances.
Then He says in verse 17, he tells them, fear not. So he's okay, here, you have to do all these things now, fear not, isn't that perfect? Because I don't know about you, but sometimes when I get going and I see my list of everything that I have to do, my heart starts racing. I start to wonder how I'm ever going to get it done.
I start to panic or I get a lot of energy. It's like I have a hamster in my chest and it's just running like crazy around a hamster wheel. And I feel that in my chest. And because of that. I know now that when I feel that, I need to stop and take some deep breaths and calm down. Because when I get feeling like that, I'm not thinking very well, I'm letting my emotions take over.
And so I love that Heavenly Father recognizes that. He's okay, here's all the things that you need to do. Oh, and you have to do them for all these other people too, right? The widows. The fatherless, you've got to do all those things for them too, but calm down. Fear not. Your enemies will not have power over you.
Now they were running from the actual enemies who wanted to destroy them to kill them. But our enemy works against us just as hard because he has the same intent, the same purpose. He wants to destroy us. And that enemy comes from fear. That enemy is, how am I ever going to get this done? The overwhelm.
Oh, it's not going to be good enough. That we're going to fail. That we're not going to do our best, or we're not going to look the very best. All these fears of insecurity, inadequacy, failure. Overwhelmed, afraid of, I'm not even going to get any sleep tonight. I had that fear many times many times over the last five weeks.
I was up until 2 a. m. and then awoke at 6 a. m. just trying to get everything done. The fear that, oh, I'm just so exhausted, I'm never going to survive all of this, right? All the fears that we have. So He tells them, calm down, it's okay. You do not need to fear. And then He goes on to give all kinds of instructions.
He says, and I've got these in my notes here. He reminds them that he has the power to deliver them, to help them do all that He's commanded them to do. And He says, don't worry. Remember, I'm the one that delivered the Israelites from bondage. Yes, you have all these things to do. We're all in different kinds of bondage.
Whether it's bondage to time, bondage in relationships, bondage to our fears, financial bondage, whatever it is that's stressing us out, He can deliver us. So He says, don't worry, don't fear. I've got you. I can deliver you from bondage. And then He says, just make sure that you trust in me and be kind. He goes on to say, be mindful of how you treat each other.
Don't contend with one another. Be peaceful. Isn't that what President Nelson's been telling us and many other of our church leaders in general conference? Be peaceful. Work on having harmonious relationships because contention causes more friction, which causes more stress and we don't need it. Seek peace with each other, in our relationships, in our situations, and with ourselves.
And we will be able to function better. He says, cease drunkenness. Now at that point in time, I'm sure the Word of Wisdom was not a hard fast you must follow this, right? But I was thinking about my drunkenness. What am I drunk on? I think I was drunk on pleasing and satisfying and trying to be perfect as I hosted and prepared and had all kinds of people in my home and on our trip and our gatherings, I felt like I was drunk on trying to be everything for everyone. And that's not healthy either. And then He says let your words tend to edify one another. So lift up and edify. Don't judge. Don't be critical. And I look back at the last five weeks and I'm like I tried to do that.
But then came to my mind at least four instances and actually more where I was critical, where I was judging, where I was selfish. And so I was saying things that I shouldn't have said about someone or to someone. And every instance, I could recall that feeling and I didn't feel good and it didn't improve my situation or theirs.
So He's giving us all these things. Here's how to handle these situations. If you borrow something, restore it, return it back, right? Help others if they're in distress, if they've lost something, help them. And then again, be diligent in preserving and be a wise steward. And then the verse that I originally went to in this chapter or in this section, if thou art merry, praise the Lord with singing, with music, with dancing, and with a prayer of praise and thanksgiving.
So there's another key. What do we do when we are feeling so stressed? Sing out loud. I've actually learned this in many different trainings. When we open our mouth and sing, it doesn't matter if you sing well, just sing, and it lifts your spirit. Sing good songs, right? Sing uplifting songs, not ones that bring you down. Choose your songs wisely, but I find myself humming or singing, and some of these songs are from musicals that I've listened to years and years ago, and I thought, why is this one coming to mind? Like the one from The King and I sing, it's the, Whenever I feel afraid, I hold my head erect, and whistle a happy tune, so no one will suspect. I'm afraid, right? And then I start whistling. Where did that song come from? I have no idea, but it lifted my mood, brightened my spirit, and actually brought me joy. So we can sing when we're overwhelmed or we lose motivation, sing something. If you don't want to sing, put on some upbeat music, dance, doesn't matter how you dance, just dance.
Start moving your body and increase your energy, increase those energy levels. Praise and thanksgiving, express gratitude for what you do have, for what you are experiencing, for the good things that are happening. As I did these, I can also look back and say, oh, I was doing some of those in these five weeks and they made a difference.
So we need to do more of that sometimes if we're just losing that motivation. And then I love that he follows that up with, if you're feeling sorrowful, come to me in prayer and I will help you. He gives us all we need to overcome. And he says, not only that, when you're feeling sorrowful, if you'll come to me, I will fill you with joy.
Marvelous! And I was praying, I was doing all these things, but I was stuffing them in the corners, like wherever I could squeeze them in. I wasn't doing them with the intention of putting them first, of making them the top priority of my day and of my time and of my energy. It was just I'm so tired, I'm just going to say this prayer where I'm laying here in bed, or, oh, I'm going to pray as I walk from point A to point B, instead of stopping, kneeling down, or stopping, pausing, and making it a sacred time.
I became casual in the last five weeks, and it made a difference. I lost my motivation. I lost my focus. And because of it, I became overwhelmed, exhausted, and confused. I felt chaotic and I lost my connection to the Spirit. So what do we do? How do we handle when we are feeling this way, when we're in this season of life?
He tells us, He says, we will be tired. My people will be tried in all things that they may be prepared to receive the glory that I have for them. So He says, you are going to have hard times. You are going to have crazy times, but it's so that you can prepare you to learn how to handle these very challenging, difficult seasons of life so that you can receive my glory.
And how do we do it? He tells us, be diligent in keeping all my commandments, be diligent. And then He says, be faithful in keeping my words, be faithful in keeping my ordinances, be faithful in keeping the covenants. And then in verse 30 says, fear not. So again, He says, fear not. Fear not thine enemies, for they are in mine hands, and I will do my pleasure with them.
Because I know what you're dealing with. I will take care of them. You keep your focus on me. My people must keep their focus on me. He said, again, learn wisdom by humbling yourself and calling upon the Lord, that your eyes may be opened, that you may see, that your ears may be open, that you may hear, that the Spirit will enlighten those who are humble and contrite, and you will be blessed so behold.
But ye shall behold, if you are faithful in keeping all my words, then you will be blessed. You'll be lifted up, you'll receive the glory that has been promised to you. And as I read this, I thought I never expected this chapter to be the answer to my stress, to my struggle, to my questions.
And yet it was because this chapter reminded me. Every one of us gets caught in the mire of the day to day, gets caught in the stress of situations that we all have seasons of life where we feel we are running faster than we have strength and we feel we are failing and that we are not going to make it.
But it also reminded me that when we put God first, when we keep our covenants and put those covenants first, when we set aside time to connect with Him with intention, with purpose, with energy, then He blesses us with all we need to overcome the world, to overcome the situation we are dealing with, even if the situation itself doesn't change.
My situation hasn't changed. I am still in the middle of all of this and yet I feel calm, I feel peace and I feel that all will work out and I've even gathered up I was gonna show you tools to help me do it. I have my planner. I got some new pens to help me. I know that's silly, but sometimes a new pen makes all the difference.
Right, just a super awesome new pen I've got a book that I can listen to that helps me motivate and helps me organize my thoughts and keep my focus where they need to be. I've got my water so that I can be hydrated and take better care of myself. All these little things that make a difference, and there's many more, I just know this, that if we will truly work to put God first, he will empower us to do all that is needful.
He will help us know what we need. You help me know if I need new pens, because that might be the one trigger to help me just get rolling, to get my energy back up and to keep going forward. One of my all time favorite quotes is from President Ezra Taft Benson. It is. If we put God first, all other things will fall into their proper place or drop out of our lives.
Our love of the Lord will govern the claims for our affection, the demands on our time. That's a big one for me right now. That's what I'm dealing with. The demands on our time, the interests we pursue and the order of our priorities. All of those things are things that I am working on right now as I put God first and I recommit to make that time with Him more sacred, more consecrated, and not casual.
You too can overcome these stressful times of overwhelm by increasing your energy, by going to the Lord first and letting Him guide you to what you need, whether it's by being still, definitely by going to your scriptures. In prayer, by drinking more water, by moving, by taking care of yourself so that you can better take care of others.
That is part of what we have to figure out in this life. And God knows better than all of us how we need to take care of ourselves and how we need to take care of others. So I invite you to take a few minutes and put him first today and let him guide you. So that you can prosper stronger.
Thanks for being here. Thanks for listening. If you'd like the free guide to increasing your ability to receive personal revelation, then go to prosperstronger.com and I hope to hear you or see you or get to know you again. And I hope that we can spend more time together in the future. Have a great day.
Thank you for joining the Prosper Stronger podcast today.
We hope that you have felt inspired and empowered. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our podcast and share it with your friends and family. I also invite you to join me at prosperstronger. com where you will find free resources to help you grow and learn as well as join in our discussions where we go deeper into some of the things that we talk about here on our podcast.
Remember that you are loved and cherished by heavenly father who wants you to prosper and thrive. Until next time, may you continue to cultivate covenant connections with God, with others, and with yourself, and find strength in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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