A New Attitude

Since Saturday, when I was able to watch the Worldwide Leadership Training Broadcast, and hear from prophets and other great leaders about my role as a leader in my family, I have been able to look at things in my life and home differently. And I am filled with so much joy because of this new outlook. I hardly know what words to choose to get this out.

Previously, I felt vast amounts of guilt about my house--how I don't keep it as clean as I feel I should, how I let my husband and sons down by not being a good enough housekeeper, how I don't pull my own weight in household chores. I felt Pressure (yes, with a capital P) to do get certain things done, to overcome my laziness and loserness and get this place clean and always keep it that way. What kind of a wife and mother am I? Why can't I do it when everyone else can? Why do I sometimes feel literally unable to do the simple tasks that would keep this place looking better?

In the broadcast, Sister Tanner talked about a line from Milton's Paradise Lost where Adam is talking about Eve and says, "Those thousand decencies, that daily flow / From all her words and actions mixed with love." It hit me as she spoke that I can strive each day (or week) to do a thousand little things to make my husband's life and day easier, to fill my mind not with obligations, with shoulds and guilt trip, with failures and not measuring ups, but with what can I do for him here? How can I serve him? How can I put his needs first? It seemed so clear that I can do more for him, for us.

Some of that will be housework, cleaning up, taking care of things. Some of it will be consideration and kindness in word and touch and even thought. Some of it will be saving him more time for himself so he can read a book and work on mosaics. Some of it will be I don't know what yet, but I do know it will come to me if I can keep this frame of mind.

And with this change of attitude I have felt a wonderful lightness and joy, a willingness to work that I have never felt before. Now I do things not because I need to, because I should, because I have to. I do things because I can choose to do them. I have an opportunity to do things that will make my home a pleasant place. And I can choose how I take those opportunities. There are no failures here, just choices. And I can reflect on each choice to see if it got me closer to a pleasant home, if it was selfish or selfless, if it did indeed add to my husband's comfort and well-being.

This change of attitude, this new ability to do, choose, and work, did not come from inside my own head. This new freedom from the guilt trips, from comparing myself to some standard I invented that I could never measure up to, from feeling like a failure at my own main role in life--this kind of healing and change isn't within my power to accomplish. I know that. I feel that this healing came from Christ. I believed in Him. I came to Him with these staggering, paralyzing weaknesses, and He is healing me. I put myself in the right place on Saturday to hear counsel that would help me, words of inspired leaders that could instruct me and guide me, something for me to hang onto so I don't slip back into the words I have so long used to berate and condemn myself. A new attitude. A blessing unfathomably great for me.

And this is not just about having a clean house. Put that way this may sound trivial indeed. This is about my happiness as a mother and a wife. This is about the success of my marriage and my home. This is about building up a family unto the Lord. What could ever be more important than that?

I can see things in such a limited way. I can see only dusty bookshelves, cluttered counters, dirty sinks, and seeing these, I feel I have failed forever. But He sees who I am and where I am meant to go. He sees a way past my perceived failure, my momentary frustration, to eternal success. And I have gotten a glimpse of that now. He opened the way for me, opened my eyes so I could see a little more of what He sees.