Life Lessons

Love this quote so much. 

For a girl who lost lots of elections--from 6th grade something-or-other to high school cheerleader--

I was never disappointed that I tried. And I did win a couple.

My kids got to learn that same lesson. And from my experience I knew the hurt from losing recedes and life continues on and you realize you're no worse for wear. So why not try?

(It might be the insidious reason why I said "yes" to so many responsibilities later in life--somebody sees my potential! -- but, I've learned lessons from those experiences as well. So, it's all good.)

We saw The Chosen Christmas special at the theater tonight. 

I love The Chosen, but the Christmas special is mostly bands performing Christmas songs.

I loved the music, but I would have preferred to simply listen at home. 

What I did love, was the testimonies of all the musical performers. And several actors too.

So good. 

The movie depicting Mary and Joseph was sweet too. 

My biggest takeaway was we put too much focus on appearances in our church. 

By teaching its "wrong" to get tattoos, piercings, long hair, drink alcohol, are gay, wear t-shirts to church or whatever, we inadvertently teach that people who do those things don't have a testimony or don't love Jesus "the right way." Obviously that's not what we believe, but it's a mixed message and we need to do better. Especially if you grow up in Utah and aren't exposed to a lot of believers in other religions. 

But it's definitely not just Utah Mormons who fall into that trap. 

When we teach or children personal preferences, opinions and even personal family values, 

of course we're going to have opinions about what we think is "wrong" or "right" but we can do it based on experience or research without attaching it to religion and making it a moral decision. 

I'm going to try to be better about not making assumptions.