Something Aunt Kim tried to teach me before she passed away...

I remember several months before my Aunt Kim passed away, she sent me an email with a link to a youtube video. It was an excerpt of a BYU devotional given by Elder F. Enzio Busche.

I remember her telling me often that I needed to enjoy the journey, to allow myself to move through life at my own pace--she said I was a mover and a shaker. I have always enjoyed being busy. I have always needed too much on my plate in order to function. When I viewed this video for the first time, the portion that struck me the most was "Avoid rush and haste...divine light develops in places of peace and quiet." I thought about my Aunt Kim's example. She was a woman of many talents and tastes--she had a full life and she accomplished a lot of grand things. But Aunt Kim had a steadiness about her, a stillness about her, that helped me on so many occasions. I miss her. I am glad that she is in my family and that I will meet up with her someday and enjoy her spirit and company again. I wish I had listened closer and not let the lessons she taught me pass over me too quickly.

I think I allow myself to get too busy...I have had to break the habit of glorifying over an overly busy schedule. In order to set the distractions aside to accomplish stillness, I need to let go of loving busy-ness. I also need to continue to say "No, thank you" as kindly as I can. People more often then not will not like being told "No", but at this point I just can't see how you can draw water (or help/support/quality time/friendship) from an empty well (an empty emotional/spiritual/physical reserve).

My favorite symbol is a beehive. The thrift, the industry, the resourcefulness...the sweet reward of hard work. I love it. I want to balance things a bit better so that I can love my schedule/workload as much as I love those attributes that a beehive signifies. I will try to be busy with the important things and try much, much harder to carve out time for meditation and calm stillness. My spirit is parched and neglected...not so much because of lack of material--I study plenty out of the scriptures, the Ensign, devotionals, etc. I think my studies have not reached the influential potency that it could have if I took the time to be still during the week.