I'm Moving to Mormon Country

Yup, another month and I'll be hailing from Salt Lake City, Utah -- home to some of the best skiing in the country.

Of course, my friends have been ribbing me about becoming a "first wife," teasing me that my husband, Greg, will surely feel the pressure to take on additional (younger, prettier, richer??) wives. HA! Fortunately for me, I KNOW that Greg would become as wobbly as melting jello if there was another woman in the house bemoaning her cramps, demanding his attention, and nagging him with her honey-do-right-now list.

The Mormons who make up a good chunk of the spiritual population in Salt Lake City no longer practice polygamy. Haven't for years. Yes, there are some splinter Mormon groups who have continued the practice (which inspired the widely-popular HBO drama Big Love), but the modern Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints does not condone the practice -- though it was handed down as a right by church founder Joseph Smith.

Mormons believe many things I'm having trouble getting my head around (ie: the fact that Joseph Smith rewrote the bible to "correct" it, that Mormons put so much stock in the Book of Mormon, and that God is not the architect of the universe), but I'm looking forward to making some good Mormon friends -- if they'll let me. 

Word on the street is that if you're not Mormon, it's not likely you'll be invited into their circle. Not that Mormons are rude or unfriendly. It's that they like to hang out with peeps who share a common vision of what life -- and the afterlife -- is supposed to be about.

But maybe I'll get lucky and be offered a cup of iced lemonade by some of them. Which would be lovely, as I hear the Salt Lake summers swelter!  ;-)

Growing My Box

I have been seriously depressed lately, mostly because I've allowed my "box" to get too small. 

Yet in a weird way, I've also felt an undercurrent of hope (if that makes sense!), a singing in my soul that God longs to hand me a much bigger box -- one perkily gift wrapped, with a big, floppy bow.  ;-)

So I totally agree with Joyce Sequichie Hifler, who writes in her uplifting book Think on These Things: Thoughts to Enrich Your Days, that "We should open this day with as much reverence as if it were gift wrapped and presented  to us personally, which it is."

The primary obstacle to receiving this box, of course, is ourselves. We MUST face the day with confidence, and do all we can mentally to not get derailed by fear.

Confidence, says bestselling Christian author Joyce Meyer in her persuasive book The Confident Woman: Start Today Living Boldly and Without Fear, is "all about being positive concerning what you can do--and not worrying over what you can't do. A confident person is open to learning, because she knows that her confidence allows her to walk through life's doorways, eager to discover what waits on the other side."

That's exactly right: climbing whatever mountains present themselves because we CHOOSE to maximize our strengths, not concentrate on our weaknesses.

The bottom line in all this, for me, is believing that God has my back. That God is for me, and wants to bless me -- if I will stop trying to put the kabosh on that! 

Joyce says there are seven secrets to being a confident woman, the first being that a confident woman KNOWS that she is loved. That we should daily shout, "GOD LOVES ME UNCONDITIONALLY AND I RECEIVE HIS LOVE!"

Some days I don't get there (not even at a whisper), thanks in part to my upbringing (my church taught that we lowly sinners daily teeter on the brink of hell). But I'm finding the courage to let that box grow.  ;-)