For Christmas this year, Grandma Jack asked each of her posterity to write a little something entitled "I believe..." This is my entry. It summarizes much of what the last few years have been for us.
I believe in opposites. Black and white. Day and night. Hot and cold. Old and young. North and South. The world is literally constructed of opposites that shape our perception of how and where we live. After preschool opposites become more than up and down; tall, short; hello, good-bye. This is my view of opposites after almost 30 years of life.
The birth of a child is one of the greatest joys anyone will ever experience in this life. When Eli was born, Austin was jittery with excitement, I was happy and understandably relieved, and he came out screaming at the top of his lungs. Welcome to earth, buddy! As a baby, I’m sure all he thought was, “It’s cold, bright, I’m completely naked and being manhandled by strangers. This isn’t what I signed up for!” An obvious contrast between utter joy and misery- that initial reaction between parent and son alludes to my belief that we actually did know what we were getting into when we came to this world. We knew we would face opposition in life: experiences full of both joy and sadness, happiness and misery. Yes, I’m pretty sure Eli knew he would face the cold. (But just maybe he didn’t know it could be so harsh!)
Eli was our screamer. Maybe he had to prove he had lungs- or maybe he was just getting ready to compete with his siblings. Either way, he was soon in my arms and wrapped in a blanket. That first breath of life that brought the harsh cold and poking hands soon became a warm embrace and loving arms. With that, the screaming stopped. That experience is not unique to me, nor is the story of ups and downs in life. We all live this way and came to earth expecting the rollercoaster to be worth it. In the twisted words of Isaac Newton, “what goes down, must go up.” And that is what life is about. It’s about learning to go up.
Go up we shall. It’s everyone’s goal to progress in life whether it be to further their education, advance their career, get better at their talents, or grow their family. It is evident to me that progress can not be made without opposites. Getting an education or learning a trade means knowing something that another person knows not. Improving at a job or talent means failing over and over again so you can learn to succeed. And growing a family, well, that takes a male and a female and you won’t convince me otherwise.
I believe in the words of the Family Proclamation that declare a need for opposites in gender and roles. That is progression. Without opposites, there is none.
Since we are all on this road of progression, everyone experiences ups and downs, triumphs and challenges- Some deal with sickness, others poverty; challenges come in the form of death, loneliness, war, hardship, and some of us are dealt the card of watching others go through a hellish mortality. The latter can be just as trying at times.
Austin and I have stared face to face with Satan the last couple of years. Being on this side of the veil, I never would have guessed depression, anxiety, debt, sickness, a lost sense of identity, and feeling of failure (or supporting a husband through all that) would be my lot. But it has been. There have been days of darkness and void of virtually all hope, days when I wasn’t sure I would come home to a husband still alive, and days where Satan seemed to be winning. But this is a game of opposites: where there are winners, there must be a loser. Thankfully, Satan will always be a loser and we are still on our path to go up.
I believe in darkness, but I also believe in light.
I believe in trials, but I also believe in Jesus Christ. And because of Him, I believe in happiness.
Happiness is a funny thing. You can have all the riches of the world and still not be happy. The opposite is true for the poorest of people. What makes the difference? Some might say money. I offer a different perspective. I think it all boils down to gratitude. Gratitude is something hard to appreciate unless you see how different life would be without something. You appreciate food after being hungry, a shower after being dirty, a smile after tears. Seeing the difference between having or not having breeds gratitude. Gratitude breeds happiness. Happiness is a good place to be when you are trying to go up.
I think I mentioned black and white, north and south, hot and cold? St. Kitts had a lot of that- except the cold. Living there taught me much about opposites: people different from us and unfamiliar conditions are just a few. Lehi wasn’t kidding when he said, “there is an opposition in all things” and that without it you cannot experience happiness nor misery, sense nor sensibility. Living on that island made me appreciate many things: carpet, the seasons, air conditioning, reliable plumbing and electricity… I vowed to never complain about dry heat again and am still grateful to open a jar of peanut butter without finding it full of ants. My learned list of gratitude could continue for pages, but among my experiences, I also came to more strongly believe in Satan. This is the story of good versus evil.
I believe that the truer something is, the more strongly the adversary fights against it. Some of those truer than true truths were opposed and attacked in my association with fellow moms and friends on the island. I never imagined having to defend the truth that we are literal children of God who is our Heavenly Father. Or the fact that we existed as spirits before coming to earth. Or the blessing of having eternal families after death. This- the Plan of Happiness, that I know so well and believe to be the foundation of Christ’s teachings and purpose for coming to earth- was challenged by someone very learned of the Bible and the world’s teachings. It was an interesting experience to be in a Bible study and yet be completely void of the spirit because of what was being taught. It’s true that the Holy Ghost bears witness; at that moment, the absence of his presence was also a witness to me that what was said lacking in truth. Equally interesting, was meeting a woman who was raised a Sikh. As such, she knew nothing of the devil other than thinking he was a figment of imagination. Now that is cunning of the devil- take the evil out of good and bad. Ah, but you can’t have one without the other.
There is truth in opposites.
There are a few unproven truths in which I also believe; like the fact that babies wait for you to change their diaper to poop. Or that kids have a 6th sense for the moment a mom’s head hits the pillow at night. But those are topics for another day. For now, I leave you with my belief that opposites create life and gratitude, offer meaning and depth of understanding and stand as proof to truth. We live in a world of opposites and it was planned that way.
