Who's Right, and Who's Wrong?

Okay, here's what we're going to do. Take a dive with me on this one.

Pretend that I'm standing between you and someone else, whether that be your best friend, significant other, or family member. You pick. 

You both are sitting down in individual chairs. 

I hold out my hand in the middle of you, my thumb facing the ceiling and my pinky pointed toward the floor.

 (Here's a diagram, just in case I don't make sense)

 I ask the both of you to do the same activity for me.

"Describe what you see."

You're sitting on the left side, and you see this. 

Think about how you would describe this image you see. You might say clear skin, no hair, wrinkles on the palm, etc.

Your partner looks at you with a funny glance. "I don't see that! The skin is definitely NOT clear. There's a bunch of freckles and hair all over. You can see some veins, too."

"Pshh, whatever," you think in your head. "He/she doesn't know what she's talking about. Obviously he's wrong." 

(In this analogy, we are totally assuming that neither person has ever seen the other side of a hand before. Just roll with me here haha :) )

Then when he/she describes his side of the hand, he might add things like bunched knuckles, fingernails visible, etc.

This is what the other person sees:

So why didn't your definitions match up? You were both looking at the same hand. What made the difference? 

Well, I'm sure since you're all so smart, you've figured it out already. YOU EACH HAD DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES. One saw the outside of the hand, and one saw the inside. And you described it differently, because you saw it so differently from the other person.

We see this every single day in our personal relationships. We all have our own "prescription" in life; the way we look at things can differ so much that it can cause some tough problems. This is what was discussed in class this week. We need to have respect for one another, because our perspectives are there for a reason!! I've learned this in so many of my relationships over time. I might see setting the table for Thanksgiving as this, but my cousin may see it totally different. But all of our perspectives MATTER. 

It’s GOOD that you both see things differently, it’s a blessing! It doesn’t mean we have to fight and quarrell about who's right or who's wrong. We need to be open and patient, even if we want to be stubborn about what we see. We need to be open to possibly change or step back from OUR perspective and put on some new glasses that will help the picture to come out clearer! :) 

I'll just end with my favorite quote from class. It struck my soul, and I hope it will to yours as well. :)

"Be more worried about what the right thing is to do, rather than who’s more right."

Pools, Protection, and Eventual Perfection.

How do you feel about change? 

Are you terrified of it, or do you feel like you cope with it well enough?

I know for me, it kind of depends on the type of change. Sometimes I'm totally fine, like when i change my underwear everyday. I hope you can relate. 

But other things are a bit harder for me to cope with... For example, leaving my comfy bed in North Idaho to go sleep on rock hard twin beds in the Caribean to serve a mission. Moving out of my family's house of almost 10 years to move into a tiny shared bedroom in an apartment 8 hours away. 

It's hard sometimes, huh? It feels like you're on a huge ship on stormy seas, black clouds surrounding you, and no hope!

And the scary thing is, we're faced with change every day, on different scales. Today I ate muffins for breakfast, and yesterday I ate a Pop Tart and cereal. That's different from swtiching my major or dying my hair. Tomorrow I could get a call that may change the rest of my life. Who knows?

In class last week we talked about the edge of a pool.

Yep! The edge of a pool! :) 

So what in the world does this have to do with change and coping with it? 

One thing that stuck with me from the whole class was a small little thought I took away from this analogy. Above you see a pool's edge, which is technically called pool "coping." The coping has several different functions, and to be honest i don't remember most of them. But one function I remember is the curve. Think about the pools you've been in before. They either have a gutter dipping into the edge, or most commonly there's a curved outing that sticks out. The reason they're like that isn't just for decoration and style. It's to keep the water in. To keep it from splashing out and getting everywhere.

Another thought that struck me is how significant the side of the pool is to most people. We lounge and tan there, and when we were learning how to swim, when we lost our breath or our muscles started to ache, where did we go?? 

THE SIDE. The coping. 

We talked about this while thinking of the changes we experience in families. We all have different trials as families: a cat breaking it's leg, losing a beloved relative, arguments and disagreements, deciding which dessert to eat after dinner, etc and etc. But we all have them nonetheless. But we're all like the water in a sense. We've been put in this "pool", or family, and we all have different roles. I might be the chlorine, while my Mom might be the H20, and my brother Trevor might be the pee. (Haha, hope he doesn't read this). We all work together to make it a family, and the COPING on the edges helps us to STAY TOGETHER, to stay inside. When we handle the stresses of life and even those arguments the best we can, we'll stay in the pool where we are meant to be. 

Now looking at the edge of the pool again, not thinking about that last application. Why did we go to the edge of the pool? What was there for us? 

We found safety and security. We felt a refuge being there, and we could relax. That's what our family is to us. That's what can happen when we cope with change....Because it's all for our good in the end!

When we work together as a family, through all those rough days, job-less months, and infertile years, we find SAFETY in one another. We find that we are STRONGER. We find HAPPINESS. We can GROW TOGETHER to become a perfect family over time!

And, we discover that we make a PRETTY DARN AWESOME SWIMMING POOL.

The Birds, The Bees, and Loyalties

Yep, you guessed it. 

Today we get to talk about the big "S" word....

Don't worry, you won't need to shield any children's eyes or close the tab really quickly. I promise. We're having real, grown-up talk here.

Sex.

It was really funny watching all of our faces when we started the class period. We all knew what the topic was, and we were all pretty hesitant, me because of all the awkward and negative lessons I've had before. Everyone seemed really wide-eyed at first, but once we began to talk about sexual intimacy, it started to become one of the greatest class periods I've ever been in, because I learned SO much. I won't terrorize you all and keep that blush on your cheeks too long, so I'll stick to the basics of what I learned. :)

We definitely talked about all the different stages of sex, but one thing that stuck out to me from Brother Williams was his quote, "The most important sex organ is the brain." The brain controls SO very much of sexual intercourse, and it is the one organ that determines what kind of experience both partners have. If you're nervous, discouraged, or too tired, your experience won't be as great as when you're relaxed or happy.

We talked about the different dangers that can present themselves with this special experience, mostly because it's thrown around with such disgrace and disrespect. We see how accepted and advertised it has become in soceity and even in our own homes. You can hardly find a new PG-13 movie without a sex scene in it. And it's sad to see how something so incredibly special and God-given is being treated so carelessly. It honestly disgusts me. Even scrolling down my favorite "Photography" tab on Pinterest, I can't do that without seeing some kind of sexual image. I'll let you think about it for yourself. What will you do about it? Will you laugh at those jokes? Or will you walk away?...

One other aspect of the lesson that really stood out to me was an analogy given.

Imagine that you are engaged, and you're planning on getting married. You send out invitations, and one goes to your favorite aunt, who is pretty well-off and blessed by way of wallet size. She "RSVP"'s and tells you how excited she is to come! You are so excited to see her there on your special day, and you also know that she'll probably go all out with the wedding gift. She's done it at all the other family weddings, so to be honest, you're kind of excited to see what that gift is. The wedding day arrives, and your aunt calls and tells you about an unexpected complication in the transportation, and she won't be able to make it...You're incredibly dissappointed, and express your love and understanding to her. She says that even though she can't make it, she's sending the wedding gift ahead anyways, and it will be there wrapped in red wrapping paper.

Your day goes by with a giant smile plastered on your face. You just married your best friend. The reception is going perfectly and everyone is having a blast. You and your spouse turn around to see a huge, wrapped, red gift being carted in on a roller. The men bringing it in can't even carry it without help! There HAS to be something incredible in there. The excitement is killing you!! All you want to do is see what it is!!

So now, would you run headlong over to that table and rip open the paper, in front of the guests and pushing over your new spouse??

ABSOLUTELY NOT. Well, you better not.
If you do, I'll leave my number at the bottom of this post so you and I can have a serious talk.

You would WAIT, right? You would do it with your new spouse, whenever you decide to tackle that big pile of gifts, together, AFTER the wedding, and TOGETHER. Why? Becuase it's for BOTH OF YOU. It's a wonderful gift from someone you love, and from someone who loves you.

That gift is sex.
It is a gift from God, an opportunity to express your love for someone in ways that God has designed, and if done in respect, trust, and love, you can be co-creators with God. The both of you will do it together, working on it through time.

And here's the cool thing. YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE TO OPEN IT ON THE WEDDING NIGHT.
We always hear that that's usually when the couple chooses to open that gift, but I learned that we should NOT conform to society or traditions when it comes to something so important. We should talk about it, and most importantly, RESPECT one another.

If you really love each other, you will wait, EVEN after marriage, until the time is right for the both of you.

So there's some food for thought. :)

Please please please don't take this as lightly as everyone else does, like a sport or a joke or anything normal. Sex is an amazing thing, and we should TREAT IT THAT WAY.

What is love??

WHAT IS LOVE??...

I hope Haddaway's classic song is blasting in your mental radio right now. It is in mine. 

"...Baby don't hurt me!!"

...Anyways. 

We use this word for a LOT of things. 

"I love this song!"

 "I love you..." 

"I love when the rain smells like that!"

"I LOVE this band!"

We kind of throw it around in everyday language, and I honestly feel like we don't even have a definition of it. 

M. Scott Peck agrees. He said,  “no one has ever... arrived at a truly satisfactory definition of love.”

How would you define it? You don't have to comment and leave your input, but just stop reading my blog and think about it for a second. What is love in your dictionary?

I know for me, when I think of love, I think of my sisters and I. I think about my Grandpa Peterson, and how he and I were great friends for only a few short years, but the love is still there. I think about the perfect taste of guacamole and chips. I think about a beautiful, ripe mango fallign off the trees in Jamaica. I think about my best friend. I think about sunsets. I think about my mom and dad.

Love can have many different applications, and it can occupy many different facets in our lives. I learned in class that we really don't have a definite definition of this word we call love. But there are actually different levels and types of love. We've got eros, which is the romantic and sexual types of love, philia, which is more of the brotherly kind of love usually found between close friends (fun fact, that's actually where Philadelphia comes from), storge, being the love found between parents and children, and then agape, which is the love we feel when we give service to people, even if we don't like them. Pronounce those like you're a Greek, because that's where they come from :)

I had never known there were different types of love that actually had names! I had always done what everyone else does, throw around the word to descrive the good feelings I have. 

So, since I want y'all to learn on your own instead of me just babbling away, which kind of love do you think is most important? Which could be the most powerful?? Is one greater than the other? 

And which one do you need to improve on?