3rd Post - Thinking outside the box

We all have those days when we hope for the best and things are going pretty good and then WHAM. Something unexpected happens. Sometimes we may not know how to respond or what to do. I have seemed to have had a couple weird "WHAM" experiences that I'll share.

 

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In my previous post, I mentioned having some difficulties communicating with others growing up and how I had a hard time making friends. Well, I did have one friend in the 3rd grade that I was playing with one day. I'll call him Nick Booley for fun. (That's not his real name.) He was a good kid and during that time we would play together on the slope of a hill by our school during recess. All went well when all of the sudden we where attacked by some class bullies from behind. One went after my friend and the other one went after me. They both pounded on us for some time and drove my friend to tears, which made me feel bad too. The other one that pounded on me was quite a good wrestler. I never wrestled much and I didn't know what to do to defend myself.



As he pounded on me and pinned me in a move, I remember thinking, "okay, if I do this, .....  I might be able to escape from.......... Nope, too late, I just got moved over here. Okay, what if...... okay, now that won't work.  What if........., sheesh, is he going to stop long enough for me to figure this out?" Well anyway, that went on for some time and after a couple more punches he finally released me and waited for my reaction. What would I do? Would I start to cry, or run away for help? Would I try to attack him in anger for hurting me and his friend hurting mine? Funny enough I didn't do any of those things. Instead I decided to use a different technique called "passive aggression." I quickly stood up and grabbed his hand and shook it and said, "Hey buddy, thanks, that was fun, we'll have to do that again sometime." I had no idea why I did that. Maybe the adrenaline made it possible to establish some quick wit for a small moment, but to my surprise, he never attacked me again after that.

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Another time when I was older in high school, there was a boy that was bigger and overweight. I guess he was having a bad day or something because he decided to take his frustrations out in the school auditorium by urinating on the seats. Someone saw this and reported him to the principal. During this time, I had no idea that this had happened until he came up to me and pulled out a 4 inch knife on me.  He said, "Hey, are you the one that tattled on me?" I didn't know what he was talking about, of course, but in the school I was in at the time was a lot smaller school then the ones in larger cities. It was somewhat a farm and mining town community of around 3,000 people and I presume a knife was not an uncommon thing. Even though it was a smaller community, there was still regulations on what was allowed or not in school. One could have a pocket knife if it was within the schools guidelines back then, but how I reacted to this situation could have had a different outcome if I was not too careful.



So anyway, this person was mad at me and was just a couple feet away pointing this knife at my chest. He wanted an answer and he wanted it now. If I said something he did not like, would he react violently? I had no idea what would happen or what was going on. But after careful consideration, I decided to do what any rational person would do and state the obvious. I looked the guy in the eyes, pointed my finger at him and said, "hey buddy, you know the schools regulations, you can't use that knife on me unless it's under two inches."  Okay, all I got was a blank stare for a moment and then a look of obvious confusion for about a minute. He then looked at his knife and then at me again, shook his head, and then folded his knife back up and put it in his pocket. He did not smile or anything, but looked stunned the rest of that moment I saw him and then turned around and walked away.



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So, what is my purpose of sharing these two stories?  I know not everything in life can have an interesting outcome, and I wouldn't suggest doing what I did. But my purpose of sharing this is to illustrate that how we face things in life can affect us and our surroundings more than we may know.  Looking for the positives and good in situations may not necessarily take us out of a difficult situation. However, it produces an environment in our minds to have a clean place where God can work with  us and our thoughts if  He needs to warn us of dangers. Or help us when we need help. A clean mind is like standing upon a mountain and seeing the valley below you clearly because it's not polluted with filth. In life, I needed Him in difficult situations and if I wasn't clean in my thoughts and heart, I would have been less perceptive of His promptings. I wish I could say I was always good at that, but I make mistakes often.



In life though, a person may be mean to you, or you may be experiencing abuse of some kind or another. You may not have any power over external actions or choices of others, but you can choose how you will react. In the two experiences above, I was choosing how I felt. The first one, I was choosing to be happy even though I had a right to be upset at the situation. I was, in my way, keeping my heart clean by not having angry and abusive thoughts back. I know that bully had power over me, but I didn't give him power over how I was choosing to feel. I chose not to give him that privilege. The second experience, was my way of indirectly saying, I know you're upset, but I am going to look for the light and positive in this situation by seeing the humor in what I can see. I was hoping it would awaken him enough to snap him out of his anger.  One rule in life I've experienced is negative actions don't produce positive results. Negative things happen, but we as a people have more untapped power of an outcome more than we give ourselves credit.

The best example I can think of that best illustrates this point is from an amazing family I met on a mission in England.  For those that may wonder, as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, it is required for a young man to serve a mission for the Church for two years because it is viewed as a commandment from the Lord. You're not paid for it, but it is part of a voluntary service. Then once done, the saying goes, once a missionary, always a missionary and hopefully you continue the standard your whole life through.

Anyway, about a year out into my mission in England, I met a wonderful lady in a family that was a refugee.  We didn't know much about her at first, but she was the nicest person one could meet.  She would always feed us and listen to gospel messages we shared.  We would always invite her to live certain principles of the gospel. As soon as she learned them, she did her best to live them.  Finally one day she shared her background.  She said she originally came from an Island off of India called Sri Lanka.  When she lived there, she said life was wonderful.  Her husband owned a store and they had land that they owned and lived fine and comfortably. There was a sort of civil war happening on the island.  Then one day, men came and killed her husband because they thought he was hiding weapons for the people fighting  against them. Soon after they looked for her son to hunt him down too because they thought that he was involved also.  To hide from them, her son lived in the forest for a year to avoid capture.  After living this way for about a year, she finally said to herself that she needed to get her family away.  She sold all her land and all she had and gave the money to a person to help get her two children and herself out of the country.

She said that they went on foot most of the way and finally made it to Moscow Russia.  From there they where then smuggled in crates to England.  When in England, somewhere along the way, they were discovered and put into a refugee camp near London.  It was there that she found a Bible and read it.  She said that up to that point, she had never heard of God or any person like Jesus Christ.  But in the Bible, it talked about prayer and she decided to pray and ask God where He wanted her and her family to go and what to do to please Him.

She had the greatest and simplest of faith like a child that trust's a parent.  She said she started helping the other refugees in the camp and even gave most of her food to the hungry and poor of heart and spirit from what little she had.  She decided to live a Christ-like life. 

Finally the day came that the English Government moved her and her children to Manchester England. They gave her a home that was old and had no door and was in the worst neighborhood of the area. But she never complained and had a grateful heart and was so kind that the Landlord relocated her to one of his best homes that had a real door and even a Television. 

Then one day she watched T.V. and saw a Lamb of God movie advertised from our church that is free and ordered it.  That was when she met us missionaries.  She loved Jesus and wanted so much to live a life like His.  It was about this time also that she started hearing stories that were very discouraging to hear about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints.  She said she was confused and so we had her visit a family that was in the area of the church there that took her to the Preston England Temple. 

It was there that she said she cried because of what she felt.  She then said to us that in her first prayer, the one I mentioned above, she asked God what He wanted her to do and where to go.  At that point, she had a picture appear in her mind. The picture was a whitish building with something golden on top of it.  She said what she saw in her mind was the same building that was showed her there; the Preston England Temple.

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For those that may wonder, sadly many around teach that many things that go on in a LDS Temple is taboo and/or immoral, but that is far from the truth.  Temples are actually a place where we learn of Jesus Christ and gospel plan for us on how to find happiness.  It is a place that brings families closer together from the past, present, and future.  It is a place we learn about the creation and make promises to God to be better people to ourselves and to other people around us if we follow the gospel correctly.  Yes, nobody's perfect, not even those in leadership positions in our church or any church.  We are all human.  But it is because of the saving grace of Jesus Christ that we practice to be kinder and nicer to others.  It is in the gospel we learn to be better.  Although we are not perfect, God loves us perfectly and will help us to become more like Him.  And to become more like Him, is part of the plan of happiness even if we don't have all that is right going for us in life. But to understand life the way it is meant to be understood correctly, we need to know Christ the way He asks us to know Him. We turn to Him wholly the best we can and patiently wait on Him.