As my life slowing spins out of control I find myself reflecting on a story a friend told me. She had just been called into the Stake Relief Society Presidency and when the presidency met with the Stake President for the first time he looked at them and said, "Sisters, please don't get so caught up in making prayer rocks that you don't focus on what's really important." Well, of course this made no sense to them, so he went on to explain that his wife had been the Stake Primary President and had come up with the brilliant idea to make a prayer rock for each child in the stake to be given out at a big stake activity. She worked so hard collecting, cleaning, and painting these rocks that by the time the activity arrived, she was about to have a mental breakdown. She was so stressed because the rocks were still drying as she was loading them to take to the activity that she was in tears. She was short tempered with her husband and family and she had neglected many of the other obligations she'd had because of this huge undertaking. His point made a great impact on this new Stake Relief Society presidency. Every time they planned an activity and got caught up in ideas for decorations and projects, they stopped and asked, "Is this a prayer rock?" Using that as a measure of whether or not the effort was worth the result, they would then adjust to a more realistic and manageable approach.
Every once in a while we need to stop and prayerfully take inventory of our lives, just to make sure we're not so busy making prayer rocks that we don't focus on what's really important.
3 comments:
Good post Michele. Our Bishop speaks often about "managing expectations". It always seemed particularly cruel that Primary kids had prayer rocks. Our Young Women each had a prayer bear with a little poem about how you should say your prayers when you got into bed with your bear, and when you put him on the floor to make your bed in the morning. But nothing so cute for the Primary kids. Oh no. They had to be whacked on the head by a rock.
Our Relief Society painted prayer rocks a long time ago. I still have mine around here somewhere. But your point is well-taken. I think that we women are especially bad about getting carried away with the peripherals, especially when it comes to holiday preparations.
Easy does it! I love that concept. Thank you, Miss Michele for reminding us to keep it simple.
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