I really have been blessed to have a wide arrange of gifts, and I don't say that boastfully. I'm certainly anything but overconfident. But I acknowledge that the Lord has blessed me with abilities and inclinations that I am SUPREMELY grateful for, things that make life easier or more fun. Some of these gifts are demonstrable, and some aren't. But we all have gifts and I believe they are meant to be used to help us leave the world better than we found it. (Which is my whole philosophy of life, and by its standard I am not really LIVING. Yet.)
Anywho, some of my too-often-neglected gifts, spoken of in my patriarchal blessing, by family members and friends, or just accidentally discovered along the way:
- Music. This is a neglected gift lately. I love to play piano, but I get frustrated when I can't sight-read something so I don't really practice and become better. I also love the flute, but haven't used that gift in AGES. (Thanks to a ward choir piece, I'm realizing how RUSTY I really am!) I kind of sing, or at least I can hit the pitch. I also want to learn the guitar, SO BADLY, but I hate the callouses. But beautiful music really adds to the spirit in our home and our meetings, and I feel like it's a gift I need to rediscover.
- Art. This covers a wide range of things, I know. I'm also including anything crafty and just the general ability to create something beautiful with my own hands and imagination into this category. I love making beautiful things. I just LOVE it. I especially love working with silk flowers, scrapbooking (I've gone digital--see some pages above), and ModPodge lately. And making crayons. There are still SO MANY things in the world of arts and crafts I want to experiment with, from glass etching to stained glass, from woodworking/burning to sewing, from sketching to painting. And cake decorating. I pretty much want to do it all!
- Learning. I love to learn, and I've been blessed with the ability to absorb, process, and store information efficiently. :) More than that, I have a passion for learning new things. I hope to be one of those people who is always taking a class, developing a new talent, reading, watching documentaries, and teaching others what I discover. I think the key to being a good teacher is being a lover of learning. That passion and enthusiasm really is contagious. I've seen it!
- Words. I love words. I love reading them, I love writing them, combining them in new ways. I don't talk much with people I don't know, or even people I do unless I'm really tired or anxious about something, but obviously by how much I write I have lots on my mind all the time, and the words have to come out somewhere. It's usually in a journal or blog entry or when I'm praying aloud that words make sense of my world. And I am in a get-it-all-out-there, remove-those-inhibitions-and-walls kick right now, so you get long-winded entries that perhaps tell you more about me than you really ever wanted to know. But you're reading this, so something must be propelling you onward. :)
- My patriarchal blessing didn't really mention any of those above talents, or any other talents I thought I had. What it did mention were gifts of the spirit that I never really viewed as talents. Specifically on my mind as I write this all down is that I was blessed with a "reverence and respect for life and other sacred and beautiful things." This line runs through my mind OFTEN. I'm still figuring out what it means. But it's interesting that this is a talent of mine. I hope I can live up to that.
- Also, I had a really, REALLY AMAZING experience a few years back that I feel impressed to record here. I was having a really rough time of things...basically my whole life was changing in radical, painful ways and, as a young adult, I wasn't really sure what to do. I know our Father in Heaven has a plan for us as people, and generally that plan is the same for everyone--come to earth to get a body, be good, suffer, have joy, and progress to be like him, die, return to Him, continue the work, etc....but I also believe that each of us has a SPECIFIC plan and part in all of it. I believe we came here, now, where we are, with the people around us, for a specific reason, and that knowing that purpose that only we can fulfill in our small circles of life (and then following through) are what bring us REAL happiness. In all the confusion and frustration of my life at that time, I was praying one night to understand this personally-tailored, specific-to-me plan. I told Heavenly Father how useless I felt, how lost I was, and then I asked Him in all sincerity of heart, "What did You make me for?" And the answer came as clearly as if He had spoken the words to my mind, which has never happened before or since to this day: "I made you to love people." Now, certainly, this is true of all of us in a general way. Charity is at the crux of salvation, any way you look at it. I wholeheartedly believe that if we understood and could only follow the commandment to "love one another as I have loved you," this world and all its problems would literally melt away. But at that moment, especially considering the things on my mind and the answers I was expecting to receive that differed SO GREATLY from this one, I knew the Lord was talking directly to me, Celeste Darland, as His daughter. It was a profoundly personal and spiritual moment in my life, and I haven't really talked about it with anyone until now. Mostly because I don't really live up to this charge, especially lately. But when I look at the gifts I've been given, the feelings of my heart, the truth is I really do love the people I love with all my whole heart. I believe what makes me a good teacher is that I love and can see potential in each and every one of my students, perhaps especially those who are difficult to love. I get the most joy out of serving others. I especially look forward to serving and loving my own children. I am saddest not when I don't feel loved by others, but when I feel like I don't really love others. In contrast, my greatest happiness comes from loving others even when they may not show that love in return. It's a powerful gift, that love. I need to "neglect not the gift that is in thee" now more than ever, because if there was ever a world in need of greater love, it's this one.
Thank you for sharing such very personal and spiritual moments. I loved it! I heard a quote once: Man is here for the benefit of man. I love that and really believe that. You're right that it is kind of everyone's job to love people, but some people come with a talent for it. I'm one of those people, too. My favorite experiences in wards have been when people really reached out to each other and sought to build friendships, not just to fulfill assignments. Read Mosiah 18:20 and beyond. Somewhere there it talks about being 'knit together in unity and love'. As a recent learner of the skill of knitting, it had so much more meaning to me. And that is clearly what the Lord had in mind by organizing us into families, and ward families. At least it's clear to me. :) It takes a lot of effort to achieve that level of a relationship though, and it seems that there are few willing to make the effort. I can't (and shouldn't) judge people on it though - especially right now when I feel SO very little motivation. :D Anyway, thanks for this post. You are a beautiful person. Really.
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