The Broken Bud

 My neighborhood is full of Blooms.  It's absolutely breathtaking!  I was so glad that spring had arrived but then we received a nice late snow storm.  I hoped the blossoms were not going to freeze!  I went outside to try to brush the snow of my beautiful peony bushes and while trying to bring one up from the ground it snapped off from the main trunk and took an almost baby blooming bud with it! I was trying to help but in turn I hurt the very bloom I was trying to rescue.

 I thought of how this reminded me of something I had read this week.  It was about the mistakes we make as parents while trying to raise our kids to be independent, capable and good contributing members of society.  One of the mistakes that we make is that we want to shelter our kids from all worry, doubt, disappointment, and sorrow etc.  I know I do this but it's because when I see my kids sad, then I feel the same pain.  Or so it seems. I hurt when they hurt, I am lost when they are lost and I am disappointed when they are.

 I made a terrible  mistake in the last few weeks that brought me to my knees in Godly sorrow.  I was sorry that I had not been more wise, that I had acted impulsively and that I had not been more kind. I thought I had been justified because I didn't want my child to hurt.  I didn't think it was fair.  I wanted to make things equal.  I did not take into account the heart of someone else.  I began the process of repenting and vowed that I would never be so selfish again.  I promised to be more careful in my decision and to check my integrity at the door as best I could at all times.  I felt the peace of my Savior come and I began to realize that I had learned many valuable lessons from the experience of making a choice.

I value the lessons I learned from this.  I realized that God wanted me to make a mistake so that I might learn what it feels like.  Then, to be glad that I had a broken heart.  Knowing this, made me humble enough to need the Atonement and to need Gods love and forgiveness and then and only then could I experience the process.  I don't believe God wants us to sin but he knows we will make mistakes because of our human and fallen state.  I need to learn another lesson from the peony bud.  I did not need to rescue the bud from frost because God had already made it possible to tolerate the cold. By helping it, I hindered or even cut off the life line from the roots of the tree. It is not not able to learn for itself how to tolerate the cold, feel pain, or learn for itself how to survive etc.