Faith to Move Mountains

Sitka, Alaska

Don’t you love the scriptures for the many layers of truths? It’s like when we used to sit on a pebbled beach in Alaska, searching for sea glass. If I looked long enough, or spread the pebbles a little deeper, or move over and look from a different angle, all sorts of treasured, tumbled glass would appear.

I’ve often wondered about the faith to move mountains. Why would I want to move a mountain anyway? And If my faith were that strong, why can’t I have the littler things I really want? If God can move mountains (and He can and He does) then what am I lacking that He’s not [insert anything here, like healing me or fixing this financial trouble or taking away my pain]?

This morning I listened to President Russell M. Nelson talk about increasing our faith. This time, I saw the mountains that matter to me. I saw imagery and I felt feelings and I thought ideas. I realized that the mountains to be moved in my life have nothing to do with fixing other people or changing my circumstances or correcting anything at all. The mountains, or more specifically, the singular mountain, is me. It’s me. I’m the mountain. I need to be moved. I need to be changed.

As I increase my faith, specifically, as I intentionally work on increasing my faith, I (the mountain) actually change. I am moved. Thus, the things that I’ve thought need fixing (other people with whom I interact, my living circumstances, my hardships, my pains) don’t need to be fixed at all! I change to the point of seeing things differently. I no longer need outside validation, I don’t personalize others’ actions and words, I see my circumstances as opportunities, I work through my pain – feeling it, acknowledging it, and moving ahead of it.

My faith results in the moving of the only mountain I’ll ever have control of. And the mountain doesn’t just get moved an inch and then it’s good. It moves, and flattens, and grows, and breaks down, and falls, and rebuilds. Over and over and over again. And then, one day, the mountain will have undergone so much that it will be refined into a beautiful, polished gem. I will be changed; I will be refined.

Living Safely with Compassion & Grace

There are a handful of people I’ve never met who have had a profound influence on my progressive change in life. One of those people is Dr. Ramani Durvasula. She is a brilliant psychologist and a gifted author and YouTuber. I’ve been thinking about something she said in a video I watched a week or so ago. It’s stuck with me and I think about it several times a day. She said, “Learn the superpower of avoiding manipulation, and doing it with compassion and grace.”

Why does that sentence keep coming into my mind? It’s because I hear her saying to me: Become Christlike. Do not be a doormat or a punching bag for anyone. But in the process of learning how to protect yourself, don’t lose your compassion, tenderness, and caring.

Near the end of last year I decided to start studying the life of Christ in a new way. I opened up The New Testament with the purpose of learning more about Jesus’ more “masculine” characteristics. By the way, isn’t interesting how we consider kindness, gentleness, tenderness, compassion, forgiveness, etc. to be feminine traits; and boldness, anger, courage, boundaries to be masculine traits? Anyway. I realized last year that I’ve worked my whole life on being more long-suffering, kind, forgiving, gentle, meek … all that stuff. But I never once tried to become more bold or to really feel and experience anger. But Christ did. And He does. Shouldn’t I?

So for my New Year’s resolution this year I decided to choose one characteristic of Christ – a single word – and make that my goal in 2021. I chose courage. It’s hard. But I know I’ve made progress. Now, in making progress, I kind of threw compassion and all that soft, sweet stuff aside. I couldn’t figure out how to combine the two. Still can’t. But Christ did. And He does. So shouldn’t I be able to?

I think YES.

It sure feels like a superpower to me: the ability to protect against any kind of manipulation AND still be compassionate and graceful. But what a wonderful superpower to covet. I think maybe it is something that just takes practice. Probably a lifetime of practice. I want to be that way.

In another of Dr. Ramani’s videos she talked about how “the authentic person” interacts with narcissists. And she defines an “authentic person” as someone who does not internalize jabs or manipulation, but instead, lives fully in the present, in truth, needing only internal validation. This “authentic person” will acknowledge a narcissist, his comments, his forceful presence, but he will not engage. Instead, he will give a gentle figurative nod to the narcissist and then redirect conversation to the correct place. You should watch the video. Because we all come upon narcissistic people throughout our lives. They’re in the workplace, the home, the community, and places of worship. How do we deal with them? Well, ideally (and eventually) like Christ does.

It feels to me like when I get really good at this, I will always be at peace. I will not ever be in conflict with others or with myself. What a wonderful place to be and person to become!