You can click on the above link to see this year’s finalists. But, having read more fiction by LDS authors this year than I ever have before, I read the list and thought “That one’s great. So is this one. But what about… and what about…” I have a list of books that I think deserve to be Whitney finalists. As William Morris says here, in any awards process some titles are going to be left out. That doesn’t stop me from mentioning a few that I feel deserve some attention.

Two caveats: 1-I read a lot of youth fiction, so that’s where most of my recommendations come from. What this means, though, is that there are probably plenty of books in other categories that deserve to be in a “What about this one list” that I won’t mention. If you’re aware of any of them, please post away in the comments.

2-This list does not intend to disparage or take away at all from the 2010 Whitney finalists–congratulations to all of you! Rather, it seeks to highlight those who did not make it into the finals, because the field is so competitive.

Okay, with that in mind, why did we not see The Actor and The Housewife here? As Patricia Karamesines’ brilliant review points out, it is “a remarkably courageous work that chips away at the horns of social and spiritual dilemmas.” I confess that I didn’t love it in the way that I loved Austenland. It’s not a feel-happy romantic comedy, although it’s hilarious in places. But it made me think, and it’s an important work.

Historical fiction needs Annette Lyon’s Tower of Strength! I appreciate so much Annette’s writing ability to maintain character voice and integrate historical details without feeling contrived.

And now to youth fiction: Shannon Hale’s Forest Born, which I loved. It’s the latest in the Bayern series. I am particularly fond of tree magic, which feels very Mormon to me: Rin cannot find peace and healing through trees unless she is completely honest with herself. I likened it to going to the temple, or praying, or anytime I try to access God. It’s impossible unless I approach divinity with complete honesty.

Brandon Sanderson’s Alcatraz Versus the Knights of Crystallia–the latest in his snarky series about the evil librarians who plot to take over the world. The voice gets a little old (old as in, more snark? really?) to me sometimes, but my son loves these.

Jeff Savage’s Farworld: Land Keep–The first Farworld book is looking a little bedraggled at our house, because my son has read it and reread it. He loved Land Keep too, and I liked Land Keep better than the first one.

James Dashner’s 13th Reality: The Hunt for Dark Infinity–again, my son loves these books. The first 13th Reality won the Whitney for youth fiction last year, so I’m very surprised that its sequel is not on the list.

Mette Ivie Harrison, The Princess and the Bear. I loved this sequel to The Princess and the Hound. It started out a little slow for me, but the taut, elegant writing made it worthwhile to keep going. And the ending was splendid.

Again, tell me your favorite books by LDS authors that didn’t make it to the Whitneys.

One final thought about the awards themselves. I was impressed with what Robison Wells, Whitney founder, said in this Mormon Artist interview:

My reasoning for starting the Whitney Awards was essentially a move from pessimism to optimism. When I first got published in the LDS market — even before the book was released — I immediately ran into a lot of the standard criticisms about LDS fiction. I’d tell someone that I’d written a book, and they’d be excited and ask about it, and the instant they realized it was an LDS book you could see the interest fade out of their eyes. After a while I became
almost embarrassed that my book was LDS fiction. So, I decided I was going to do
something about it. On my website I started something called the LDS Fiction Review Database, and my goal was to link to every single review of every LDS fiction book.
At its peak, I had several thousand links posted. My reasoning was this: in order to gain respect, LDS fiction needs to improve, and the best method to improve is more
critical evaluation. I maintained that database for about a year, but as I got more
involved in the LDS market I came to realize that, while, yes, there was a lot of lousy LDS fiction, there was an awful lot of great stuff too. My complaint all of this time
had been with the authors: they needed to write better books. And, I thought, having public, critical reviews would “encourage” them to do that. My big epiphany was that
I shouldn’t be targeting authors — I should be targeting readers. There are lots of great books available, but it’s hard to sift through the mediocre and find the amazing.
That was the ultimate genesis of the Whitney Awards — I was looking for a way for LDS fiction
to gain more respect. Now, when people claim that LDS books are lousy, we can point to the Whitney Award winners — to Coke Newell’s On the Road To Heaven or Sandra Grey’s Traitor, or many others — and hold these up as examples of LDS fiction that’s every bit as good as anything published nationally.

I’m excited to read all the finalists and decide with Shelah on what Segullah’s votes will be. And this year I will also be attending the awards banquet at the LDS Storymaker’s Conference. It looks like a great conference, with national and local editors attending, and plenty of inspiration and cool people.

So, tell me which books you feel deserved a Whitney finalist nod? Or which of the finalists you’ve already read and enjoyed? Any early winner predictions? As for me, I’ve got to get reading…

Related posts:

1. Mother in Me on Whitney Awards Auction
2. Whitney Award Predictions
3. Award Season

Because it’s not private grief. It’s open to the world, and it has to be. That is the only way the world can respond. And yet, the world responds to chaos in an eager but inefficient way, planes landing practically on top of each other. Mixed in with the experienced volunteers are those with good and willing hearts but little practical experience who sometimes make things worse. If the grief were not open to the world, no one would come, and yet the people who do come cannot fix things. Who can fix this problem? There is a paralysis about it.

But Haiti needs to move forward, and, as the new fourth mission of the Church states, we have an obligation to care for the poor and needy. I think that one of the great lies that I sometimes believe at times like this is that my small contribution cannot make any difference at all, so why bother. But this is not true: it makes a difference to me, it opens and softens my heart. Turning off the numbness and doing something positive makes me more Christlike, I hope. And the small contributions of many thousands of people can make a difference to the people suffering in Haiti.

With that in mind, here are links to places that can help (hat tip to Shelah):

Partners in Health
The Red Cross
The Church’s disaster relief fund
Heifer International

And an ebay auction for a gorgeous little girl’s dress in which all proceeds will go to Partners in Health. There’s also the ebay charity homepage if you are looking for other auctions.

What are your favorite charities and ways to contribute in times of disaster? Please post them in the comments, along with your thoughts on how you respond to tragedy.

Related posts:

1. How Anne of Green Gables helped me get my groove back
2. Mother in Me on Whitney Awards Auction
3. Speechless

I bristled. I had plans for our Christmas stockings. I wanted big flannel ones with snowmen and maybe blanket stitching. I had seen them in Target. They were cute. It felt intrusive to me to have my mother-in-law determine the Christmas stockings that we would hang up, if not forever, at least for a few years.

“I don’t want her to make stockings!” I said. “I have plans for our stockings!” I did not know what kind of stocking she would like. I shuddered at the idea of spending every Christmas resenting the fact that I had to hang up stockings that I hated just because she made them.

My husband is a very calm person. “It’s no big deal,” he said. “It will be fine. I will tell her that you’ve got other plans for the stockings.”

I was emotional. “Really? She won’t be mad?”

“That’s why she asked me first,” he said. “It will be fine.”

And it was. As far as I know, she never took offense at my not wanting a handmade stocking from her. Instead of stockings, she made me several dozen pasta angel ornaments. I laughed when I saw them, delighted by their whimsy, amazed (as a non-crafter) at all the time she took gluing and painting. I could tell she was relieved that I liked them so much. I was relieved too. I have hung them on our Christmas tree every year since. This year when we decorated our tree my daughter took one out and said “Oh I love the noodle angels!” and I agree. I love them, but every year they get a bit more bedraggled. The bow-tie pasta wings break off. The macaroni arms chip. They are darling, but fragile.

I wish that I had let my mother-in-law make the Christmas stockings. I wished it that very year, when I saw her charming velvet stocking, and realized that the one she made for me would have been similar, and beautiful, and longer-lasting than the noodle angels. I wished it at Christmas four years later, when she lay dying in the hospital. I did not trust, back then, how much I would grow to love her. And, as a newlywed discovering my own way of doing Christmas, I was territorial, not wanting to allow her into my celebration.

I look back at myself and I want to say, just let her make the stockings already! Why did that feel to me like giving in, like ceding something I owned? I don’t know, but it did. She and I were both doing the best we could in the dance of uniting two families, and I see that more clearly now than I did then. I need to have charity for my past self too, realize that I was insecure and not intentionally blind. It wasn’t about control for her, even though it felt like it to me back then. She wasn’t trying to control what I did, just contribute to it. Such a hard balance for a mother-in-law. When I closed off the stocking option, she responded with ornaments.

And they are fun. They are. But every year when I hang up our generic stockings, I mourn again the unique one that she might have made for me.

Related posts:

1. The Stories of Christmas
2. No Respecter of Ornaments
3. Where The Word Talking Actually Means Typing

Q: It’s December and my life is too crazy to write just now!
A: We totally get that. This is why we run a new contest every year.

Q: Where are detailed contest submission guidelines found?
A: Essay contest guidelines here. Poetry contest guidelines here.

Q: What should I write about?
A: Anything you want. While we do have themed issues, we leave our writing contests open to whatever you’d like to write about.

Q: How are the entries judged?
A: The staff of Segullah meets on an internet forum. Editors post the entries on our forum, without names, and then we read through all the entries, narrow them down to our favorites, and vote. We don’t have an official rubric, but after thorough discussion we come to a consensus on our favorites.

IMPORTANT NOTE: in past years, we have published the winning essays as-is, with only copyediting. After much discussion, we’ve decided that this year’s essay contest will be a little different. We will select our favorite finalists, give each writer an opportunity to revise with one of our editors, and then choose the final winner after that revision process has taken place.

Q: Who should enter this contest? Can I enter if I’ve never published anything?
A: Yes! Please enter! A little of my background: While I wrote a lot in college, I had never published anything before I started writing for Segullah. I wrote an essay about my experience with feeling lost as a mother and wondering when to have another child. It won an honorable mention.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that this changed my life. I felt validated and encouraged to pursue the balancing act of writing and mothering. If you haven’t done much writing lately, but you have always wanted to, this is a great contest for you.

Q: Wait a second. I’m a published writer, and I would like to enter. Is your contest just for writers who have not been published previously?
A: No. We love published writers, too. Please enter!

Q: I have a great blog post. It got a lot of positive comments. Can I submit that?
A:Yes, but. First, please read Angela Hallstrom’s excellent post on the difference between a blog post and an essay. We at Segullah’s journal love a good blog post. But, for the most part, a blog post requires significant revision before it can be an effective essay. Blog posts are a good starting point, though.

Q: I just sat down and wrote this essay/poem. It really came from my heart and I don’t want to change anything about it, because that would ruin it. Should I send it in?
A: Ah, I will be honest. You can send it in, but I think it will not win unless you revise it first. It’s close to your heart, it’s something you created that expresses you, and that’s wonderful. But your best bet is going to be to put it away for a while, and then take it out and look at it with fresh eyes, when you can stand to change something about it. There’s nothing like the incredible rush of a first draft. But it’s the slow process of polishing that really makes writing shine.

Q: How many drafts of an essay should I do before I submit it?
A: Short answer: A lot. Longer answer: For our regular submissions we do at least three: a concept/story/structure revision, which works on major structural or story issues; a revision where we focus on tweaking sentences and paragraphs (but the basic essay concept is sound); and a near-final edit where we focus on each word. It’s important to realize that each of our submissions has presumably already gone through several versions before we accept it. While we are choosing finalists this year, and taking each finalist through our revision process, those finalists who have already done the most work are more likely to do well.

Q: Can you give me tips about what kinds of poetry you prefer?
Sure. I hope that all poets read Sharlee Glenn’s blog post on Segullah poetry. I also recommend you look through our archives and read what we have published in the past.

Q: What about essays?
A: I will refer you to the “writing tips” category of our blog. “Happy literary” and “faithful probing” are phrases that describe the style of essay we are looking for. Again, I also recommend you spend some time in our archives. Links to each of our past issues can be found on the left sidebar of our blog.

Q: Where can I read the winning essays and poems from previous years, to get a better feel for what you would like to see?
A: Check out this blog post, which highlights our 2007 winners. Our 2008 winners are not yet available online. But I will whet your appetite for them by letting you read Lara Neidermeyer’s amazing first place winning poem, “Expectancy,” now appearing in our Fall 2008 issue, which is one of my favorite things we’ve ever published. Read it, and weep. And then go write.

***
Expectancy
By Lara Neidermeyer

For K

Opinions vary as we wait to hear if her
health is billed clean as spic-n-span,
and in my bumbling fearful heartbreak I
find myself as useless in consolation as
I imagine; no more no less . . . I loathe this
mortal question.

Standing bald and ashen, still she teaches
not just Sunday school, but ten-fold—
the lines of faith and searing hope
cross her smile like grieving roads on an
oft-read palm, and we want to breathe her in
and shy away.

She asks us how we feel about Job,
that man, misunderstood and sanctified,
a man of biblical proportions if there ever
was one, and we hesitate to answer:
you are his echo, but instead we nod and
doubt our compassion.

We spend a lot of time on the old man’s
lackluster friends, emphatic in their
concerted desertion, easy in their big-house,
holy-held disdain and discuss the
wreckage of our own kind courtesy;
oh—how we lack.

~

Today my tongue trips awkwardly as I
search for that thing which will shred the
fence between the afflicted
and the fit-though-clumsy
would-be mourner, wishing you could see
the love beyond the casserole I offer.

Trying not to die is pretty personal, and yet
we’ve been invited to your battleground
so I am trying not to flinch because I do
believe in a god of miracles, do believe no
suffering is useless, do believe that you should
live through this.

There is no peace in hiding behind fury, but
anguish sometimes clouds that straightforward
trust between creator and beloved child, and we
are witness to your graceful growth, and wish that
we could take our sacred paths to cleverness
with half your solace.

And I try to lose my fear of losing your gentle
Wisdom—a matter-of-fact reality that,
like a candle, you refuse to hide beneath a
bushel or a malady; for in your eyes is shining
fire and your words—soft-spoken and wildly alive,
are fighting words.

Related posts:

1. The Tinker Stage
2. Want to write for Segullah? Read Segullah!
3. Now Accepting Entries

I engage my hands, deepen the bend. “Now hold,” she says. “We’re going to be here for a while.”

So I hold, and she keeps talking. “Pull your thighs into midline,” she says. My thighs cooperate, a little. “Find the ease of the pose.”

When she says “find the ease of the pose” I just want to say “Ha! There is no ease!” But that would interfere with my yoga breathing, so I don’t. Sometimes I find that ease, that place where I can hold this position longer than I ever thought I would. I breathe through it, I let it become part of my body.

This day, we hold. And hold. All my muscles shake. By the end I am crying from despair. There is no ease to be found. Until three minutes later, when we come out of the pose. And into warrior two, the next one.

I have only recently discovered yoga, and so I’m sure all the connections I make between yoga and life have already been found by many others. But finding the ease of the pose reminds me of a morning when I had to clean up diarrhea, vomit, and pee from three different kids, and in the midst of so much smelliness and fatigue I quit feeling sorry for myself and started to laugh. It was the nitty gritty dirt of mothering, and somehow it was too awful to be upset about anymore. I found the ease instead, acknowledging the yuckiness of the moment and just letting it be, working through, without getting indignant about it, the way I usually do.

I found the ease, eventually, with new nursing babies, with a broken leg, with my mission. For me, it’s impossible to find the ease if I don’t acknowledge first that what I’m dealing with is hard. Maybe not hard for someone else, but hard for me, and that is enough. Even basic yoga is hard if you have to hold the poses long enough.

It’s also impossible to find the ease if I dwell on that difficulty, if I tell myself it is too hard. Finding the ease is that place where I say, this is very hard, and relax into that reality, allow myself to hurt, until it’s through. Then life shifts me into a new pose, and I begin to find the ease again.

How do you find the ease in your life?

Related posts:

1. Trusting My Premortal Self
2. Thanking You in Advance: A Muse on Raising Boys and All Their Sound Effects
3. Now Accepting Entries

I have always remembered his analogy; I wish I had always lived it. When I taught Relief Society several years ago, I had to go out of town on my week. I called the other teacher and left a message on her machine asking if we could switch weeks. She left a message on mine, saying we could, and that was that. I thought.

Except I returned home to frantic answering machine messages, asking where I was and was I planning on teaching that day. No one showed up. And then I discovered that I had the calendar mixed up when I tried to change things around, and I had made a gigantic mess. I felt terrible. I made brownies for the entire Relief Society Presidency as an apology. The woman who filled in for me kept alluding to her pinch-hitting episode over the next few weeks, and I wanted to die every time she mentioned it.

My mortification came on several levels. I try to be responsible. I hate letting people down. More than that, though, I want to be … a worker of the ward. Yes, I want people to think of me as a worker of the ward. But I also want to be a worker because I want to serve the Lord. Being flaky, even unintentionally, feels to me like a betrayal of God.

The less noble result of that, though, is that my desire to avoid being flaky has, lately, meant that I don’t want to actually commit to do anything, because I’m scared I won’t do a good enough job. I look back at callings or assignments I’ve had and I am full of critiques and ideas about things I should have done better, and this makes me hesitant to take on anything new. I’m aware that I didn’t love those nursery kids as much as I should have. I know that I should have spent more time preparing primary lessons, more energy seeking out people who needed compassionate service. All my past frailties come back and yell at me, making me forget the times that I really was prompted by the Spirit to help someone in the right way.

But part of being a worker of the ward is doing just that: taking on the new assignment, even when you feel inadequate. Committing even when the territory is unfamiliar. Forgiving yourself for past mistakes, and forgiving others as they serve imperfectly. I want to be consistent in my service, and and also consistently merciful.

In all this, God surprises me with blessings I had not anticipated. I’m newly sustained to teach Primary music, and after just two weeks I am humbled by the joy of watching children sing. Who knew that there would be such a difference between singing in the audience with the children and standing in front of them, watching their eyes filled with light and song?

What callings have been a blessing to you? How has the Spirit helped you fulfill a challenging assignment? What do you do to keep yourself motivated to be a worker of the ward? And do you have a good roast beef recipe?

Related posts:

1. Many are Called
2. The trouble with Relief Society
3. My Invisibility Cloak

Shepherds–Darlene Young’s poem about the beautiful realness of the shepherd who were present at the Savior’s birth.

Nauvoo–Michelle Lehnardt talks about something we all wrestle with: feeling like we are inadequate spiritually, as compared to all the righteous people who surround us. But you don’t need to have pioneer ancestors to connect with the past, or with your present self as Latter-day Saint.

This Cup–Michelle Linford describes a single moment of grace she experiences when taking the Sacrament at a difficult time. It has made me look differently at the Sacrament ever since.

My Season for Manna–Tarasine Buck learns from the children of Israel to find sustaining manna during her mothering.

And Shelah Miner interviews the amazing Marilyn Brown, champion and defender of LDS artists.

If you are not a print subscriber, you can subscribe here to receive our next issue, Becoming, and our 2010 five year anniversary issue. And if you haven’t already, you should also check out Leslie Graff’s art, because it ties the whole issue together beautifully.

There’s much more–please read and enjoy (and tell me in the comments what your favorites were).

We’ll only be publishing one issue of Segullah next year: a double issue, including both writing on the theme of dating, courtship, and marriage, and the winners of our essay and poetry contests. If you want to enter our contest, start writing now! Please be sure to read all the entries in our blog under the category heading “writing workshop.” That will give you a sense for what we’re looking for as we judge contest entries. And if you have any specific questions about what we’re looking for in our contest or other submissions, you can put those in the comment section too.

Related posts:

1. Share Your Story
2. Summer 2008: Palette of Light
3. Congratulations to…

“People who make fun of other people are usually insecure themselves,” I said. A little too intensely, and it came off as cheap psychology, but I meant it. “We should probably feel sorry for him because he doesn’t know how to be kind.”

She nodded a little. Then a few days later she said “That boy is calling me baby again.”

“He’s probably insecure,” I said.

“No, he’s not,” she answered. “I know because I asked him if he was, and he said no.”

I laughed. But she wasn’t supposed to ask him. She was supposed to… I don’t know what. Take my advice and see the kid more clearly, understand where he’s coming from, so that she wouldn’t be bugged by him anymore. She’s only six, and that’s a tall order for six.

Tall order for thirty-three as well. I recently came into contact with someone who bugged me, one of those mean girls from junior high. “Bugged” is too mild. “Tortured” is perhaps too strong, but it’s somewhere in the middle there. I can’t think of her without thinking of the day I glanced at her and her friend as they were calling to me. They had their faced pressed up against the glass of the school’s front windows, distorted and scorning, a follow-up to the constant trash talk of P.E. class. That sounds so mild, writing it out like that. I should have let it roll off my back. People in junior high have suffered much worse. And you know, I was the classic nerd, Hermione Granger on steroids, so I suppose it was to be expected. That’s the day I remember most, but there were others. They all rolled together after a while.

One of my deepest fears for my children is that they will turn into me. I am scared that they will be teased, scared they will be hurt. And of course they will; no one gets through life without a little of that. But what I fear more is that they will respond to the inevitable pain in the way I did: after so much hurt, I expected the worst from people. I developed a giant chip on my shoulder, and for years I did not trust that anyone could know me, really know me, and also like me.

For me, the most useful definition of the word charity is not “the pure love of Christ,” though I know it is that. What helps me to understand charity the most is thinking of charity as perfect clear-sightedness. By this I mean that when I have charity, I see others, and myself, with the same vision that God has. When God looked at me and the curt, standoffish manners I had in high school, He saw me walking home from junior high trying to hold in the tears until I made it to my bedroom. He saw me building walls so that no one could be let in enough to hurt me. He knew where I was coming from. And when God looks at those girls, what did He see? What was going on in their lives, that they would feel like they needed to be mean girls? I don’t know.

But I know this: When we have charity, we no longer see through a glass darkly, but face to face. The clear-sightedness of charity, that ability to really see everyone as God sees them, is a promise that begins in this life and continues for eternity. I find my vision clouding, but I cling to the promise of clear-sightedness found in the scriptures, and to the clarity I find in the temple. And I pray, with all the energy of my heart, for the gift of clear-sighted charity. For me, and for my tender children, who have not yet been wounded. Not yet.

Related posts:

1. Putting Away Childish Things
2. Sticks and stones
3. Stop Murmur. Learn Doctrine. Do Crafts (if you want.)

But I digress. On this day, as he was giving me advice and I was trying not to bristle too much, my district leader said something that changed my mission. “Every week in companionship planning I give my companion a blessing,” he said. “And he gives me one too.”

“I can’t do that,” I said. (duh.) “Sisters can’t give each other blessings every week.”

I don’t know what I expected him to say. Maybe something like “then pray for each other–you can do that.” But he said, “Ask your district leader.”

“But every week?” I said.

“Every week, hermana,” he said. “As a missionary, don’t you need extra help from the Lord every single week?”

I don’t remember anything else about our conversation, except that I went home and wrestled with this suggestion. It seemed like a blessing should be for when I had extra need, an extra above-and-beyond challenge to deal with. On the other hand, every single week, every day of my mission, was full of challenges. But then again, I felt sheepish asking for a blessing every week. Whoever heard of that? I did not want the elders to roll their eyes at me and my neediness.

After mulling it around, and pondering the frequent repetition of the line “Ask and ye shall receive,” in the scriptures, I decided to do it. I gathered up my humility and asked for a blessing, every week. Please note: I’m NOT saying that every missionary or every person should do this. I’m just sharing my experience… This is what happened:

Some district leaders, I could tell, were struggling to be patient with me. One in particular said the same thing every week. But I asked anyway. For me, it was an act of humility and faith. Sometimes it was weird, or awkward. Sometimes I felt like I was being needy.

But mostly, getting a priesthood blessing every week was amazing. It was one of the things that strengthened me the most in the last half of my mission, when I was bone-weary. During my most difficult companionship, the words of my blessings helped me know that God knew where I was at, and He would help me love this challenging sister. Another time an elder gave me a prophetic blessing, in which he said “Nothing that happens this week is your fault.” That was the week in which our investigator failed to show up to her baptism, for reasons she did not share with us until after. I drew so much strength and comfort from those words, a preemptive absolving of my guilt.

In my last area, my district leader read into my heart, everything I was thinking and feeling as I ended my mission, that only God could know. I sat every week and felt the weight of his hands on my head, and the tears pouring down my face. I hope he has had a happy life since then; his blessings (God’s blessings, conveyed through him) gave me the strength to finish my mission well, when I was squeezing out every bit of energy I could muster.

Since then I have not asked for blessings nearly so often. They are more special-occasion events, and I think that’s all right. I am not living with quite the intensity I had as a missionary. And, it shouldn’t be, but sometimes it’s still hard to ask my husband for a blessing. It’s an open acknowledgment that I need help.

When do you ask for blessings? often? or on a special-need basis? How have you been blessed through priesthood blessings? or maybe struggled with them?

Related posts:

1. Money, Money, Money, Money
2. Pioneer Day Fatigue
3. Fly, Little Bird, Fly!

I have great talks with the women I visit. I respect and admire them. I have brought them bread. I go every month (sometimes the last week, but still, every month). But there is a gap, a barrier, because they have years of life experience that I cannot know or empathize with fully. A couple of years ago I visited a sister who was struggling with her teenage kids. She shared some of her concern with me, and I … I don’t remember what I said. I think I told her that she was a good mom. But I kept wondering why I was assigned to visit her, because I felt like she would be better served by someone who could say “me too! My teenagers gave me fits as well! But you’ll get through this.” Instead, she got me, and I have young kids who are busy but not yet teenagers. I wanted to empathize but I felt inadequate.

My favorite times as a visiting teacher are when people trust me enough to allow me to help them. I visited a sister a few years ago who had the hardest time letting me bring dinner when she was sick… but she had little kids, and she really needed it. When she finally agreed, I felt so good. She let me see her vulnerability and help her through it. It was a gift.

I’ve been thinking about this especially because yesterday in Relief Society the sister that I visit mentioned that she was having a rough day recently, and someone anonymous did something kind to help her. It wasn’t me. I’m not even clued in to her life enough to know that she was struggling. And the same is true of the other sister I visit: I don’t keep on top of her world enough to know what her true needs are.

I can’t help but wonder, with both of them, if I were closer to their age, even just a little older, would I be able to meet their needs better? Would they trust me more, because we would have walked some of the same paths? Or, what is more likely, am I just using age difference as a cop out, when what I really need to do is invest more energy praying for them?

Does anyone else out there see an age gap in the way we serve each other, that middle-aged women help out younger women, but that the reverse is not always true? or is it just me?

Related posts:

1. The Home Teacher
2. How to be a good Visit Teachee. Or not.
3. Making a Memory