Someday

Listening to: 2006 In Its Right Place - Ladies First

This is a result of some things I've been thinking about all week, culminating in a lesson I taught in Elders' Quorum today. This will get preachy, so if that bothers you, move on.

We all have those "Someday I will ..." things that we consider from time to time. Mine is that someday I will learn to play the acoustic guitar that currently collects dust in my closet. What gets scary is when those "someday" things are more important than that, like "someday I will foster a better relationship with my children" or "someday I will read the scriptures and find out if they're true" or "someday I will forgive my enemy".

Why would that be scary? Because we don't know how many someday's we will get. That point got rammed home for me this week. An acquaintance, someone with a great mind and superior writing skill, and a great friend to many of my friends, died last week suddenly. As I dealt with the loss, I thought of what he left behind. the man had plans, good plans: he was moving to Europe to be with his paramour, he was making inroads in his writing career. Now, he's got no more someday's to make those things happen. That's what hurts most; what could have been?

In the Book of Mormon, here's how it gets laid out:
And now, as I said unto you before, as ye have had so many witnesses, therefore, I beseech of you that ye do not procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end; for after this day of life, which is given us to prepare for eternity, behold, if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor performed.
Ye cannot say, when ye are brought to that awful crisis, that I will repent, that I will return to my God. Nay, ye cannot say this; for that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world. (Alma 34:33-34)

Here's how it reads: Someday will only get us in trouble is "someday" does not mean "this day". This day is the day to make the changes I want to make in my life. I don't know how many days I have left. Naturally, I hope to have many many more, but the point is, I don't know, so why not live today to its fullest?

With that in mind, here's a few things that I intend to do to get where I know I need to be:

• Start my days with some time to pray and read the scriptures by myself. I'm real good about doing those things with the boys, but I need to do it myself.


• Remember that my boys start their day just as groggy as I do, so don't jump on them in the mornings for little things. I need to be the one setting the tone in the mornings.


• Make sure I'm getting my work done during the day; maybe spend a bit less time playing around on the Internet.


• Invite our neighbors, the ones with whom Jordan has become friends, to our church's Halloween activity, and maybe slip them a pass-along card while I'm at it.


• Stop staying awake until all hours of the night, especially when I know I need to get up at 6:15 every weekday morning.


• And, just for the heck of it, get that darn guitar out of the closet and start practicing my scales again.