Tonight was the General Relief Society broadcast for church. Relief Society is the women’s organization for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It’s a world-wide organization, with the motto, “Charity never faileth.” Every woman who is a member of the LDS church, on turning 18 or graduating from high school (whichever comes later) becomes a member of this great organization.

Every year, there’s a General Relief Society broadcast, where women gather all around the world to listen to messages especially for them from the leaders of the world-wide Relief Society and from the prophet. Sadly, though I’ve been a part of Relief Society for almost 12 years, I haven’t attended many of these broadcasts. I’ll read the messages later in the church’s magazines, but I don’t remember attending many of the broadcasts themselves.

Tonight, I was nervous about attending. There was a dinner after the broadcast, and I immediately reverted to that high school/teenager self. “What if nobody I know is there? Who will I sit with?” But more than that, I’ve been fairly whiney and down about things lately. It got to the point this week that I was in tears during a morning prayer, saying things like, “Help us remember that Thou knowest we are here.” Rich told me guilt-tripping God might not be the best approach, but I wasn’t trying to do that as much as plead for help from heaven to keep at least a glimmer of hope in my heart. (This, after posting my Lemons to Lemonade post, I know – it’s not easy remembering the lemonade.) I had a feeling I needed to attend, though I felt like the child who knows she’s in trouble but doesn’t want to hear it and gets defensive, justifying her behavior, even though she knows she’s in the wrong.

The first hymn we sang nearly had me crying: Count Your Blessings. First verse:

When upon life’s billows you are tempest-tossed,
When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,
Count your many blessings; name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.

By the third verse, I had to stop singing to avoid the tears:

When you look at others with their lands and gold,
Think that Christ has promised you his wealth untold.
Count your many blessings; money cannot buy
Your reward in heaven nor your home on high.

And we’d just barely sung the opening hymn!

The messages were so beautiful. First, that there is strength in the Relief Society, and that the Lord loves us and has a purpose for us, and history teaches us who we are. Second, we have a specific role to play in this life, and we need to stay faithful, say your prayers, study the scriptures, and serve others. Third, to see visiting teaching as a way to bless others’ lives, not just something we have to do once a month, to love as Christ loves. And then, the prophet’s message – do not judge others, but love, instead. While not all necessarily directly related to the employment situation, I felt like I’ve been slacking or failing in each of the areas discussed tonight. I really could be doing much better, being more grateful, more kind, more gentle, more loving, less crabby and grumpy, less judgmental of those I’ve had interviews with who sounded so eager to help me find something and who I haven’t heard back from.

In the end, I felt humbled, and so grateful I went to the broadcast. As I knew in my heart, I definitely needed to be there.

I finally finished the LOTR trilogy; turns out we don’t have the extended version for the 3rd movie, which, honestly, is fine…200 minutes for the non-extended version is good enough, as are the 6 different endings. I still am irritated by the fact they did 6 endings, and did NOT show the cleansing of the Shire. The only ending I really enjoy is the one where Aragorn is crowned. The rest…Frodo’s raised-eyebrow-nearly-crying-kind-of-smiling look just grates on me.

I mentioned in the first movie that one of my random thoughts was the fact that winning a battle with the Balrog makes your hair go straight. It seems that continued in the rest of the movies, as Viggo Mortensen’s hair gets all straight and pretty after the battle at Gondor.

I also love that Samwise Gamgee turns into Samwise Bodybuilder Gamgee at the final moments up the side of Mount Doom. Exhausted, hungry, and parched, he still manages to heft Frodo up the rest of the way to the entrance to the mountain. Impressive.

I usually think of Denethor as one horribly blind and stupid guy, but this time, I realized he was incredibly selfish, too. His army is out battling the orcs and other nasties while he indulges in one heck of a pity party. I wondered if the staff who were with him, complying with his desires to take Faramir to the crypt, were glad when Gandalf showed up? Or were they just glad for the excuse for a few more moments of life away from the battle?

At the end, I realized I needed to find the books to read them. Of course, that’s adding to the list of books to read and re-read after I finish the current series I’m on…Robert Jordan’s 13-book trilogy, The Wheel of Time.

Oh, and for the record, 95% of the laundry got finished by the time I was done with the three movies. (Yes, it was a lot of laundry to catch up on, though, to be fair, the movie did slow me down a bit!)

First, a few notes from the 2nd LOTR series:

1. I’m nearly completely caught up with the ironing. Hurray for the extended versions of the three movies!
2. I posted this on FB, and still think it an overlooked item from movies 1 and 2: when you win a fight with a Balrog, your hair becomes perfectly straight.
3. As I watched the 2nd movie, I kept anticipatiting the scene which apparently is in the 3rd movie with the ruler of Gondor. I forgot about the irritation he caused me in the 2nd movie. Talk about one blind parent.
4. When Gandalf the White rides in with the riders of Rohan at the end of the big battle with the Uru-kai, I couldn’t help but be amazed at the apparent strength he must have with that staff. Where others need swords, he can accomplish the same with the staff. AND come through without a stain on his nice, white robe. Must come with being a wizard.

And now some other thoughts that have occured to me this week.

When I was laid off, I was hurt. Up until that point, I had been blessed with consistent employment. If there’s one thing I fear in life, it’s failure – feeling like a failure, failing at something I’m trying to do, looking like a failure… If it smells like failure to me, I really get scared. The first few weeks after being laid off, I had lots of hope from conversations with contracting companies and other companies who showed a tremendous amount of interest in my skills. I felt hopeful – hopeful that the phase of unemployment wouldn’t be long, and I’d be on to new endeavors soon.

Weeks kept passing, and nothing seemed to happen with all those hopeful interviews I’d had. Then we had ailing family and other concerns that occupied time, so I didn’t really dwell on the situation. Then came a networking meeting-turned interview that I was completely unprepared for. I walked away from the interview feeling like a complete idiot. We’d just returned from helping friends and family, and I hadn’t really done my homework to refresh my memory on what was on my resume at the very least, before walking into that discussion. I had the address wrong, parking blocks away from where the meeting was taking place, and arrived late for the meeting. My head was NOT clear – in fact, it was complete mush. I couldn’t remember names, dates, responsibilities, or, it seemed, how to speak intelligently. I walked away feeling like a failure.

I tried not to let it get to me, but it did. It got to the point that one of our toilets needed to be unplugged, and I worked and worked at it, but nothing would come of it. Rich looked at it and said to just leave it alone, it would probably take care of itself with all the plunging I’d just done. I did, and 5 minutes later, the toilet was fine.

That’s when I broke down. I couldn’t even successfully plunge a toilet.