Our Father's Ways!

This article was co-authored by Katie Purdie.
(Click here to receive a free sample of my book, The Three Pillars of Zion. Use the code Meridian to receive 20% discount.)

Recently, my daughter, Katie, was in charge of a teen retreat for the Utah Hemophilia Foundation. As part of their experience, the young people were introduced to a technique of taming a wild horse called gentling. During the process, she learned something about the way God might gentle us into a relationship of trust to tame our “natural man” and thus reach our potential.

The day began by observing a skilled master trainer work with a wild, three-year-old filly. The young horse had never been ridden and was on high alert, skittish to any movement or noise. The master explained that fear is the obstacle to be overcome. Why? Because wild horses instinctively interpret their environment through the filter of fear. For instance, a sudden noise or a slight touch could be a snake, or the appearance of a man could represent a predator, like a mountain lion. Understanding the horse’s innate fears of being isolated in a corral away from its herd and how it processes foreign sounds, touches and sensations help the master patiently reduce the animal’s apprehension and eventually gain its confidence.
Gentling is light-years removed from the method of breaking a horse shown in westerns. Whereas19th century techniques were violent, abusive and forced, causing the horse to fear its master, gentling is loving, patient, and understanding, allowing the animal to use its agency to learn to obey and trust. Ultimately, the horse chooses to submit to the gentle persuasions of its master. The horse master described gentling as “TLC”—trust, learning and communication. The master and the horse must first learn to trust each other before the horse can learn the most basic of commands. In the process, the horse and master discover how to communicate with each other.

Becoming Acquainted

The training had already begun about three weeks before Katie and her group arrived that day to observe the final steps. During the ensuing weeks, the master had started with the end-goal in mind: to be able to saddle and ride the horse; to become one with the horse. Understanding that the end-goal could not be achieved unless the filly felt comfortable with him, the master had begun the painstaking process of desensitizing the animal to its fears in order to gain its trust.
The training process began by placing the horse in a circular corral so it could not cower in a corner and feel trapped. Then introductions ensued; the master and the horse had to get to know each other. This was not so easy. Remember, the horse instinctively sees the master as dangerous. Therefore, to neutralize the animal’s fear, the master had employed a non-threatening strategy to help the filly become used to him.

Standing a distance away, the master first climbed into the corral and stood at the opposite end. The horse was upset at first, but when she settled down and accepted him into her space, the master began a slow approach toward her as he spoke in a quiet, reassuring voice. If the horse bolted, the master would stop and retreat a pace, allowing her to accept his presence and nearness; then the master would try taking a few steps toward her again. With each approach, the master respected the horse’s agency and yielded to her desire to allow him to draw near. Now, after three weeks of becoming acquainted, Katie’s teens would watch the master perfect his work.

Accepting the Master’s Touch

By this time, the master could place his hands upon the filly, softly at first, then he applied more pressure as she would allow. The act of touching and applying more and more pressure served to establish a trusting connection between the two. Next, the master employed a long rod that acted as an extension of his arm. To the end of the rod, he tied a sack. Then, as if to simulate a snake, he drew it close to the horse’s hind quarters, rattling the sack around near the ground and sometimes brushing against the legs. Later, when he had desensitized the horse from this supposed danger, he rattled the sack near or touched it on other parts of the horse’s body.
The master made no sudden moves, but spoke comfortingly as he gently brought the sack close. Beyond desensitizing the animal from its instinct to interpret the sounds and motions of the sack as that of a snake, the tactic had another purpose: to help the horse learn to trust the master when he placed foreign objects in the horse’s proximity.
At first, the filly hated the sack. For an hour, she shied, bolted and ran the circumference of the corral before she settled down. Finally, she seemed to realize that the master could be trusted and that the sack was not dangerous. Then the master would introduce a new object: a rope or a saddle, for instance. Each time the master presented her with something foreign, the filly had to start all over again with learning to trust the master with this new object.
And the timeframe was essentially the same each time. The time it took for the filly to get used to the rod and the sack approximated the time it took for her to accept the rope and the saddle. Only the gentle patience of the master helped her through this essential process. Unless she could trust the master when unknown objects or sounds burst upon her environment, she could not prove trustworthy or safe to ride. Eventually, she allowed the master to introduce a number of objects and sounds to her without fear.

Increasing the Level of Trust through Advanced Learning

Next, the master discarded the rod and sack and introduced a rope, an object that the horse would have to learn tolerate every day of its life. Of course, the rope looked very much like a snake, so the animal’s immediate reaction was fear, especially when the master swung the rope around his head. Again, the master made no threatening or sudden movements, but he employed reassuring communication as he attempted to gain the horse’s trust with this foreign object.

At length, when the horse began to settle down, the master let the horse feel the rope on various parts of its body. If the filly reared or bolted at the touch, the master would withdraw until the horse calmed down, then he would approach her again and let her feel the rope until she accepted it. Each time, the horse chose how much it would allow.
Interestingly, the master never let up. If the horse acquired one skill, the master would immediately build upon that skill by introducing a harder skill. The process was exhausting for both the master and the horse, but if the master backed off and didn’t push forward, the horse would regress, become lazy, forget the skill and never arrive at the completion of its training. By design, then, the master could never give the horse a break.
He had to continue to apply the pressure of training for the horse’s sake, introducing progressively tougher concepts, one right after another.
All the while, however, the master allowed the horse its agency and timing; how much and when it would learn were completely a matter of choice. Again, with each acquired skill, the horse seemed to gain more trust in and understanding of the master and become more and more submissive as it progressively let go of fear and resistance.

On the Right Side and the Left Side

Another fascinating observation made by Katie’s teens was that the master taught the horse its skills both on the right side and then on the left side. If the horse only learned to tolerate the sack or the rope on its left side, for instance, she could never be ridden and would forget what it had learned. The skill was not completely perfected until the horse could perform equally well on either side and under any condition. The master’s purpose was to train the horse thoroughly.

Ready for the Bridle

As mentioned, one of the most difficult challenges was for the horse to accept the feel of the rope, especially on its head. For an hour, the master approached and retreated, attempting to touch the rope to the horse’s head. He always yielded to the horse’s choice. When the animal finally allowed the rope to touch the face, the master began the painstaking process of looping the rope over the horse’s head so that she could be lead. At first, the horse resisted the rope around its neck, so the master removed it to let the horse relax and think about its choice. Then he would try again and again.
When the horse finally allowed the rope to be looped over its head, the master moved the rope to the girth and attempted to loop the rope around the horse’s middle. Then he alternatively synched and loosened the rope at different spots to simulate a saddle. As always, the horse decided if and when it would choose to tolerate the new sensation.
Every time that she was presented with a new object or felt a new sensation on different parts of her body, she would buck and bolt then eventually settle down. Finally, when she was convinced she was safe, she would allow it. At the end of the day, the master was able to bridle and saddle her without resistance.

God’s Gentling Work

Have we ever wondered why we never seem to get a break in this life? Often trials come sequentially or simultaneously with no time to catch our breath. Have we ever considered that a Master Trainer is working with us to an end that we cannot presently envision?
How might this training ensue? Might he start by corralling us into a foreign area, isolating us from a comfortable environment and relationships? Now we sense him climb in with us, inviting us to sense his presence and get used to him. Then he takes a step toward us. Do we bolt and grow apprehensive?
Imagine how he patiently waits for us to accept him and the objects and lessons that he places before us. Imagine how he reaches out to us from a distance and finally places his hands upon us, softly at first, then applying more pressure until we fully accept his touch. With any of his approaches, if we react with fear or mistrust, he withdraws a pace to let us regroup, but he never exits the corral. He is always there, advancing and stepping back as needed, speaking reassuring words, always encouraging us to accept him and his lessons, applying increasing pressure, introducing new ideas, helping us to perfect new skills, first on one side and then on the other. Always with the end goal in mind!
All of this training is our choice, of course. How fast we accept him and his teaching is totally up to us. When we finally trust that both God and his ways are neither dangerous nor limiting, we allow him to lay the rope and saddle upon us and lead us to a new life in which we become one with him. This new life and skill set are safe, secure, fulfilling, saturated with freedom and enlightenment.
We discover that we want him in our space. We need him touching us and speaking comforting, encouraging words. We desire his training, which is borne out of love after all. We find that we are so much more with him than without him. Our life will never be the same when we finally recognize and accept the gentling hands of God.


I was so touched by this. I have come to know Him better.

Enjoy!

One simple piece of insight.

It is vital that husbands become aware of what matters most to their wives. In fact, what matters most to her must be top on the list of what matters most to you. If you love and adore her, then let her know by your actions. Do not diminish what is important to her. If you can’t figure out what matters to her then ask her. As you pay attention to this, showing honor to her, she will return the love and will, likewise, adore you. What matters to you will then become vitally important to what matters to her.

A great article for all to read in Meridian Magazine May 10, 2011. By Joy and Gary Lundberg.

Remember though, ladies, this works both ways.

Smartmarriages.com, I love what they teach.

We finally know what's different about couples that stay happily married. It's not that they are better matched, better looking, more in love or more passionate. It's not that they have fewer differences or less to fight about. In fact . . .

In fact, successful couples have the same number of
disagreements as couples who divorce.
Even more interesting, research shows that all couples disagree about the same
basic issues - money, kids, sex, housework, in-laws, and time.

The difference between successful and unsuccessful
couples is how they handle these differences.

Successful couples disagree in a way that
makes their relationship stronger.
They also have other skills, knowledge, and attitudes that help
them build and maintain happiness and satisfaction.

The good news is that anyone can
learn to do it – marriage – better and smarter.
Couples can unlearn the behaviors that destroy
love and replace them with the behaviors
that keep their love alive.

Learning what to expect in marriage as you go through the
different stages is an important first step. Then learning
the skills to manage the predictable challenges (differences) along the way,
will give you confidence and a "can do" attitude – success breeds more success;
you'll build marriage muscles.

The other good news is that you can learn all this in simple and affordable Marriage Education classes.
Also, good news, is that there are many different courses - many
different programs and classes from which to choose. Sample and shop till you find your favorites.


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My heart breaks for so many couples that end their marriages before they even get started. They are in effect disillusioned. And they don't realize just how much work it really does take. I don't proclaim to have all the answers, but I do know it takes diligence in learning a "better way". No one is exempt.

Common List of Common Parenting Problems by Richard and Linda Eyre!

Another List of Common Parenting Problems

In our ­last article we focused on a group of parenting challenges that are solved partly by remembering that our children are our spiritual brothers and sisters.

This time we turn our attention to a different list of commonly faced parenting challenges (or should we say common difficulties or problems that kids have.)

1.Entitlement
2.Laziness
3.Dishonesty
4.Whining and complaining
5.Being spoiled by Grandparents
6.Guilt and Secrecy
7.Bad choices and wrong decisions
Rather than doing nothing about these, and rather than relying on parenting methods and techniques suggested by various gurus or behavioral scientists, how about paying better attention to what we know about how God parents us!

Following the Example of the Real Father

While other religions may call God “Father” as a term of respect or a way of subjugating themselves to Him, we have a very different reason and a much more literal meaning when we say “Heavenly Father.”

We mean it exactly literally. He is the Father of our spirits. We were born as His spirit children and lived in His family before this world was.

And what a treasure of parenting truth we have in the way that our Heavenly Father has parented us and continues to parents us!

One of the real tragedies in the world is that bad parenting and the abuse and belittlement of children passes down from one generation of parents to the next. Scripture hints at that when it says that the sins of the fathers are visited on the children for generations, and depicts how the “traditions of the Fathers” can drag families down for hundreds of years.

There are certain parts of the third world where we love to go for many reasons, and yet at the same time hate to go it is an accepted and common part of their culture to hit children. It is the only form of discipline they know and the accepted way to show disapproval. In other cultures excessive entitlement and leniency are nearly as big of an opposite problem.

The fact is that most parents perform their parenting pretty much like their parents did, and thus a parent who changes and really turns away from the bad methods and child-damaging patterns of many generations is a true hero and may start a new and better parenting pattern that will flow down through his posterity.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the patterns we pick up and the methods and examples of parenting that we follow could be those of our Heavenly Father? If we can emulate how He raises us we will become the best parents we can be, and it will cause our children to be the best--and the happiest--that they can be.

Of course none of us will measure up to the perfection of God’s parenting, and you may wonder if we should even make the comparison. It can be daunting, even discouraging to try to follow a perfect model.

But here’s the thing: When we try, He will help! Any time we look to a mentor or model ourselves after someone we admire, that mentor does what he can to help us. How true, in the extreme, this can be when we view God himself as our ideal and work consciously to know and to follow His wise and complete example. Perhaps when we are earnestly trying and yet still fall short, He will lift us up and pull us along toward Him.

Examining how God Parents

So here is a list of some of the things we know about how God, our Heavenly Father parents us.

1.Complete, unconditional love. We know that God has a deep and unconditional love for each of us and that His love is individual rather than collective.

2.God sees (and treats) each child as a unique and eternal individual. He knows each of us perfectly and loves the uniqueness that makes us each who we are.

3.God gives clear, simple laws with well-announced consequences, rewards, and punishments. Our Heavenly Father has never been subtle or ambiguous about His rules. He wrote them in stone.

4.God allows His children the chance to repent. Heavenly Father wants none of us to fail. His laws are not negotiable, and He knows we will fall short, so there is a provision for repentance.

5.God taught us and trained us and held us close throughout the pre-mortal life; and then He gave us choices and let us go. God, in His marvelous model for parenting, held us close, kept us with Him in his home, and taught us all He could for eons. And then, when further progress required the responsibility, choice-making, independence and families-of-our-own that could not happen in His presence, He gave us our agency and let us go.

6.God allows us constant availability to Him through prayer, and suggests regular communication. With God, there are certain set times when we anticipate spiritual communication--when we partake of the sacrament, when we kneel in family prayer, when we have our personal bedtime prayers. These are like set appointments for spiritual meetings that will keep us in tune and in touch.

7.God finds joy in his children and in His relationship with them.
God’s “glory” is the progress and eternal lives of His children, and “joy” is the purpose for which He made mortality. We know that he takes joy in our progress, in our learning, and in His individual relationship with each of us.

Thinking about and Applying the Example

Now, with these models in our minds, we can revisit our initial list of common problems and begin to think about how following Divine parenting patterns might impact them.

The more we dwell on Heavenly Father’s example, the better parents we will become and the more our “natural man” reactions will be replaced by the proactive and deliberate parenting methods of God.

Problem List, Revisited
1.Entitlement: Having what we want, when we want it, and thinking everything is owed to us was never part of God’s plan for us, nor should it be part of ours for our kids.

2.Laziness: Heavenly Father’s
approach leaves no room for idleness. Neither should ours

3.Dishonesty: The reward for truth must always be greater than the punishment for the deed one has confessed.

4.Whining and complaining: They happen more in situations of compulsion than when there is agency and choice

5.Being spoiled by Grandparents: Get your parents to buy into your responsibility-giving approach so they don’t become an easier way for kids to get what they want.

6.Guilt and secrecy: Children who commit to and are rewarded for truth, and who understand how to repent will not carry around the guilt and secrets that undermine their happiness

7.Bad choices: Knowing God’s pattern for making good decisions can trump the peer pressure that is responsible for most bad ones.
Of course nothing is easy, but at least we have a pattern to follow and a perfect example to emulate!

Tune in next article when we will explore the third spiritual solution, that of special, parent-to-Parent prayer

The Eyres recently released new book is 5 Spiritual Solutions for Everyday Parenting Challenges. They are the founders of Joy Schools and of valuesparenting.

I LOVE this!

Brigham Young gave wise counsel to parents. Notice the highlighted part in the context of the rest. “Bring up your children in the love and fear of the Lord; study their dispositions and their temperaments, and deal with them accordingly, never allowing yourself to correct them in the heat of passion; teach them to love you rather than to fear you, and let it be your constant care that the children that God has so kindly given you are taught in their early youth the importance of the oracles of God, and the beauty of the principles of our holy religion, that when they grow to the years of man and womanhood they may always cherish a tender regard for them and never forsake the truth” (Discourses of Brigham Young, p. 207).

Perhaps one of the best ways to teach our children about God is to be godly with them—to tune in to their needs and preferences and draw them toward God with our love. We cannot drive or compel them to heaven; they must be drawn with gentleness and kindness.

Goodness.

Goodness, I think I really need Spring. The sunshine really restores my outlook on life. I find myself feeling as if I am an annoyance to others. And then I don't feel as worthwhile or needed. Crazy how that goes. A cycle?

I need to know where I stand with others, especially those who are close to me.

I do probably need a little more cardio, and a little less candy eggs. Shoot.

Now I know there are those out there who may say "pity party", but when you write things down, it puts it in perspective that will help you see the real reality.

So maybe I do need Spring, and maybe I do need to know where I stand with others, maybe I do need a little more understanding a little more cardio and less sugar. Whatever it is, I hope it will come soon. Because I do feel a little depressed.

My gorgeous children!

So I had to take this from Lara's camera as I am one very proud Mama Preston!

They are beautiful and wonderful children! Couldn't be more blessed!! Well, the

grandchildren, now that's even more blessings!!