In the past few months a lot has happened and its so nice to say that I forgot to blog because I was busy and not because I was so so sick! October was really the start of a new beginning for me because I hit a sweet spot with medication doses and prayers were answered and some stars somewhere probably aligned and some how by some miracle I was able to go with my family to Disneyland! I haven't been since I was like 3 or 4 so it was pretty much a completely new adventure for me. Just the fact that I made it through the 10+ hour car drive was amazing but even after riding in the car all day, I was able to go to the beach and walk (!!!) on the sand and dip my toes in the water:)
We took it slow on the rides and we went back to the hotel (which was right across the street from the park, way to go mom!) for the hottest part of the day because even though it was October California decided to have a mini heat wave, so it was 90's to 100's everyday!
November was full of cleaning the basement. We have this room that we call the "green room" which earned its name by the green paint and the dark green carpet. Its not actually a bedroom, its just the room that is at the bottom of the stairs to the basement. And since it has had no particular purpose it has become the "catch all" room that stuff we don't know what to do with migrates to. So after a week of wading through boxes, dad installing a beautiful wall of mango wood cabinetry, we organized pictures into cupboards and got a guest bed ready for when siblings were coming for Christmas. It was quite a bit of work but with the cabinets I think the room will be more inclined to stay tidy. Obviously somewhere in between all that cleaning there was thanksgiving that we had at my aunt's house and it was so lovely. And around that same time I was able to attend my first ever sealing, when my dear cousin got married!
December came in with her own list of projects to be had. We had ripped of the 23 year old carpet on the stairs and were working on painting them and adding carpet sample squares. Sounds weird but it turned out great! Granted I didn't help much on this project but I did do a bunch of touch up paint on the wall on the other side of the stairs that had some patch work to be done after the carpet was pulled up.
All that painting lead to painting the lower kitchen cabinets with some $7 grey "oops" paint. It was hard work but definitely not as hard as I thought it would be and so well worth it because they look great! We also painted the kitchen walls a light grey and that upped the look of the kitchen a ton. After the holidays we plan on painting the upper cabinets white and that will take the 90s look all the way out of there haha. One of the other pluses of painting is the listening to book on tapes part of it, its been so interesting to listen to "To the Rescue", a biography about Thomas S. Monson.
The one last project that just got finished up is some crown molding with LED lighting behind it in my bedroom. I LOVE it so much! Its perfect dimmed all the way down for when I have a migraine and gives extra light to my dark north facing window room. Dad designed and made these beautiful corner pieces out of onyx that are see threw enough that the light shine through them.
That takes us right up to Christmas and since this blog post has gotten outta hand in length I applaud any of you who have made it thus far! Christmas was perfect. We had everyone home, it was magical and I couldn't have been more excited about some of the presents I was giving! I end up getting some amazing presents, including a Teddy Roosevelt t-shirt:) Also a beautiful necklace and earrings that I wore to speak in church....on CHRISTMAS SUNDAY!! Here's a screen shot of what my heart was doing right that the moment before I spoke:
Once I got up there and got going though it was fine. I got to sit down in a padded chair with my feet up on another chair. I was asked about a week or two in advance by the bishop who said that if it stressed me out to much he wanted me to say no but I felt the Lord had something he wanted me to share with our ward. I was originally only going to speak for 5ish mins but when I was finished I looked at the clock and realised I am more long winded than I thought, I spoke for 15 mins! My first "real" talk in church, as an adult and not a youth speaker went rather well, considering I didn't pass out we'll call it a success! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas full of happiness, love and celebrations of Christ!
If you're interested in reading the talk I gave I've included it here, just know that I did go of scripted quite a bit but this is pretty close to what I said:)
Merry Christmas! For those of you who don’t know me I’m
Michelle Cutler, Pamela and David Cutler’s daughter. Also I feel like I have to address the
informal seating situation I have going on here. Due to some health challenges,
namely one called P.O.T.S. standing is very difficult for me, even having my
feet below me for too long will cause blood pooling in my legs which means that
there won’t be enough in my head which leads to fainting. Add in the fact that I produce at least 4
times as much adrenaline as a normal person, we have a pretty good list of
reasons why I’m not big on public speaking.
Even with all that in mind I wasn’t that surprised when Bishop asked me
to speak in church because I think the Lord must have put it in my head that it
was coming so I would be less likely to panic at the thought. The part I was surprised at was that Bishop
asked me to speak on Christmas Sunday.
No pressure, right? Though this is outside my comfort zone, what better
way to celebrate the Lord’s birth than expressing my testimony about Christ? As I thought about what message I wanted to
share with you, I thought of Christ’s love and the incredibly vital
relationship I’ve come to have with Him through these last few years of trials.
Because of that I want to talk to you about Christ’s unconditional love and
focus on examining our own personal relationships with Him.
In order to build a more successful, deeper relationship
with someone we must first get to know who they really are, as well as discover
who we really are. So who is Christ? In
the book of John there are 7 “I am” statement of the Lord that helps us get to
know Him, today I’m going to focus on the first 5.
The first I AM statement is from John 6:35 “And Jesus
said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall
never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.”
What I
get from this verse is that not only are we promised that He will provide for
our needs but it reiterates what I already know to be deeply true, that we can
not survive without Him, that without Him we will continuously hunger for
something more. One of my favorite
scriptures stories is the one about Peter walking on water and last Christmas
my sister Nicole gave me a beautiful painting of this very story. It hangs on
the wall across from my bed where I can see it every day. It depicts a dark stormy sea with Christ
walking towards a boat full of men.
Christ is bright white and calm.
From the scriptures we know that Peter walks out on the water to greet
the Lord but begins to sink when he looks away from the Savior. He then calls out asking for Christ to save
him, when Christ grabs his hand he asks why Peter doubted. Peter always had
enough faith to walk on water, if he didn’t he wouldn’t have gotten out of the
boat in the first place. Peter faltered
because he looked away from Christ, he looked down at the sea and trusted his
mortal eyes that told him he could not walk on water. I think we all doubt in the way Peter did
momentarily. We have enough faith to get out of the boat, and often we even
succeed in getting almost to our goal but we fall when we rely on anything
besides the Savior.
The 2nd I AM statement is in John 8:12 ¶Then
spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world:
he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have
the light of life.
Light gives knowledge, when you
turn on a light it a dark room then you know what’s there. When C.S. Lewis
described his faith in Christ, he said; “I believe in Christ like I believe in
the sun- not because I can see it, but by it I can see everything else”
This might be my favorite I AM
statement because it immediately brings to mind the hymn “The Lord is my light”
which then continues to say “then why should I fear?’. I remember being about 17 when I was
hospitalized for the first time. I
didn’t want to go to the hospital, I didn’t want to be poked and prodded and
then told that I was making up my symptoms.
I just remember laying in bed the night before we were supposed to check
into the hospital praying and crying out to the Lord telling Him how scared I
was, and how I wasn’t up to the task at hand.
Then I opened my scriptures to a random place and read 2 Nephi chapter
22 verse 2 Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be
afraid; for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and
my song; he also has become my salvation. Even though no diagnosed came
from that hospital stay I gained a strong testimony that the Lord is aware of
my needs and my fears, and that He knows my limits and capabilities even better
than I do.
The 3rd statement is in John 10:7 Then said
Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am
the door of the sheep.
Now
this one was kind of hard for me to understand at first but this verse is said
after Jesus tells a parable about sheep, and that robbers go over the fence to
steal and scatter the sheep but that the true shepherd only uses the door or
gate to get to his sheep. The people
didn’t understand this parable so Jesus explain with this verse that he is the
door to the sheep or in other words he is the way to our Heavenly Father and
that through Him we may get to our Father the right way. After I understood it
better it made me think of the priesthood and how it is another gate or pathway
to the Lord. When priesthood is used in
its proper way it can give us a direct link to those on high, it can enable
healing and comfort that pierces the soul in a way that can only be
divine. A memory from last Christmas
that I will forever hold dear to me is when my grandpa Wally gave me an amazing
blessing. My mom’s parent’s always go to
Arizona for the winter so we usually do our Erickson Thanksgiving in October
and then we don’t see them again until around April so the fact that they came
up and were around for Christmas last year was such a pleasant surprise. We were all sitting around playing card games
and singing Christmas carols when I got the impression that I needed to ask
grandpa for a blessing, I didn’t want to interrupt so I didn’t say anything for
a while but the feeling persisted and my mom must have gotten the same feeling
too because we both suggested it. My
Grandpa and dad laid they’re hands on my head and grandpa spoke one of the most
beautiful blessings I have ever heard. I
was blessed with health and recovery and that a doctor would be able to help
me. I hadn’t really even been to a
doctor at all that year, I had just kind of given up on them but I had an
appointment with a new doctor just a few weeks after Christmas who has been a
huge part of why I’m not bedridden. When
grandpa finished the blessing I looked up and saw tears in his eyes, I have
only seen my grandpa cry a handful of times so it was a pretty big deal. I was able to stand and give him a hug which
was also a pretty big deal. Grandpa proceeded to tell us all that he had only
felt the spirit like one other time; when he was a giving a blessing that
healed his uncle who had blood clots through his whole body and was only given
a few weeks to live. That blessing
healed him and left a lasting impacted on my grandpa. I didn’t know when I had that strong impression
over and over that I would only get to see my grandpa one more time in this
life. He died very suddenly just a few
weeks later. When I had the prompting I didn’t know that the blessing I was
given would be the start of a whole new chapter of my life because since then I
have gotten progressively better. The
Lord knew my needs, he knew that my grandpa was the best way to bestow
blessings on me at that moment. He knew
how much it would mean to me because of how close my grandpa and I have always
been and the Lord also knew how comforting it would be for grandpa to know that
I was going to be okay, that he had done his part and that the Lord would look
out for me.
The 4th statement is John 10:11 and 14) I
am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for
the sheep. 14) I am the good shepherd,
and know my sheep, and am known of mine.
I love
the last segment in this verse, “(I) know my sheep and am known of mine”. What I love about that statement is that what
makes Him a good shepherd is not only that He takes the time to know who we
are, it’s that he is inviting and encouraging us to come to know HIM.
Here we have this all powerful, perfect being that knows us wholey and
completely and its incredibly important to Him that we get to know of Him, that
he doesn’t wall Himself off from us, that He is not an angry condescending
Lord, He is making a statement that it is His job to have His arms open to us.
The 5th is John 11:25 Jesus said unto her, I
am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in
me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
God asks so little of us, do the
little thing of believing and He will give us the greatest thing in existence:
life. He loves us so much that he was willing to suffer every ache every pain,
whether it be emotional, physical, spiritual, or mental; whether it be brought
on by sin or whether it is just brought on by mere mortality. If He loves us that amazing, immeasurable
amount what does that say about us? What does it say about our worth? Often we base our worth on other things, even
good things such as our family and friends or on our strengths but those can
become unstable crutches if we lean on them too heavily. We need to learn how to feel and be of worth
because of our eternal identity not because of outside influences. Through
life’s trials we are stripped of all our “crutches” in order to have something
better, a confidence and love for yourself that is based only on the love of
Christ. Donald L. Hallstom put it best when he said; “No matter what your
circumstances are it is essential that our preeminent identity is as a child of
God”
All of these I AM statements boil down to one simple thing.
That thing is Love, Christ is the bread because he doesn’t want those he loves
to go hungry; Christ is the light because He wants to share knowledge and power
with His loved ones; Christ is the door because he loves His sheep enough to
protect them and guide them in which way they should go; Christ is the Good
Shepard because he would never let even one loved sheep get lost without going
after it and Christ is the resurrection and the life because His love for us
enabled Him to suffer the Atonement for all of us to have the opportunity to
live again. Through writing this talk I’ve relearned how much God really knows
us and how He is waiting for us to search the scriptures and know of Him, He’s
waiting for us to utilize the Atonement and come unto Him. We need to believe and take to heart the
words of the 4th verse of the hymn “I believe in Christ” which says:
“I believe in Christ;
he stands supreme!
From him I'll gain my fondest dream;
And while I strive through grief and pain,
His voice is heard: "Ye shall obtain."
I believe in Christ; so come what may,
With him I'll stand in that great day
When on this earth he comes again
To rule among the sons of men.”
