Live a Life that Matters

It happens by choice!

Ready or not, someday it will all come to an end.
There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days.
All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten

 

will pass to someone else.

 

Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance.
It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.
Your grudges, resentments, frustrations, and jealousies

 

 will finally disappear.

 

So, too, your hopes, ambitions, plans, and to-do lists will expire.
The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.
It won’t matter where you came from,

 

It won’t matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant
Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.
So what will matter?

 

What will matter is not what you bought, but what you built;

 

not what you got, but what you gave.

 

What will matter is not your success, but your significance.

 

What will matter is not what you learned, but what you taught.

 

What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage

 

or sacrifice that enriched, empowered or encouraged

 

 others to emulate your example.

 

What will matter is not your competence, but your character.

 

What will matter is not how many people you knew,

 

but how many will feel a lasting loss when you’re gone.

 

What will matter is not your memories,

 

but the memories that live in those who loved you.

 

What will matter is how long you will be remembered, and for what.
Living a life that matters doesn’t happen by accident.

 

It happens by choice 

con amor,

Vero–

 

Listen to a prophets voice

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are Christians—we believe that Jesus Christ is our Savior. That said, there are plenty of beliefs that go against the grain of many modern branches of Christianity. Having a prophet is one of them. 

 

Latter-day Saints believe that God spoke directly to certain individuals in antiquity, such as Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, etc. They believe he still speaks to certain individuals, called prophets, today. Because, why wouldn’t He do the same as He did in the past?

 

Some theologians argue that the Bible holds all of the prophetic counsel we’ll ever need. But, respectfully, why? The Bible itself is simply a combination of smaller books that serve as evidence of God speaking to prophets over thousands and thousands of years. Why would he neglect us in modern times? Latter-day Saints say He hasn’t, isn’t and won’t.

 

This concept really rubs a lot of Christians the wrong way. That said, scripturally, it’s a very rare occasion when people believe in an actual, current prophet. They always seem to believe in the prophets that lived before them, but really struggle to believe in the one standing in front of them. Exhibit A: Jesus Christ himself. The most powerful of all prophets (not to mention, the Savior). The people believed in Moses and Abraham, but crucified Christ.

Despite our mortal shortcomings, Latter-day Saints believe that God has provided prophets to us today, just as he did in ancient times. Makes sense, right?

 

This weekend, October 5-6 Latter-day Saints including myself will be listening to our prophet, apostles, seventies and officers of the Church that bears His name. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

 

Con amor,

Vero

Get your Sparkles on

I have a great story to share with you today – it is a story that was shared with me and it totally inspired me to want to GET MY SPARKLE ON!  Hopefully sharing it with you will inspire you to GET YOUR SPARKLE ON too!

 

Going into this school year the daughter of a friend set a goal for herself to try and find someone she could perform an act of service for each day during her senior year of high school.  So each day before she leaves home she says a quick prayer asking Heavenly Father to help her notice someone she can help that day. 

Tonight as I talked to my friend, she told me how her daughter came home from school and shared today’s experience with her mom:  When she arrived in the lunch room with some of her friends she noticed a younger girl sitting all alone at a table.  She recognized that this was an opportunity for her to serve so she and her friends went and asked if they could sit with this girl to eat their lunch.  The young girl was clearly shy and feeling awkward about sitting alone, but nodded yes to them.  The girls sat down and began a conversation to get to know her better.  It turned out the young girl was a brand new student who had just moved to Utah from Korea last week.  She didn’t speak very good English yet, which contributed to her shyness and she was brand new to the school, just starting her sophomore year.  It was clear she felt embarrassed at being all alone and not having friends yet.  As they all ate lunch together and talking they discovered that today was this new girls 16^thbirthday….

 

I am sure that this young girl was so incredibly grateful for the friendship my friend's daughter and her friends showed to her, but the person who benefited the very most from the experience was her daughter.  It touched her so much to see that when we seek out opportunities to serve others, the Lord will help guide us to find those situations.  She loved meeting this new girl and she felt her own life was improved greatly by having met her.  She shared with her mom that each day she has looked to serve someone she has ended up making more and more friends in her life and it has really opened her eyes to just amazing it is to expand your circle of valued friends.  I could visibly see the sparkle in my daughters face as she shared how much she treasured the blessings coming back to her from serving others.

 

Just hearing about her experience today touched my life and it inspired me to want to start doing the same thing she does of starting each day asking God to help me recognize the opportunity to serve another in my day. I want to have that same sparkle that this young woman has when I get to bed at night!

 

Knowing how much it inspired me to hear about it, I decided that I should share it with all of you reading this blog too, as perhaps it will motivate more of us to wake up each day eager to find the opportunity to serve someone that day.  Then all of us can have the *SPARKLE*

 

Con amor,

Vero

 

 

How People Treat You is their Problem, How you React is yours.

 

What a great reminder and quote from Wayne Dyer, a fabulous motivational speaker.  So, often in life we find ourselves in situations where someone does something that: hurts us, is unkind to us, treats us poorly, is unfair to us, is dishonest to us, is disloyal to us, is ungrateful to us, or a myriad of other things that hurt or make us sad.

 

Often times, when that happens our initial instinct from the little devil on our shoulder is to lash back, to protect ourselves by fighting fire with fire.  After all it’s an eye for an eye right?  Wrong.  Fighting fire with fire is what I would call a lose/lose situation, and that is never good.

 

The next time that little devil on your shoulder suggests you fight fire with fire, have the little angel on the other shoulder grab the nearest fire extinguisher and put that bad boy out!

 

I cannot think of a single time in my life when lashing back at someone made me feel better.  On the contrary, the times I was dumb enough to lash back I felt small, and ashamed, and sick inside afterwards.  I truly can’t think of a single instance where I felt good about myself after lashing back.

 

Now contrast that to the times where someone hurt me and I was wise enough to take the high road and not lash back – I can honestly say that those times I was able to feel at peace with myself.  Of course my feelings were still sad and hurt, that is to be expected when someone you care about hurts you.  But despite the hurt I was able to hold my head high and feel good about how I reacted, and that allows you to feel at peace even in the midst of the worst of storms.

 

None of us can control how other people treat us in life.  We can only control how we react to it.  And let’s be honest here – reacting nice when someone else treats you mean is TOUGH!  It takes tremendous self-control and self-discipline to control your thinking and to control your temper, especially when someone hurts you, and even more so when it’s someone you cared about that hurt you. That is the absolute worst.  I have been there more times than I care to remember.  But no matter how much it hurts you have to remember that everyone will have a time when they are called to be accountable for the way they treated others.  Thus the sayings of Karma, or what you put out comes back to you, or what goes around comes around, and all those other expressions people use to describe it.  But we cannot forget that we are also one of those people who will be held accountable for how we treated others. 

 

That is the reason I keep a sticker on my wall that says “When we stand before God, we will stand alone” as a reminder that when I go before God someday to be held accountable for my behavior I won’t be able to point to someone else and say “well they did this to me first” or “yeah, but they deserved it because of what they did” because I will be there all alone, with no one I can point the finger at or blame.  It will just be me.  And regardless of what anyone else did or said or how bad it hurt, none of us can justify our bad behavior by blaming anyone else.  We had a choice to lash back or to take the high road.    We always have the choice.

 

You may not have the choice to make it hurt less, but you can certainly cause it to hurt more by losing your own integrity in the process.  And no one is worth giving that up for. Not anyone.  Make it a goal today to be kind no matter what, to take the high road, to hold your head high and be the bigger person. And if that devil on your shoulder starts acting up, tell your angel to grab the nearest fire extinguisher and take care of business!

Con amor,

Vero

Let's Roll

Wow… take two minutes to read this. The story of a brave hero:

Let’s roll 

Todd: Hello… Operator…listen to me…I can’t speak very loud. – This is an emergency. I’m a passenger on a United flight to San Francisco.. We have a situation here….Our plane has been hijacked…..can you understand me?

Lisa: (exhaling a deep breath to herself) I understand… Can the hijackers see you talking on the phone?

Todd: No

Lisa: Can you tell me how many hijackers are on the plane?

Todd: There are three that we know of.

Lisa: Can you see any weapons? What kind of weapons do they have?

Todd: Yes…. they don’t have guns….they have knives – they took over the plane with knives.

Lisa: Do you mean…like steak knives?

Todd: No, these are razor knives…like box cutters.

Lisa: Can you tell what country these people are from?

Todd: No…..I don’t know. They sound like they’re from the mid-east.

Lisa: Have they said what they want?

Todd: Someone announced from the cockpit that there was a bomb on board. He said he was the captain and to stay in our seats and stay quiet.

He said that they were meeting these men’s demands and returning to the airport… It was very broken English, and… I’m telling you…it sounded fake!

Lisa: Ok sir, please give me your name.

Todd: My name is Todd Beamer.

Lisa: Ok Todd….my name is Lisa…Do you know your flight number? If you can’t remember, it’s on your ticket.

Todd: It’s United Flight 93.

Lisa: Now Todd, can you try to tell me exactly what happened?

Todd: Two of the hijackers were sitting in first class near the cockpit. A third one was sitting near the back of the coach section. The two up. front got into the cockpit somehow; there was shouting. The third hijacker said he had a bomb. It looks like a bomb. He’s got it tied to his waist with a red belt of some kind.

Lisa: So is the door to the cockpit open?

Todd: No, the hijackers shut it behind them.

Lisa: Has anyone been injured?

Todd: Yes, ..they…they killed one passenger sitting in first class. There’s been lots of shouting. We don’t know if the pilots are dead or alive. A flight attendant told me that the pilot and copilot had been forced from the cockpit and may have been wounded.

Lisa: Where is the 3rd hijacker now Todd?

Todd: He’s near the back of the plane. They forced most of the passengers into first class. There are fourteen of us here in the back. Five are flight attendants. He hasn’t noticed that I slipped into this pantry to get the phone. The guy with the bomb ordered us to sit on the floor in the rear of the plane……….oh Jesus.. Help!

Lisa: Todd….are you ok? Tell me what’s happening!

Todd: Hello…..We’re going down….I think we’re going to crash……Wait – wait a minute. No, we’re leveling off….we’re ok. I think we may be turning around…..That’s it – we changed directions. Do you hear me….we’re flying east again.

Lisa: Ok Todd…. What’s going on with the other passengers?

Todd: Everyone is… really scared. A few passengers with cell phones have made calls to relatives. A guy, Jeremy, was talking to his wife just before the hijacking started. She told him that hijackers had crashed two planes into the World Trade Center……Lisa is that true??

Lisa: Todd…..I have to tell you the truth…..it’s very bad. The World Trade Center is gone. Both of the towers have been destroyed.

Todd: Oh God —help us!

Lisa: A third plane was taken over by terrorists. It crashed into the Pentagon in Washington DC. Our country is under attack….and I’m afraid that your plane may be part of their plan.

Todd: Oh dear God. Dear God…….Lisa, will you do something for me?

Lisa: I’ll try….if I can….Yes.

Todd: I want you to call my wife and my kids for me and tell them what’s happened. Promise me you’ll call..

Lisa: I promise – I’ll call.

Todd: Our home number is 201 353-1073…….You have the same name as my wife…Lisa….We’ve been married for 10 years. She’s pregnant with our 3rd child. Tell her that I love her…….(choking up)..I’ll always love her..(clearing throat) We have two boys.. David, he’s 3 and Andrew, he’s 1…..Tell them……(choking) tell them that their daddy loves them and that he is so proud of them. (clearing throat again) Our baby is due January 12th…..I saw an ultra sound…..it was great….we still don’t know if it’s a girl or a boy………Lisa?

Lisa: (barely able to speak) I’ll tell them, I promise Todd.

Todd: I’m going back to the group—if I can get back I will…

Lisa: Todd, leave this line open…are you still there?……

Lisa: (dials the phone..) Hello, FBI, my name is Lisa Jefferson, I’m a telephone supervisor for GTE. I need to report a terrorist hijacking of a United Airlines Flight 93….Yes I’ll hold.

Goodwin: Hello, this is Agent Goodwin.. I understand you have a hijacking situation?

Lisa: Yes sir, I’ve been talking with a passenger, a Todd Beamer, on Flight 93 who managed to get to an air phone unnoticed.

Goodwin: Where did this flight originate, and what was its destination?

Lisa: The flight left Newark New Jersey at 8 A.M. departing for San Francisco. The hijackers took over the plane shortly after takeoff, and several minutes later the plane changed course – it is now flying east.

Goodwin: Ms. Jefferson…I need to talk to someone aboard that plane. Can you get me thru to the planes phone?

Lisa: I still have that line open sir, I can patch you through on a conference call…hold a mo…..

Todd: Hello Lisa, Lisa are you there?

Lisa: Yes, I’m here. Todd, I made a call to the FBI, Agent Goodwin is on the line and will be talking to you as well.

Todd: The others all know that this isn’t your normal hijacking. Jeremy called his wife again on his cell phone. She told him more about the World Trade Center and all.

Goodwin: Hello Todd. This is Agent Goodwin with the FBI. We have been monitoring your flight. Your plane is on a course for Washington, DC. These terrorists sent two planes into the World Trade Center and one plane into the Pentagon. Our best guess is that they plan to fly your plane into either the White House or the United States Capital Building.

Todd: I understand…hold on……I’ll…….I’ll be back..

Lisa: Mr. Goodwin, how much time do they have before they get to Washington?

Goodwin: Not long ma’am. They changed course over Cleveland; they’re approaching Pittsburgh now. Washington may be twenty minutes away.

Todd: (breathing a little heavier) The plane seems to be changing directions just a little. It’s getting pretty rough up here. The plane is flying real erratic….We’re not going to make it out of here. Listen to me….I want you to hear this….I have talked with the others….we have decided we would not be pawns in these hijackers suicidal plot.

Lisa: Todd, what are you going to do?

Todd: We’ve hatched a plan. Four of us are going to rush the hijacker with the bomb. After we take him out, we’ll break into the cockpit. A stewardess is getting some boiling water to throw on the hijackers at the controls. We’ll get them….and we’ll take them out. Lisa, …..will you do one last thing for me?

Lisa: Yes…What is it?

Todd: Would you pray with me?

They pray: Our father which art in Heaven

Hallowed be thy name,

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread,

And forgive us our trespasses

As we forgive our trespassers,

And lead us not into temptation

But deliver us from evil

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory

Forever…..Amen

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…

He makes me to lie down in green pastures

He leads me beside the still waters

He restores my soul

He leads me in paths of righteousness

for His name’s sake

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death

I will fear no evil, for thou art with me…..

Todd: (softer) God help me…Jesus help me….(clears throat and louder)

Are you guys ready?……..

Let’s Roll……………………

*****

May God bless our beloved country, the United States of America. 

Con amor,

Vero

 

Impossible is nothing

My mother was in Manila Philippines when Muhammad Ali was going to fight Joe Frazer at the time Muhammad Ali's name was Casious Clay. She even took a photo with him that I wished I had. Here is a quote by him: “Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”  – Muhammad Ali

 

I can say that I have learned this quote to be true as I have watched my own life unfold. So many things that I thought to be impossible turned out to be absolutely possible with a little ambition, a lot of hard work, and the tenacity to go for it even when it was scary and intimidating and overwhelming.  I can say that I have seen time and time again my own confidence and faith grow as I would set huge goals that seemed almost laughable when I set them because they were so far out of my reach, only to have them come true once I had done everything in my power to make them happen and after a huge amount of help from God.  I know that when you have belief, hard work, and faith, impossible can become nothing.

 

I struggled with self-confidence early in my life, just as so many of us have.  I often felt small and insignificant and incapable.  What I learned over the years is the only way to overcome those feelings of fear is to take steps forward, even when you are the most afraid of failure and uncertainty.  Recognize and acknowledge to yourself that you are feeling afraid, but never let that fear stop you from moving forward.

 

Look, there are very few things in this life that are ever certain, and you are never going to know ahead of time what will succeed and what will fail because life is full of changes and surprises that quickly can send things down an entirely different path then we expected.  Some things that seem like a failure turn out later to have been the very thing that brought us to our biggest successes. Just because you can’t see the final act of your life’s play yet, doesn’t mean that it is doomed to end unhappy or as a failure.  There are going to be plenty of ups and downs between today and the end of the play so trust that when its all said and done you will have the “lived happily ever after” fairytale ending that you are hoping for.  But every Cinderella has to deal with a few wicked step sisters and having no dress to wear to the ball and losing a glass slipper, before she finally ends up meeting her Prince Charming.  That is just the reality of life.  Things may appear dark some days and things may appear to be heading in all the wrong directions, but just keep your mind focused on doing the best you can every day…putting yourself out there…continuously moving forward…and have faith that one day your story will end up the way that it should with your happily ever after flashing across the screen.

 

Impossible is nothing.  Fairy tales come from that notion. Magic can happen in life if you believe, then go do everything in your power to make it be so, and put your faith in God – he will send Fairy Godmothers into your life just when they are needed most to help you on your journey.  Don’t hold yourself back.  Be bold.  Be brave.  Be that one person who makes a difference in the world.

 

“Never forget that you are one of a kind. Never forget that if there weren’t any need for you in all your uniqueness to be on this earth, you wouldn’t be here in the first place. And never forget, no matter how overwhelming life’s challenges and problems seem to be, that one person can make a difference in the world. In fact, it is always because of one person that all the changes that matter in the world come about. So be that one person. ” – Richard Buckminster Fuller

Con amor,

Vero

 

 

 

I can't believe it has been five years!

August 20, 2008 marks the end of a marriage, my marriage to Brad Van Leeuwen. I received a letter from the judge dated August 20, 2008 and his signature. It was a simple piece of paper of no value like our marriage was to Brad. It is going to be weird to think that as when you look at a dash on the tomb of someone who has died it marks the beginning and the end. For us, it was September 11, 1981 - August 20, 2008. But this slow death really started on March 2003 when Brad went to El Salvador with his brother Randy and wife, how ironic!

I can't believe I waited five and a half log years for a miracle that never happened. What every married woman wants is a husband that someday will be called grandpa, a hero, an anchor and an example of a loving husband in whom you can sense a loving bond between grandma and grandpa. We won't be there together to see our youngest daughter Mandy get married or be in the same rooms when our daughters give birth. 

I remember when the Bekkers were in Church attending sacrament meeting when all of the sudden they got up and left in the middle of the meeting. He was our stake President so that was unusual but it was because their son and daughter in law had just given birth to their grandson and they needed to rush over to the Hospital. That will never happen with us. We will never be together welcoming our grand babies or be at their baptisms or blessings. 

How tragic is also for us not to have family pictures together beyond 2008.  No more vacations as a family either. We won't share anything anymore. We are now complete strangers like if there was nothing that tied us together. This is what divorce does. I don't wish this on anyone.

Marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and is intended to be eternal. In Matthew 19:5 we read: "For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh" Marriage is often referred to a partnership with God. Obviously, Brad didn't see it that way. He broke his promise. When I married him, he was a man who truly loved me, and one who honored his priesthood, one who showed respect and fidelity to me and gave me no reason to ever doubt his faithfulness. But he changed.

The million -dollar question is: Knowing what I know now, would I have married Brad? probably yes, Because I did give birth to three amazing daughters. They are my life. They are wonderful young women. I am so sorry, my sweet girls, for not providing you with a stable home. We are now bad examples to you. Please don't do what we did. Please, don't ever think the answer to your marital problems is to get a divorce. Please work things out. 

I still think a marriage is so worth it. I am so grateful I had my amazing girls even when it meant so much sorrow for me in the end. One thing I learned from this is that you never know who you really married until you get a divorce and how real the power of Satan really is. He got him and once you belong to him, he will destroy you. He destroyed our family. My only prayer is that I will become a better person because of this trial and one day I can say, I am a survival and will keep my chin up because the Lord knows I didn't want this to happen. I tried all I could even when it was to no avail. I’m o.k. and not only that but I found true love, the kind that will last forever. I love my life just the way it is now!

Con amor,

Vero