Wasted Fruit

by Jewel Leann Williams

I have a hard-working peach tree in my backyard. It isn’t big enough for the kids to climb in yet, and it is still producing smallish, but oh-so-sweet fruit. Every year when it blooms, my heart gets happy and I start anticipating juicy heaven.

All the birds in Arizona start spreading get the word, too.

Now there are nets you can put up to keep the birds out of the tree and away from most of the fruit. Our tree is too big now. I’ve seen the shiny hanging deterrents. My brother suggested hanging plastic balls that resembled the fruit to try and help them lose interest in our fruit. The thing is, every year we get very busy in the spring and don’t ever do all those things to bird-proof.

Usually, the birds exact their “bird tax” and there is plenty left for us. Not so much this year. This is what it looked like:

Can you see all of the peaches in various states of bird-eaten desiccation?

This picture, you can't see that all of those peaches are bird-pecked, or completely eaten right on the branch--all of the usable peaches have already been picked from this part. 

All that fruit, ruined. Wasted. It's maddening.

There are a few things go we could have done to prevent this. They don’t matter at this point, and the reasons why we didn’t don’t matter either. When I look at my tree, and all of those peaches that could have blessed my family, my friends, my tastebuds.... the reasons don't matter.

We will either learn from this and take the necessary steps to prevent it next year, or we won’t and will lament the pillaging around May 2018 too.

How often is it like this in life? We have so many blessing--some are things that we've worked hard for, others are just things that Heavenly Father has ordained for our good, waiting there for the taking.

We also have the "birds" of our lives--people, circumstances, whatever--that hover around, waiting for opportunities to ruin those blessings or at least prevent us from accessing them.

There are steps we can take to prevent this from happening, fully or partially depending on the circumstance. We understand that life, just by its nature, is going to ruin some of our "fruit," but whether or not needless waste occurs is largely up to our efforts.

Then, knowing that without action on our part, our blessings will be squandered, we do--nothing. Or not enough. Or not the right things.

What it is that we need to do is different for everyone, every circumstance. The reasons why we don't do what we know we should--those reasons don't matter when you come to a realization of what could have been had you only been diligent.

Just a couple of months ago, President Thomas S. Monson gave us this challenge with a promise of blessings:

My dear associates in the work of the Lord, I implore each of us to prayerfully study and ponder the Book of Mormon each day. As we do so, we will be in a position to hear the voice of the Spirit, to resist temptation, to overcome doubt and fear, and to receive heaven’s help in our lives. 

What amazing blessings we are being promised here:

• We will be in a position to hear the voice of the Spirit
• We will be able to resist temptation
• We can overcome doubt and fear
• We can receive heaven's help in our lives

What do we need to do to safeguard that fruit?  Prayerfully study and ponder the Book of Mormon each day. 

If we want those blessings, we have to do that work. If we don't, we will see those blessings squandered, hanging on the tree waiting for us, but dried up with the waiting. 

A few other blessings (and what we need to do to "obtain the fruit") from this last General Conference:

“Your power to do good as a group of God’s daughters will depend, to a great degree on the unity and love that exist among you.” -Henry B. Eyring

“The Lord promises to direct our paths, but for Him to do that, we have to walk, trusting that he knows the way.” -L. Whitney Clayton

My beloved friends, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, if we ever find ourselves living in fear or anxiety, or if we ever find that our own words, attitudes, or actions are causing fear in others, I pray with all the strength of my soul that we may become liberated from this fear by the divinely appointed antidote to fear: the pure love of Christ, for “perfect love casteth out fear.” --President Dieter L. Uchtdorf

One more, also from President Uchtdorf: 

Our service—whether great or small—refines our spirits, opens the windows of heaven, and releases God’s blessings not only upon those we serve but upon us as well. When we reach out to others, we can know with humble confidence that God acknowledges our service with approval and approbation. He smiles upon us as we offer these heartfelt acts of compassion, especially acts that are unseen and unnoticed by others. Each time we give of ourselves to others, we take a step closer to becoming good and true disciples of the One who gave His all for us: our Savior.

By the way, although I am approaching this from a spiritual point of view, we can extrapolate my poor wasted fruit saga to writing also.  How many times could we reap some benefits, if we would just take action? We can always improve our craft, look for opportunities to expand our writing horizons, network, mentor, critique, accept critiques.... we never know what blessings may arise from taking action--or what fruit we are letting rot on the tree by standing still.

1000 Miles of First Steps

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. -- Lao Tzu

Even the simplest journey feels like a thousand miles because I keep having to take the first step over and over again. --Jewel Leann Williams (Not as profound a saying. More of a whine).

Seriously, folks. Every time I set any sort of goal, I go a little ways, and then fall off the wagon, so to speak (no, my goal isn't to stop drinking).  I have to keep starting over.

As a kid, I wanted to read the Book of Mormon straight through. I memorized "I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents..." pretty quickly with all of my false starts.

It's the same as an adult. It seems like it's the same with every goal. My family needs to eat healthier and exercise more. We need to not watch so much TV and go to bed earlier. So, for a few weeks, we eat healthy food, we go for walks every night, and we make a rule that we only want to watch TV or movies on Friday night. My husband and I both lose weight, we feel great, and we actually feel like we get enough sleep (almost. I do have a seminary kid, after all).

Then, the new series of Doctor Who kicks off (or Bones, or NCIS, or NCIS Hunky Guys with Dreamy Eyes  Los Angeles) and we can't resist. I lose my motivation on making a weekly research project out of trying to buy fresh fruits and veggies on our budget, and go back to casseroles. We stay up too late one night, so we're too tired for the nightly walk the next night, and the TV magically turns on, and boom! We're back in our rut.

I know I'm not the only person who has this happen.

Here's my (possibly temporary) triumph. I have been staying up really early in the morning to get things done. My son gets up at 4 am to get ready for seminary, and it's one of my jobs to make sure he actually GETS UP at 4. I had been going back to sleep, and then either waking up later if it was my day to carpool the kids from seminary to school, or just staying asleep.  So, I decided that I needed to just stay up, to steal some moments to do my scripture studying, morning prayers, and..... WRITING!! Oh, the rapture I felt at putting words on paper again was worth the agony of dragging my sore, tired, protesting body out of my bed.

Of course, this was Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.... and then Thursday came along. I couldn't do it. I slept in. I slept in ALOT. I also felt like crap all day after I got up--not any less tired, and like a doofus for not keeping up with a goal, AGAIN.

But you know what, on Friday, I had the battle with myself that eventually I hope I won't have to have every single morning.  I told myself that even if I slept more, I would still be tired, but that I needed to have that time to be able to study the Lord's words, to have a conversation with him, and yes, to exercise my mind. I dragged myself out of bed--okay. I'll be honest. I went back to sleep. But Heavenly Father helped me out by sending a preschooler to climb in with me, which kept me awake long enough to decide to get up. So, up I got.

The false starts are okay. I'm not a failure because I keep having to begin again. Actually, I think that's kind of what life is about. Little by little we overcome things--but sometimes it takes so long to root those things out of our lives and replace them with better things, that we feel like we aren't progressing quickly enough. It's okay. That is what the Atonement is for--as long as we keep on starting over, we will overcome, with the Savior's help. Every time we start, we get that much closer.

As a writer, I have to forgive myself as well for all the false starts. My creative soul gets really, really angry with me for not working on the art of expression. But the same thing applies. My muse comes back whenever I ask. Every time I start working on something, I get that much closer to doing it the way I really need and want to.

It's the same for all of us. So I want to encourage you--whether it be in your writing, or just in life in general. Please don't stop starting over. Even if it's the ten millionth time and you know that you'll just fall again, just start. This may be the time that you learn what you need to and you're able to overcome and move onward and upward. Or, maybe it's not. But that means that you're one more false start closer to the time that you DO overcome.

We always say that it's more important that you get up and keep trying, than it is that you fell in the first place. It sounds trite, but it's true. Sometimes, it really is the journey. Sometimes it really is the climb that makes the difference.

Keep going! Step by step, first step by first step, you'll get where you need to go. I know you can do it!