Fear and Love

Although I was initally worried about being a therapist again after so many years away from the profession, through the work I did in France I  began to see things with a new set of eyes. It became clearer all the time that there are some common elements in the difficulties people are facing and in the way they are reacting.

A wise friend told me in these past few weeks that there are two main emotions that drive most of what we do: Love and Fear. I have this favorite saying of mine that says "A heart filled with love has no room for discouragement, doubt, fear, hatred, vengeance, envy, lust or greed, because a heart full of love is full." (Elder Spencer J. Condie). 


What I have discovered is that when fear enters the equation then so does the need to control. They go together. For example, when a husband is fearful that his wife is not going to be attentive enough he may demand it and seek ways to control his wife so that she is 'present'. Perhaps there are the parents who are frightened that their teenagers will get themselves into difficulty and so impose a strict amount of control or extra rules in order to soothe their fears. There is the abuse victim who has been the victim of someone imposing an unwanted action on their lives. Often these victims play out their lives in fear from this point, trying to control who can access their hearts and minds to ensure that the abuse does not re-occur. 

And yet it is this very desire to control that destroys relationships and maintains barriers between us. I view the desire to control in some form or other to be at the root of almost all relationship difficulties, whether in the home, at work or in social situations. This includes when we shut others out with our silence or our absence. It is all a form of control.

If we want true happiness then we need to be willing to let go of the desire to control and operate from a different perspective, a whole new paradigm. We trust, we motivate, we encourage, we love, we have faith, we forgive. Those actions are the exact opposite of control and fear. These opposites are spiritual in nature and have been in place since before the world began when the adversary wanted to take our free agency from us. His plan was the ultimate control where we would be forced to be obedient. Our Savior replied with an offer of love and sacrifice and we each replied in trust and faith by accepting the Lord's offer.

And so faith is the opposite of fear. The desire to control others is the opposite of trust and love. We need to decide which side we are on and build upon true principles. 

Submitting our will

Today I happened to teach a lesson in Young Women's that touched on a subject which has filled my thoughts these past few weeks. In this lesson I received the answer to my question about how far we are to go in submitting our will to the Lord's will. The answer in following the Saviour's example is clear: ALL THE WAY, NO HOLDS BARRED. Through this particular blog I wanted to share two extracts that have been fundamental to who I am. 


So this is the extract from the Young Women's lesson today that spoke to me. It is by Elder Marion G. Romney:

“During my early teens a small book or pamphlet titled ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ came into my hands. …The question posed epitomized the desire I had had from my Childhood.  Countless times as I have faced challenges and vexing decisions I have asked myself ‘What would Jesus do?’ … As I pondered [that] question [I turned] to the scriptures in search of the answer. There in the Gospel as recorded by St. John, I found the clear and certain answer:  Jesus would always do the will of his Father. This he himself repeatedly declared ‘… I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.

“‘And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him.’ … (John 7:15, 16, 18; 8:26, 28, 29; 10:30)..... Having learned that Jesus would always do the will of his Father, my next objective was to find out what Jesus would do to ascertain

the will of his Father. Searching the New Testament, I discovered that one thing he did was to thoroughly familiarize himself with what his Fatherhad declared his will to be, as recorded in the Old Testament. That he did this is evidenced by the fact that in his statements as recorded in the New Testament, Jesus quoted or cited scriptures from the Old Testament more than one hundred times.

“Finally, and most importantly, I learned that he communed constantly with his Father through prayer. This he did not only to learn the will of his Father but also to obtain the strength to do his Father’s will. He fasted and prayed. … It would seem that during his earthly ministry he never made a major decision or met a crisis without praying [see Matthew 4:2;Luke 4:2; 6:12,13; Matthew 26:39; Luke 22:42, 44]. 

“Relying upon the foregoing and companion scriptures, I decided in my youth that for me the best approach to the solution of problems and the resolving of questions would be to proceed as Jesus proceeded: foster an earnest desire to do the Lord’s will; familiarize myself with what the Lord has revealed on the matters involved; pray with diligence and faith for an inspired understanding of his will and the courage to do it. …“The most satisfying solutions to problems and the best answers to questions that I have been able to make in my own life, I have arrived at as follows:

“1. From my youth I have searched the scriptures.

“2. I have tried to honestly face the challenge or question presented with asincere desire to solve it as Jesus would solve it.

“3. I have, through diligent study and prayer, sought to weigh alternatives in light of what I knew about gospel principles.

“4. I have made a decision in my own mind.

“5. I have then taken the matter to the Lord, told him the problem, told him that I wanted 

to do what was right in his view, and asked him to give me peace of mind if I have made 

the right decision” 

(“What Would Jesus Do?” New Era, Sept. 1972, pp. 4–6).

In addition to this talk, I have as my favourite talk one by Elder Neal A Maxwell called, 'Consecrate They Performance' (April 2002). While the talk as a whole is pretty incredible (https://lds.org/general-conference/2002/04/consecrate-thy-performance?lang=eng&query=consecrate+thy+performance) this is an extract from that talk:

"We tend to think of consecration only as yielding up, when divinely directed, our material possessions. But ultimate consecration is the yielding up of oneself to God. Heart, soul, and mind were the encompassing words of Christ in describing the first commandment, which is constantly, not periodically, operative (see Matt. 22:37). If kept, then our performances will, in turn, be fully consecrated for the lasting welfare of our souls (see 2 Ne. 32:9).

Such totality involves the submissive converging of feelings, thoughts, words, and deeds, the very opposite of estrangement: “For how knoweth a man the master whom he has not served, and who is a stranger unto him, and is far from the thoughts and intents of his heart?” (Mosiah 5:13)."

 and again:

"In striving for ultimate submission, our wills constitute all we really have to give God anyway. The usual gifts and their derivatives we give to Him could be stamped justifiably “Return to Sender,” with a capital S .Even when God receives this one gift in return, the fully faithful will receive “all that [He] hath” (D&C 84:38). What an exchange rate!.....

Breathtaking submissiveness was achieved by the Savior as He faced the anguish and agonies of the Atonement and “would that [He] might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink” (D&C 19:18). On our small, imperfect scale, we face tests and wish that these would somehow be taken away.

Consider this: What of Jesus’ ministry if He had performed additional miracles but without the transcending miracle of Gethsemane and Calvary? His other miracles brought blessed extensions of life and lessened suffering—for some. But how could these miracles possibly compare with the greatest miracle of the universal Resurrection? (see 1 Cor. 15:22). The multiplying of the loaves and fishes fed a hungry multitude. Even so, recipients were soon hungry again, while those who partake of the Bread of Life will never hunger again (see John 6:51, 58).

In pondering and pursuing consecration, understandably we tremble inwardly at what may be required. Yet the Lord has said consolingly, “My grace is sufficient for you” (D&C 17:8). Do we really believe Him? He has also promised to make weak things strong (see Ether 12:27). Are we really willing to submit to that process? Yet if we desire fulness, we cannot hold back part!

Having our wills increasingly swallowed up by the will of the Father actually means an enhanced individuality, stretched and more capable of receiving “all that [God] hath” (D&C 84:38). Besides, how could we be entrusted with His “all” until our wills are much more like His? Nor could His “all” be fully appreciated by the partially committed."

I re-state in terms as clearly as I can that I seek to submit all that I have and all that I am to the will of the Lord, that I am prepared to go where He sends me, do what He asks of me and be what He wants me to be. I can't pretend that I am perfect at this but it is my goal and my heartfelt desire. My hope is that the Lord will give me the strength to do this even in the face of times when it is difficult and I don't feel up to the challenge.

Skiing-Lessons of a 15yr old

Skiing has been on my mind a great deal this week. For some reason my mind has been flooded with memories of a skiing trip I took as a very keen 15 old year old to Queenstown, New Zealand. I might add it was the only one in my life given that I discovered that skiing was not my thing.  Looking back on it however, I have realised that I learned a great deal on that trip.

My friend and I took skiing lessons and I dutifully followed this German skiing instructor onto the snow feeling very excited and nervous. I tried so hard to apply his instructions but my nervousness did not make a good listener of me. 

We began with the “poma lift” which was a disk or seat attached to a bar which in turn was attached to a pulley to take the skier up the mountain. (See the picture and no that is not me lol but it looks round the right era.) The instructor was at pains to tell us NOT to sit on the disk but merely to place it between our legs, hold onto the pole with one hand and let it take us up. At the same time he instructed us to get off the lift two major poles up the mountain. Do you know it was just instinct each time I put that disk between my legs to sit on it, with the result that it threw me off every time. I did this not once, not twice but about a dozen times before I was able to train my head to not sit on it and I proudly went off on my skis up the hill, holding onto that bar for dear life.

I had been so worried about getting the lift right that I forgot where to get off and as we climbed higher I began to panic about going too far. Sure enough, after one and half poles up the hill I decided it was time to get off and headed off-straight down this very, very steep slope and onto the rocks below. How I didn’t kill myself I actually don’t know. The instructor, by this time very frustrated with me, yelled as he went past, “I told you to go 2 poles up!!!!!” The entire class skied down to me so that they were able to get me off the rocks. I was too relieved to be embarrassed but that moment was still coming!

Trying to concentrate really hard on the instructions this time, I heard the instructor tell us that if we kept our skis straight ahead then we would pick up speed. “Get the feeling of the speed of the skis” he encouraged us. I once again concentrated really hard on what he was saying and applied it very literally. I kept those skis straight ahead and down that slope I went, picking up speed very rapidly.  I felt like I was flying! Suddenly I realised that I had not heard the instructions on how to slow down, let alone to stop. I guess I was philosophical about it because I just kept going until finally I skied right into a very large bank of snow from which the class members had to lift me out with my skis in the air and my head in the snow. 

Needless to say I left one VERY exasperated German instructor on that mountain.  I sometimes giggle now when I think about how bad I was but there were some clear lessons in my head at the same time.  Firstly, instinct is not all it is cracked up to be. Sometimes we need to make a huge effort to overcome what our bodies are telling us to achieve our ends. In spiritual terms I see this as the mastery of the spirit over the flesh. 

Secondly, I learned not to give up. After the first 5 or 6 times on that poma it would have been easy to just go back down the mountain. My desire to go up that mountain kept me going. My goal to arrive in front of my Heavenly Father having completed all of those tasks He has asked of me keeps me trying, and trying again knowing that I will get it right one day.

Panic or impatience usually leads us to make our own decisions and not follow the directions of the instructor and will lead us onto the rocks below. When the Lord gives me instructions then I hope I have learned to be obedient, even when they are not easy or not logical. At the same time I learned the importance of following ALL the instructions and not just part of them. In the gospel there are some commandments and some instructions that are easier to follow than others. But I am very clear that the Lord expects me to work on all of them or a rescue mission might be needed. Of course I make more mistakes than I care to admit and so I am grateful for the patient instructor in Christ who comes and lifts me off the rocks when I make a wrong turn.  

The incident of low-flying on my skis told me that when I do follow instructions I follow them with all my heart, holding nothing of myself back. I have many weaknesses but this is one characteristic about myself that I like and I don’t want to change it. I see my move to France very much like my brief, exhilarating ski at full speed, not knowing how to stop. Although it may be foolhardy not knowing how these adventures will end, I do know that the Lord himself has instructed me to give it my all and to feel the excitement of his spirit as I travel on this voyage. He knows my character which is much the same as that 15yr old.  I have 100% faith in him as my instructor. Even if /when I fall, I know that He will be there to dig me out. I found this quote recently which tells it all. I have taken the leap and I am building my wings on the way down. No better way to go.

Essential things

While attending the temple has always played an important part in my life for the past 31 years I have never truly understood or felt its real impact until about 4 yrs ago.

There were many overnight trips to Hamilton from Wellington and later from Whangarei where we would travel for long hours on a bus, work in the temple literally through the night and return by bus in the morning and where I would find myself exhausted for days afterwards. I was always amazed to see the elderly brothers and sisters, some well into their 80s do that trip each month with such enthusiasm. I loved listening to them chatter on with each other in Maori and I figured I would love to have their excitement for the temple. I knew even then that I was missing something!

When I was married in the temple a small piece of the puzzle appeared. OK so this was a place where families were united forever. It brought a very special spirit to me when I was able to see all four of my teenage children do temple baptisms for our ancestors but even then I just knew there was more to these temple visits.

In every aspect of my life in the gospel I try to reach a point where I am not motivated out of a sense of duty but out of a sense of love. It was finally towards the end of 2007 that this LOVE for the temple hit me and hit me hard. As I have mentioned before in an earlier blog it was during a visit to the temple that I finally received the revelation as to where the Lord expected me to go and I finally got it! This was the house of the Lord which meant that He was in there and I am visiting Him at His place, spending time talking to him and vice versa. I finally caught the vision that the temple is a place of personal revelation.


This was confirmed again during a week in the temple in Frankfurt in July 2009 when I received the message from the Lord that things were going to get tough for me but that I didn't need to worry about Rebekah (Lol that last bit came right out of left field.)

In the past nine months I have been blessed to spend 3 days in the temple in Madrid, two weeks in Frankfurt in April and July of this year, a wonderful weekend visit to the London temple with the Paris Stake Relief Society in April and last week I spent a day in the Preston temple with the Single Adults. (Not bad for someone with extremely limited resources!)

I have developed such a hunger to be in the House of the Lord in these past visits. The more that I have gone the more I have opened my heart and understanding that the Lord actually wants to speak to me, the more I have been privy to some very sacred experiences. Going to the temple now is not just important for me. It has become essential in my bid to have a personal relationship with my Saviour. I am looking forward to General Conference when I hope they will announce that there will be a temple built in France!

Oh to be a child again!

Ask any of my children and they will tell you that I am the most immature of all of us-and they are probably right!   I just love children and being a child right alongside of them.

There is a train in the Paris metro that is driverless-you can sit up front and watch as the train barrels through the metro tunnel. Many parents bring their children up front so that they can pretend to drive the train. Their eyes are as wide as saucers. I am in this train many times a week and I love to sit up front with the children. To the horror of the parents I start to play with the children and I give them encouragement on how to "drive" the train. "Freins doucement" (brake carefully) I tell them as we come into a railway station. As I see a train coming towards us from the other direction I act in mocked fear, "Mais non, attention! Evites l'autre train s'il te plaît!" (Oh no, careful now! Please avoid the other train!)

Each time I start to play with them, after looking at me in surprise, they get really serious about their task of driving that train. Recently a young girl of about 8yrs "drove" the train for a number of stations with me, going through all the motions of starting up and stopping the train. She and her parents then got off at the Gare de Lyon, about halfway along the train's journey. As she was about to go I looked at her with a face full of concern, "Mais qui va conduire le train maintenant?" (But who is going to drive the train now?) Her reply was so calm and so mature compared with my pretended panic. "Mais vous, madame!" (in other words, 'You Madame') Then as she got onto the platform she kept looking back to make sure that I was taking my new task seriously. I dutifully waved back at her with one hand on the little handle right at the front of the train in pretense of driving. She smiled knowingly and took off hand in hand with her somewhat horrified parents.

It is these kind of moments that help bring me to reality amid all the pretense and playing. Children are our most precious resource and playing with them heals my heart and makes me forget for a brief moment the pains and trials of the adult world. Rather than bringing children too soon into our world, let's all go into theirs more often.

Time to get serious

If you have come to read one of those delightful, funny blogs then you might want to leave around now because this one is going to get real serious.

As I have been travelling around a great deal in the region recently and meeting so many people I have been touched by the number of women who have come to speak to me once they realise the nature of my calling. Their messages to me have all been so similar: they have expressed the hope that the introduction of LDS Family Services in France would result in things improving for them as women. As I have listened to them I have stepped into a cultural world that I do not understand and that literally upsets me.

I would like to share some of what these brave women are saying in the hope that their voices will be heard, sometimes for the first time. While naturally I am not going to discuss individuals and their heartfelt secrets there are some common themes that I think need to be shared.

Firstly, there are a number of women who have had the heartache of going through a divorce as a result of their husbands being unfaithful. Unfortunately what they have in common is that as women they have been blamed for their husbands straying with the reasoning that if they had kept their husbands sexually satisfied and if they had worked on keeping them happy the unfaithfulness would never have happened. As I have heard this story repeatedly I have been both incredibly saddened and disgusted at the same time. I have been open in my opinion that there is NEVER an excuse for being unfaithful to a spouse! That the responsibility rests squarely with the unfaithful spouse and no-one else.

One of the worrying messages in all this is that sex is to be gratified, that men somehow have these base desires that need to be catered for or they cannot survive. What a hideous way of seeing something so beautiful that the Lord has given as a gift. Maybe I am naive about this but the minute that we start saying that the wife has a responsibility to take care of the sexual appetites of her husband the magic of the relationship just went out the window. Making love with our spouse is a totally unselfish act by both parties but just having sex catered for is more about selfish self-gratification.

These women went on to report that as they have sought to rebuild their lives that they have often been shunned by their former friends and associates that they had previously shared with their former husbands. Blaming them for the marriage failure has resulted in an ongoing stigma against them in their communities. They have struggled on their own with the grief of the loss of their marriage with little empathy or support.

These issues would be serious enough but some women here in France have expressed similar problems when their husbands have been physically or emotionally abusive. They report that the advice they have received has been along the lines of, "Keep quiet and just accept it" or "If you work harder to please him then he will stop the abuse". Unbelievable advice that just breaks my heart and raises the temperature of my blood! It is insulting to the men involved to think that they could not control their abusive urges and take responsibility for their actions. It is doubly abusive to these women who have need of real ways to stop the abuse in their lives.



The same is true for the children here in France (as with other countries as well, I know). It appears in this patriarchal, very traditional society that children's rights are at an all time low. An extreme example is in the fact that France only instituted a specific law against incest in January 2010 although it was able to be prosecuted under other legislation.  The shutters on the windows of the homes and apartments reflect a very private society, a state of affairs that keeps sexual and other forms of abuse deeply hidden. In a small space of time since I have begun this calling I am already seeing evidence that the problem of incest and sexual abuse in general is no less a problem in France than in my home country of NZ or in other country in the world. I had expected a large, what I believed to be modern culture to be much further ahead in its fight against child sex abuse but here there is a mountain of work to be done to bring it out from behind the shutters so that it can be stomped on and stamped out.

I am probably putting the cat among the pigeons now but my last word in this blog is for the children again. I have a strong belief that smacking children is not the answer to changing children's behaviour or to discipline. Every single parent I have questioned has admitted that when they have smacked their child they have felt anger. When we as parents smack our children it is not discipline, it is an expression of our anger and we teach our children that it is OK for those feelings to be expressed in violence. I was told by a young teenage girl recently that we could not be good people if we were not smacked. That message just scared the heck out of me and left me frightened for the future of our society. It is time to understand the messages that we give our children and to motivate them to change using more constructive methods.

I am feeling suddenly very overwhelmed by what lies ahead.

What if?

Usually it is not a good idea to try and reinvent our past. No amount of reinventing is going to change anything that is already set in concrete but just occasionally it is an interesting exercise. It helps me to see just exactly where the hand of God has played a significant role and where I have been quietly been prepared.

Sometimes it is in the simple things. Like my name, Marianne. The story from my parents, who are Dutch born, is that they wanted to give me a Kiwi name so that I could easily fit into their new homeland of New Zealand. Great theory but the problem is that it is very much not a Kiwi name-it is a classic French name. Marianne is in fact one of the symbols of the French Republic and represents their motto of Liberté, Egalité et Fraternité. As it so happens, on a personal level I am very passionate about each of these principles.

And then there are my high school years. I was put into an academic streamed class and for some strange reason which is unclear, they gave us an additional compulsory subject just for our class of 30 odd students of French. Although my French classes at high school were more years ago than I care to count, what if I had never had any lessons? I had included France on my list of possible countries to live in and pray about because of those classes many moons ago. I was blessed to have a basic understanding of the French language when I came here which has been essential.

A little amusing aside for me happened when I was to be confirmed a member of the Catholic Church at the age of 12. We were asked to choose a patron saint whose name we would take upon ourselves. I had asked the nuns if I could take upon myself the name of Jesus Christ and they were horrified at the sacrilege. So in my second choice I decided upon Joan of Arc or Jeanne D'Arc as she is known here. Of all the many thousands of possible saints to choose from, I had adopted one of the most potent symbols again for the French people. There are statues of her everywhere! I might add that I was the only one of my classmates to have chosen a French saint.


So little preparations for my great adventure in France seemed to be in place right from birth. When I worked for LDS Family Services in NZ more than 22yrs ago I was sent for training to the USA to learn how to run sexual abuse support groups. At the time it was a very powerful revelation that I would need this training to help women who were suffering and yet I fell pregnant with my first son shortly after returning from this training and I was only able to apply it on a very limited basis before I left the job to be a stay at home Mum. At that stage I could not see ahead. The direction of my work then changed considerably to more administration roles. Never in my dreams did I see myself now working again with women who have suffered sexual abuse so many years later.

More recently, while living in Whangarei I made the decision to leave my very secure and promising government job to start a business with a business partner. It seemed totally illogical at that time and even foolhardy to take a significant cut in pay and face the possibility that I would not be able to get contracts to sustain my family of 4 children. I was motivated by the idea that I could spend more time with them and be more flexible to participate in their lives but it was a huge risk, a leap in the dark made only easier by the strong confirmation of the spirit. What if I had let my fears at that time decide my course of action? What if I had stayed in my lovely government management position?

I was able to have 6 years in Whangarei watching my business grow and my income along with it. With careful saving I was able to have enough financial reserves to survive here in Paris for the first significant period of time that I could never have been able to achieve on a salary. In addition, because I was able to show that I had already operated a successful business the French Embassy was persuaded that I could operate one here and I was able to obtain a visa. So the decision to take the leap of faith and start that business at the beginning has had huge consequences for my mission here.


If it is true that the Lord prepares our lives that far ahead then it makes our day to day decisions that much more important on a spiritual level. The seemingly small decisions we make may have long reaching consequences later on in our stay on earth. I don't want to play around too much with "What if?" I would rather be able to say "Thank goodness I decided that!"