Life is a Game of Candy Crush

Last summer I got bitten by the Candy Crush craze.  One day I decided to see what all the hoop-la was all about and I played my first Candy Crush game.  It was easy and kind of a fun way to spend a few minutes.  It was fun to pass off each level of play, and see it get a bit more difficult as each level was passed.  After a while I started to wonder what the next level would be like.  What kind of a challenge would it give?  One good thing about Candy Crush is that it forces you to stop after five 'lives', forcing you to wait a while to play more.  Why is that good?  You can definitely get addicted to the game!  Oh, you can beg for more lives, but I suggest you don't unless you have all the time in the world to just sit around and play games.  (There may be times in your life you actually need to do such a thing, but those times are few and far between.)

This morning I played my limited five sessions of the crazy game.  I have been stuck on level 107 for a few weeks now, and as I was trying my best to pass this level, I realized that this game mimics reality.  I then realized I needed to write about it before I forget my thoughts.  So here goes.

The goal of Candy Crush is finish the task that is set for each level.  The task changes at every level. You might need to clear the jellies, drop a certain number of ingredients, or other similar tasks.  There are different obstacles in the way to prevent you from achieving these goals.  The board is covered with different candies that you must move around to get three or more similar candies in a row.  Getting different numbers of candies in a row results in different outcomes.  Three in a row simply moves the candies down or over and they disappear allowing other candies to move into their place.  Getting four in a row produces striped candies that can clear a row or column in one move.  The player must plan out their moves to make the best possible combinations that will allow the best outcomes, with the hope that you can achieve the goal with the highest possible score.  

As you play along and reach a level that challenges you, you can be stuck for a LONG time.  After finally being able to conquer that level you might be able to breeze through the next few levels with no problems at all, only to be hit with another difficult level.  Some people seem to be able to move through these levels with no trouble, even if you are stuck there for a long time.  It is all just the 'luck' of the game board.

As I said, I have been stuck on 107 for a few weeks.  This morning I was thinking I was finally going beat the level because I had 10 chances to clear just the lower right corner and then I would be able to move on.  I was sure I could do it.  But each move didn't give me the outcome I was hoping for.  I came to the end of the game with that darn corner jelly still in place.  I wasn't able to clear that corner.   Lucky for me, I still had four lives to play.  Again, coming to the end of the game I had one corner left, the lower left.  Again, I was unable to clear that corner.  The next game only lasted about eight moves before the bombs blew up and the game was over before I had accomplished anything at all.  That was when I realized that this game was teaching me a lesson.

Life is a challenge.  We are presented with problems to solve, game pieces to move around the board, hoping we can make the right moves to overcome our obstacles. When I focus on one problem, like the corner piece, the rest of the game is responding to my moves, and they don't always work out for my good. Sometimes it turns out for my good, and sometimes it doesn't.  When I focus on one problem it might distract my work on another area of my life.  The pieces of our family or life move around without our control while we focus on one area.  Hopefully it will all fall into place and we can reach our final goal.  But sometimes it causes more concerns, things that weren't planned.  It seems like those game pieces have a mind of their own!

After those game pieces fall into their new place, they might open up an opportunity that you hadn't noticed before.  We might see the same thing with situations in our real lives.  Pieces move around and open up opportunities for new lessons or blessings to come into our life.  Or it can cause more problems for us as we try to negotiate around the new problems.  

Then suddenly, when we least expect it, we can clear the board and achieve our goal!  You just never know when that miracle will happen.  It might take several weeks, or months, but you keep on working on it until you finally get it done.  You move on to another level, which might be a breeze and you are able to conquer it the first time, then move on to the next.  But for sure, you will come to another trial that will take a while to work through.  You will need to plan each move, watch as nothing works, wonder why those darn pieces don't fall the way you planned.  You might be left with a few places that just don't seem to work at all.  You move one piece, and ten move in a way you didn't plan.  Again, you feel you are doing everything right but it just doesn't work out the way it should.  

I look at the situations of my life, knowing they are my life and no one else's.  I see myself moving one piece hoping the others will fall the right way, but they don't, leaving me to try to work around a new problem.  Even though my husband is there beside me experiencing the same game, we move our pieces around in a different way, resulting in different feelings and outlooks. I am the only one who can play my game.  I am the one who struggles through my game board.  

I wonder where my pieces are going to fall today.  

Long Time, No Write

Have I been too busy to write?  Not really, just too lazy maybe.  No, not lazy, just not up to doing it.  It has been a long time since November.  Looking back it seems like forever!  Tonight I'm not going to write all the things I have been doing since my last post because I don't have time for that.  I will do that maybe next week.  Suffice it to say, I've had three surgeries, nine days in the hospital, and six weeks of recovery, and a new hip that works great.   Besides that, the holidays have taken up some of our time:  Thanksgiving, Christmas, Martin Luther King Day, Valentines Day and the birth of a new granddaughter!  That granddaughter is the best of all things to happen.  And I am really excited to be able to meet her this weekend.  So life has been busy, but it seems like all I have done is just laid around, recuperating.  During that recuperating time I did crochet a beautiful blessing dressing for the baby, and a white afghan for her to use on those special days.  So I haven't been idle.  (More about the new baby in a later post, after I get to kiss her a few hundred times!)

What I want to write about tonight is a talk I found today that really explained some things I have thought about for a long time.  It is a talk given by Brad Wilcox.  Let me tell you a little bit about him, from my point of view.  Brad Wilcox was a professor of writing at BYU.  He came to our school district to give some professional development workshops for the teachers.  I really enjoyed his workshops, and the stories he told.  He has since been a mission president and is now back to teaching again.

You can find the talk I am referring to here at The Redheaded Hostess blog.  (The blog is another post, for sure!)  Many years ago while I was sitting in an interview to renew my temple recommend, President Craig Johansen asked me to explain the difference between justice and mercy.  Nothing like putting me on the spot!  I don't remember anything except bumbling my way through that one.  I am sure his dad, Mr. Jo, my Extemperaneous Speaking coach wasn't too proud of my 'off-the-cuff' speech, but heck, it was 30 years after my last speech meet! What could he expect from me!  Well, after reading this talk by President Wilcox I might be able to do a better job.

We all know how Christ has paid the price for our sins.  Most people have seen the movie that shows Jesus explaining how the man paid the debt for the other man.  (I'm sure there is a Mormon Channel video, but I'm not taking the time right now to look it up.  Sorry about that.)  The video explains that Christ pays the price and we are expected to do our best to show Him our thanks.  Most of us also know that we are expected to always do our best because of the atonement.  But do we see how the atonement is working in our lives.  Do we see why and how we must always do our best, and will it ever be enough?  Pres. Wilcox explains it in his talk.

He likens Christ atonement, and the concept of justice and mercy, to a mom paying for piano lessons.  I am sure he used a mom because....well....mom pays for the piano lessons.  The money goes from Mom to the piano teacher.  She pays for the lesson because she wants her child to learn to play the music.  She wants the child to change from being a non-piano playing child, to being a piano playing child.  Just paying for the lessons doesn't make the change, so mom keeps telling the child to practice, practice, practice.  Mom knows that is the only way to become better and make the mighty change.  Giving the money for the lesson doesn't make the child become a piano-playing child.  No one can practice for the child.  If someone else steps in and fakes out Mom, in the end the child will still not change into a piano-playing child.

The child might get to the point that he/she starts complaining that it is too hard.  The child doesn't see that practicing now will produce something better later on.  Most people will say, "I wish my mom had forced me to keep on with my piano lessons," or "I wish I had practiced more so I would be better now."  I have never heard anyone say "I wish my mom had let me stop piano lessons, then I wouldn't have had the talent I have now!"  Even those who say they have no talent but Mom made them take lessons, they even see the importance of those few years of playing.  So Mom saw there was a benefit, a pay-off, for those lessons and the price she paid.  She never asked for her money back, she gladly paid the price, and all she asked of us was to practice.

Well, Christ paid the price for us. (justice)  He doesn't ask us to pay any price back to him.  He just asks us to follow him and keep his commandments.  He doesn't want us to pay him back, he doesn't care about that.  He knows that by following him and keeping his commandments (all those Sunday School answers), we will be training ourselves to be better piano-playing children....oh, sorry, I mean training ourselves to be more like Him.  Repentance is how we show we will follow him and keep his commandments because we are not perfect.  It takes practice.

I love his last paragraph:  The miracle of the Atonement is not just that  we can live after we die but that we can live  more abundantly (see John 10:10). The miracle of the Atonement is not just that we can be cleansed and consoled but that we can be  transformed (see romans 8). Scriptures make it clear that no unclean thing can dwell with God  (see Alma 40:26), but, brothers and sisters, no  unchanged thing will even want to.

(I know, formatting changes right here, but I can't figure out how to get back to the other font.  I must have imported it from somewhere else.)

We must change.  We must feel remorse for what we have done that is not in harmony with what Christ would want us to do.  We must admit where we have not been playing the right song, and take the necessary steps to practice.  Of course it means we will have to change, but that change means we are becoming more like Christ wants us to be.  That means we practice and practice until we know all the accidentals, the time changes, the flats and sharps, and even if the key signature changes, we can change right along with it because we have practiced enough to know what the song should sound like.  
I think one of the things that we  don't look and study enough is the feeling of remorse.  We must acknowledge that we have done something that was not right, even if we felt it had to be done.  We know it was wrong, and we must admit it to the right people and start that mighty change.  If we just think "OK, I was justified in what I did" then just go out and play, we won't get that practice done.  Practicing twice as long tomorrow won't make us a better player today.  Who knows what might happen between now and the next time we get to practice.  There might not be a next time.  We need to change now.  We need to feel that remorse to make it right and practice today.  We can't stand by and wish someone else would do it.  The price has already been paid. We have an obligation to understand what the Lord sees we can do, and then work toward it.  Remorse......knowing we haven't done our best, and admitting it, means we are practicing and becoming more like Him.  It is all a process that makes us become better.........

Or we can just sit back and do nothing.......   and then wonder why we can't play the piano as well as someone else.