How to Solve Your Biggest Problem Part 1

Four years ago I had three huge problems.  This podcast is part 1 of that story,  how a remarkable book, the best of spirituality,  helped me solve those challenges.  And, unexpectedly,  helped me change and be a better person in the process.   My inspiration to get these challenges solved may not be your path, but I promise you, with God, nothing is impossible.

Transcript

Today’s podcast is about how a book helped me solve three huge problems

Four years ago I had:

Problem #1 I was about to lose $40K. It was an initial payment on a house right on Oquirrh Lake. 

Problem #2  Single at 62

Problem #3  My weight. None of the guys I was attracted to were asking me to dance. Those guys weren’t asking me out. I’ve always struggled with my weight. But when you are single, there are immediate consequences.

So let me interrupt my story to ask you ... are you thinking of a big problem that you’ve tried and tried and just can't seem to get it solved? My three were causing me a lot of heartache and grief. I decided, Okay, I need to figure out how to get more of God’s help. I knew if I would ask, He’d tell me what to do to make myself strong, to find a solution. This was one of those life tests, a test of faith. 

 So I read this quote by a man who’s a consummate problem solver. He’s solved some doozies. His name is Russell M. Nelson. And he’s the Prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I know some of you who are listening are my beloved neighbors and friends who are not members of this church, so let me put this into context. Book of Mormon, Another Testament of Jesus Christ. What that means is it is a record of a people in the Americas whom Christ visited. For us, the Book of Mormon goes hand in hand with the Bible.

You do not have to believe in the Book of Mormon to get inspiration from God on how to solve your challenges in life. And that's okay because this was my answer. I’m telling you about this so you will see an example of how the best of spirituality and psychology can really help you, so you’ll be encouraged to get out there and get answers from God to solve your big problems.

Russell M. Nelson said, “I promise that as you prayerfully study the Book of Mormon every day, you will make better decisions—every day. I promise that as you ponder what you study, the windows of heaven will open and you will receive answers to your own questions and direction for your own life.”

And here I’m going to apply the last sentence to myself: I promise that as you Tracy daily immerse yourself in the Book of Mormon, you can make progress, you can get answers, you will solve your big problems, you’ll get the mortgage and get the house, the windows of Heaven will open and the angelic man will float down dressed in clouds in a beam of light like a Renaissance painting. Or maybe he’d come on the beam of data from the LDS dating site.

President Nelson said I needed to ponder what I study?

“To feast means more than to taste,” President Nelson explained, “To feast means to savor.” (Nelson, Russell M. Living by Scriptural Guidance, General Conference, October 2000)

Yeh I wasn’t feasting, I was grabbing a handful of peanut m&m’s for lunch as I raced to my next appointment. I was wolfing down scriptures, inhaling them quickly without stopping to think about them or how they apply to me. To savor might mean to meditate and ponder and just slow down.

I started on September 11, 2019. And instead of trying to multitask while I curled my hair or listen on the way to work, the way I feasted was to sit at my computer reading along in the Book of Mormon until I found a scripture that was just so good it jumped out at me. Then I

#1 highlighted the scripture 

#2 used the note feature o rephrase it in my name and in my words 

#3 answer the question “How does this apply to me?”

2 Nephi 32:2

“… after ye had received the Holy Ghost ye could speak with the tongue of angels? And now, how could ye speak with the tongue of angels save it were by the Holy Ghost? Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore, they speak the words of Christ. Wherefore, I said unto you, feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do.”

My name: Tracy, if you will be worthy of the Holy Ghost, you’ll have power to do the things you need to do and say the things you need to say.

How does this apply to me:

The words of Christ will tell me what to do to find a mortgage company that will giving me a loan so I don’t lose my $40K.

I need the tongue of angels to help me say the right things, do the best things to find, and marry the best man for me.

I’d put $40K downpayment and a builder was building my dream house, right on the running trail of Oquirrh Lake of Daybreak with a gorgeous eastern view of the Wasatch Mountains. But I was going to lose it. The builder’s mortgage company said, “You can’t qualify for a loan. Your income comes from rental properties and a private practice. We only give loans to people with W-2 income.” Oh, I felt sick to lose my money. That's when I begged and pleaded for help and felt inspired to step up my scripture study and try to get God’s help. Little bits of inspiration started to come. First, I got hired at a counseling practice and asked them to make me a W-2 employee. With that I felt some inspiration to try my old mortgage company who I’d done 5 other mortgages with. He said, “Your W-2 income isn’t high enough and we can’t count your income from your rental houses because they are new purchases, not on last year's taxes. Nobody is going to touch your loan.” The house was almost built, they said they couldn’t hold it any longer.

My daughter, who is an interior designer, helped me pick out neutral colors in a lovely transitional style. The inside was so peaceful and harmonious. The view was breathtaking. I went running every day and stopped to check on the progress. I was hopelessly in love with it, and It was just making me sick to think about losing it.

Then another inspiration came to ask my new ward to fast and pray for me. I remembered a guy I used to date had a friend in the mortgage business who owed him a favor. They were able to count my income from my rental properties, and I got the loan and the house. I was pinching myself when I moved in. It was such a tender mercy to get that beautiful house. I was so grateful.

Now onto problem #2.  Single at 62

I was married for 40 years and it didn’t work out. There I was single at 62 in Colorado. My four single friends and I would sit in the back row of our Sunday women’s meeting and we’d all get the picture of a guy on our mutual dating app. There were so few members of the church to date in Colorado. We’d have to negotiate—who gets to swipe up which meant you were interested and wanted to start a conversation.

I’d say to my friend, “Well, you got that guy last week.” 

“Yeh,” she’d say, “But he was a dud, he's not even divorced yet.” Dating was bleak in Colorado.

I get these impressions about 5:00 in the morning. I felt I should pick up and move to Utah to find a husband.

45 years ago, when I started dating, I went to a lot of church dances to find good guys. The young men were so attractive with their thick hair and flat stomachs. But after moving all the way to Utah for these dances, I walked into the dance looking forward to finding good guys. Gravity had not been kind. Hair follicles had given up the ghost.

Then there were the problems with the beards. All the hair from the top of the head migrating down the face can really make men look older. There were different lengths, lumberjack beard, professor beard, and, oh, the worst, wizard beard. This is the honest truth, I drove an hour down to Provo to a dance because Provo and Brigham Young University used to be the happy hunting ground right? Oh, no, no.

I paused at the door to assess the situation before I paid my five bucks. The people looked like they’d come from the assisted living center. One wizened guy with a yellowed wizard beard was frozen at the refreshment table. I was thinking that maybe rigor mortis had set in. I felt nauseous and turned around and raced back home.

Okay, yeah, I get that we are supposed to love older guys the way Christ loves them, but that doesn’t mean I have to dance with them or kiss them.

I prayed and felt impressed to try the younger guys.

I met a younger guy online, and we met for a lunch date. Wow, I could tell that this man spent time in the gym. After lunch he said, “Okay, now let's go make out in the park.”

I said, “Oh, I’m new to dating. That's too fast for me. Is this the way dating in the church is done now?”

 Way too frisky. It’s that interesting experience. Wow, it’s fun to be wanted, that feels so good. But I grabbed his face and sort of yelled, “Hey, and keep your hands in this safe zone right here.” And I pointed to my belly area. So for 45 minutes I'm batting his hands away, too high. Too low! In a way I was loving the attention, but also trying to get him off me. 

At the next dance, I was telling a guy about this wrestling experience, and he said, “Was his name Jeffery? Oh no, that guy has a reputation. He brags that he can get any woman in the sack on the second date.” “Oh, no.” I said. That was a narrow escape. Then I felt that shame, you know, like it was my fault, and I was to blame.  

Finally I stammered, “But, I really want to marry someone who inspires me to be better. Where do I go to find them? Tell me, how many single male members of the church are keeping the 10 commandments? “

He said, “Oh, well good luck with that. I’ve read that 70% of us are sexually active.”

Oh boy, I’m hosed. Sabotaged by the fact that men can have 7-8 more testosterone than women. Sounds like to find someone who followed the Savior and actually bridled their passions might be Inconceivable. 

So I set this goal to find someone who was all-in the gospel of Jesus Christ, you know, like keeping the commandments, spiritually born of God, and instead of dragging me down, inspires me to be better. 

These younger men all seemed to be financially decimated from divorce. I had a relationship with a very attractive man for five months who was five years younger. We were kind shopping in Costco and close to the wedding rings and he put his hands on my shoulders, gazed into my eyes and said “I’m just going to put it out there, you know I’m poor. I’ve been married and divorced 4 times. Each divorce decreases my net worth by half. You know I don’t have a drop of retirement savings. Could you marry me and could you also buy your own wedding ring? I might be able to pay you back in a few years”.

I guess I was thinking, I had enough money for both of us, and love would conquer all. But the numbers just didn’t add up.

After this my son said, “Mom, you gave me a lot of good advice when I was dating that you seemed to have forgotten. Where is your spreadsheet where you give points for the qualities you really want then you total up the points?”

I said, “Oh yeah.” I kind of did that with him. 

My son said, “Well, this time you’ve got to have minimum thresholds. You know, there has to be a point where you say I can’t marry someone who’s deeply in debt and has the lowest credit score the banks have ever seen. High points in one area can’t compensate for low points in another.”

 So financial self-reliance became one of my minimum thresholds.

It was so sad looking for a husband. These single people had really been through some tough times, just some really critical, vindictive ex-spouses.

I really had my hopes up for this big summer dance in the mountains.

I met a guy who was a handsome, spry 55. As we were dancing, he learned I was a counselor and told me about his aggressive ex-wife and how she dragged the divorce on for three years to get more money from him until she had wracked up attorney fees which he had to pay in excess of $275 thousand dollars. He said, “I’ll have to work until I die. But it’s worse what happened to the kids. She’s turned them all against me and they won’t speak to me.” Then he started weeping on the dance floor. The poor guy was so traumatized. But I thought, hmmmm, I’m not at work, this is a dance. I’ve just spent five dances listening. I make my living listening to this. I said, “Oh, I’m so sorry, I can’t uh dance with you any more. I don’t think you’re ready for dancing or dating quite yet. You need to go to a counselor - not me! - who will give you the trainwreck divorce discount.”

So I set up a minimum threshold for emotional stability and emotional availability, someone who had already actually worked through and healed a lot more of their heartache and divorce baggage.

 I kept praying and felt impressed to try for guys with whom I could communicate. I’ve always loved discussions and learning. I met a cattle rancher. He said he had only read one book, a book on philosophy, in his life, so I read it and tried to discuss it with him. He couldn’t do it, so he accepted that book as gospel truth. He got irritated when I tried to bring up different ways of thinking about things. He finally said, “Oh,I get it. You think you are just too edumacated for me.”

To find guys with whom I could converse intelligently, I put some test questions they had to answer on my profile on the dating site. 

I met a tall guy with beautiful white hair who had graduated from Stanford with a PhD in history. That was a big bonus. Oh, this should be good, you know, they look so good online you really get your hopes up. Oh, this could be the one! So we met for lunch. For two hours he talked about the evolution and firing capabilities of the musket in infinitesimal detail. He never showed an iota of interest or asked a single question. If he had absorbed any social cues of boredom on my face, he might have noticed that my eyes were crossed, and I could see up into my frontal cortex where he was sandpapering my brain.

After that date I set a minimum threshold for intelligence. Must be interested in me enough to ask questions and discuss ideas.

I’m still praying, still trying to follow up on every prompting to go to every dance, and be proactive on the dating site. I started getting the idea I should try the older men. They were starting to look a lot more handsome by comparison.

I met a successful retired attorney, who lived in a gorgeous house with an exquisite view. He owned a powerful sports car and drove it way, way too fast on the freeway. I said, “I can’t ride with you unless you let me drive.” “No,” he said, “You’re too slow. I’m driving.”

 It wasn’t just fast driving, it was wobbly driving because sadly, at 74, Parkinson’s was setting in. When he drove his hand shook the wheel and then when he looked at me to talk, the wheel drifted over. He said, “Why are you covering your eyes? Why is that guy honking at me?”

And I looked, “Well, it could be because you wove over into his lane “ 

And that was it. So, I set a minimum threshold of physical health: healthy enough to drive safely.

It was such a tough market, It seemed like every guy I met just had at least one big issue, way below the minimum threshold. Some men had three big issues, or six. I’d try to make it work, try to compromise. It just wasn’t working out. Lots of weekends alone, discouraged wondering, will it ever happen? Lots of disappointment. Impressed to try every dance, activity, hours on the dating sites. Did every idea that came to my mind.

And, I couldn’t complain, I was so blessed to at least get to meet men and go out. I’d see these wonderful valiant singles who were doing everything right, some of my best friends that were trying everything they could and were single for years and years. 

After a few years of dating, after 1.5 years of applying scriptures to myself, I had learned so much from listening to the spirit and trying to obey. I was walking into my 45th high school reunion. I prayed, “Please God, if there is anyone single who is spiritually, financially and emotionally self-reliant, please let me meet him.” And I felt really humbled to say this: ”It’s okay if he’s fat. And it’s okay if he’s even….bald.” 

And the first person in the door was Jerry McMillan, who I went out with three times in high school and twice in college. Mac, whose wife had left him 12 years ago. Mac, who has beautiful hair and a beautiful soul. 

 Mac was still flying for American Airlines in TX so we decided to study our scriptures together. The program is called “Come Follow Me.” And we studied on FaceTime a couple times a week and we applied the scriptures to ourselves. I heard all his experiences, and he heard mine as we made our way through the New Testament. And I stopped dating the rest because this guy was bonafide, he met and exceeded all my minimum thresholds. He was 127 points ahead of everyone else. Six months later, he was my best friend. I could not help but love him. I bet the Brethren had no idea “Come Follow Me” was such a dating app. 

So, because I immersed myself in the Book of Mormon, my prayers were gloriously answered on problem #1, the house, and problem #2, the husband. Problem #3 turned out to be even more stubborn and difficult…..what I had been doing to draw close to God wasn’t nearly enough ... .but, that’s a story for next week in part 2.