The Desires of Your Heart

Finding Your Taproot

Picture spring in the Arizona desert, and imagine the glory in the colors of the kaleidoscope as the desert breaks into bloom.  As wonderful as this is, what is truly marvelous is how the desert tree will withstand the heat and drought of the Arizona summer sun and then the cold of the winter.  Some of the desert trees will not survive.  This has nothing to do with the variety of the plant or even where it is located.  The desert tree, when it puts its roots down, soon hits a caliches layer, a hard soil layer cemented by calcium sometimes called hardpan.

Two Options

When this happens, the tree has two options.  The first option is to spread its roots to the side looking for nourishment and water in the area surrounding it, in which case it dies. The second option is to put all of its energy down into its taproot.  The tree then focuses all of its energy to work and fight its way through the caliches layer. When it breaks through that layer and hits its source, nothing can knock it over.  It now has made contact with a depth of nourishment that is not affected by conditions on the surface.  It will withstand heavy winds, drought, freezing conditions, and even flooding.  Because it is secure in its source of energy, it will bloom again in the spring.

Desires of Your Heart

Emma Smith was the wife of the Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith.  Just before Joseph was transported to Carthage, Illinois, where he was martyred in 1844, Emma asked him to give her a blessing.  Instead, Joseph suggested that she write the desires of her heart and when he returned he would sign it and it would be hers.  He never returned to sign it but I believe the Lord honored the sincere desires of her heart as He will for all of His children.  In a most difficult and trying time,

the wish of her heart was:  “I desire the spirit of God … to know and understand myself.”

Spirituality Helps Us Understand Ourselves

To me, this is the heart of my message … using the gift of the spirit (or spirituality) to help us truly come to understand ourselves and then to use our talents to help others do the same.

For several years I was lead on a journey to personally find my “taproot” and then use it to fight my way through the caliches layers of my life to discover who I really was.  Clearly, the most perplexing question for me at that turning point was:

Who was I? Who was inside this person who had been defined for almost twenty years by titles, positions, possessions, and other outward descriptors?  I had played out so many roles to fill the supposed expectations of other people, I wasn’t sure anymore where they ended and I began.  It appeared that the things that had formerly defined me would be some of the things of which I had to let go.

For years, I had lived on a constant treadmill.  I had been very successful in Washington DC.  The more I got caught up in power, position, and material things, the faster the treadmill went and the noisier my world became.  The more I got involved with outward things, the more time they took to manage—whether they were material possessions that had to be maintained or power and positions that had to be protected.  The one truth, I didn’t realize at the time, was that these things were fleeting.

The bottom line is, that for many (myself included), far too much of our lives are spent spreading our roots every which direction looking for things to validate us. We think they will nourish us when in reality they drain us!

Women and Spirituality

I learned many things from researching women specifically on the issue of spirituality. Women say that achieving or working toward their spiritual goal:

enhances their sense of self worth,  creates a sense of wholeness and balance in life,  gives direction and meaning to life,  enhances their ability to love and be loved, and  enables them to make a difference for others and for the world.

Life Altering Experience

On a very personal note, for months I had prayed to God to help me understand how He saw me.  But I felt nothing.  One day after a gut wrenching experience that left me feeling like someone that was important to me had misunderstood me … or better said, hadn’t seen me as I wanted to be seen, I heard the following words speak loudly to my heart and mind….

“Cathy, Cathy….do you not care more how I see you than how this other person sees you?”  Wow!  I had never thought of it that way.  Was it true that I cared more how the world and others saw me than how the Lord saw me? As I sat in awe, pondering these words, I found myself having to honestly answer “No, I guess I haven’t cared as much about how you saw me as I have other people.”

It was a life altering experience … one of those defining moments.  I gave much sobering thought  on  how the world and others saw me than how the Lord saw me. A sweet feeling of reassurance swept over me … the Lord did know me.  He was communicating with me and I knew that He loved me. Further, it was quite clear that just being me was more than enough!

I realized that I had wasted a lot of energy worrying about how the world saw me!

I now have a place I can ALWAYS go for true validation, a place where I can be reminded of who I really am, whose I am and what matters most. (See John 14:27; Philip. 4:7.)  It was not only very satisfying—it was more than enough!

My taproot of learning about my Savior nourished me with an understanding of who I really am.

GOSPEL PRINCIPLE:

The heart  of the  question “Who I really am?” can be found in the taproot of “Learning of the Lord and His love for me.”  Like that of Emma Smith—we must have the spirit of God to know and understand ourselves … who we really are and whose we really are!

Sincerely Yours,

Cathy Chamberlain

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Inspiring Secrets About Persistence & Success -Bamboo Tree. YouTube Video (2.50 min.)

Dallin H. Oaks, “Spirituality,” Ensign, Nov. 1985.

Marion G. Romney, “The Celestial Nature of Self-Reliance,” Ensign, Mar. 2009.  Review section entitled “Spiritual Self-Reliance.”

Cathy Chamberlain

Cathy Chamberlain is currently working for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as manager of audience research for the Church History Department.  Her work for the Church has also included work for the missionary and public affairs department.

Cathy Chamberlain is owner and CEO of CTC, Inc. a communications and research firm.  Cathy is responsible for planning, developing, and executing research projects primarily involved in communication, branding and positioning strategies for corporations, organizations, political parties and candidates.  Cathy also has an expertise in understanding and communicating to women.  She has spent over 25 years tracking women’s attitudes and values.

Past work includes major positioning studies for several corporations and organizations in Utah.   Cathy recently served as an executive consultant to Deseret Book Company working directly with the CEO and executive team in many phases of the retail and publishing business.   She has also helped develop and execute “Time Out for Women” conferences that are being taken all over the United States to crowds averaging 2,000-5,000.  She has also recently done positioning and communications work with Better Homes and Gardens, Aetna Retirement Services, Eli Lilly & Company and two major utility companies in Latin America that were bought out by a U.S. firm when they were converted from public to private companies.  She also managed and directed a branding and positioning for a major utility company in the U.S. in anticipation of industry deregulation.  She is a member of the Upward Reach Board of Trustees.