I took a shower at the church building on Wednesday. It wasn’t because I’m dying to know how good the water pressure is at the chapel, or even if they have enough hot water. It was because my day was so slam packed that I didn’t have time to shower at home before attending Wednesday night youth activities as YW president. I had been working with and riding horses all day, and I was a hot and sweaty stinky mess. I had planned my day pretty much in 10 minute increments, but when another rider asked if she could get a ride home from the barn, there went my 10 minute window for a shower at home. Hence, I found myself at 7pm taking a 3 minute shower at the church to rinse of the layers of grime and sweat accumulated throughout the day before we started our YW activity. (And since I know you were wondering, the church has excellent water pressure and quite adequate hot water. No shower curtain, though, so watch your step getting out, lest you slip and fall. Nobody wants to be found by the bishop naked on the floor of the church bathroom.)

Thursday went pretty much like Wednesday did. At around 6:30pm, after having a nonstop day that began at 6:30am, I was muttering around my kitchen, getting stressed while thinking of all of the things I hadn’t had time to get to that day. I then sort of laughed a little and said out loud, “When would you have gotten to them? You barely got into the shower today.” It was true. While I did manage a shower in my own bathroom, it happened about 30 seconds before people started showing up at my house for a surprise birthday party for a YW. I was, again, covered in a day’s worth of sweat and barn grime, and again, found myself struggling to find time for basic personal hygiene.

I’m not always very emotionally kind to my own self, and I am often my own worst emotional bully (side note: this is a common problem I’ve seen among many women. It’s not particular to Mormon women, but we seem to be particularly good at it.). But this time I tried to exercise some mental self care and instead of berating myself for not being good enough to accomplish all I want to accomplish, I simply reminded myself that I am, truly, doing the best that I can.

But what if I could do better?

(Stay with me. This isn’t going where you think it is, I promise.)

I was processing some emotional garbage with a friend recently and mentioned that my prayers in the morning lately have been pretty simple: “Heavenly Father, help me get through this day.” That’s it. Just get me through the day, help me put one foot in front of the other, and I will thank You for Your help as I collapse back into bed at the end of it.

But my friend told me something I’ve been pondering. What if I embolden my prayers? What if I ask more than just getting through the day–what if I ask for power? For spiritual renewal, for physical strength and healing of body and soul, and to see the hand of God in my own life and how the power of God is manifest in what I do?

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a way, way cooler prayer.

And in that prayer, I ask the Lord to increase my capacity. So doing the best I can becomes something way beyond me, better than what I could do on my own, something that is way more meaningful than just getting through it.

Trust me, I’m not trying to downplay how important just getting through it is. I have white knuckled my way through many a day lately, and there is a certain power in getting through something that is just hella hard. But asking the Lord to make me better? That almost feels like I could become, like, a spiritual super hero, or something.

And I really hope spiritual super heroes have time to shower regularly.

Have you ever asked the Lord to increase your capacity? How did you manage it? How did you feel? Were you able to shower on top of everything else?


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