Needs and Wants

My mom is one of my hero's.  Right now she is just coming into remission from battling cancer.  She has had to go through some horrific things the last year, but she is winning the battle.  She still has 1 1/2 years of nasty chemo therapy left, but she is home. 

The other day she was out walking, (she's always out walking), and she stopped and talked to my children.  Liberty knew that this was my mom's bad week because of the chemo therapy and that she did not feel well.  So Liberty asked her how she was doing and how she had it in her to be out walking.  She said, "I don't want to go on a walk, but I need to go on a walk."  That really effected Liberty and the two of us talked about it a lot. 

So I've been thinking about my hero mom.  How many times do I excuse myself out of things because I don't want to do something even though I need to?  The scripture talk a lot about how we can have our needs and our wants.  I tend to focus on the want part a lot.  Perhaps I need to focus more on the needs part of it.  

• I need to get up early in the morning to start my day off right and to obey the commandment to "early to bed and early to rise" even though I'd rather stay in my warm bed.
• I need to walk so that I can have more energy and a strong body even though I'd rather not.
• I need to play games and do family time with my children at night so we can bond and enjoying some "light-heartedness" before bed even though I am fried and just want to read a book and go to bed.
• I need to weed my garden so that our garden will grow strong even though I'd rather not go outside.  I need to quit rationalizing that just because the prophet only said to plant a garden that fact that we should weed, water and cultivate it was implied.
• I need to eat better so I can have the Spirit with me more and so I can be healthy even though I would rather not and continue to partake of white flour products.  

That's enough of my sadly pathetic weaknesses. What my mom said has profoundly influenced me.  I feel another layer of empowerment to stop excusing myself out of things because I don't want to them but encouraged to do the right thing because I need too.