Peace

 These teenagers are winding their way into my heart in incredible ways.  

And it's a hard like parenting teens in many ways.

Because you can't talk and share in the same way as you can with littles.  

So I won't always be able to share the stories in the same detail.  

But I can definitely share the lessons.

And here is one.

A student who just keeps being mean.  

And I watched and questioned and noticed and listened and prayed.

And I realized that when she is mean or gossips or puts down, it feels good to her.  

For about five seconds.  

It's a fake feel good.  

Sometimes paid in peer laughter.  

Or a temporary power.

Or shifting the attention to someone else's flaws.

But it doesn't last.  

Because it's a lie. 

So she has to do it again and again.

She hasn't experienced the truth that real filling, lasting filling,  comes from bringing others up, not down. (Or registered there hurt she has caused).

But after three weeks together she agrees to try.

And the first compliment I thought would kill her.

But she did it.  

And another teacher agreed to come teach her to knit to make hats for babies.

And more of her tasks became about helping others.

And she whispered, almost under her breath, "This feels good." 

And I smiled.  

"And it still will tomorrow."

As Elder M Russell Ballard powerfully instructed, "There may be ease, popularity, fame, and even prosperity, but there is no peace. “Wickedness never was happiness”  One cannot be at peace if one is living a life out of harmony with revealed truth. There is no peace in being mean-spirited or contentious."

My young friend is discovering the beautiful and incredible feeling of lasting peace.  

That which fills us.