Many years ago one of our daughters came home from a friends and shared a story with me, I was saddened and hurt by the comments that she quoted, my initial response was to blow it off and said to her "yeah we are just a bunch of Heathens." The term Heathen Stevenson became a regular joke in our little family. Over time I thought that I had gotten over the hurt of these comments as we were involved in many various activities that took us from our home ward and the distance became greater and greater. A year or so ago our some of our daughters started running some fun races and needed a team name, they chose "Heathen Stevenson's" at first I laughed and then I saw pictures with the name on the backs and it really bothered me, the name was out there for other people to see it wasn't just a family joke anymore. The girls loved it but I asked them not to use it. This caused me to wonder why it bothered me so much, it was just a silly name. In retrospect I realized that while I had made a joke of it and moved on I really hadn't moved on it was like a burr stuck under my saddle blanket and the new conversations brought that to my attention. It had been over 13 years since this occurred and why was it bothering me once again? Really it was always there because I had lost confidence in myself, I never thought I was good enough because others were talking about me and judging me. This individual was close to another woman who had also made some judgments about our family that I was aware of and it only caused me to be aloof and distant from ward members and unable to take compliments or positive comments from other ward members. I hadn't gotten over it at all and I was ready to go away and start over, which we have done. I know those comments were not meant to reach me but they did and I think the person who made those comments would be sad to know how deeply she has effected my life. Once I realized that I was still harboring those negative thoughts I knew that I had to forgive and move on. I read, prayed, and called the girls and said "it is ok to use the name, don't' change it.' I have embraced that name now and we even have a special group on facebook solely for messages to and for family members only. Our new house had been dubbed "Paka's Place" and I have now added "Heathen Headquarters"
If our family is a group of Heathen's I worry about the world in general! Seriously I am so blessed to have such good people in my family, the are all amazing. None of us are perfect or we wouldn't still be here but all in all it's a pretty good group of "Heathen's!"
Here they are family and adopted family!! Go Heathen's Go
