Miracles Among The Hardships

The First Christmas
Used by permission from Churchofjesuschrist.org

 Mary, barely more than a child herself, was asked to carry the Son of God.  This she agreed to without hesitation, even though the road before her would be hard, and sometimes lonely.

Joseph, a kind and gentle man, was visited by an angel and asked to take Mary to wife, even though she carried a child that was not His.  He would be the step father of God’s only Begotten Son!  What a gift!  And yet, what a burden!  Surely Joseph wondered if he was really up to the task!  

Mary’s cousin Elizabeth, older and past the time when children could come to her without a miracle, received the miracle she and Zacharia had hoped for.  She too would bear a child and he would have the Holy Ghost from birth.  Indeed, John knew, even in the womb, when he was in the presence of the Son of God (months before Jesus would be born – or even John himself!)

Joseph and Mary, young, but nervous, traveled to Bethlehem where Mary would give birth to her firstborn child without the help of her mother, or any known relatives.  She had Joseph, and no doubt was grateful that he was there in the lowly stable with her.  Surely angels hovered nearby filled with wonder and excitement!

Shepherds, sitting in a field keeping watch over their flock were, perhaps, contemplating when the Savior would come.  Imagine their surprise to see and hear not just one angel, but a whole heavenly host who were singing, and praising God!  They must have been torn between wanting to bow down with their faces to the ground and wanting to look up and take in the incredible scene before them!

These are strange and incredible things, and there were more!  John, feeling unworthy, baptizing his cousin in the river Jordan and hearing Heavenly Father’s voice.  The Son of God, the great Creator, allowing people to spit on Him, taunt Him, beat Him, and in the end to nail him to the cross.  And then the resurrection itself!  Joy after such devastation!

And now?  Are there still strange and incredible things?  Yes!  There are the miracles of new birth.  Of springtime after a frozen winter.  There are answered prayers, and strength for the weak.  There is compassion for the weary, and hope for the hopeless.  

There are always miracles if we just have eyes to see.  If we can let go of our aches and hurts. Our sorrows and disappointments.  Our weaknesses and sin.  If we can take them, and hand them to the child born in a stable, who grew from grace to grace until He knew how to give us grace when we were broken, and love when we felt unlovable. 

We may not follow a star to Christ, but we can follow a prophet, and learn of Christ through His words and actions, shared with us by those who loved Him in life, and death.  Loved so much that they died themselves rather than deny His power.  We can look for the miracles of kindness, and generosity, and smiles, and compassion.  We can look for the miracles of peaceful moments, and the beauty of creation.

During this Christmas Season, I hope all of us will have eyes to see the miracles among the hardships.  The sacrifices in the midst of tragedy.  I also hope that we will reach out with love, kindness, and understanding so that we can be the miracle in someone’s Christmas season.

(I wrote this for my parents but thought I would share it with you too!)

Welcome Home!

This is Brigham worn out after Thanksgiving.  The only thing this picture has to do with this post is that we welcome him, and his parents, into our home any time!

While waiting for our house to be built I found myself thinking a lot about hospitality.  We used to enjoy inviting people over to our house in Payson for Family Home Evening puppet shows and I liked it back in the really old days when we could have all of my brothers and sisters and their families come for Thanksgiving!  I feel that our blessings are to be shared and enjoyed with others as much as possible.    

The definition of hospitality is:  "the friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors and strangers."(from the online dictionary)  I am going to use Home and Hospitality as my words of the coming year.  I added home because I feel like the family attached to the home should be received in a friendly and generous fashion too.  I don't particularly want to be totally in charge of entertaining anyone, but I do want to do better at spending time with family doing things we can all enjoy.  I am still working on subsections of the goal for each month.  There are so many good things to learn about and practice that relate to hospitality that it's hard to choose!

While waiting for our house to be built I read books on hospitality.  I really enjoyed one by Myquillyn Smith called Welcome Home. I wrote down quotes from her book that I thought would be helpful in my quest to become more hospitable.  One of my favorites is, "When I find myself focusing on me, my house, my outfit, or my stuff, it's a red flag."  Hospitality is about loving other people -- not about me!  Some of my favorite people to visit are the ones who welcome me in like family and don't apologize over some mess -- either real or imagined!  

As I learn I hope to share with you my successes and failures, and the joy of learning to love better!

Stalling

This really isn't a recent picture of our new home. 
I'd better stop stalling and take one!

 I have been stalling.  One answer to prayer I received was that I need to learn, to write, and to spend time playing and creating music.  Those are happy answers, but I am good at stalling.  I will write after I move, or I will write once we are settled, or there is ALWAYS the idea that I will write when I have something that feels a little more brilliant to say!  I will write when I'm not tired, or I don't have a headache, or when every little circumstance is perfect for writing.  But all of those things really add up to me not writing anything at all!

So, here I am not stalling.  Trying to honor the answer I received from the loving, wise, amazing creator who is Father of us all.  Even if I am not writing I am always thinking, and often studying or learning about something.  I have been thinking a lot about hospitality.  We moved into our beautiful, friendly blue house.  We are surrounded by the beauty of God's creations every single day, and I want to share the love evident in those creations with others.  I am planning to have hospitality as my word of the year, and am enjoying coming up with the best ways to implement that!

I also want to keep from forgetting all of the other words I have worked on -- including "Gratitude".  I am so grateful for my family and all of my wonderful friends and for the sweet grand baby that joined our family in October.  What a gift!

I do not want Heavenly Father to stall in answering prayers, or sending blessings, so I had better work on not stalling to do what He has told me to do!

Smiley Brigham

Not the picture hanging over the fireplace, but still one of my favorites!

Getting Out of My Own Way

 

God is good, and His creations, including all of us, have beauty to share.

The other night I started to go down the proverbial rabbit hole again.  I have a tendency to start wondering (for the millionth time) what my purpose is.  Would my husband be better off without me?  Does my family really need me?  Would people really miss me?  

God is good.  When I was struggling with this same kind of thing one day I decided to ask Heavenly Father, and then open the scriptures to see what he had to say.  A lot of times I think we really need to put some effort into getting answers, but this time I opened right to the scripture I needed, and so the other night I reminded myself that I know.  I know that my husband would not be better off without me and that I have a purpose in his life.  I know that my family really needs me and that I have a whole slew of family and friends who would miss me.  I know that I can contribute good things.  But first I have to get out of my own way.

How is that?  Well, when my thoughts start swirling, I need to remember not to focus on those thoughts, but to focus instead on what Heavenly Father says, and what Jesus said and did.  I find their words comforting, enlightening, and inspiring.  God does answer prayers.  We all have a purpose.  We are needed, wanted, and loved.  On top of all of that, even if we are sick, or bedridden, or tired, or overburdened, we have something good to contribute to the world.

Puzzles

This one was kind of hard!  It was 1000 pieces.  (I don't do the really, really hard ones with extra pieces, or pieces that all fit together no matter what and you have to find the right spot for them some other way).

I am thankful for puzzles.  I can become a little obsessed with them once I've started them, but I have really appreciated having puzzles to do in the last little while.  Both of the ones I have worked on lately belong to Jake and he worked on them with me.  I like that puzzles give me something I can do with Jake, and I like that they give me something to do when I don't want to do any of my projects.  Puzzles could be an unfortunate stalling technique, but they have sometimes been a much appreciated stress reliever!

This one is only 500 pieces and some of the pieces are really weirdly shaped, which actually may have made it easier to do.  It was a fun one.  It's hard to see, but the T-Rex is holding a knife and fork.  Apparently he's a civilized T-Rex?

The point is, that puzzles have been a blessing, and I have the next one ready to go!

Happy 33rd Anniversary to Derek and Me!

 Our anniversary is in May like Derek's birthday and, like Derek's birthday, it has already passed by.  It was on the 11th.  We celebrated on Friday afternoon and enjoyed eating lunch in the car, going to the conservation garden in West Jordan.  We then went a few other random places and out to eat.  I love my dates with Derek!

We found a trail to hike on somewhere.  It was my favorite part of our adventure.

Derek and I are standing on the bridge below when I took this picture.  It's just a little hard to tell and the bridge was over a dry river bed.

Did you know that it's kind of hard to find cacti to buy that are like these that will grow outside in our part of Utah?  There are plenty we can grow indoors but it's a little more rare to find these.

This is a little over 28 years ago with our first two girls.  
Time really goes by quickly.

Mother's Day 2021

 

Flowers from Derek.
These were some truly beautiful roses!

Derek got me some flowers for outside in my pot too, and my children always treat me very well.  I am thankful to be a Mom!  

This Mother's Day I was particularly thankful for both Derek's Mom and Mine who provided much needed listening ears to help me when I needed it.  Life throws unexpected curveballs at us sometimes and I am thankful that both Moms were available to talk to!  

I know people who have not been able to have children who still do a lot of mothering and who have made a difference in my own life and the lives of my children.  I hope they had a happy Mother's Day too.

Derek Was Born in May

 And we celebrated!  Derek is awesome.  

I decided to let you see my ridiculous artwork.  I am not really much of an artist, but I had fun drawing on Derek's present!  Derek called this a dinosaur with birth defects -- but hey he's a happy dinosaur!

It's possible that Dan thought this was an exploding log.  In case that's what you think, I'll just tell you that it is quite obviously a volcano :-)

If this isn't obviously a plant and a little piece of sun to you, then it's okay if you make up your own explanation of what I drew.  Just one more side after this.

I was asked if the stick people represented Derek and me.  Not really, I just felt like drawing stick people who were wearing hats!

I guess you can tell how old Derek is turning!  He is now old enough to live in a 55 and older neighborhood!

Derek's birthday is on Cinco de Mayo (May 5) and it's been a while since then.  We obviously did something, but I'm afraid I'm a little vague on what we did!  I think we had his birthday dinner on Sunday, and I took these pictures on his actual birthday.  I got fun plates and then we didn't really eat what I had planned and everyone just had whatever they wanted.  He didn't even get dessert.  The candles are stuck in frosting.  Maybe I'll make his more traditional birthday dessert when it's a hot day.  Homemade peach ice cream is best eaten on a warm day -- in my opinion -- but we'll eat it any day really.

I am super thankful for Derek who has a great sense of humor and who works really hard and taking care of his family in all of the ways he can.  We all love him!

Reacting With Gratitude Not Guilt

Saturday morning I slept in, and even when I woke up late I did not want to get up and face the day.  There are so many projects to do, and they all sounded hard, and staying in bed sounded easy and comfortable.  Maybe I could hide from my projects and challenges by hiding under the covers?

Derek eventually came in to check on me.  He had gotten up earlier when Teddy was crying outside.  I could see that he had already been working on one of our projects.  He went back out and back to work and I dragged myself out of bed and got moving.  My day wasn't entirely useless.  I did accomplish a few things.  It is just that Derek ended up doing a LOT more of the things we had talked about doing the day before.

Did I react with gratitude?  Sadly -- though I was grateful -- the reigning feeling was guilt.  I "should" have been up helping.  I "should" have painted shelves with Derek, or helped get the desk ready to paint, or paint the mirror frames.  Derek works so hard all week, and I was sure I had just let him down.  I was sorry.

On Sunday it dawned on me that Derek, who is always impressively good at helping, and getting things done, did not do what he did to produce guilt.  He would have appreciated my gratitude so much more!  He made progress on projects that have been stalled for months!  He did things that I really did not want to do.

I am thankful to have been reminded again that it is better to react with gratitude and not with guilt!

God's Kindness

My self assigned scripture to memorize for April is Isaiah 54:10.  This is a favorite of mine because of a song by Rob Gardner called "My Kindness Shall Not Depart From Thee".  

For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee."

I have tried to be perfect.  It doesn't work. But no matter how many times I fail, God is kind.  He has mercy.  I get to try again.  I might even be getting slightly better at not beating myself up before giving myself a little grace too.  Slightly:-)  Knowing that I have a loving Father in Heaven and a loving Savior helps me to get up and keep going.  I am thankful for their love and kindness, and for their ever present mercy. 

**Photo by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash

Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash

Laughter or Tears

This is all I could get of my bike if I was in the picture!

This is the bike that my Dad bought me for my birthday (I think) when I was in college.  I've had it since 1987 at least -- and maybe 1986!  Jake fixed my tire for me and has been good about coming on my, so far, rather torturous bike rides with me!

 A few years ago I was trying to teach myself to run and I mentioned on a blog that when I push myself really hard -- I cry.  I had a blogger friend who commented that when she went to the gym she knew her trainer had pushed her really hard if she started laughing a lot.  Truthfully, I'm a little jealous of that reaction!  

One of my goals is to try the C25K program again.  In the past I never did even get to the point where I could run a mile at once, but I did notice that I felt better, so I'm trying again.  My nice family members are helping me out.  Kayli agreed to do it with me, and Derek and Jake came the first day.  What happened?  By the end I had tears running down my face because it was so hard for me!  I have to work so hard when that happens to be nice to myself!  I don't love exercising but I am not lazy! 

My other goal is to ride my bike 10 miles in one ride.  Those who bike a lot will know that this is "easy".  Me?  I thought I'd try riding from here to the Elk Ridge road and back (Probably less than 2 miles total).  The first time was awful!  It was a little too cold and my ear hurt and so I was dizzy when I got home and my heart was beating really hard and I spent some quality time feeling sorry for myself while lying on the floor -- and trying again to be nice to me! The good news?  Even though my legs felt like rubber I did not fall off of my bike when I got home! 

I know that if I stick with it, it will get easier.  I also am aware that if I push too hard, I will injure myself because I've done that before! When you push yourself really hard what happens to you?  I am trying to make peace with my tears because it means I am pushing myself.  I am even trying to do a little cheering for myself with some slightly forced laughter before I cry.  Who knows.  Maybe one day my response will be a natural laugh, and the tears won't show up at all!  

Getting Away

 Derek and I felt like we could really use a break, and so we scheduled time to go to St. George.  Thankfully, Derek's parents rearranged their schedule a little to allow us to use their nice St. George house even though there was a bit of a mix up with our scheduling.  On the way there we stopped in Cedar City to see Connor and Amanda who we don't get to see too often, and we got to meet Rocky who was visiting from the Phillipines (and who knows Japanese and who Connor enjoys talking to in Japanese).  We played Apples to Apples and it was fun.  I maintain that it would have been fun even if I hadn't won :-)

Me, Connor, Amanda, and friend Rocky

This is Derek and me traveling to St. George.  We were just sending pictures off to Kayli for fun.

Friday Derek and I walked around the botanical gardens and then we went out to Gunlock Reservoir.  This was the scene of my torn hamstring three years ago.  It still bugs me, but I did NOT re-injure it while we were there.  It was a drier year this year so there were no puddles for me to jump over and accidentally hurt myself.

Someone made a cool hut thing.  It wasn't us!

Derek and me at the reservoir

The clouds were pretty awesome on the way there!

This is the tree we saw that Derek loved and wished we could have in our yard -- and we could!  It would just be dead after winter.  It was meant for warmer climates.

We took dinner to my parent's house on Friday night and Trisa came too, with Chewy.  The next day my Mom fixed us and Ray and Lori dinner and we visited again.  It is always good to see them, and I seem to always fail to pull out the camera and document our visit!  On Saturday we went to Ray and Lori's property and saw their footings.  Their house building project has begun!

It was really good to have a get away with Derek.  

Spring Break(s)

Me, Dan, Trisa, Kayli and Jake

The first full week of April was spring break for Dan (who is in 9th grade) and Trisa (who teaches Kindergarten).  Derek and I got our 2nd Covid shots on Tuesday and so Wednesday was not a good Spring break day!  

Monday we were able to help celebrate Tia's birthday.  Tuesday I took Dan to the library.  Thursday was our adventure.  All of those who live here, minus Derek who was still feeling yucky and working anyway, went to the Loveland Living Planet Aquarium.  I totally stank at taking pictures.  Kayli took the one above and I took the two below.  I've been there a couple of times before with Dan and I think so many things are awesome that I just didn't bother taking pictures.  Instead I decided Derek needed to come with me and see for himself another time (and thus it got added to my 54 before 54 list -- see post from the 14th).  

I really enjoyed looking at all of the creatures and the jungle.  I even somewhat enjoyed watching people who spent so much time taking selfies that I wondered if they actually saw the sharks they were posing in front of!  

This past week was Kayli's Spring break.  The weather is less cooperative.  There were impressively dark clouds, rain, hail, and some really loud thunder!  We went for a walk on the Spanish Fork River trail (not in the rain) and painted pottery at the Color Me Mine.  We got smoothies too.  Mmmm.  The rest of her Spring Break was left to her since Derek and I took off and left her with Jake and Dan.  I was glad to be included in the days I was here!