Within Our Hands

I have often heard the expression "don't put your children in between you and your spouse." This is often in reference to sitting in a bench at church, but in general is a statement about placing them between our love for each other. 

One of my favorite traditions that we have in our family is that we love to hold hands durring prayer. We feel that it focuses us and unites us together. Whether or not our children choose to join us, my husband and I will always do this because we feel it shows them that we are united in our faith in God. 

Our oldest daughter is nearly 2 years old. She absolutely loves this tradition and wants to be part of it, even if she has already eaten her dinner. No matter where she is in the house, she runs to add her two little hands to the prayer. 

Sometime, however, it doesn't work to hold everyone's hand. If she has Mommy's hand but not Daddy's hand, it makes her exceptionally upset since Daddy is by far her favorite. In her 2 year old way, she exclaims "why does Mommy get to hold Daddy's hand and not me?!?" 

So, in her very sweet way, she found a solution to the problem. She started to slide her little fingers in between our hands. It was so sweet and innocent that we almost couldn't finish the prayer the first few times it happened. As time has gone by, this has become more the norm than the anomaly. She will sometimes wait until Mommy and Daddy take hands before she will slide her own in. 

Durring the sacrament prayer today, we had such an experience. Nothing new in the process, just the same sweet hand trying to participate. However, this time I was drawn to a deeper perspective of the scene. 

I realized that she always waits until Mommy and Daddy are ready. Then, she slips in the middle, very particularly careful not to separate our bond. She gentlely snuggles in the middle, calm and safe in the warmth between. 

What a beautiful representation of our eternal family!  First, before anything else, the husband and wife must take each other's hand and be united in the temple of The Lord. Our hands together in the blessings of that sacred temple provides the foundation for the family to be built. 

As children are added, they do not try to tear us apart, but rather they desire to participate in the sacred union of love between their parents. They add their little hands, their little faith, to the family as an addition, not a subtraction. 

Then, they gentlely snuggle in the warmth thereof. They could hold to one hand or the other, but is in the union of the two that provides the safest and warmest location for them to be. It is within the realm of our love for each other that we create this safe place where our children can be comforted. We call this place "home."

In so being, we do not put our children between us, but rather encircle them within us. It is when we strengthen our love and our union that we create this "home."  It is our responsibility as parents to provide this "home" for the children of our Father. Be they sent to our home by birth, by circumstance, or by the spirit. He has placed them within our hands. 

The Empty Plate

So tonight for dinner, I was making my daughter buttered noodles (her favorite!). When i told her this, she was ecstatic and jumped right up to the table ready to go. However noodles take a long time to cook in the eyes of a 19 month old. 

To appease her while she was waiting, I gave her a plate full of raspberries, which she enjoyed with sweet delight and quickly consumed. I then gave her some cereal to hold her off for the last few minutes, but those as well were gone as quickly as they had arrived. 

Finally, the noodles were done, but needed to be drained and buttered. Oh the agony! As the empty plate sat before her, she cried and whined and asked repeatedly for more. When I was finished with the noodles, I took her plate from the table over to the stove to fill it. She panicked! 

She jumped down from the table and began crying at my feet. How dare I take her plate that had held such foods thus far! "NOT DONE!" she exclaimed. I laughed to myself at the childish misunderstanding, but quickly filled her plate and turned to show her that it had been filled. All crying stopped as she took this new information in. I simply asked, "Would you like some noodles?" She nodded emphatically. "What do you say?" I said. "Peeees!" She said as she rubbed her tummy to sign the word 'please'. 

I then returned the plate to the table and told her that she would have to come to the table to get her meal. She jumped right up and began joyfully downing her feast!

In this moment, I realized how our Heavenly Father must feel when He is trying to bless His children. 

He knows that blessings appear to take a long time in our minds, so He gives us little blessings here and there to let us know that He has not forgotten to feed us. 

However, we often 'devour' these blessings so quickly and without thought that we are left every once and a while with an 'empty plate'. 

Father, knowing our hunger and our need, proceeds to present us with the trial of taking away empty plate. We, in our childish thoughts, do not understand why and are sometimes angry that the Lord would take from us all that we have. We suddenly realize the blessing of the food we have already eaten and implore Him at His feet that we were 'not done' yet, pleading with Him for even just our empty plate back. 

In this moment, I can just see Him smiling down at us and whispering, "oh, my child, do you not see the bountiful bowl before you? Do you not remember the promise that I gave you before it all began? I told you there would be better blessings for you in time. I will never leave you hungry."

In this moment, we feel humbled and cease our whining. Instead, we meekly and cheerfully 'say please'. Then, our most loving and patient Father, places our blessings where we can obtain them, as long as we are willing to work to climb back up to the table. 

How grateful I am for the many blessings that He has given me and my family. May we ever be thankful for the blessings we have and patient for the ones still to come. Thank you, Father, for taking away my empty plate. 

Relief Society Birthday

For our Relief Society Birthday Party this year, our ward decided to celebrate our three white dresses: the Baby Blessing Dress, the Baptism Dress, and the Temple Dress. 

Our beautiful handout. Made with a paper (cricut cut) top and a handkerchief. We put them together with GlueDots. 

We asked sisters to bring their own dresses to use as displays. We ha a wonderful turn out an many amazing dresses to look at. 

We wanted to make it all very fancy. We used white linens with risers and sheer draperies. The sisters signed up to bring various salads of any type to the event. We had everything from greens to potatoes to chicken salad sandwiches. 

For the program, we had three of the sisters from our ward come to speek with us. We started with an overview of purity and covenants by our wonderful bishop. Following this, we had a sister talk about each dress. 

The first sister talked about her blessing dress which was handmade by her great-great-grandmother and ha been wore by every woman in her family for the last several generations. She spoke of how much the blessing of her baby, the first in the newest generation, meant to her. 

The next sister was an adult convert who spoke of the baptism dress. She told of her conversation story an what the covenant if baptism meant to her. 

Finally, we had a sister speak on the blessings of the temple. This sister had a more unique temple situation. Instead if going though the temple to prepare for a mission or to get married, she was simple ready to make the covenants and reciece the blessings thereof. It was a very special evening as she spoke of what the temple and the covenants truly mean to her in her personal life. 

Overall, it was a wonderful activity full of the spirit and sisterhood. 

The Gift Of The Comforter

This week, we had a lot of things that really brought the spirit. With it being the week of Christmas, we were often with family and often speaking of Christ. What a blessing to have this wonderful time of year to singularly remember our Savior's birth and life. 

We also had moments of silent, individual time which allowed for reflection and introspection. Regretfully to recall, I also in these moments had times when I was overcome by sadnesses. Don't worry, nothing bad actually happened this week, but while going through my files of memory, I was reminded of sad things, such as the passing of my grandfather. With regrets of "what I could have said" or "what I could have done", tears would begin flowing and the dark feelings arise. How thankful I have been for the blessing of the comforter, for in these hours when I felt overwhelmingly alone, I was able to call upon my Lord in prayer and ask for his comfort to protect me. It was a very powerful testimony to me, as I lay crying alone, that immediately upon my asking, The Lord blessed me with peace. 

Later in the week, I was with my husband's family, celebrating Christmas. I had a beautiful opportunity to share the peace of the spirit with my Mother-in-love (no, that is not auto correct, that's what we call it.  it's not the law that binds us, but love), Becky. When I was 5, my maternal grandmother passed away. Even though I was very young an didn't really know her in this life, I have always felt a very strong connection to her. I always wished that I could have known her better. Becky's mother passed away while she was in only her teens. In about a week an a half, she will have outlived her mother. For Christmas, she gave all her daughters, including me, a book called "Christ's Gifts to Women". Inside, she wrote an individualized message to each daughter. Being the only daughter-in-law, I was surprised to receive one as well. She had written these notes, thinking of her mother, and wishing her mother had written something for her. The sweetness of this act overwhelmed me as I thought of my own grandmother and the wish for tangible memories of her love. Becky and I shared in that moment, a sense of connection that was far beyond the boundaries of mortality. I am so thankful for her attention to the spirit as she reached out to me as a daughter and as a sister in the kingdom of God. I am so thankful for the blessing comfort through the spirit and for the connections that exceed this world. 

At church yesterday, we had two little girls, who had been baptized the day before, receive their conformation and the gift of the Holy Ghost. What a blessing it is to know that have this gift, to have his spirit with us at all times. 

I pray that the Comforter with always be with you in this coming year. I am so thankful for that blessing. 

Let There Be Light

This week, I am thankful for light. There isn't really a reason for this gratitude. I suppose I did have a couple of really gray days as well as several light bulbs burn out at the same time. Perhaps it was that or some other internal version. 

I am grateful for the ability to see with the light. Thankful for the clarity that it brings both to my eyes and to my heart. I am also thankful for the peace that it brings. I wouldn't have thought that the light could bring pease in a literal sense, but I was shocked at the comfort of having a bright day or a working lightbulb. 

I am also so very grateful, especially at this time of year, for the light of my Savior. What a wonderful blessing to have the light and truth of his gospel. How wonderful it is to have it shine the way for us to see. It amazes me the comfort an peace it brings to know why we are here and where we are going. 

I love my Savior so much and thank him for the light. 

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Mother, I Love You. Mother, I Do.

This week, I am thankful for my mother.  I have had several experiences and moments this week that have shown me first of all how much I miss my mother, and secondly how grateful I am to have her.

Although there wasn't really anything that blatantly said "this week should be about your mom," there was just a lot of little things that made me think of her.  I am so thankful that I have a mother who is not just my mom, but also my friend.  I greatly enjoy being able to call and converse with her about day to day things without feeling that I will be reprimanded or judged by what I tell her.   What a blessing to know that I can trust her with my deepest secrets and littlest feelings.

I am so blessed to have a mother who expressed her love for me.  I am thankful that she would hold my hand and give me the "I love you" sign from across the room.  Those little things really helped me know that my mother loved me with all her heart.  My mom had 8 children; there's not a lot of time in the day to get all the work done, everyone taken care of, and then have any extra time to make anyone feel special, but my mother always did it.  I never had a day that I didn't think that my mom loved me.  I was just as special to her as anyone else.  What a blessing.

I am so thankful for all the work and effort that she put in for me.  There are so many lessons that I learned from her throughout the years, and I only plan on continuing to learn from her.  I can't even count the times that I have called her for advice or direction.  I am so grateful for a mother who cooked and taught us to love to cook.  I may not be as wonderful a chef as she is, but at least I have a vague idea of what I'm doing with a measuring cup!

On top of it all, I am so eternally grateful to have a mother who is strong in the gospel.  It is so wonderful to be able to lean on her when I need strength.  I'm thankful for the many lessons and the patient hours she spent trying to teach all of us kids about the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Each of those lessons are infinitely and increasingly valuable to me as I grow older.   What a strength and an example she has been to me for so long.

Thank you mom for all that you do!  I love you a whole big monkey Michelle bunch, and that's the biggest!

Quilling Ornaments!

We decided we were going to do homemade ornaments for our December craft night.  On top of that, we learned a new skill:  Quilling!  Check it out!