52 Blessings: Week 12

Week 12.

This is the view outside my window.  And it reminds me of my greatest blessing.  Grace.  These blossoms cover my orange trees every spring.  They are a gift.  I do nothing to earn them and certainly nothing to encourage them.  There are still oranges on my trees (lots of them), which only goes to show I haven't even properly used all that was given to me by these little blossoms last year.  And yet.  They still bloom without question, without condition.   Heedless of my unworthiness.

This week I sat with my back against the rocks, my toes in the sand, my face warmed by the sun.  Ethan was asleep on my chest as I watched my older three play in the surf.  And the tears slid down my cheeks as I acknowledged my Savior's grace and remembered His gifts.  These His creations, these His children, and His atonement making it possible for them to be mine forever.  Heedless of my unworthiness.

His Grace is sufficient.  His Grace is abundant.  His Grace is enough and to spare.  "...every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, eat;  yea, come buy wine and milk without money and without price."  I am so grateful for my Savior's love.  The love He freely gives me.

52 Blessings: Week 11

Week 11.

This week's blessing came as a bit of a surprise to me.  As I was sitting in the doctor's office filling out Caleb's paperwork, I was suddenly overwhelmed with gratitude for my good husband's good job and especially (this week) for the medical insurance that protects our family.  As I filled in "all the blanks" and thought about this great blessing, my heart just started thumping away and I had to close my eyes and say a heartfelt prayer of thanksgiving.  I am so grateful and touched by the way David provides this security for all his "dependents," my precious children (and me), the feeling of safekeeping and protection this gives me, and the realization that I hardly ever even think about or acknowledge this "quiet umbrella."  My gratitude was confirmed again when, after seeing the best pediatrician in the world, I drove to the pharmacy to fill three prescriptions that only cost me $21.  This week I am so grateful for this little card and all it represents.

52 Blessings: Week 10

Week 10.

Sister Mary Bridget.  Bridget has faithfully served as my second counselor, chief advisor, helper-in-any-pinch, best camp and youth conference buddy, gentle nudger, and general reminder of all important things, champion of flossing, ever-dependable and always-there-without-question leader, cheerleader, simplifier, and all-around-true-friend, through the busy days of my service as Young Women's president.  This week she was released.  How I love her.  I am so thankful for this righteous and wise counselor who has made me laugh, made me keep working harder, and even, at times, made me humble.  It has been an absolute joy to work and serve alongside her for the past couple of years.   She so fits the description of a perfect counselor that's found in Exodus:  "But Moses’ hands were heavy; and they took a stone, and put it under him, and he sat thereon; and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun."  I'm afraid I shall never be quite as "steady" without her.

52 Blessings: Week 9

Week 9.

This week I have been so grateful for my little Canon Elph.  When I first thought about starting a blog I told David that I would have to get a camera...a picture's worth a thousand words, and all that.  He came home a few days later with this 3-inch wonder, and since then it has been my constant companion.  I used to be the mom who forgot her camera at every major and minor event in her kids' lives.  No longer.  The only thing this little baby can't do is take a picture of itself, and I love being able to capture and document our life together.  I am especially grateful for it during weeks like this, full of long hours and exhaustion, when I am wrung-out in service to my family.  Its record quietly reminds me that it is worth all the work, that something is being built from all these exhausting "nothings" that make up my days.  It's like being able to see the forest for the trees, the big picture through all these little pictures, the gold in the sand, as Tolstoy says.

52 Blessings: Week 8

Week 8.   (A few days late...I had to track down my husband.)

David knows me.  Occasionally, in the middle of a maelstrom, I will say something stupid and ridiculous that sounds like, "You don't understand me at all."  But the truth is, he understands me better than anyone and even better than myself sometimes.  This week  I had to give a talk for a Relief Society mini-conference and David, disregarding his embarrassment about being the only man in the place and his lack of shirt and tie, snuck in the church and sat in the foyer to hear it.  I am so grateful for his eavesdropping, but most especially for the thought behind it.  He knew I would be anxious and distressed about how it went (regardless of how it actually did go) and he wanted to be the antidote to my inevitable negative review.   I am humbly grateful for his ears, for his thoughtfulness, but most especially for the complete way he knows me better than anyone else.  And knowing me, instead of throwing up his hands in frustration, he eavesdrops.   My heart bursts at his generosity.

52 Blessings: Week 7

Week 7.

I didn't know how to find a picture for this blessing.  On Sunday, I heard the best high council talk I have ever had the pleasure of listening to, and it has already proved to be one of the best blessings of my year.   (I wanted to ask Brother Gardner if I could take his picture, but I thought that might be weird.)  He spoke about Elder Oaks's talk from the last General Conference, "Good, Better, Best," and applied it an absolutely remarkable way, "opening" this talk for me in a very real and profoundly life-changing way.  He told a story that I hope I never forget...relating an experience he had many years ago in Colorado when he was riding the bus (hence the picture).  I don't know if I've ever heard a more powerful story.   And I am grateful for his humility in sharing it, grateful that I was in my sacrament meeting on Sunday morning, and grateful for the deep and unlimited ways the gospel blesses me and my family.

52 Blessings: Week 6

Week 6.

Admittedly, I usually see this week's blessing as a curse, but this week I finally "saw the light."  This week I spent a couple of days with Ethan playing in the sun.  We went to the park and laid on a blanket and the weather was incredible.   A few of those perfect kind of days, where the sun is just warm enough to toast your back, but not quite strong enough to make you hot.  We ate lunch together and I pushed my four-year-old on the swing.  He played and I read my book.  We made pillows with our jackets and took a nap.  And it felt so good to be in the sun with this boy, who also is such a light.   I felt embraced by heaven.  Our days of gentle sunshine are numbered around here.  And so are my "empty" and gloriously free days with this boy.   I am so grateful for the days this week when I was able to catch both of them together, and feel, for a moment, blindingly happy.

52 Blessings: Week 5

Week 5.

My thoughts of gratitude all week have been for this man, a prophet of God, who has lived an extraordinary life, fought the good fight, and returned home to his Heavenly Father and his sweet Marjorie.   He always made me feel deeply loved and cared for, and always encouraged to try a little harder, to be a little better.  His life and sacrifices teach me (by example) of my Heavenly Father and His love for me, and I feel closer to my God by watching this mortal man.  He was, for me, a great and shining light in a world of darkness.  How grateful I am for his words, his life, and his righteousness.

"Now, you dear, wonderful girls, I speak with a father’s love for you. I thank you that you have traveled so well so far. I plead with you to never let down, to establish a purpose and hold to the line and move forward undeterred by any opposing temptation or force that may cross your path.

I pray that your lives will not be wasted but that they may be fruitful of great and everlasting good. The years will pass, and I will not be here to see what you have done with your lives. But there will be many others, oh so many others, who will be counting on you, whose very peace and happiness will depend upon what you do. And above them all will be your Father in Heaven, who will ever love you as His daughter."

52 Blessings: Week 4

Week 4.

This week my heart is full-to-bursting in gratitude for my calling.  I am so in love with my young women and so grateful for the opportunity to know them, to serve them, and to be blessed by their faith and goodness.   They make me feel like a rockstar, like I'm doing the Lord's work, like faith and testimony make a difference.  It always amazes me how such a heavy burden can make my heart feel so light.  I was called by the bishop to serve as the Young Women's president in our ward the day after we moved into the ward.  He came into my living room, full of boxes, and asked me to serve.  And immediately I knew why...why we came, why my husband pushed me to move, why "this house right now."  I can't describe the absolute joy it gives me to serve, and this week I felt it again, deep and sure, and for this I am so grateful.

52 Blessings: Week 3

Week 3.  (Again, a week late.)

I gave David this tandem bike for Christmas this year, after much deliberation.  It has turned out to be one of the best blessings of my new year.   Our family has been all over town (literally) on our bikes and I have been so surprised by the bonding that is happening "out on the trail."  Not only are we enjoying, and truly appreciating, the gorgeous Arizona winter weather, we are sincerely enjoying each other's company.  No small potatoes.  The real magic of this blessing though, is happening between me and my husband as we pedal this tandem bicycle together.  A "oneness" has reemerged and as we ride together I feel my heart lifting and expanding in a way I had forgotten I could feel.   Our "bicycle built for two," a blessing indeed.

52 Blessings: Week 2

Week 2.

After being back at school for the first full week, my spirits have been flagging.  I gathered this glass of sand and rocks on a perfect day on Mackinac Island last summer.  It was one of those rare magical days (I remember Caleb wistfully wishing we could live there forever), and we were riding our rented bicycles around the island when we stopped to let the kids "swim" in the frigid waters of Lake Huron.  In an attempt to capture and remember the day, I filled a water bottle with a bit of the beach.  This week I am so grateful for this reminder by my kitchen sink.  So grateful for that perfect summer day, and the hope I have for another just 6 months away.

52 Blessings: Week 1

Week 1.  (A week late.)

 

My parents gave me this all-powerful, super-industrial, easy-to-use, gorgeous-and-efficient, amazing-in-every-way juicer for Christmas a few years ago.  It really is a wonder.  It can juice an orange with no effort at all in 2 seconds flat.  I can do nothing but grin when it's humming along creating a delicious, immuno-boosting, colorful pitcher of liquid sunshine.  I use it like mad in orange season and I'm so grateful for the ease and joy it brings to my juicing.  I love it, and it still ranks on my list of top gifts ever.   This blessings reminds me of the open hand of my Heavenly Father.  The annual gift of my trees and the bounty they offer, with little or no encouragement, is profoundly humbling to me.