When I married your dad 42+ years ago, to be honest, you were the last thing on my mind. I was kind of naive and just believed whatever should happen, would happen and so our little family began. You know what! Looking back, what was supposed to happen, did happen. Our first born, you Heather, came along just 9 months after we married. You Jason, were born just a year later. We had to wait 4years to get Jamie and then we lost her too quickly. Jenny came along soon after that, I believe out of her choice to help us. After all the trauma, there was a big question! Should we, could we, have another child but I knew there was another one to come and so we took that blind leap into the unknown and you Micah were born.
Dad and I were just talking this morning about which child we would choose to do without. Of course, the answer was easy. None! Each of you has added an amazing dimension to our lives and we would never choose to do without any one of you. We would do it all again, in spite of all the problems we had getting you here, in spite of some of the heartache and pain. Why? Because you are literally all we have in this life. You are part of our family and our most precious relationships. You are each different and wonderful in your own ways. There are things we cherish about each of you. I even have names for you that are descriptions of my feelings about you. They are private and special and maybe some day I will share them with you. You are the joy in my life. Nothing else I do compares to the feelings I have about you, my children.
All of you have one thing in common that is very important to me. That thing is your caring, giving hearts and your energy to help others become better and to try in your own way to make this world a better place. I wanted to say this at our "farewell" but I would have to have choked it out through the emotion. I see so much in each of you that makes me proud to be your mom and grateful that even though it was hard, I decided to have each of you. You are amazing, wonderful human beings. Thanks for choosing to come here and let me be your mom. It is a wonderful journey we share and I am looking forward to many more adventures with you in this life. I love you bigger than the sky! I want you to know that if I did not believe that I was doing the right thing in going on this mission, I would never leave you, my family, my most precious gift!
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Thursday, April 5, 2012
A Timely Fast
Last week Jen and Tim suggested that we have a fast about many issues that have beset our family of late. We have had a couple of kids out of work, Ken and I unable to get visas, sickness both physical and emotional and a couple of other serious issues going on inside our immediate and extended family and with friends as well. As I was preparing for the fast, I got wondering what the basic principle behind fasting is. I asked Ken and he didn't seem to have a satisfactory answer for me or himself. We looked it up in the Bible Dictionary and a couple of other sources. We still found nothing that really satisfied our basic question outside the fact that it is to help bolster spiritual strength.
We did fast and invited many to join our fast with us. Many of you did joing us and let us know that. I'm sure that many more joined us without letting us know you were doing so. Still I was not sure just what a fast was supposed to do until this morning when I came to a very personal understanding. You see some pretty "specific" answers came in a very obvious way. Bill landed another job this morning. He now has two jobs that between them will help keep his family fed and housed and clothed. We were informed that we could apply for our visas and between Thursday afternoon (before the fast started) and Monday afternoon, we obtained our paperwork, got physicals (again), had the blood work done (again), had xrays and returned the paperwork all finished to the travel department of the church at the church office building in person. I think we are really on our way.
All of this was an obvious benefit of the fast but as Ken and I knelt in prayer this morning to give thanks for these events, I was struck by all the many other times we have fasted and by the many times that the results have not been so obvious. We have fasted many times for Micah to be able to find a way to care for his family. Our interpretation of that has most often been that he would find a job. That has not been forthcoming but the way has been provided for him to go back to school while still keeping his family cared for. I had confirmation this morning that this was the way that he is supposed to be going for the future well-being of he and his sweet family. Many other things have been made known to me in that "still small voice" that have not been huge manifestations of something immediate but they are just as real.
Today is Jamie's 37th birthday. It has been a tough day. Some of her birthdays have been this way. I want to know what my 37 year old daughter would be doing now. Would she be as beautiful in every way as her sisters? Would she have a family? Would she be as big a part of our family as our other children still are? Would we have 20 0r 22 grandchildren instead of 18? Jason and Aretta have been through a similar experience. 36 years ago, many people fasted for us to make it through the "worst experience of our lives". We did make it and we have made it through many, many tough things since. I have decided that fasting is not to provide the answer that we are looking for but the strength to accept the answer we need. Looking back on the answers to so many fasts, I see that the answers were always the right ones, I just didn't know it at the time.
We did fast and invited many to join our fast with us. Many of you did joing us and let us know that. I'm sure that many more joined us without letting us know you were doing so. Still I was not sure just what a fast was supposed to do until this morning when I came to a very personal understanding. You see some pretty "specific" answers came in a very obvious way. Bill landed another job this morning. He now has two jobs that between them will help keep his family fed and housed and clothed. We were informed that we could apply for our visas and between Thursday afternoon (before the fast started) and Monday afternoon, we obtained our paperwork, got physicals (again), had the blood work done (again), had xrays and returned the paperwork all finished to the travel department of the church at the church office building in person. I think we are really on our way.
All of this was an obvious benefit of the fast but as Ken and I knelt in prayer this morning to give thanks for these events, I was struck by all the many other times we have fasted and by the many times that the results have not been so obvious. We have fasted many times for Micah to be able to find a way to care for his family. Our interpretation of that has most often been that he would find a job. That has not been forthcoming but the way has been provided for him to go back to school while still keeping his family cared for. I had confirmation this morning that this was the way that he is supposed to be going for the future well-being of he and his sweet family. Many other things have been made known to me in that "still small voice" that have not been huge manifestations of something immediate but they are just as real.
Today is Jamie's 37th birthday. It has been a tough day. Some of her birthdays have been this way. I want to know what my 37 year old daughter would be doing now. Would she be as beautiful in every way as her sisters? Would she have a family? Would she be as big a part of our family as our other children still are? Would we have 20 0r 22 grandchildren instead of 18? Jason and Aretta have been through a similar experience. 36 years ago, many people fasted for us to make it through the "worst experience of our lives". We did make it and we have made it through many, many tough things since. I have decided that fasting is not to provide the answer that we are looking for but the strength to accept the answer we need. Looking back on the answers to so many fasts, I see that the answers were always the right ones, I just didn't know it at the time.
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
To Everything There Is A Season
On the way to the Transient Services Office today, I couldn't help but think about all the changes that are happening in my life. I also couldn't help but think of my "past life". I was always busy being "Molly Mormon" and being appropriate and worrying about how things looked and what I wasn't getting "fed" and so on and so on. You women know the drill. It took me a long, long time to figure out that "to everything there is a season". I wanted to be everything to everyone all at the same time. I really thought it was possible to "have it all and do it all".
It took some serious experience to teach me what a myth that thought process was. Hind sight is 20/20 is an appropriate thought in that perspective. After I had worn myself out in many ways and ended up in the hospital, a long retraining process began.
In Tai Chi yesterday, we got into a conversation about doors opening and closing, you know the one, when one door closes, another door opens. I used to think that was a bunch of bologne until Tai Chi and the real application of the gospel taught me differently. It really is true. We are constantly "reinventing" ourselves and if we choose to see it, the law of attraction goes to work in our lives and we become something new. We become the person for the season.
My new season is my favorite season. It will be fall in New Zealand when we get there. That has always been my favorite of the 4 seasons. The air is crisp and mellow, the colors are bright and amazing, there is a wonderful harvest of many beautiful and delicious things, the earth is preparing for winter and the long rest she gets to take. I want to be crisp and mellow, bright and amazing as I enter this "new season" of my life. My dad used to say, when you asked him which part of his life was the best part, "The one I'm in!" I want this to be an awesome season of my life but I am the only one that can make it that way. I'm ready to join in the harvest. No I am not ready for the "long rest" yet but I'm going to try to keep on reinventing until that happens.
In re-evaluating my life, I have thought about all the things I have done, helping with the deaf and all their many issues, learning sign language, being a "roady" mom with my rockin' daughter and the bands, getting a martial arts black belt at 51 and then going on to get 2nd and 3rd dan belts as well, becoming a Tai Chi teacher,working in the temple and at the Missionary Training Center and the Transient Services Office. I have raised a beautiful family, all of whom I am proud. They are my most amazing gift but it took me all these years to see that the way I view it now.
I had a season for raising a family and I think in spite of my shortcomings, I did it well. They are all productive, important parts of society with the desires in their heart to make this earth a better place in some way than when they arrived here. I had a season for growing myself, graduating college, getting other honors of sorts and doing all sorts of things I never saw myself doing. Now it is my season for going with my husband to a far away place and helping others fulfill the seasons of their lives. Fall is coming and it is my favorite season.
It took some serious experience to teach me what a myth that thought process was. Hind sight is 20/20 is an appropriate thought in that perspective. After I had worn myself out in many ways and ended up in the hospital, a long retraining process began.
In Tai Chi yesterday, we got into a conversation about doors opening and closing, you know the one, when one door closes, another door opens. I used to think that was a bunch of bologne until Tai Chi and the real application of the gospel taught me differently. It really is true. We are constantly "reinventing" ourselves and if we choose to see it, the law of attraction goes to work in our lives and we become something new. We become the person for the season.
My new season is my favorite season. It will be fall in New Zealand when we get there. That has always been my favorite of the 4 seasons. The air is crisp and mellow, the colors are bright and amazing, there is a wonderful harvest of many beautiful and delicious things, the earth is preparing for winter and the long rest she gets to take. I want to be crisp and mellow, bright and amazing as I enter this "new season" of my life. My dad used to say, when you asked him which part of his life was the best part, "The one I'm in!" I want this to be an awesome season of my life but I am the only one that can make it that way. I'm ready to join in the harvest. No I am not ready for the "long rest" yet but I'm going to try to keep on reinventing until that happens.
In re-evaluating my life, I have thought about all the things I have done, helping with the deaf and all their many issues, learning sign language, being a "roady" mom with my rockin' daughter and the bands, getting a martial arts black belt at 51 and then going on to get 2nd and 3rd dan belts as well, becoming a Tai Chi teacher,working in the temple and at the Missionary Training Center and the Transient Services Office. I have raised a beautiful family, all of whom I am proud. They are my most amazing gift but it took me all these years to see that the way I view it now.
I had a season for raising a family and I think in spite of my shortcomings, I did it well. They are all productive, important parts of society with the desires in their heart to make this earth a better place in some way than when they arrived here. I had a season for growing myself, graduating college, getting other honors of sorts and doing all sorts of things I never saw myself doing. Now it is my season for going with my husband to a far away place and helping others fulfill the seasons of their lives. Fall is coming and it is my favorite season.
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