Spies!

Near the beginning of the school year, I was picking Dylan up from school, and as he climbed into the van, he asked out of the blue, "Mom, you and Dad got me at the FBI orphanage, right?"  I immediately answered, "Of course.  You were clearly the best spy baby there."  He looked thoughtful for a minute, then said, "Yeah, I thought so.  Its hard being a spy, but its fun.  Me and Ammon are getting a new mission tomorrow."

This story line has popped up periodically over the last few months, and its not his only one.  Tonight he told me he was a little nervous because on Friday, he'd seen clues that Invisible Man was going to try to attack the school on Monday, but he was having trouble contacting Ammon about the mission because one of his satellites got knocked out by the snow.  He was working on getting it back up when I put him to bed.

I love this about him.  His inner world is so rich and dynamic and fun, and he immerses himself in it so completely.  At night, if you listen hard enough, you can often hear him up on his bunk bed quietly acting out multiple parts of some exciting adventure, long after all his sisters have fallen asleep.  He's like the Daniel Day Lewis of make believe.

My secret life

So we were cleaning the church today (Mormons generally have families take turns cleaning our own buildings--it keeps costs low and helps us all better appreciate the beautiful buildings we're so fortunate to have), and when we got to the Relief Society, the kids found one of our snack cups on the floor behind the piano.

Keilana loudly asked, "What's this doing in here?"  All my kids are old enough that they go to Primary or Nursery, none of them go to Relief Society with me any more, and I almost never take snacks to church for the kids--every once in a great while I will take a small snack for Keira if she slept late enough to miss breakfast--so her confusion was understandable.

I told her that it must've been left there last week when I'd come in for a presidency meeting.  Dylan raised one eyebrow and said, "What meeting? I don't remember you taking Keira to a meeting?" I explained that I have meetings during the week sometimes, and they were both astonished that I went to a meeting, during the day, and they didn't even know about it.  They looked at me like they'd just discovered I lead a double life.

Apparently they think my life outside the house stops altogether between 8am and 3pm Monday through Friday. 

Hurdles

Don't emotionally hold your spouse accountable 

for the sins of your parents.  

Don't hold your children emotionally accountable 

for the sins of your spouse.  

Don't react to the person in front of you 

because of the way they remind you of someone else.  

Don't hurt someone else

just because you have been hurt.  

Seek to spread your blessings, 

not your miseries.

Having been the victim

of selfishness or cluelessness

obligates you to know better

and give better 

to those in your life and care.

It certainly does not

entitle you 

to selfishness or cluelessness

of your own.

A Gift

I don't think its likely I have much in common with Elder Holland.  For starters, he has a work ethic, personal discipline, spiritual enlightenment and dedication that I can only dream of.

That being said, he's long been one of my favorite speakers, because, well, who doesn't love Elder Holland's talks?  They are emotionally moving, spiritually powerful, and intellectually strong.  But one of the other reasons that his talks in particular stick out to me is that he often speaks on themes that I frequently find in my own writing, thoughts, and conversations--aspects of the Gospel and doctrine that are often on my mind and are particularly moving to me.  He speaks regularly of the reality that we are never alone, that the Lord knows us individually and personally and loves us, that there are angels everywhere, that we should always have hope, and that we should be of good cheer.  These are the thoughts I find myself coming back to over and over and over again in my own studying and pondering.

When I heard him make the statement above during an interview on the Mormon Channel series "Conversations", it immediately resonated with me and has stuck in my mind.

"One of the gifts given me is. . .I'm a believer".  I finally realized this about myself a few years ago.  Faith is, for lack of a better word, natural to me.  That isn't to say I haven't strived to develop this gift and to develop a deeper and stronger testimony, because I very much have.  But I was given the gift of belief, much of it comes relatively easily to me, which in turn makes hope and being of good cheer relatively easy.

I needed to remember that, to express my gratitude for it, to realize that I ought not be frustrated or inpatient when those I love struggle to reach a point of belief, or even seem uninterested in believing.  I spend most of my time on seeking to better understand, because belief comes easy for me.  I realized that several years ago, and I needed to be reminded that I am only able to spend as much energy focused on developing understanding because I don't need to spend a lot of time developing belief--in the deepest parts of my heart, I never truly have any doubts.  And that is a very much an unearned and all too often undeserved gift, but I am so grateful to the Lord for choosing to bestow that gift upon me.  More times than I can count, it has been the glue that has held my life--my self--together.  I pray always that I might be more worthy of that blessing, and make better use of it in blessing those around me.

I know I shouldn't covet

but check this out:

http://tinyurl.com/csx68dg

It may not be heaven, but its awfully close.  The house, the creek, the ponds, the barns, the shop. . .*sigh*  AND its only 3-4 miles from town. 

A girl can dream, right?  I'll keep the horses in the corral, too.  Keilana's wanted a white horse for a couple of years.

I best get to writing that best-selling book of mine.

Privileges and Obligations

I haven't been to the temple in a very long time--or at least what seems to me like a very long time.  It has been a combination of things: time, distance, gas money, childcare, weather.  There seems to always be something getting in the way.  There are two temples within about a three-hour one-way drive of where we live, but in this climate, this time of year, that's a difficult drive to make (and having to arrange childcare for a minimum of 9 hours, or find a sitter in an unfamiliar city and take kids on those dicey roads is no small task).

I found myself wishing out loud (so to speak) on Facebook the other day that there were a temple in a city about an hour and a half from us, where I have family that could watch the kids and the drive would be more doable. A loved one of mine responded that he thought the experience loses something when its convenient--that the sacrifice makes it more meaningful.  Sacrifice makes most things more meaningful, but a temple experience--or a church service--doesn't have to be any less meaningful or special because we get to experience it more often, with less logistical challenges.  That is up to us.

When we lived in California, we were just over an hour from the temple, and the reality of a young family, work schedules, activities and gas/babysitting money meant that we rarely got to the temple more than quarterly.  But at no point was I anything less than elated to be getting to go to the temple.  I didn't realize this at the time, but that attitude rubbed off on my children.  I have noticed the excitement and glee in their faces whenever the temple comes up, and my four-year-old has told me several times that she is excited to go to the temple when she "gets big".  Though they have never been in the temple, my children see it as a desirable place that makes one happy--because that is the reality they saw in us as we attended the temple.  I didn't consciously teach that to them, but I'm glad they saw it.  But then I asked myself a question: am I succeeding in demonstrating that behavior and attitude about the other important parts of our life?  Are they seeing a mother who is excited about and attentive to General Conference?  How many mornings do I seem stressed and resentful of getting everyone out the door to church, rather than grateful for the opportunity to partake of the Sacrament and worship with devoted members of the faith that I cherish?

I thought of a moment many years ago when I stopped in the middle of my train of thought and laughed at myself.  A newly ordained Apostle was coming to our Stake Conference to reorganize our Stake Presidency, and I was so excited and ready to be at my very most attentive.  I had my notebook and pen ready, and I was certain that my 8-month-old would magically be a perfect baby and let me get through the meeting hearing every word. I was getting ready to go sit in the chapel and thinking to myself, "How often do we get to hear from an Apostle?"  At that moment, I caught myself, and laughed out loud.  The answer to that question was simple:  at the bare minimum, I get to hear from all the Apostles and the Prophet of the Lord every six months.  Did I pay as much attention to General Conference as I was prepared to that evening at Stake Conference?  Did I make an effort to watch First Presidency firesides?

In these things, I was often guilty of letting myself fall prey to just what my loved one was talking about: I was letting sacred things become routine simply because I had the opportunity to participate in them regularly.  I had let them become obligations rather than remembering that they are some of the most precious opportunities in this life.

And, in fact, they are obligations because of the covenants we have made:  we have an obligation to get to the temple as much as our circumstances will possibly allow, because there is work to be done and blessings to bestow; we are obligated to attend our Sunday meetings to partake of the Sacrament and to serve others in our callings; we are obligated to attend Conferences and listen to our leaders and strive to do as they have instructed.  Sometimes we allow ourselves to forget that the very covenants that obligate us to these actions are themselves precious, sacred privileges of the most Divine nature.  Yes, it is difficult to get everyone fed, bathed and dressed and coiffed neatly and get scriptures and manuals and get out the door on time on Sunday morning.  But what an unspeakable privilege to be able to, once a week, wipe my slate clean and start fresh.  To have a few moments of nearly total quiet to contemplate who I am, who I ought to be and how to get there, and be offered again an opportunity to get closer to that ideal through the ordinances made possible by the Lord's Atonement; to have time set aside specifically to study and and discuss the doctrines of salvation with those who are committed to understanding and progressing in them.

Though that is all part of our weekly routine, it is hardly an ordinary thing.  Too often we trifle with sacred things not by mocking them, exposing them to the world, or profaning them with vile hypocrisy, but by simply failing to give our full attention and heart to them.

I made sacrifices to ensure that I got to the temple for my own Endowment; I made sacrifices to ensure that my family had the best possible start by getting married in the right place and by the right authority.  As difficult as some of those sacrifices were for me, they were worth making.  But am I building on them the way that I should be, by communicating to my children, to my spouse, and to any others who may fall under my stewardship, that the Sacrament is worth our devoted attention and we should be grateful to have the opportunity to be at Church each week to receive it?  Am I engaging fully and happily in creating a holy atmosphere in our home, or do I slack off or even grumble when it comes time to prepare for Family Home Evening or do our daily family scripture study?  I want my children to feel the joy of scripture study, the wonder of learning of the Savior and his doctrines.  I want them to know what a marvelous privilege our sacred obligations are.  I don't want the things of the world to be our routine.  I want to meet the challenge of building our routine around the things of eternity, while not letting those things seem common or ordinary. 

Blessings

Something I just read reminded me of a moment a few weeks ago that made me very grateful for my circumstances.

Let me preface this with, its easy to fall prey to feeling resentful of our circumstances.  We have a hand-me-down kitchen table and cheap Target chairs that were a Christmas gift 7 years ago.  We have three chairs in our living room: two from Goodwill and one a 10-year-old hand-me-down from my mom. We own one 8-year-old 27-inch tube TV, a 7.5-year-old desktop computer that only kind of works anymore, our decent laptop that serves as our primary computer,  and one 2-year-old iPad. Upstairs we have our wonderful king-size bed that we bought ourselves just before Dylan was born, the older kids' bunkbed that we got at a discount retailer a few years ago, Kylie's thrift store mattresses that sit on the floor, and Keira's play pen that was a hand-me-down from my sister-in-law. Outside we have a 12-year-old Honda Accord and a 7-year-old Dodge Caravan, both of which we bought used.  Those are all our major possessions (and we don't have a lot of minor ones), and we're living in a crumbling (but, thankfully, very warm) old rental house at the moment.  We're making ends meet, but not a whole lot more than that.  The last times we went more than two hours from home were a quick Easter weekend jaunt down to Orem in April 2011 to pick up the rest of our possessions that my in-laws had driven up from California, and, before that, a 2-day family trip to Apple Hill in October of 2010.  We've been on approximately ten dates in the last two years.  Hopefully, if we're disciplined, we'll make some serious headway in the next few months and be able to start moving toward saving for a place of our own and saving for some of the other things we'd like (like real furniture and whatnot),  and in a year or two be in a very different position, but in the mean time, we are still recovering from 15 months of unemployment (before which we weren't exactly living high on the hog),.  We could probably be in a different position right now if I had chosen to finish school before having kids and had worked outside our home during the last several years.  No one is ever more aware of that than I am.

But back to my moment.  Last Saturday, we didn't go anywhere or do anything all day (which is pretty unusual--we usually find some way to get out of the house), and the kids played happily together all day, building forts, playing board games, make-believing and dressing up and riding stick horses.  I'm always very grateful that, despite the challenges of raising what is by today's standards a good sized family, I have all of them.  By the end of the day, I was very glad that they all have each other.  I'm very grateful for the abundant ways that I am blessed by having my siblings in my life, and when I remember that, or have days like that where my kids play together so wonderfully, I'm glad we've made the necessary sacrifices to have a large family.

A moment I had a few days earlier reminded me how grateful I am to be a stay-at-home mom, no matter the financial sacrifices involved.  Keira woke up happy, but when the other kids left for school, she crawled up into my lap and wanted to snuggle.  She wasn't sick, and didn't seem to be too tired, but she just wanted to be held and rocked.  So that's what I did.  For 40 minutes, I held my one-and-a-half-year-old on my lap and rocked.  Because I could.

And everyday, I sit with my four-year-old and read books and trace letters and play Go Fish and dance with my little girls.  I pick up my older kids from school, and am ready and able to listen all about their day, get them a snack, help them with homework, and have them help me with dinner, and the vast majority of the time do it all happily, because I'm not distracted, too busy, tired or gone.  I'm grateful for that.  I'd love to have that and the beautiful house and nice furniture and toys and money to travel, but if I have to pick one or the other, I'd pick the time with and focus on my kids every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

I'm grateful to have a husband who not only understands that, but cherishes and supports it.  It means that he has to make sacrifices, too, and it doesn't allow much room for selfishness on his part, but he's glad I'm there with them everyday, and all the richness that gives to his life that money could never buy.

I do hope to get back into school in the next year or two, first and foremost because a marketable degree is the best life insurance I could possibly have if anything were to ever happen to Doug, but when I look back on the last 10 years of decisions regarding family, education, and work, I can say with complete honesty I have absolutely no regrets.