New Thoughts from the Old Bible

I found this scripture recently and decided to dress it up and now it's in a frame above my computer desk.  It's a friendly reminder to me of what I'm striving for in my home and in my self.

Stress can get the better of me sometimes.  Times are really tough and whenever I sit and look at our finances it is so easy to get caught up in the what-if's and the oh-no's and the I-can't-do-anything's...but then I remember the last part of this.  Rejoice in hope!  Even a little ray of hope is worth rejoicing over.  And I also remember this talk from the last conference by Bruce D. Porter.  It was a great reminder to fear not!

This past weekend we had a local street fair where local businesses set up booths for people to walk along and support one another.  I went partly because my son's dance class had a booth and were planning a dance party/performance that afternoon.  Along the street there was a woman advertising for positive thinking classes and workshops.  Her little reminder about positive thinking bringing positive results and good things coming to those who are optimistic and waiting for good things, well, it was rather timely for me.

Coming back to this little scripture I decorated, well, I didn't even realize my one little word was a part of this either.  Rule with diligence.  Makes me want to smile actually.  How many times have I wanted to give up ruling my household with my three little gremlins running around destroying everything.  Deep breathes.  Be diligent.

Every part of this strikes me as a new way of thinking.  Which is odd, because really...how old is the bible?  But giving simply is such a neat and wonderful idea in our modern world where everything is subject to embellishment and undervalued without the bells and whistles on display.  But really, it's always the most simple gifts that mean the most.

And mercy.  I'd never really thought about how showing mercy could be a cheerful thing.  Sometimes being merciful means being forgiving even when the offender isn't even that sorry.  It can be really hard to be cheerful when showing mercy, I think.  But I think there is something quite godlike and angelic about being merciful with a smile on my face.  It's really kicking out that natural man in a way I had never contemplated before.

To be fervently serving...hm.  Well, fervently.  It makes me think of a bright or hot flame.  The dictionary says fervently means having or showing great warmth or intensity of spirit, feeling, enthusiasm; ardent, passionate.  Wow.  Serving fervently seems pretty neat.  And I didn't even realize how much the yellow color I used for that adds to the meaning.  I love how sometimes it seems like I am guided without even knowing it.  I love it when I am shown in God's synchronicities that He has a plan for me.

Dissimulation means hypocrisy.  So to love without any pretense, feigning nothing.  Just honestly loving.  On the surface, this may seem like an easy thing in the home.  But under the surface I think sometimes everyone struggles with that.  Being genuinely kind and loving to someone.  Showing love without pretending or trying too hard.  Being unconditional and letting go of expectations.

So much from just one little scripture.  Those words are truly from God as a gift to us to help us along the way.  What a powerful thing language is.  Definitions of word expounding on our understanding and knowledge of the truth.  Just utterances that could at one point be meaningless but when paired with ideas and given meaning and then put together in sentences...awe.  Ok I'm letting that grammary-English-passion-of-the-dorks person out again.  (Glimpse into the real me...gheesh.)  I'll leave you to your own thoughts. :)

Learning from Bees

One synchronicity I failed to write about was about bees.

I recently read the novel, The Secret Life of Bees, which is fantastic!  Yes, it's the book that they based the Dakota Fanning movie on.  And then general conference happened at the beginning of October and Ballard spoke about how bees work together and what it means to us, if we tried to apply them to the way we live.  He even talked about the health benefits of honey, which is something mentioned many times in the novel I had just read. :)

I was just taken in completely by his talk as he related it to our lives.  Bees are such intriguing creatures in the way they work so hard and keep helping each other.  The novel mentioned often about the gender roles of bees because it's a book that focuses quite a lot on the feminine, as well as race issues, of course.  But Ballard also talked about the amount of work it takes to make one pound of honey.  How much?  Going to check?

I'll wait....
...
...

...
...
Got it?

Yeah, that's right!  A hive of 20,000 to 60,000 bees must travel about the equivalent of two times around the world, visiting millions of flowers!  And this is done all the time!  I mean, how many pounds of honey did you see on the shelves at the store today?  It's fascinating!

But even more is the amount of honey that would equal one bee's contribution.  Did you see it?  That's right... one twelfth of a teaspoon.  One twelfth!  One might think, that's so miniscule it would be easy to give up and say it wouldn't make that much difference.  But bees never do that.  Each bee always makes their contribution to the best of their ability.  Maybe it's instinct or something, but we have a lesson to learn from them.  Maybe I should remember that even if the difference I make is a small one, if we can all work together in a common goal, we can do huge things.

I admired the bees represented in the novel I was reading and how they symbolically played a part in the entire novel.  The writing was genius!  It's a novel I'm glad I own now because I would want to read it again and again because of the way it uses language and makes you think about life.

I think there has to be more for me to learn from this synchronicity, and I'll keep watching out for it.

Inspiration

I mentioned before that I have been reading about synchronicities and so I've been looking for those little coincidences in my own life to learn from.

Lately my husband and I have been thinking a lot about plans for the next few years.  I've been trying to also follow the Lord's plan.  I know there are people out there who rely fully on the Lord's plan when it comes to the timing of their children.  Some people never use birth control because they just want to trust the Lord.  But if I never used birth control I would constantly be pregnant.  And now that I've had a miscarriage it makes me think even harder on the subject.  I won't go into details but we were looking at our options and I was struggling with my decisions.

A part of me feels like I might still be mourning my last pregnancy.  Perhaps I don't want to do anything big to prevent pregnancy because a piece of me still wants that baby.  It's insane because before my miscarriage, we were not trying for children and I did not think it was good timing.  This hasn't changed.  I know we have more to our family to come, but the timing is logically not right at the moment.  But I still felt uneasy as my doctor appointment approached.

There is a careful balance to keep.  One must rely on the Lord's guidance, but at the same time, one must make ones own decisions.  We have our agency for a reason.  So I once was told that I can just make my decisions based on my own knowledge to the best of my ability and then confirm the decision with the Lord.  If I feel wrong, after all that, there must be something wrong with the decision.  If it is ok, it will remain ok in my mind.  But I kept stumbling with this decision.  But was it because of a "stupor of thought" as the scriptures say?  Or was it my own anxiety, or my own hormonal irrational feelings?  I discussed this with my husband the night before my appointment.  We talked about how to know if the feelings I have are from me or from the Lord.  He said he wasn't feeling anything wrong with the plan, and we went to sleep.

I got up in the morning and when I read my inspirational quote of the day (which includes all subjects- not just spiritual subjects) and it just happened to be exactly what I needed to hear.  "God does not work for you, he works with you." Pandurang S. Athavale, who is an Indian philosopher, and Hinduism reformist.

It really made me think about how much I rely on the Lord's assistance in my decisions.  I don't often take that leap of faith so perhaps this was to be one.  I went to doctor's appointment, then, only to find that the plan we had discussed was going to be too expensive.  So there goes that.

Now I think back about this and I realize that sometimes I could be feeling uneasy about something just because I don't have all the information.  Yes, we need to make our own decisions.  God doesn't work for me.  But He was working with me.  He won't ever leave me alone.  Somehow I knew it wasn't going to work.  Something just wasn't right about it.  I should trust in my feelings.  God works with me every day.  I am never left completely alone.

----Update----
After writing this post, I was just uploading a family video to another blog and looking on YouTube and this video happened to pop up.  I thought I would embrace the coincidence and include it here. :)  I can't get the embed code to work so,  CLICK HERE.

Aware That the Lord Is Aware

On Friday, we decided to ride our bikes to school.  Jameson started kindergarten that week and it was the first day all week that didn't have the sun blaring down in scorching heat.  So we got our gear together (the littlies riding in my bike trailer) and rode our bikes to school.  Livin' the dream! :)  He left his little two-wheeler outside with the pile of bicycles from other kids and went in with an excited grin.  I have been so happy with the way he's transitioned to this new way of life.  Actually, yesterday his uncle asked him about how starting kindergarten felt and told him he saw his picture from his first day of school and he replied with, "Oh, that was back when I was little."  :)  A week ago.  Kindergarten really makes you grow up, I guess.

Anyway, in the afternoon, it started drizzling.  I knew it might be a little rainy that day but I would take riding my bike in the rain far over riding my bike in the scorching sun!  So I didn't let it bother me too much.  I left early to be sure I was there on time and rode in a slight drizzle.  But as soon as I got to the school, it came down in buckets.  We took shelter in between the front doors until it let up right before the bell rang for Jameson to get out of school.  (Good thing I left early, right?)  We then headed back for home.  By this time, Jimmy had texted me letting me know he got home early.  I texted back asking if he wanted to rescue us, but he missed the text somehow.  In any case, we didn't need rescuing, we were being watched over.  As soon as we made it home, strapped the younger littlies out of the bike trailer and got in the house, it came down again just as it had before.

Coincidence?

Well, I've been reading this book lately, Embracing Coincidence by Carol Lynn Pearson, in which she relays many small stories of ways the Lord can touch her life or teach her little lessons or give her reminders every day in just little synchronicities or coincidences.  Since I'd been reading her cute little stories, I thought this was one example in my own life of a tender mercy shown to me by the Lord.  I think these things are often taken for granted.  So many things happen every day without our noticing.  I decided to notice more often.  So I began paying attention more carefully after that.

We were leaving for the long holiday weekend to go visit my sister.  So we got everything ready and headed out about 5:30.  On the way out of town we saw a big hawk dive down in front of the car.  It was beautiful and daring.  Simply breathtaking.  I took note of it.  Later as we were nearing the freeway, it happened again!  Another hawk, a little larger then the first, dove down in front of the car in almost the exact fashion.  I thought, wow.  That's quite the synchronicity.  But I wasn't sure what the message behind these hawks might be.  Perhaps they were reminders for me to watch the road and drive carefully.  That thought felt boring to me, so I kept trying to think up some other reason these hawks were putting on their show.  Because then after we were on the freeway, we were stuck in traffic (and of course I didn't stress out about it- remember my last post?) because of an accident up ahead and there it was!  A third hawk was flying along to the left of our car in the stop and go traffic.  It would sore to a great height and just hover there in the air as though it were suspended on a string.  I sat in awe to watch it and was grateful for the moment to be stuck in traffic at a standstill so we could watch the hawk do its tricks.  Still, I wasn't sure what kind of message I could gain from this beautiful synchronicity, so I kept paying attention.

The rest of the trip went on normally.  We stopped to get sandwiches from Arby's for dinner, and continued on.  Before we knew it, the sun had gone down and we were getting off the freeway.  I went to the allotted corner and turned to drive down the little road out into the countryside next to the town.  My sister lived a short way out of town.  There's a little blue building along the way which has longtime memories for me.  My grandparents also live down this road an have for generations.  The little blue building is the electric building where my grandfather worked and I remember always pointing it out in my childhood when we were excited that we were nearly there after the long roadtrip.

As I was approaching the blue building, I suddenly felt a small panicky feeling inside that told me I was driving too fast.  I was still in "freeway mode" and had begun to speed so I looked down at the speedometer and began to slow carefully.  But in the next moment, I looked up and noticed a long trail of lights to my right a short distance away.  I was approaching the intersection where the blue building stood on the corner and a semi truck was coming fast on the road perpendicular to mine.  The feeling increased as I realized this truck was not slowing!  He was approaching his stop sign with as much speed as I was approaching my throughway.  I had already begun to slow, but I had no idea how I would be able to stop.  I know I made some kind of explanation as we neared the intersection but I can't remember what it was.  I only remember coming to a halt just in time to see the semi whip it's way past in front of us, and I still have no idea how I stopped in time.

I was melted to the seat with my heart throbbing in my toes and my throat choking on air.  Somehow, we were still alive and unharmed.  I inched at about 25 to 30 miles per hour the rest of the way, thanking the Lord we were ok.

In the moment, I could only think about the moment.  But afterward I was given more understanding.  In an event like this, every second counts.  If I hadn't noticed I was speeding and slowed down to begin with, it would have been too late.  My entire little family was in that vehicle and any other result...well, the very thought makes me cringe away and I cannot imagine.

I am so grateful for the awareness of the Lord in my life.  I know it wasn't just me.  The story doesn't end here.

Yesterday as we were getting ready to leave my sister's and head home, my youngest littlie and baby boy nudged a 4 by 6 mirror and it felt right on him, shattering to pieces.  I was calm, but my sister felt it necessary to take him in to be checked for glass and I agreed that it would be the best thing to do.  He only ended up with a few superficial scratches on his head, face, and hand.  They appear almost like cat scratches, but finer.  There was one wider mark on his head that they ex-rayed to be sure there was no glass and all was well.  We noticed later that he had been next to the coffee table and must have fell flat down and so the mirror hit the table first and broke there to shower him with bits of glass.  He he had been between the table and the mirror, it would have been much worse.  Again, I am so grateful it was the way it was.

My sister told me stories, and I'm sure anyone reading this has their own, of people who have died in random ways.  Getting caught in just the right way between two solid objects or hit in just the right spot to be fatal.  So it goes both ways.  We talk about how sometimes these sad circumstances that end in deaths are just such flukes it's incredible.  However, we are so fragile in this life!  The fluke isn't that any of us die, it is that we are all still alive!  That's the fluke!  In every day of our lives, in every moment, there are things that could kill us.  We are fragile beings in this world that are faced with close calls at every tern.  That may seem to sound kind of paranoid, but it's not.  Because I know the reason why I am still alive.  I know the reason why we are all kept alive in this world.  And that reason is because there is someone all-knowing and all-loving who is watching over us.  When it is our time to go, it will be our time.

I know my time wasn't yesterday.  I don't know when my time may be.  So for the moment, I am going to live in this fragile life in a way that I know I will be proud of and in a way I won't have regrets.  I'm going to forgive a little quicker.  I'm going to allow a little more.  I'm going to smile longer.  I'm going to hold my children closer.  Because every moment is a blessing.  And I am so grateful for the Lord's protection in these moments.