20 September 2011

Bring Me Sunshine

This video by The Jive Aces is probably my favorite of all time!  I love it!  It is so cheerful and happy!  I hope you have a minute to watch it.

09 September 2011

Sick James

My son is sick right now.  Yesterday I got to spend alone time with him and I realized there are a few benefits to people being sick and one of them is how things at home (my home at least) get to slow down for a while. I'm not talking about the dishes or laundry because those, in fact, pile up faster when people are sick.  I just love how the little people slow down.  They aren't running around pulling books off shelves, coloring on the carpet, flushing things down the toilet, emptying the fridge . . . I feel like this: aaaaahhhhhhh!


However, they drink their extra fluids, take peptobismal and then we're done.  It's nice to have people slow down for a day or two mostly because I know they are going to speed back up.  That's the way I prefer life.  Normal and crazy and in a home made messy by busy little children.  I believe that must be one of the many hard parts about things like a TBI.  There actually is no hope my Dad and others like him will speed back up.  There is no hope that in this life they will speed back up.  This is a done deal.  This is my Dad for the rest of his life, this is what he's like.  You know what?  I love him!  He might eat cups of butter and sour dough starter, stumble when he walks, say crazy things (i.e. we were in Costco and he turns to an Oriental man, speaking with an accent my Dad couldn't understand, and my Dad says "Hey, have you ever considered learning English?" and he said it out of sincerity to help this guy who "can't communicate" with the people he works around) but I just love him!

I was remembering the Mother's Day before his stroke, he wrote me a really nice card and gave me a gift card.  I was remembering his writing on that and how he wrote "I wish I had some Daiiiirrry Queen!" and the way we used to joke about that line from a movie we both love.  I really missed him!  In a very real way, he died the day he had that stroke.  He's just not the same.

But I am so thankful because while the reality of who he is today is painful, the reality of what he will become is glorious!  Thinking of the Savior Jesus Christ and His unmatched loved for all of us, His willingness to give His life and then to take it back is a glorious truth that gives me a lot of hope for the future.  That is the reason I can choose to laugh when he says about the guy walking by "He doesn't know it, but Stuart and I could take him out" instead of crying every time I'm reminded of how brain injured he really is.

I am so thankful for Jesus Christ.  I know what He did is REAL.  I know the Resurrection is REAL and really will happen to all of us.  I know these things!  I was raised in a Christian home, and LDS home, and I am so thankful to have the Gospel of Jesus Christ in my heart.  I just don't know how to survive anything without it.  I am thankful for the scriptures and I know they are true, there are great lessons to be learned there! 

I love the scriptures of the man by the pools of Bethesda who had been there years and years, only to be healed  by the mercy, love, and power of Jesus Christ.  I know I am not perfect, my body is not perfect, but I know I will be made perfect through the gift of the Resurrection.

I am very grateful that my own Dad helped me to learn these things and to know them for myself.  I hope I will do the same for my very precious children, and help them to learn to turn to Jesus Christ in all things, to pray to Heavenly Father, to love and serve others, and to repent and pray for mercy.  I know our Father in Heaven wants all of us to pray to Him and love Him.

05 September 2011

Brethren We Have Met To Worship

May I just say there are some FANTASTIC hymns out there?  I found this one not long ago and I find myself thinking about it all the time.  I like to sing to my children in my barely able to sing voice.  I figure---and I hope---that since I am their mother it is sweet to them.  This is one I am working to memorzie all the verses for the sing to my son.  I want him to be a missionary just like his dad and just like my dad!  I hope he will take the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to people all over the world.  I don't know how folks get along without Jesus Christ in their lives! 

Come, let us bow down in worship.
     Psalms 95:6

BRETHREN WE HAVE MET TO WORSHIP

Brethren, we have met to worship and adore the Lord our God;
Will you pray with all your power, while we try to preach the Word?
All is vain unless the Spirit of the Holy One comes down;
Brethren, pray, and holy manna will be showered all around.

Brethren, see poor sinners round you slumbering on the brink of woe;
Death is coming, hell is moving, can you bear to let them go?
See our fathers and our mothers, and our children sinking down;
Brethren, pray and holy manna will be showered all around.

Sisters, will you join and help us? Moses’ sister aided him;
Will you help the trembling mourners who are struggling hard with sin?
Tell them all about the Savior, tell them that He will be found;
Sisters, pray, and holy manna will be showered all around.

Is there here a trembling jailer, seeking grace, and filled with tears?
Is there here a weeping Mary, pouring forth a flood of tears?
Brethren, join your cries to help them; sisters, let your prayers abound;
Pray, Oh pray that holy manna may be scattered all around.

Let us love our God supremely, let us love each other, too;
Let us love and pray for sinners, till our God makes all things new.
Then He’ll call us home to Heaven, at His table we’ll sit down;
Christ will gird Himself and serve us with sweet manna all around.