Thanksgiving - The Verb, not the Noun

I think this picture says it all. I don't NEED to make a list of what I'm thankful for, really. Right?

Right?!

It's sort of like bearing a testimony. I've got one. Do I need to share it, or cultivate it? I mean, I'm there, right?

RIGHT?!?!

Wrong. So, here goes my thanksgiving. I am thankful for:

- my adorable son - see above proof of said adorableness.
- my wonderful husband, who doesn't care that the house is a mess, that he has to procure or cook dinner, and that I may or may not have thrown up since last seeing a toothbrush.
- our home. I miss our house in Texas so much, but home is where your family is. It keeps us safe and warm.
- being a stay-at-home mum. I miss teaching almost as much as I miss my house, but "to everything there is a season." My season right now is with my kids, and I am so amazingly blessed to get to do that.
- friends. Even from far away, they warm my heart and can bring me out of a funk.
- good doctors. Dr. Doogie Howser, I forgive you for being a male obstetrician. You know how to laugh and appreciate a good joke, and you take darn good care of us. Thanks.
- my testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon, and that we can hear from a living Prophet today. I'd love to sugarcoat this for you that might not believe as I do, but I'd be doing a major disservice to you and to what I know to be true. I know because I've prayed and have gotten an answer from a loving Father in Heaven who continues to communicate with us, individually and as a religious body, today.

It's Coming On Christmas...

Christmas really used to be my favorite time of year. Presents, food, family...really, what's not to like? But then, a few years back, we were watching my father pass through the end stages of brain cancer. At Christmas. I remember telling him (jokingly) that Christmas was ruined. But there was a lot of truth to that.

I remember sitting the Christmas morning before he passed and opening tons of presents. I mean, really amazing presents. An iPod. Clothes. Pretty much anything a girl would want. My parents had worked so hard to try and compensate for the loss we were facing. But, to quote Tori Amos, "can't stop what's coming/ can't stop what is on its way." You can't stop time, and you can't stop death - just ask those kids in the "Final Destination" movies.

Two days later, my father was gone.

And an iPod sat, unopened, in a box for nearly three years. I couldn't bear to look at it.

But now, it's coming on Christmas, again. Thanks, Joni Mitchell. And yes, they are cutting down trees, and yes, I wish I had a river I could skate away on. But my life is so rich and blessed, and I am who I am because of that experience.

It didn't ruin Christmas. It put Christmas back into its proper perspective. Our families and friends are far more important than the trinkets we get for them. Christmas is about promise and rebirth, and death (with all its sadness) is the ultimate time of promise and rebirth, in that we return to fulfill the measure of our creation. We go to walk with our Father in Heaven again, and spend time at the feet of the Savior.

This Christmas, I am in a strange house, away from what and who I know. But how my holidays go are in my hands. And so, we are making a jar of "warm fuzzies" for the Savior - we get to put a fuzzy in when we do something nice for someone else. Yes, I totally stole this idea from a jar of "fuzzies" that President Monson got for his birthday. But what a nice idea!! And how great to give a present that REALLY matters to the One who we celebrate above all.

And while I'm doing it...I'll listen to some Christmas tunes on my iPod. I have some mistreatment to make up for.

If You Aren't Checking Out The Blogs I Link To...

...you are missing out! These are some fierce, serious money-saving women. I just got 50 free holiday cards (with free Fed Ex) from SeeHere.com . I learned about this from Money Saving Mama in Michigan. These women blog about everything from coupons to major discounts and freebies.

Even if you AREN'T in a financial snug spot right now, EVERYONE can benefit from "trimming the fat" from their lives and lifestyles. I know that as we have had to tighten our proverbial belts, our family has been blessed to discern between what is and is not truly important, more clearly see the difference between needs and wants, and realized how truly blessed we really are.

A Tale of Two Cities

It's November. In my classroom in Texas, I would be gearing up to teach Pride and Prejudice to the Pre-AP kids. This was always a special time for me - the first novel we read together, full of great vocabulary. We'd learn about primogeniture and entail, about Regency England, and about traditions in dating. We'd groan first together at the language of the novel. We'd then groan at Mrs. Bennet for being annoying. Then at Mr. Darcy for being, as one student put it, "a real douchecake" in the first part of the novel (sorry to be so crude, but I don't know if it can be put better than that, even if I try to look disapproving when she said it). Later on, we'd cringe at Mr. Collins for being creepy, and at Charlotte for selling her life for security (a sad cautionary tale of the times). I would help them understand why Lydia running off with Wickham was such a huge deal, given their world, where celebs have babies first and marriages second. Finally, we'd all (well, all the girls - and a few boys, if they'd be man enough to admit it) sigh when we found out that Darcy saved the day and wasn't such a jerk after all. We'd top it off with the modern film version that some BYU folks made a while back - the students, for all their sophistication, love it, year after year.

But in my house in Michigan, Oliver and I are still in pajamas. There are Kix on the floor, abandoned by my little son, who would rather have a hoagie bun (I wish I was kidding). A load of wash is going in the laundry room, and it contains one (formerly very dirty) blanket that simply must be dry in the next hour for naptime. On a scrap of paper is written the meal plan for the week, along with the grocery list. In my belly, Little Miss kicks, reacting to the clementine I just ate. Soon, he will go down for a nap (when the beloved blanket is dry), and I will eat leftover macaroni and read.

But just not Pride and Prejudice.

My worlds don't collide anymore - the lands of teacher/leader and mother/wife are separate, for now. And while there is some sadness, and while I definitely miss my "children" who discover and learn and grow, I am content singing "Five Little Monkeys" for the umpteenth time, changing another diaper, and pretending that the world cares to know what we do in our little home.

It is, after all, a tale of two cities.

(leaf image courtesy of www4.wittenburg.edu)

Our Beautiful Girl...

Well, turns out we are having a girl! Little Miss Keene is tall, with long hands and feet, and as adorable as one can be on an ultrasound. Today, she was waving her hands at me and trying to suck her thumb.

I thought before I knew that I wanted another boy, because who will wear all of Oliver's darling things? But now, I couldn't be any more excited about Little Miss and am planning on using some of Ollie's things for her, too. We are so blessed.

Happy Days...

I am writing this blog as I listen to Oliver "play" the piano in the background; he has somehow figured out how to open the case to get to the keys. Even better? He wears a pair of sunglasses and moves - by some natural talent - like Ray Charles while he plays. Dinner is simmering on the stove, and we are having a relaxing family weekend because one and a half of us has a cold and have decided not to give it to the entire Stake at Stake Conference. A little sad that we are missing out, but overall, it's Happy Days again.

:)

Not My Will, But Thine...

How many times do we pray to Heavenly Father for what WE want, rather than for His will to be done? As opinionated, relatively selfish humans (and yes, we are, don't get your knickers in a wad about that statement), I think the honest answer is, "More often than not." Even when we think our desires are righteous and good, sometimes God doesn't need to hear them anymore.

I rediscovered this earlier in the week. It was a lesson I'd learned before in my life (see, even the gorgeous and brilliant need reminders...and then people like me need even more). I was having a lot of complications after the springing of the uterus and was in a lot of pain and scared. Without going into details, it's the kind of things that happen to a woman when something is going horribly wrong in her pregnancy. So, I did what most women in my situation would have done. Cried a lot, and prayed more. I prayed for Heavenly Father to save my baby, to help me heal, etc. etc. You know the drill. You know what you would pray, or what you have already prayed in your life. I don't need to go into it.

Finally, later that night, even more afraid (hmm...I seem to remember a quote about fear being the absence of faith...should have been a wake-up call!), I just prayed that if Heavenly Father needed my baby, it was ok. Just to give me the strength to make it through. I was accepting His will as tantamount to my own, and submitting my own very righteous desires to His plan, which - I know from experience - is infinitely better. And surprise, surprise - I felt immense peace. I knew then that I had re-learned my lesson of years earlier, when I prayed fervently for my father to be healed and was told in a Priesthood blessing that I didn't need to tell the Lord what I wanted any more - that He had heard it. I didn't feel like anything bad was going to happen, because I had accepted that whatever did end up happening was The Plan.

And even more surprising - the next day, about half way through, it became evident that things were going to be ok. And I realized that I had grown, again, toward being who Heavenly Father needs me to be.

In a BYU Devotional entitled "The Will of the Father in All Things," Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said, "Did we obey, even if it was painful? Did we submit, even if the cup was bitter indeed? Did we yield to a vision higher and holier than our own, even when we may have seen no vision in it at all?" As Christians, and especially as Latter Day Saints, we know the plan has vision. Infinite vision. Even when we haven't seen it yet with our own eyes, or perhaps not yet felt its truth burn in our own hearts. In the quest to becoming closer to who Heavenly Father wants us to be, to who He needs us to be, we need to think about the following:

"The path to a complete Christian education passes through the Garden of Gethsemane, and we will learn there if we haven't learned it before that our Father will have no other gods before him--even (or especially) if that would-be god is ourself. I assume you are all far enough along in life to be learning that great discipline already. It will be required of each of us to kneel when we may not want to kneel, to bow when we may not want to bow, to confess when we may not want to confess--perhaps a confession born of painful experience that God's thoughts are not our thoughts, neither are his ways our ways, saith the Lord (see Isaiah 55:8)...[I]n those crucial moments of pivotal personal history, submit ourselves to God even when all our hopes and fears may tempt us otherwise. We must be willing to place all that we have--not just our possessions (they may be the easiest things of all to give up), but also our ambition and pride and stubbornness and vanity--we must place it all on the altar' of God, kneel there in silent submission, and willingly walk away."

I am still on the very beginning of the path to being who I should be. Some days, it feels as if I haven't moved on that path at all. But I can take a look backward and see progress. And if Jesus, whose example I most strive to emulate - even in my human imperfection, when I screw it up more than get it right - if He said, "I am the light and the life of the world; . . . I have drunk out of that bitter cup which the Father hath given me, and have glorified the Father in taking upon me the sins of. the world, . . . I have suffered the will of the Father in all things from the beginning..."

Then perhaps I can bear my very tiny crosses with a modicum of His dignity and grace.


(The flower image is from someone's Flicker album - user name Setsuna. I have to give props.)