Breathe

Giggles…thousands and thousands of giggles came from up my basement stairs.  Stephanie, my nine year old, had a late summer birthday and chose to wait until school was back in session to have her friend birthday party.  More kids to invite therefore more gifts, right?  Well Jason being the ever ambitious man that his is has to step in and make every birthday party just a little bit more if you know what I mean.  Stephanie had decided to watch the Lorax for her party.  It isn’t enough that our basement is a home theatre with an actual movie screen and stadium seating.  No that wasn’t quite enough.  So….

Instead Jason set up the green screen and after finding the perfect picture of the Lorax with his hands out as if he was presenting something or in this case someone, then and only then was Stephanie’s party acceptable.  Well, I let Jason know exactly my thoughts on this.  Explaining to him that every party we throw seems to have to be grandeur than needed.

This is where as the grumpy wife I need to apologize.  Really, it wasn’t that hard to set up the green screen that we own for BYU parties in the garage and really it was all his effort that found the picture and laid it out on the computer, not my own.  And even more, it was Jenny and Nan who took the pictures of the girls individually in the garage with Stephanie not me.  And quite frankly it was an awesome party favor to send home with the kids.  They were completely amazed watching it instantly print out.

So.  This is one of many times I have to say to the most amazing husband in the world, thank you, thank you, thank you for making our sweet little girl’s party amazing.  And I was wrong, and I am sorry for giving you a hard time.

I’ve been writing again.  Working on the second book in my Traditions of the Fathers series and of course I have had to delve deeper into the scriptures once again.  When you are struggling to develop a story along what historically happened you have no other choice than to read and study and research.  And as I think of the characters that I am developing I place them in my mind’s eye as if they were really there.  Suddenly Moroni is someone more real and Morianton’s wickedness is more threatening than I had once imagined.  Helaman is ten feet taller than he already was in my mind and the Gadianton robbers a million times more evil.

It is amazing to think of the reality of the lives that these people lived.  In my studies with my children we are not very many chapters away from Helaman and his stripling warriors, only forty years or so, but already there has been one war after another.  Repentance and peace followed by prosperity and wickedness and then again repentance so on and so forth.  I asked the kids, was their time any different than our own.  Was their time really any different than the whole history of the world?  What is it about us humans that we are so quick to forget God and think only of our own abilities?  Isn’t it that very God that we tend to forget who has blessed us with any abilities that we may have?

Wars seem to rage in the world as they always have and perhaps with my oldest now in the army I think more on it, but I have to wonder how we as humans can forget that we are all one people, in God’s eyes anyways.  Why would we want or need to kill each other?

And just when I feel maybe the most lost.  When the Nephite’s wickedness creeps up on me reminding me of the reality of our own world’s fallen state I remember the good people around me who haven’t forgotten who they are or the fact that God’s children are everyone around them, no matter how hidden they might be in this wicked world.

Now, I have to ask myself, am I like them? 

Nan and one of her friends had a conflict with one of her teachers yesterday in school.  Now I have to paint a little picture for you of my Nan for you to understand.  Nan is extremely tender and compassionate beyond what might be considered humanly possible.  She’s fun and giggly and a glass half full kind of person, very quick to forgive and always willing to love.  She is as sweet as they come, someone I thank God every day for giving me.

Now yesterday when she came home from school crying over very clearly a wrong that had been committed against her and this friend by this teacher, I instantly jumped on the Mother Hen bandwagon and wrote this teacher a not very nice email and called my husband who let the principal know exactly what had occurred.  Although I do not think that what I had done was wrong by any means, I was not at all compassionate and should have gone about it more forgiving.  Later when the teacher called to apologize which was very brave of him after my nasty email I talked a little to Nan about forgiveness and how he had made a mistake but she should forgive him because we all make mistakes and hopefully others will forgive us.  Nan of course said she understood and agreed but part of me cannot help but wonder when she sees that teacher today how much anger will be left and how much of that will be because as her mom I dropped the ball and forgot to be more like Helaman and a little less like Angi.

Hopefully tonight Nan and I can talk again and I can explain to her where I was wrong and hopefully God will give me the words that I will be praying for all day, because I want to be like those stripling warriors’ moms and teach my children faith and love and patience, because don’t we all need that?  Doesn’t the world need that?  Maybe if we all forgave a little quicker and judged a little slower we would have more tolerance for one another.  Maybe if mothers like me took a little longer to breathe before we jumped to the defense, our children would grow up to lead the world a little less like we have in the past and a little more like Christ might.