Twilight Tradition

The weather is cold outside and the sky is a little overcast and cloudy.  I can smell the sweet wisps of pine from a neighbor’s wood burning stove.  Almost time for Christmas music and the quiet whisperings of Christ’s love that comes with the Christmas season, and I can’t wait.

Last night I went with my daughters, my daughter’s friend and her awesome mom, my wonderful mother, and of course my twilight buddy Sally Jones to see the final installment of the Twilight Saga.  Silly thing to be grateful for, perhaps, but I was and I am.  That tradition that started several years ago is something I look forward to more than watching the movies themselves.  I’m kind of sad to see them come to an end, but Sally made me aware that The Host, also by Stephanie Meyers, comes out in March and we can start the tradition all over again.

I know that as far as eternity is concerned a silly little movie tradition really has no bearing, but those moments with my daughters and with my mother and friends creates those memories that can change the gloom that sometimes the world tries to tack onto us and in that reality a little movie tradition is possibly even necessary to my eternal progression.

One of my visiting teachers came this morning.  Her companion was sick and not able to join her.  I love my visiting teachers.  They never forget me and they always bring the sweetest spirit of sisterhood with them.  We took the time this morning to get to know one another a little deeper and in the process our testimonies were shared and a little more sweeter side of each of us was revealed.  It led to gratitude and both of our feelings of it and helped to set a very peaceful start to my day.

November is the month of gratitude and reading Facebook this month has allowed me to see so many different things my Facebook friends are grateful for.  I cannot help but be thinking all day of everything that the Lord has given me when everywhere I turn I am being reminded.  It’s hard not to feel loved when you are open to all of the blessing that our Father has given us, given me.  It’s equally as hard not to feel joy when you think of that love that you feel.

Yesterday in my travels handing out invitations to our Young Women in Excellence on Sunday I had a couple of opportunities to be invited into sisters’ homes to chat.  In both instances I learned a little more about some amazing young women in our ward and the hardships that they have had to endure.  Both cases very different from each other but insanely hard beyond what I can even imagine.  Both cases the mother figures in their homes talked about the blessings and goodness that has come and that they see in people all around them.  I wonder if my spirit can possible be as strong as theirs and if I can possibly be one of the many people that are blessing their lives.

Each of us in our small ways that we go about living and doing things in our lives have very real opportunities to share Christ’s love, his charity, in what may seem the tiniest of mercies that add up to be some of his greatest blessings.  Who have you lifted today?  Who have I?  What little smile did I send their way that might change the loneliness that they feel?  How many times have Christ’s human angels been the blessing that I needed to bring the peace to my day?  Thousands? Perhaps millions or billions?  I dare to venture possibly in the Trillions when I think of the kind words or shared experiences, the listening ear or consoling hug, even the quick smiles that I have received over the years that lightens my load in my journey home.

Gratitude is something that I am just learning to understand.  I think the importance of it is perhaps one of the greatest blessings that changes the very soul of who we are and leads us back to Christ.  I think perhaps in our gratitude we honor our Savior in a most sacred way, and our administration of it pulls us more towards him and opens our connection to the spirit perhaps greater than anything else possibly can.  When you read the scriptures the spirit speaks, but when you show true gratitude for those scriptures and the amazing servants of God that brought them to you the spirit can sing.  When we love our Savior he can soften our hearts, but when we show gratitude for our Savior and the uncountable blessings that he has given us, he can change our hearts.

What greater gift in this world is our Savior’s love?  The very heavens and earth were created by it and the very possibility of Salvation comes from it.

Christ lives, he loves us, he loves me, and he loves you!  My knowledge of this is first on my list of gratitude.