Love

Love…love has been the word on my mind a lot lately.  How can I love my house so much that I would be happy never to leave it, how can I love the lilacs on my bushes so much that it makes me smile, how can I love my kids so much that even when one of them may drive me insane I still only want them to be happy, how can my husband love me so much that all he thinks about is me?  And of course how can the Savior love me so much that he would give his very life for me and how can I ever show him how much I love him in everything that I do?

The kids got a new addition to our home yesterday.  He (or quite possibly she) is the tiniest little turtle about the size of two quarters and yes my kids, and I have to admit perhaps me, are already completely in love with him.  Popeye as he has come to be called doesn’t do much of anything all day long but walk back and forth in his cage and sleep but I can’t stop watching him.  Ridiculous but true.

My green house is full of tomatoes going to flower and other veggies and flowers all waiting to be planted and I can’t seem to get enough of going out into its warm walls and just staring at all the green things shining back at me.  We’ve had cold weather and the orchards in Santaquin are worried that they may have lost up to 60% of their crops this year.  My little peach tree, come what may made it through this hard winter and somehow has made it yet another year through the frosts and on inspecting the buds yesterday winking back at me were little fuzzy starts of peaches as if to say, “see, I held out just for you.”

This morning I made some crafts for the demonstration for Young Women’s tonight.  Gotta make sure the project works out before you try to teach it to a group of girls.  One of the crafts was a princess crown to be sold at the country store at our stake’s 4^th of July celebrations.  Each ward’s Young Men and Young Women are required to donate.  I couldn’t help but smiling when I got done with the princess crown.  So simple but so cute and all I could think of was that every little girl needed one of those, even my Young Women.  Perhaps if we walked around with a crown on our heads all day we wouldn’t forget who we were and how we should behave and most of all…just how much that we are loved.

You see, it doesn’t take much to see the love all around you.  It’s in everything if you take a moment to look.  I know I focus on this a lot but I would be very unappreciative if I didn’t.  God has blessed me with a very special gift that took a whole lot of years to get and one that everyone really should have.  He has softened my heart enough that I can’t seem to go without feeling all of his love all around me.  I can be in the deepest despair and somehow I can still feel it above all else.  Every year I am amazed when I look back and see the silliest simplest little things that I felt his love in and I am grateful for the joy that I have felt.  How can I not share that when it’s what drives me?

I’m not this great pillar of really anything…just a very simple woman really, but somehow God has been able to fill me with joy that seems to leak out from everywhere.  Now don’t get me wrong, I’m still just as human as ever, just ask my sister in law Annalee who saw me loose it yesterday with Luke over a stupid little setting on my IPad that he had changed, but despite my gazillion weakness Heavenly Father has given me one constant that seems to run my life and bring grace to a rather average mundane day.  If this was all the joy that I would ever receive in this life or the next it would be more than enough, but the great thing is, is that it doesn’t even come close to what will come.

What a great blessing we have in knowing that God lives and that his son lives and in everything they can’t wait for us to come back to them.  Christ’s whole purpose on this earth was for us.  Heck, he suffered and then died a death that no one else could have endured for us.  We must be pretty darn important to him, even if some of us hide it under layers of hardness and heartache, he still loves us enough to take care of it all.

Okay.  Enough of my rambles.  I’ve got a whole day of finding joy in stupid little insignificant things that warm my heart.  Maybe I will go stare at Popeye a little more while he takes one of his million naps.  Why not?  It makes me happy and I’ve already cleaned most of the house and mopped the floor, washed dishes, did crafts, got kids off to school, organized for Young Women’s tonight, planned dinner, oh and got a grown boy off too work.  Who cares that my face and hair aren’t done, heck I haven’t even gotten into the shower yet and it’s after 10:00.  Popeye’s waiting for me and I can’t wait to see the joy in all of it.