A Little More Booty to Hold at Night

It’s no surprise that in the background while I was washing dishes after lunch that I had the song, All about that Bass, playing.  Kinda the Gibson moto around here.  Jason ran to a friends with Suzy and Sam to help him with some home theatre issues, Jen and Nan are off on their date to Snowcoming and Stephanie is in the other room watching Netflix, so not a whole lot to distract me around here.  I actually thought about the words to that song more closely this time, go figure, and if you don’t know the song there are plenty of places where you can go to listen to it…I actually prefer this one…. http://youtu.be/iyTTX6Wlf1Y the singer’s voice reminds me of my cute Jenny’s bluesy vocals.

She talks about not being a size two but how she can shake it shake it like she’s supposed to do.  I know, I know, I am only a few days away from 40, but I can shake it shake it too like I’m supposed to do and at that moment I was shaking it shaking it like I’m supposed to do and I smiled when I thought that if the girls were to walk in right then they would blush and say, “Mom, you’re too old to dance like that,” and if Jason were home he would come up and grab my bum.  There, I probably embarrassed all of them by admitting that. 

The song talks about photo shop and how that’s not real and it talks about boys liking a little more booty to hold at night, having all the right junk in all the right places.  Where am I going with this, you ask.  Good question.  As I was listening to it all it was like some light bulb popped on above my head.  Now can Heavenly Father through the Holy Ghost use a stupid rock song to speak to me?  The answer is yes and he did.  Grant it, the version that I listed above is a much cleaner version than the original, no swearing aloud, but the picture is the same either way.

Age is catching up with me, and I don’t mind it, really I don’t.  I don’t mind the white hairs that keep coming back, I don’t mind the wrinkles popping up around my eyes and between my nose, I don’t even mind that my body is much stiffer and sorer after a hard workout than it used to be when I was younger.  What I do mind is the fact that I am fifteen pounds heavier than I was seven years ago even though I workout harder than I ever have and eat about 500 calories less than I used to.  And sometimes I wonder how Jason can think that I am sexy and even if he does.  It was while listening to this song that I realized how crazy I am to even wonder this.  And here is why…

Jason is always taking a quick grab here and there, holding me a little longer than needed when he comes home at night, giving my bum a quick goose when no one is looking unless it’s our kids and then he doesn’t care if they see.  When I get undressed he locks the door so he can watch and when I pop into the shower he is always pulling back the curtain to get a quick look.  He cuddles up to me at night and wraps me tightly against him and he plays with my hair when we are watching t.v. together.  He calls me sexy baby stubs, and gorgeous and hot stuff and tells me maybe nine million times a day how sexy or gorgeous or hot I am, so why would there ever be any question whether or not he thinks me sexy?  And I know that you all, all of you married ladies out there, know exactly what I am talking about. 

Why does Satan have such a hold onto women’s self esteem?  Now I’m not a size two or even a size eight like some of you very beautiful woman out there are, but I am a size Angi, and that seems to be beautiful all in itself.  Some curves I would love to do without, but some of the curves I have…well I wouldn’t be willing to give them up.  I have beautiful thick hair and big grey eyes that sparkle.  My smile is contagious and my body is almost as strong as a man’s which is very important in the Gibson household with the line of work that we are in.  I smile all the time and laugh a lot which ads a special kind of softness to my face.  I look like my mom who is BEAUtiful and have the coloring of my dad which means I can tan up all soft and brown easily in the summer.   I have to be careful when I lift too much weight during workouts or I might bulk up a little too much around my shoulders and neck, but my amazing body can put on muscle like nothing at all.  I don’t have a flat tummy but I have a perfectly shaped belly button thanks to the doctor who reshaped it during a hernia surgery when I was six.  My waist isn’t as tiny as I would like but my big boobs and curvy hips help make it seem small.  I don’t have a tiny turned up nose, but it is slender and dignified and gives me an air as if I know something a little more than I actually do.  And last but not least, my butt is rounder than I would like but it is still perky even after 40 years and attached to the longest pair of legs that go all the way to the ground.

See what I am getting at here?  All of that makes up Angi, me, and I’m pretty awesome…and here is the secret…YOU ARE TOO!  And if you have any question about it, pay a little more attention to all of the signals that your sweetie is giving you, heck write them down with a check mark all day long as you are with him if you need to and I think you will be surprised all of the sexiness that he thinks that you are and then when Satan says that you’re not a size two or that you don’t have all the right junk in all the right places you can tell him that he is crazy and that he can go find some other sexy lady to harass, cuz we all know that “Guys like a little more bootie to hold at night,” and quick frankly being you, small and tiny, tall and willowy, round and curvy, elegant and graceful, or clumsy but spunky, whichever you may be is the perfect you and that in itself is sexy and you…yes you my dear are everything that that word means and if you don’t believe me, well….just go ask your hubby.

Biggest Tip Ever!!

In our line of work, the Gibson Family that is, it is not uncommon to receive a small tip beyond the set price for a job well done.  And when that happens I am always grateful, as I was last night.  We were able to go to the Little America Hotel and play a company party and set up our photo booth also.  The people were so nice and we made some new connections for other gigs in the future that I was so grateful for.  I couldn’t help but think that God had led us there.  And if that had been it, that would have been enough.

Pleasant night, pleasant people, nice income and new connections, but sometimes when you think everything is just as good as it can get, well, sometimes God gives you even more.

Last night’s gig was for a company called Sport Court.  They create all kinds of professional flooring for gyms, tennis courts, basketball courts, you name it.  They also create portable floors for outside sports or inside sports, even portable dances floors.  Well, in our line of work we come in contact with the dance floor variety all of the time and in our twenty plus years on the job I have seen some beautiful floors, but the one that they had brought last night for Jason to set up sound behind was one of the most beautiful floors that I have ever seen.  Here is their link to their site.  http://www.sportcourtwest.com/

When we first arrived there, the location of the floor was a little too close to where Jason needed to set up, so they unsnapped a section of the floor, pulled it to the other end of the dance area and snapped it back together in the most amazing set up that I have ever seen.  Ingenious actually.  They commented that in our line of work that we really should get us one of their floors.  I even took the time while they were eating their dinner just before it was our turn to start, to look them up so that someday, maybe when other things for the business didn’t need to be bought, we could save towards getting us one of those ingenious floors.

Long story short…the party went smashing, everyone had a great time and we had a great time, meeting good people and doing what we do best.  As they pulled down the floor that night, those awesome Sport Court people, they commented on how tired they were and how much they didn’t want to bring the floor home.  A few minutes later they came back into the room and asked Jason if he had a way to get the floor home.  Of course Jason looked at me surprised and completely wondering answered her, “Yes, we have a suburban.”

“Do you want the floor?”

Just like that…biggest tip we have ever received.  Did I want to cry when she said that?  Of course.  In fact I felt a little silly for feeling so like a weepy woman, but I don’t think they could completely understand how huge that was for us. 

So now Jason and I and our business are the proud owners of the most beautiful portable dance floor ever.  With all of the weddings and corporate gigs that we play that is a huge blessing given to us from some absolutely amazing strangers that I will forever be grateful for.

Sometimes over the past years in my married life, Jason and I have had some very hard turns.  After Luke was born and I was sick.  After Jenny was born and she nearly died and then she was so very sick.  When Jason’s dad died way too young.  My parent’s divorce.  Jason’s job change and taking him away from us for a year while he was in Nevada and the loneliness that came with it and the struggle too to pay our bills.  But over the years there have been so many good things too, more numerable than I can count so I will just name a very few…

Our wedding and honeymoon.  The birth of everyone of our amazing children.  Jenny living when we thought she would die.  Jenny getting well finally after almost 3 years of her being ill.  A new stepmom that I could love and a different kind of relationship with both my parents that is more amazing than I ever thought that it could be.  Jason’s new job, the one that he has had for the past several years being one that he finds so much joy in and it sending him back to Utah.  Our business booming.  My beautiful new daughter in law that brings us such joy.  Watching my son grow up and Jenny coming so close and being so proud.  Having a new sort of closeness and peace in our home as our children mostly grow up as friends.  And most of all, Jason and I having the kind of marriage that I read about as a girl and dreamt about.  So close to perfect, even with all the very imperfect things that happen and people that we are, that it almost scares me.

Sometimes when all these good things happen I am only grateful, and only filled with so much awe at my Heavenly Father, but other times, like last night, when I already felt so blessed and then so huge of a gift was given to us I feel a little guilty.  Surely we have so much that God couldn’t possibly give us more.  Isn’t it our turn for a tragedy, even a little one?  And I know that that will come again, as it always will, because this is Earth, and this is life, and sometimes it just has to be hard, but I am beginning to learn that great times can come too and they do come and sometimes a billion times more than you deserve, and it’s okay to only be grateful and not to feel guilt.  It’s okay to say thank you without feeling undeserving, because sometimes that’s just what God wants to give us and he doesn’t need a reason, sometimes he can just say, “I am your Father, and today I wanted to bless you.” 

And you know, when those hard times come it’s that knowledge of Heavenly Father’s extreme love for me that not only gets me through, but always helps me to be happy even while I am sad.  Sometimes it is just okay to say, “Thank you, God, for loving me today.  Thank you for reminding me that you are there.” 

I love you, I do!

I love you.  I do.  Each and every one of you.  I don’t know all of the so many of you out there all over the world that read my blog but I love you still the same?  How can I possibly know that you ask?  Because every time that I look to see a post that I have written and read where all of you have read it from all over the world I smile from head to toe and I think that I might even shine a little bit.  What else could do that than love? 

            You come from here at my home in the United States, many that I know and don’t and from all over the world such as, Germany and France, Ireland and Hungary.  Russia, the Ukraine, Iraq and Kuwait, the United Kingdom and Canada, the Philippines and India, the Netherlands, Romania, South Korea and South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and a great handful more.  I wish I could call reference to you all of you but after a couple of weeks BlogSpot sadly groups you all into an area of reference, a continent rather than an actual country.  We’ve even had some very small areas that the Gibson household wasn’t quite sure where it was and of course I looked it up on the trusted internet like you do. 

I now know where Moldova is, a beautiful little country with lots of green and such beautiful architecture, right in the middle of Romania and the Ukraine.  I feel like I have been all over every beautiful little section of South America and quite frankly the rest of the world.  And all of this I have done while sitting in front of my little computer in my little bedroom googling all of you.

            Yes, I think that I love you all so very much. 

            During Stake Conference today our theme was based around that first great commandment of all, “Love One Another.”  And it has gotten me thinking all day.  Sometimes I think it is easier to love someone that you don’t know, like all of you who make me smile from so far away, than the very people who we see and interact with every day.  I need to change that.  I need to see those people with Christ’s eyes and with Christ’s heart instead of my own.  I think if I did my heart would hurt with love inside of me it would be so big.

 I had a time where I was asked to be of service for someone that I didn’t even know by someone that I only knew through professional reasons.  I gladly accepted the weekly obligation thrilled that Heavenly Father had found a place for me to serve his children.  Week after week I continued in this service that only took ten or fifteen minutes out of my week once a week to do and I felt glad, but one day I had a clarifying moment that took it to a new level for me that I had never had before.  At the last moment as I was saying goodbye until next week to those younger members of this cute family that I was able to help, my heart started pounding so fast that I thought it might burst out of my chest and tears came unbidden to my eyes and for one brief second it was as if I could feel the Savior’s love for them in my heart and His thoughts in my head.  “I love them,” He spoke.  “Thank you for loving them for me today.”

            Now, can I say that the very little, literally only a matter of a few minutes every week that has come out of my life, that I really have done near to nothing in helping that family, only the slightest bit, but God did something in return by letting me feel His love.  And it’s moments like those that He gives us, not for us to be some great help to our fellow man, though that is definitely a very important part of it, but because He wants us to have little tastes of the strength of His love for all of us so that we can strive one day to become just like Him.

            My nine year old Sam said to me the other day, “Mom, do you know what my favorite part about Christmas Eve is?”

            I instantly thought he would mention our family tradition of opening all the family presents a day before most of the rest of the world, or perhaps Papa’s house and potato soup, or even Christmas Jammies at bed that night, but it wasn’t. 

            “I love that all of the kids sleep in one room and we are all stuck together.  There’s nothing better.”

            Sometimes Sam drives his four bigger sisters completely nuts, I think Steph puts up with him better than most, but even though Sam is such a totally easy going mellow boy to get along with he is still a boy in a houseful of girls and more times than not his teasing as all little boys do tends to annoy them, but he’s right, each and every one of them loves being stuck together in the same room on Christmas Eve.

            Sometimes the traditions that you put together out of necessity and in this case sanity so Santa can sneak around without getting caught, are really the things that draw a family together and teach them all about that Christ Like Love that Heavenly Father shows us so we can become just like His Son someday.

            So now when you go about your days this week, whether you are out and about at work or nestled tightly at home working your little tooshies off, remember that I love you, I do, and that most of all Heavenly Father and His most perfect Son love you too.

What Drives Us

Sometimes Facebook is so sensational that I don’t even want to look.  Other times you are stuck for so many hours in the car with nothing to do that you can’t help but to thank your lucky stars for that great invention, well…that and Pinterest.  I’ve been getting tired of the share this and share that attitude as of late, sure there actually is some blogs and some recipes that I am so thrilled that people share, even a few of those too funny cartoons, but mostly I would much rather see what is going on in your lives…yes you…the people that I really love and care about not some crazy person that I don’t know from some place that I will never visit, well unless that crazy person is me and you don’t know me and will never visit me and somehow you have happened across my blog and in that case, most definitely read it and certainly share it all over Facebook.

That having been said I did come across the most awesome share on Facebook that led to an immediate buy and download to my Christmas playlist and I just have to share it with you.  Get passed the whole “Jimmy” part at about the five minute mark and just listen to the song.  I loved it strangely enough!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xZ3Ezl5-Lk

Then there was this that very quickly went to my playlist…much more beautiful than Joel the Lump of Coal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifCWN5pJGIE

 

So I guess when it comes to something like that…by all means share away!

For Thanksgiving our family did something amazing that we have done the past several years.  We’ve built up a following after that initial Thanksgiving with Jason and Clint Robertson but this year all usual families involved had other obligations which just left the Gibson’s in California this year…though we did drag along my amazing mom and Clint’s oldest and also amazing daughter Megan.  Jason’s brother met us there for one of the afternoons.  Can I say that it was awesome!!!!  And I only missed the turkey a very little bit.

The girls couldn't stop taking pictures of the waves.  Gotta love smart phones.

Huntington Beach Pier

We played so hard in the ocean that at night I fell into bed, as pro as I am riding the waves I was equally as pro at crashing to sleep at night.  The first day was very calm and Megan and I and Nan all saw stingrays swimming through the water.  The second day both Megan and I stepped on those stingrays to feel them slip away under our feet.  Suzy and Nan were not so lucky.  What are the chances that two of my girls within an hour of each other would get stung by rays…well they did and let me tell you they were in pain.  Suzy’s pain only climbed past her ankle, but Nan’s sting was so much deeper and sent pain all the way to her hip.  Let me tell you, I got it about six years back and the pain you feel from the poison, well let’s just say as tough as I am it almost brought me to tears.  I was so proud of Nan though.  Jason bought some solar cane (Numbing Crap) and it didn’t work, but she knew it was her last day so she pulled herself into the water, limping, tears running down her cheeks and all, so she didn’t have to miss out on one more minute of the ocean.  It made me realize just how strong my no longer so little girl really is.  When she was little she struggled in school, first with being so shy that the teachers all worried about her and then with her grades.  What did she decide to do, work her butt off and now she is my crazy, happy, so very confident and extremely outgoing and friendly A student.  What helped her decide that?  What made her take that on herself?  Because that is what she finally did, decided who she was and made the changes to be that person.  My once skinny armed can’t lift a jug of milk little girl now throws around huge pro subs like they were nothing.  I get Jenny being able to do that, she is like me and naturally really muscly, but not Nan and now look at her.  What drives that?

The last several months have been insane as we, all Americans and really the rest of the world, have waited to see what would and did transpire over the chaos and finally the grand jury decision in Ferguson Missouri.  What decided that for those people to go crazy?  Sure, what was happening around them seemed unreal and for some unjust, but what caused them to join in and start destroying the very town that they live in, the very people that support them?  I cannot begin to understand where that much hate and animalism behavior comes in.  It seems so against the very nature that God put in us.  How does something created by light become so dark?  I’ve asked myself that over and over and then I looked at my children, playing in the ocean or at the Aquarium of the Deep, laughing and giggling with each other and realized that some of what God created still is good and still is filled with light.

How do we keep that light when so much chaos and so much insanity is going on around us?  Isaiah 5:20 ²⁰ Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that count darkness as light, and light as darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!”  What do you do when so many seem to be looking for the bitter and throwing away all that is sweet?  Do we just give up and join them?  Human nature seems to point that way, so why don’t we?

We have to decide who we are and make the changes to be that person. Not saying that is easy to go against the sensationalism around us and not get caught up, after all that is our nature, that is my nature, but God made me and filled me with light and I can choose to continue to feed that light or let it burn out.  I can choose to let Ferguson Missouri and every other crazy insane wildness that continues to be the Daily News drive me and hype me or I can find the strength that my daughter found.  That quiet, sweet peace that if accessed enough can make you something greater than you ever thought, something only The Creator could ever have planned, but you have to decide it, I have to decide it, and the more of us that decide it the more it will spread and before long despite all the bitterness and all the riotness behavior catching the headlines a sweet peace will start to creep across the world.  Maybe those of us who are watching will catch this light and maybe, just maybe if we try so hard and listen so quietly we will be able to see it light within us too, because you see, that really is our choice, not matter how hard it may be, no matter how crazy everything around us may be, we ultimately decide.  We decide who we will be and we decide the kind of world we want to create and most of all we decide if we share it with the rest of all of God’s children.  It’s as simple as that…we decide.

                                              Pics of us at the Aquarium of the Deep

 

 

 

 

Us at the Tide Pools at Little Carona Beach

Sam found a hermit crab and it crawled out of it's shell.

 

 

 
 

 

And finally the Hippy Bus that a very little, very old, "Surfer Dude" told us to add our stickers too.

 

 

 

Tough as Liquid Nails

Have you looked around you lately?  Our world is a scary place and it only seems to be getting scarier.  I feel the strong need to prepare my children for what is to come without possibly having the knowledge of what that really is.  How can you do that without encouraging your children to grow strong and responsible and brave, but I don’t think the best way to do that is by stealing our children’s childhood from them.

I want my girls to grow up to be soft and gentle and compassionate in a world that forces them to be tough and hard like liquid nails…so how do I do that?

I thought a lot about this very thing all week as Halloween seemed to zip by us.  I love every holiday and I love Halloween.  We live in a housing complex where people come from all over to trick or treat.  Our houses are conveniently lined up side by side on extra-long blocks with bright street lamps and a strong feeling of safety, so of course mothers and fathers come from all over town and even other towns up to 30 minutes away to get their children the most haul possible in the safest place possible.  Some of my neighbors have grumbled about this.  Some years we’ve had over 500 kids come trick or treating and yes if you don’t shop smart that can add up.  I love seeing all those kids in the craziness that is only solved by leaving the front door open and letting in all the flies in town for several hours.  I’m choosing to chalk this up to the reason that my daughter Nan sadly chose not to go trick or treating this year and not to the fact that some of those moms around here thought they should decide for my daughter when she is too old to go trick or treating instead of me, her mom.  I’m choosing to think that sheer numbers is why they expressed to her that she was too old not that they really thought that me, her mother, hadn’t taken the time to notice that she was growing up and out of Halloween.

Nan dressed up as she always does.  We spent a long time trying to come up with a classy costume, just like we did last year, which was fun and cool and pretty and a little bit more grown up all at the same time, while still being completely innocent.  Nan talked and planned for several weeks and she even helped me get the other three children younger than her costumes ready.  But when trick or treating time came she chose not to go.  Instead her and her friend Bailey hung out and eventually went to another friend in our neighborhood’s house.  She didn’t not go trick or treating because she didn’t want to, she didn’t go because several moms last year, including a very dear friend of mine, told her that she was too old to go trick or treating.  What????  I never thought that you were too old.  Just about the time that you get that way you have a beautiful baby girl or boy to take toddling around door to door and just when they get to old and they have one of those beautiful boys or girls to take around you get to go trick or treating with them.  I will never be too old to trick or treat, for I will always have kids or grandkids to take.  Our neighbor behind us who is the best grandpa ever talked about that very thing when he was out and about with his daughter and her cute little one trick or treating at our house.

My mother was amazing when I was a child.  I remember saying to her when I was preteen, “Is it weird that I still like Barbie’s?”  Do you know what she said to me? “Of course not.  I still like Barbie’s.”  She taught the little girl in me that was feeling the pressure to grow up too young that you can always be young even when you have to be old.  I think that is what has kept my mom so sweet and so compassionate in a world that has also been hardening her.  She remembers the innocence of being young and sweet and pure and she still is, but don’t for one minute think that she isn’t hard as those liquid nails that I talked about earlier.  She’s had to be with the struggles that she has gone through, one of them being my little brother who has struggled with drug abuse and all that that goes with it.

I want my Nan, who is fifteen and very quickly growing up and out of the house, to hold onto all of that innocence and tenderness that comes from childhood.  Even the bible says that we need to hold onto that.  Luke 18:17   “Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein. “

So then why has some of these other moms expressed to my daughter that she should be ashamed of some of the childhood rights that she wants to hold onto a little bit longer…and where else do we want these older but not grown kids to be on Halloween anyways.  Out causing trouble?  Smashing pumpkins and pulling pranks that seem to get out of control?  Or maybe find one kind of mischief or another that quite possible could damage them and harden them for the rest of their lives?  Why on earth would we want to encourage those kids from our very own neighborhoods to be bored on Halloween and go get into trouble when we can each take our part and lift them up and teach them fun in a healthy safe clean environment.  Why wouldn’t that be our first choice? 

I know I tend to hold onto my kids’ youth a little longer than some parents.  I’ve even had one mom once tell me that her daughter didn’t want to play with mine anymore because I still let her play with dolls and didn’t I think that she was too old to play with baby dolls.  My daughter was ten by the way.  But my children also know how to work and be serious.  They work hard along with the whole family through our family business to do their part to help put food on the table and a roof over our heads, but I only think that is all the more reason for them to learn how to play hard too and to hold onto that inner child that can still have fun and still find innocence when the world requires so much out of them.

I know my daughters, and my sons too, need to learn to be tough or they will never make it through this hard world, but I want them to go about it with a gentleness that speaks of childhood and tenderness and God all the while they are learning to be tough as liquid nails.  Why would I want to steal any last moment of this from them when they have a lifetime of a hard world ahead of them?  Why would I want to take away that little child that St. Luke says is the only way that any of us can enter into the Kingdom of Heaven?  Why would any mother want their child to grow up too fast when part of them can always hold onto that innocence that was their childhood?  I hope that I am never too old to be young.

 

Peace in the Beginning of Sorrows

“Hey, Mom, did you know that we are in another war?”  That’s what my eleven year old Stephanie asked me a little over a week ago and it has been sitting in my mind rolling over and over.

“Yes, sweetie, we probably always will be.”  How nice was that for a mom to say to a child.  I could have left it at that, but I tried to make it okay. 

“You are safe and sound here, in our house, in our little town.  The scriptures say that it will always be that way until Jesus comes back.  This just means we are getting closer to earth becoming better.”

There has always been war, from the very beginning of man, even in the Garden of Eden, even with Adam and Eve’s children.  Heck, it got so bad that Heavenly Father had to wipe the slate clean and start over with the flood, so what is so different about now? 

I remember the first Gulf War and thinking how horrible it was that in my lifetime, people that I actually knew, young men that I had grown up with, would go off to war.  So surprising and shocking as was so many other wars like, the World Wars and Korean War and Vietnam etc.  The difference for our younger children is that most likely they will never know the world with the breaks of peace inbetween.  It possibly cannot be with Satan working overtime.

So how do you make your children feel safe, how do I make myself feel safe?  After all I have a married boy in the military that could be called up and shipped off any moment.  I haven’t completely figured that one out yet, but when it comes to mind all I feel is peace and I know it will be okay.

Timothy 3

1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.

2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
6 For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,
7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

 

I don’t think that we haven’t been warned.  The scriptures have taught for thousands of years that this time would come.

 

St. Matthew 24

 6 And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.

 Doesn’t sound like there is much to hope for, doesn’t sound like I should feel comfort…then why do I?  Why do I feel peace when I fear war?  Why do I feel that inner stirring of gratitude when I think of a world so filled with men and women who think of themselves as godly but deny the power of God?  How can I feel such peace?

 Thessalonians 4

 16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
18 Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

 Isaiah 52

 7 ¶How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!

8 Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing: for they shall see eye to eye, when the Lord shall bring again Zion.

The scriptures have warned and we have watched but no other time in the world has it felt so close.  But the scriptures have also praised and sent good tidings of good, published peace and said that God reigneth.  That is how I can have peace.  When at times that my mind sprints violently and my heart beats uncontrollably the Holy Ghost whispers peace so softly and sweetly that it drowns out all the jumbled noise streaming in of fear and doubt from the world.

 

Will my little girl ever know the life that seemed so much simpler from my days of youth, probably not, but does she need to live life afraid?  Absolutely not, and that is the great thing about her, she doesn’t.  She walks on, her very quiet, very tender little self, the one who sits back and sweetly watches it all, innocent and young but so wise and she radiates peace.  Maybe that is why the spirit can speak such peace to my soul, because my very gentle little girl publishes it from the mountains in every quiet act of gentleness she bestows every day.

 

Will the world one day come to an end?  Absolutely.  Do I look with longing for that day?  Every moment of every day.  But does that mean that there isn’t peace and joy for now, for today, and even for tomorrow.  Heaven’s no.  There is peace in everything even amongst the wars and rumors of wars and the beginning of sorrows.  I read it in the scriptures, I feel it as I look at my food storage, I hear it in the kind words that my friends and family and even strangers send my way, and most definitely I see it in the quiet peace that shines from my Little Stephanie in her tender silent faith.

 

 

 

 

Taking a Moment to Slow Things Down

Ah…why is it that a newly recovered street looks so pretty?  I can’t stop opening my door or stop looking at that shining black surface that is staring back at me.  When the light is right, first thing in the morning, it looks like it is wet from a fresh rain.  However, Suzy says that it smells like horse pee…so not so sure that I like that aspect.

This week I woke up, the morning when that great road fiascos started.  We had received notice the day before of which roads in our small housing complex would be affected that day.  Not my street, according to my map, so my cars could stay parked right where they were.  In the process of getting kids ready for school I heard the large equipment roll in, sounding ever too close to our street to be where the map showed, but oh well, big gear probably echoes making it sound closer than it was, right?  Not right.  As I was walking the last child out the door the street cleaner came by to ready our street.  Jenny hurried and moved the suburban up on the driveway for me and then drove off in her little truck.

“What the heck?  Did I read the map wrong?”  No, roads to be worked on were mapped out in red and the street numbers written beside the map.  Quick call to the project manager and sure enough, a couple of the wrong maps for the next day’s project had gotten mixed in with the right ones and I had been lucky enough to be given one of those.  Great.  Now I was stuck with a suburban stuck in the driveway and not parked in the graveyard for easy access later.  What to do, what to do.

Well right about that time, Jason came home from an early doctor’s appointment he had that morning, to say goodbye before he headed to work.  He had parked his car a block away at the cemetery and walked home.  What did he do?  Braved the street cleaning truck and the guys getting ready to pour blacktop and took the suburban down to the cemetery for me.  Problem solved, with little effort and here I had stressed over nothing.

Moral to the story…not a whole lot, really, just another day.  It’s what came later that was so amazing.  So small, yet so amazing.

I have been watching a show on Netflix called Jericho.  It’s about the United States after coordinated terrorist attacks across the country destroys major cities and knocks out power and contact to the rest of the world.  Not my favorite show but interesting enough as I watch a small town have to come together even for the simplest necessities of life.  How does this have anything to do with the road work that was going on in my neck of the woods you ask.  All of us on those few blocks had to walk a block away to our cars where all of the neighborhood was parked.  I left my home several times that day only to run into one neighbor or another along my way, and what did we do?  We stopped and chatted for a minute.  As I would drive away in my suburban I would see others on their sidewalks or in the cemetery chatting too.  People were everywhere, not just in their houses or in their cars but talking. 

The next day we had our roads back but the roads below us were in the same situation.  The road for the bus stop was closed so the kids were dropped several blocks away and had to walk up.  So many parents, me included because I had to get said kids off to piano lessons, were waiting for their kids to walk up the street.  So many people chatting and waiting as a mass of kids walked up the streets. 

In all of this it kind of reminded me of the show Jericho, where the small community, much like my own, had to be all connected, farmer and businessman, school teacher and nurse, men, women, and children.  Kind of sent it all back to a simpler time when life was a little slower and neighbors mattered.

As I walked the kids home after one of our trips that first day, we walked slow and noticed things and talked.  I know it was only a block but it was a lazy block and Sam and Steph talked about the school day, and all the work and the chores and homework waiting for us back at the house took the back burner for a moment, and I loved it.  Those neighbors that I wave to but rarely have time to talk to I got to say hello and hear a little about what was happening in their lives and for a minute the world just slowed down a little bit. 

Jenny always says how she wished that she had been born in the 1950’s and, well, for those two days it felt a little like that.  The question is…how exactly do we keep that slow pace life and connecting with our neighbors going?  I doubt the city would be too happy if we kept parking our cars down at the graveyard, but hey maybe we just need to convince them to resurface our roads a little more often.