PRAY FOR KIM!

This is my friend Kim and her cute little family.

Kim is a young, fun, amazing mother and friend.

Kim found out today that she has a tennis ball sized tumor in her brain.

She will go in for brain surgery tomorrow. They won't know until they get "in there" how deep it is or if it is malignant.

Kim needs your prayers!

Anyone willing is invited to participate in a fast for Kim Truman tomorrow. Please pray for her that all goes well so she can enjoy a long life with her cute little family.

PASS IT ON!

SPEED DEMON

Haha... so true.

Don't get in my way on the road.

I'm in a hurry.

I have important places to be.

I'm a Dale Jr. reincarnate.

I..... drive a mini van.

...and I have precious cargo buckled in the back seat...

...IIII'm..okay... a speed demon at heart. You're probably looking at ME in your rear view, and I'm probably sucking in the fumes of your exhaust pipe wishing I could will my Honda Odessey to fly past your.... Honda Pilot...? Seriously is anyone reading this driving anything other than a "family sensible car"... is anyone reading this at all anymore since I've been slacking in my obsessive blogging habits...

But at the risk of sounding cliche'... don't you love sentences that start that way? ...neither do i. Take another look at the words on that rear view mirror. I'm not winning any races on the road (much to the annoyance of every man on the road that is horrified that I'm not driving 100 in the slow lane of the freeway..... them and every Honda Pilot driver... thems crazy people)

But I'm winning another race.

My opponent- Grief.

Grief puts up a good fight. He is fast. He is clever. He is a he because he knows how to push my buttons.

But I am faster. And now he is in the rear view sucking in all the fumes from my exhaust pipe.

I don't drive a mazzarati. I didn't need anything fancier than my Honda Oddesey. You see, grief, while very persistent, can be be outrun. If you take even one small pit stop, he will catch you again. If you look back for too long you lose momentum and he's right on top of you. But if you focus forward and just keep driving you can beat him.

You will never completely lose him. If you look in your rear view, he will always be there waiting for you to give him a chance to overtake you again.

However, if you just keep moving forward, objects in the rear view DO seem smaller than they actually are, and DO appear to be losing.

ps... Honda Pilot drivers aren't that bad...I just long to be one of them.

...I did hear that they have a supressed fear of killer trout, however... and that's a little silly...

Have you ever had a best friend? Someone that is there for you through the good, bad and uuuugly? Someone that you love with all your heart and without whom you may just cease to exist? And have you ever had that perfect, sent from above, friendship tainted when she marries a total jerk? Seriously why do seemingly perfect girls pick loser partners? I know everyone should get to choose who they spend the rest of their life with, but come on... aren't they thinking of their better half? The half that had them first before jerk face stepped into the picture?

I am sorry to report that this was the fate of the glorious relationship I had with my BFF of 18+ years.

We were the BEST of friends. She was there for me during the awkward, gangly "still wearing my pink plastic glasses from 4th grade even though I was in 9th grade" days. She never left my side on the nights I sat at home when everyone else got asked to the dance and I was overlooked. She was there to celebrate with me the day I FINALLY got my period and entered womanhood a million years after everyone else.

She was my best friend.

And she was/is beautiful.

Let me introduce you to her.

Isn't she gorgeous?

For those of you out there that are saying to yourself, "Wait a minute! I thought I was your best friend!"... ummmm do you know me? Because anyone that truly knew me would know of my love for this bosom buddy of mine and would not be threatened by it, but would instead embrace it.... and in doing so fall in love themselves and fight me for a piece of her affection.

Here is the jerk she married. I hate him with every fiber of my being.His name is Thunder Thighs. He showed up in our life right around the time I graduated high school and he has been the constant companion to my beloved icecream ever since. I used to have her all to myself, without her wretched Thunder Thighs companion.

She is still there for me and she always will be. And don't get me wrong, I still revel in her companionship and find comfort in her embrace... but it will never be the same. She still shows up to keep me company when Hubs is out of town... but Thunder Thighs is always tagging along after her.

Curse him!

I've tried every trick in the world to get rid of him... now there's only one thing left to do...

I'm going to start seeing this guy on the side in the hopes that he chases Thunder Thighs away...

I don't like him much more than I like Thunder Thighs... but it's worth it to get my best friend all to myself again!

A Day of Reflection

Today is the one year anniversary of the birth of our angel baby, Savannah.

Do you think anniversaries are a funny concept?

Let me elaborate

A marriage anniversary is a day that you celebrate your marriage to your sweet heart. A birthday is an anniversary of someones birth where you spend the day celebrating that person. If we're continuing on with that same pattern I guess an angel anniversary is a day to celebrate someone that has moved on to the other side.

I had a friend once tell me she hated mothers day. "Don't do nice things for me one day a year just because you are supposed to" she would say, "show me you love me all year because you do!"

Good point.

Although I must admit I DO love birthdays, anniversaries, mothers day etc... any day really that provides and excuse for a celebration.. especially if said celebration involves icecream or chocolate covered strawberries.. anything edible really.

But we should probably celebrate life and those that we love all throughout the year.

I though this day might feel a little different, but to be honest it doesn't. I played Candy Land with my kids this morning. I dropped Mister Mischief off at preschool and Miss Thang and I headed to the gym. My mother in law and sisters in law came over for lunch. We ate, chatted, had fun as usual. I gave in and ate that cinnamon roll I swore I wasn't going to touch.

I thought I might feel the need to do something out of the ordinary, but I didn't. I thought maybe bad memories would come flooding back, but they didn't. I feel fine and I feel happy, because I have a really good life! I can honestly say that I am finally to the point that life feels normal again. I thought I would forever have this little cloud of "dead baby gloom" hovering over my head. I thought that from here on out the birth of my angel baby would define me. I thought I could never be like other people because my baby died. But the truth is, I can, because I have chosen to be.

I am forever changed, and for the better. I have learned more from this one gift from God than from a lifetime of good and bad decisions I have made for myself. I wouldn't change this experience for the world. There have been up times and down times, BUT I can say that the sadness is not hanging over me anymore. This was always the plan for our little family and I can finally say that I accept that and am moving forward. And it feels good.

But to make this not just a meaningless day I would like to share a few things I've learned from this experience. After all, it would be a wasted experience if I didn't make sure something good came of it.

1. You are much stronger than you think you are. God trusts you so trust yourself. Give yourself some credit.

2. "Man is that he might have joy" This whole journey through life is leading up to the ultimate goal of eternal happiness. We are to learn everything we need to learn to be happier than we can ever imagine. Can you really expect to find eternal happiness if all you do is chase after sadness? Eventually you end up with what you catch, and what you catch is what you were chasing after. Hard things happen in life, but there is still joy to be found in life... happening RIGHT NOW. Don't miss it. I can promise you that those things that are causing you heart ache in the first place will end up enriching your happiness in one way or another in the long run anyway.

2. You have to let yourself grieve, but you also have to let yourself be happy. Grieving is part of the healing process, but so is happiness. You cannot say that you are completely healed if you are not happy yet. But happiness comes from within. It comes from having trust in the Lord and faith in yourself. No one else can make you be happy. That is your own decision. Give yourself time to mourn. But when you feel like you are ready to let go of the agonizing grief let go completely. Don't look back. Rehashing painful memories only brings sadness and Satan will pray on you and use it to bring you down. It is okay to look back on the positive, beautiful things that have come from an experience, but allowing yourself to relive the pain over and over again does nothing good.

3. Helping others is the best way to heal. I used to think this meant being sad with others, but I'm realizing now that even better that that is to share with others how I found happiness again and what helped me in my healing process. Pain is comfortable sometimes, but doesn't heal your heart and bring you true happiness.

4. Other people will never truly understand. And that is okay. We all have different journies in life. I used to get so frustrated when others didn't understand my heart ache at losing a child I never knew. But that is not their lot in life. They have other challenges to face and other opportunities for learning. I will not understand some of the trials they face. You have to be okay with yourself. You have to really involve the Lord and decide what is the best path for you to take, without worrying what other people think. And you just can't judge other people for not reading your mind. At the same time I really try to keep this in mind when I do come across someone that I do not understand and try to think about how I wanted to be treated when I was misunderstood.

4. Any experience is a wasted experience if you don't use it to better your life and the lives of those around you. Good or bad. Be proactive. You can't always choose what happens to you in life, but you do get to choose what you do with it and if it impacts you for the good or bad. This is a hard one to accept at times, but it is absolutely true.


5. LOOK for opportunities to learn and feel blessed. This is great for any time in life, but especially during times when you are struggling to feel happy. The Lord has a way of jam packing a billion tiny little lessons into each experience we have in life. We just tend to analize the drastic ones more than the every day ones. We become much more effective in life when we use these to our advantage and also to the advantage of those around us. Life can be so much richer than just a three hour long shopping trip of terror with two screaming toddlers and someone that just happened to smiled at you with an understanding smile. It just depends on what you choose to focus on.

These are just a few things I've learned.

What would YOU add to the list?

Happy Easter...?

Anyone want to take a guess as to what my lesson to my 5 year old Sunday School class was about.

If you guessed Christmas you would be rrrrr...wrong. The lesson was on why we celebrate Easter. That seemed odd to me. I looked ahead in the manual and the next lesson is Christmas. Truth be told I think we may be a week off of where we are supposed to be, but I'm not sure... I just got this calling a couple weeks ago.

Anyway, the kids were all abuzz literally bouncing off the walls with excitement for Christmas in a couple of days. Can you imagine the puzzled look on their little faces when I told them we are going to talk about Easter? One little girl raised her hand and said, "Um... I think you mean CHRISTMAS." So, my challenge was to tie Easter in to Christmas, because they just weren't going to let me get away with talking about Easter when Christmas is just a couple days away (even Walmart waits until AT LEAST January to stock up with Cadbury eggs... definitely NOT complaining about that one.)

But as I thought about it I realized that Easter is really the core reason that we celebrate Christmas. I personally think that the rest of the world should celebrate my day of birth (April 3, in case you were wondering, and Cadbury eggs make GREAT gifts.) but what have I done to deserve having the rest of the world join together to celebrate me making my arrival into the world. So that is what I explained to my class and later to my 3 year old (and possibly my almost 2 year old by osmosis). We celebrate Christmas because we are happy that Jesus Christ was born. On someones birthday we give them gifts to show that we are happy that they were born and that we love him. We give gifts to each other on Christmas because he is not here to hand a package but it makes him happy to see up happy. We are kinder to each other, we do nice things for each other, we are just slightly better people this time of year as our gift to the Savior to tell him that we are happy that He was born. But he deserves all of these things because of what we celebrate at Easter.


Because He was born we were given a Savior. Because he was born and spent the last few years of His life minister to the people and teaching the Plan of Salvation we have a road map of how to live our lives and return to our Heavenly Father. Because he was born and eventually died for us all of that is possible. Because he died for us we will live again.

So I say Happy Birthday to our Savior (even though he technically wasn't born on December 25) we love you and are so happy that you were born, and so grateful that you were willing to sacrifice you own life that we may live again. You deserve a day dedicated to you no matter what the rest of the world says.

Silent Night, Holy Night

My friend, H, had a link to this story on her blog, and it touched my heart. Okay.. it made me blubber like a pregnant woman (which I am not) or baby (which is arguable).

By Glenn Register

As I stood in front of the tiny bassient in the quiet room of the preemie ICU, the day finally caught up with me and I was unable to sing another word. It was as if the sight of that tiny girl, six months old and barely over six pounds in weight, opened the floodgates of my emotions, and the events of the last several hours came crashing down on me.

I had arrived at the hospital in the early afternoon, led there by that undeniable whisper that we often feel in life. This time the message was simple: Go sing at the hospital. I went. After wandering around for at least half an hour arguing with myself, I told myself that I was going to either go home or start singing. I flipped a mental coin and entered the first room of the day. "Would you like a Christmas song?" I asked, in a voice that sounded a lot more confident than I felt at the moment. "I'd love a song!" was the enthusiastic reply. I sang. Guitar slung over my shoulder, I sang and sang. I sang for the sick, the dying, and, in once instance, in a double occupancy room, I sang to a sick fellow and his "recently deceased" roommate. I soon gained confidence, and, as the afternoon slid into evening, I felt invincible, able to walk through a brick wall if occasion required.

Somehow through all of this I was able to retain just enough distance to continue functioning. I remember the beautiful young lady in the pediatric unit, all of fourteen or fifteen, who began sobbing quietly during the song Silent Night. I had raised an eyebrow at her mother who was sitting nearby; she nodded and I continued, watching as this young girl's shining black hair shimmered with the shaking of her shoulders. An elderly woman, full of gratitude and leaking tears at an alarming rate, thanked me again and again. I began to see, as the day progressed, that I was the recipient of the greater blessing, as time after time, I felt of greatness and witnessed courage up close and magnificent. Confined by circumstances beyond their control, sequestered away from holiday lights, parties and the warmth of home and hearth, not one of them offered a single word of complaint. On the contrary, one elderly lady expressed her thankfulness at being in the hospital and receiving such good care. In a way inexplicable my own courage began to grow and I saw my life as never before, and my challenges shrank to a pitiful size as I drank in their collective courage and goodwill.

This feeling of invincibility remained with me until, as I mentioned earlier, I stood before the bassient of that tiny baby girl. That "stainless steel" feeling evaporated and I became my old goofball self, full of weakness and inability; Joe Normal. Gone were the huge sword swinging shoulders, lost was the ability to lead men into battle, forgotten was the clarion call of superior deeds. I was returned with a a nearly audible thump to my old self. With one notable exception; For as I stood there tears on my everyday face, I felt as never before of the wonder and glory of The Christ Child, born in poverty, laid, not in the antiseptic cleanliness of a modern hospital, but in the filth and grime of a barn, "wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger." And I saw, for a brief moment, of the greatness of the Savior of mankind, and what His life had brought to me and mine, and what it would yet bring.

After a minute or two of fiddling around on the guitar waiting for my voice to return, I was able, after a fashion, to continue the song, Away in a Manger, then on to Silent Night. Somewhere during that second song I "connected" with that infant girl and it was as if we sang together in praise of the Babe of Bethlehem. I will never forget her or the gift she helped me receive, there in the back room of the hospital, away from the pomp and ceremony that has all but swallowed the Christmas season.

I think of her quite often, and more especially when the holidays approach, for that was to be her only Christmas Eve. I believe that I will see her again when my time here on earth is done. I'm a little sketchy on the details but I think we will meet in that other realm. I certainly hope so, for I have things to tell her, things of the heart, Like what an honor it was to sing for her, Like how much more Christmas means to me now, because of her, Like just how much I would love to sing with her again, just one last song, just like before.


Silent Night, Holy Night

Merry Christmas everyone. May we all remember the babe wrapped in rags and lain in a humble feeding trough who gave his life that we may have life eternal.

Come What May... And Love It!

I love this talk that Joseph B. Worthlin gave in October Conference this year. I think he may have written his own tribute to what an amazing man he is. He will be missed! In the words of President Thomas S. Monson (at Elder Worthlins funeral today): "We will miss you Joseph. We will miss you until we see you again tomorrow!"

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