God's Rain

  A few weeks ago I woke up with some words in my head, words that I felt strongly that I needed to share with my children: "Do one very hard thing every day." I have been following this challenge myself for the last few days.  Some of my hard things may not be hard for other people but they are hard for me.  My daily challenges are aimed at helping me conquer my fear of heights, my dislike for throwing parties, and my fear of accident and injury.  Also my avoidance of talking to certain people or of doing certain things because I don't want to appear foolish.  Now I'm not suggesting that these things endanger life or limb, but I am suggesting that we stretch ourselves a little bit. Do we welcome growth?  Do we welcome opportunities for change?  Do we want our children to learn to do very hard things?  Are we proud of them when they overcome? It can be an exhilarating feeling to overcome challenges and to conquer new frontiers.  A few years a...

  Putting my daughter's contacts in is a daily struggle.  We have come to the point where we don't even try to put in the contacts without saying a little prayer.  Otherwise, we are there for hours.  Even with that prayer I get tired of trying over and over again.  A couple of days in a row and my frustration is increasing.  "I'm done," I moan.  Both times Annalise has coaxed me into trying just a little bit longer.  And then, the contact miraculously goes in.  Today Annalise told me that when I got frustrated she went out into the hall and said another prayer asking for help.  And of course when she came back in the contacts went in.  Her message to me both times has been basically "Mom, you are not patient enough with the Lord.  You want things right away."  So true.   Atonement Immediately I am Perched on the brink “Pull up a chair” He says “No, I won’t, I can’t” I’m ready N.O.W. Emphatically I articulate each...

A number of years ago my family and I endured a very rough patch in our life. Overwhelming responsibilities and family stress left my husband extremely ill and me trying to pick up the pieces.  Eventually, this necessitated resignation from his promising employment at a startup company and a cross-country move. We ended our lease, shipped or gave away most of our belongings and the rest were packed into our minivan and driven across the country. Overnight, we had gone from being successful and accomplished with important roles in our church and our community to being homeless, living with family until we could somehow regroup and get our feet underneath us.  These were dark times and I am ashamed to say that many tears were shed. How did we get through it?  Well it wasn’t pretty nor was it graceful.  Although our faith in God sustained us, at times we wondered if he had abandoned us.  Here we had given everything we had to him. We were extremel...

I read the scripture: "Be ye therefore perfect..."  And it gave me some pause for thought.  I am myself what you would call a Type A personality. I think the problem with perfection is when we think of perfection we think of quantity and we think of being the most like everything else.  When we humans create things we mass produce.  We want everything the same, of a certain "quality" which means it is the most like everything else, the most normal . So when we say someone's "perfect" we are either saying that they are very symmetrical and a lot like the mean.  What we are really saying that they are just AVERAGE. We are all trying to be average.  To lose weight or to gain it.  To have the talents that everyone else has.  The home that looks like the one that everyone else wants.  But have we ever stopped to think who we are and what we want in our life? God does not make NORMAL.  He does not make symmetrical.  He makes in...

On an early morning run I was captivated by this little family of sunflowers waiting patiently for the sun to crest the mountains behind my house. I was reminded of the times in my life when I had endured months, even years of darkness.   But although I was surrounded by darkness, my life was never dark . Because of my knowledge that God loved me, that he had a purpose for my life, I did not give up, I did not abandon hope. And eventually, we experienced a resurrection morning. These sunflowers reminded me that as certainly as the rising of the sun - these trials will have an end .  Perhaps no moment is more joyous than when - necks outstretched - we catch sight of the first faint glimmers of hope on the eastern horizon.   "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning."

Why don't we live more gratefully? We live in an ocean of joy - it engulfs us every day.  But so many of us are imagination hidden in a parched barren wasteland of complaint, of mote-driven hunger for what can never be?  What fuels this rock hard-heartedness.  We ignore voluptuous water drops and fiesta flowers.  Purposefully hurry-driven. Gratitude hurts.  Kneeling next to a prayer-postured child we catch a glimpse of joy at the lisping, lilting voice sent heavenward.  But it hurts.  A captured moment, never capable of repetition.  There is some agony in this life truth.  This is only a moment.  So fast, so fleeting.  And there is also a sense of owing that worries us humans - the eternal balance sheet where we are always in someone else's debt.  We bury ourselves in busyness, projects, deadlines, clean kitchens and piles of paperwork even argument, war, slit-eyes full of hatred.  And we don't want to leave the litt...

I teach the nine-year olds in Primary.  They are a great class.  Five awesome girls and one very smart little boy.  I started out this year on the Old Testament with where everything in Mormonism starts - the Plan.  The plan of salvation. "Ohhhhnooooo, Sister Ellsworth." "Not the Plan of Salvation!" "I hate the Plan of Salvation!" "I'm not even going to try to make it to heaven.  It's toooo hard." They were so stressed out.  Why? They thought it was too hard.  They thought they could never make it.  They thought the entire Gospel was a big yardstick and they were never going to measure up.  I hate to admit it but I kind of thought this way too. We went through the plan piece by piece and finally got to the last, the greatest, the bestest "Celestial Kingdom."  This is where we all want to be.  I was a little nervous.  A little girl in our class was going to stand up and read the scripture on the requirements for th...