Beautiful Chaos!

Lesson 10 - Charity in Marriage I received a weekly missionary email this morning from one of my former seminary students. In it, she shared an idea that her mission president shared with her. He said, “ When we are constantly striving to progress, we can do things with the Lord we have never been able to do before .” She went on to explain that she saw endless possibilities in this statement and that if we are better than we were yesterday, we are progressing. Her post seemed to fit nicely with the reading I have done this week for my Marriage class. Charity - The Pure Love of Christ I loved her message and found great application as it related to our class reading this week about charity. Charity is the pure love of Christ. During stressful times, it can be hard to have a charitable heart. The key is to work on developing charity in the day-to-day interactions we have with one another so that when the stressful times come, we will have developed a habit of seeing the go...

Lesson 9 - Merging Required I live out in the country so I drive a lot. It takes fifteen minutes to get to the nearest grocery store and thirty minutes to get to any kind of shopping center. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else, but this choice means I spend a lot of time driving. When my children were younger, the drive times were perfect for little chats to see how they were doing. I learned that they opened up in ways they didn’t when we were home and distracted. I had a captive audience! Now that my children are grown, I have quiet time in the car which gives me time to think and ponder. I have found analogies that I can use to strengthen my relationships. Here is an example:         When I started driving as a teen, I was scared to do my assigned freeway drive. I knew I would need to speed up on the on-ramp and then merge with fast-moving traffic. With my instructor’s help, I was able to accomplish the drive. After practicing, merging with onco...

Lesson 8 - Pride in Marriage My youngest daughter has had her share of relationships, but there was one in particular that my husband and I were grateful to have come to a conclusion. This relationship began when she was home on summer break from BYU-Idaho. She worked in an office where the young man was working in sales during his summer break from BYU. He was one of the top salesmen and is destined to be a very successful man in the world’s eyes. They had a very speedy time dating and when the young man came to ask my husband for his daughter’s hand in marriage, the conversation went as follows: Young man: “I would like to marry your daughter, and I’m asking for your permission.” My husband: “We think you are nice, but we wish we knew you better.” Young man: “What would you like to know?” My husband: “For starters, what is your last name? We don’t even know what our daughter’s last name will be.” Our daughter doesn’t typically like a lot of flash or attention. Kno...

Lesson 7 - Make the Sauce I recently traveled to Puyallup to spend two days with my 13-year-old niece. She is struggling a bit, needed a friend, and wanted me to teach her how to crochet. It was a wonderful time with family. While I was there, I observed components of my sister’s strong marriage. My brother-in-law is Italian, and they like to make pasta sauce from scratch. For years I have heard rave reviews about the sauce, but I hadn’t been to a meal where it had been served. Since I was there, my sister thought it would be nice for me to try Vince’s sauce. She says she knows how to make it, but everyone thinks Vince’s is more authentic. About 3:30 on the day of my arrival, we were headed out to get yarn for my niece. Before we left, my sister set out all the ingredients and equipment needed to make the sauce so that it would be easier for Vince to make when he got home from work. I could tell this was a normal routine for her; she wasn’t bothered by it at all. Microcultur...

Lesson 6 - Mother Eve When my children were younger, I wrote poems on their lunch sacks every school day. They were simple snippets of words that always rhymed. My youngest daughter now doesn’t consider a poem to be a real poem unless the lines rhyme. I do appreciate poetry, but will not typically sit down and read a book of poetry. I have failed to complete a poetry book the few times I have tried to be “cultured” by reading poetry. Lamentation That being said, I recently read a poem that touched me deeply, and it doesn’t rhyme. It was filled with meaningful thought and, as I read, I found tears streaming down my face. This poem, Lamentation by Arta Romney Ballif, is a thoughtfully written poem about Eve’s experiences as a mother and wife. We all know the story of Cain and Abel, but I hadn’t previously considered their experience through the lens of their mother, Eve. This moving poem brought that perspective to me. I have a three-month-old grandson living in my home rig...