One Direction

 

As an alumna of BYU I'm more loyal to BYU Speeches than I am to Cougar football. (Even if Bronco Mendenhall does Bikram yoga.) I bleed blue for Tuesday devotionals and read the archives on my phone every chance I get. One of my all-time faves is "Remember Lot's Wife: Faith Is for the Future" given in January 2009. The economy was tanking, my back was aching, and there were several circumstances making the future seem iffy at best. It was the right time for me to hear such a speech.

Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt after she looked back at burning and brimstoning Sodom and Gomorrah. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said she wasn't punished just for looking back, she was punished for looking back longingly. "Her attachment to the past outweighed her confidence in the future. That, apparently, was at least part of her sin."

I'm as guilty as anyone at looking back with longing. I used to be young. I used to weigh less. I used to have thicker hair. I used to make money. I used to run. Okay, I never ran, I just wanted to see what it would feel like to say I did. Why do I do this? Why do I look back when the remainder of my life is waiting to be snatched and smiled at in the opposite direction?

It's good to look back if you are doing so with gratitude. My mom was good with holidays. My high school teachers were awesome people. I love how and where I grew up.

It's good to look back to learn from mistakes. Nine croissants in one day is too many. Don't buy the group gift unless you like hounding people for money. Be real if you want real friends.

It's good to look back if you need help with your future. I'm one of several dozen mid-Missouri ninth graders who had Mr. Sargeant for history and I know we all remember his favorite Harry Truman quote: "The only new thing in the world is the history you don't know." I love the scriptures; the Old and New Testaments, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine & Covenants, the Pearl of Great Price. They are loaded with history which means they are loaded with answers. I've never had a question the scriptures couldn't answer. All of my problems have already been someone else's problems. How to lead, how to treat family, how to handle prickly people, what to do with my talents, where to find my self-esteem, what to do when I don't know what to do, how to be happy...all hiding in the good books.

It's still better to look ahead. Since I can only look one direction at a time shouldn't the bulk of my focus be forward? (Or, since it's Pioneer Day, onward?) One of my three favorite descriptions of the Savior in the scriptures is "the high priest of good things to come".* If I face forward I can see what's coming. If I face the Savior good things are always coming. If my life could talk I bet it would say, "Melissa, turn around and get over here. Bring your baggage and your band-aids because there's plenty of room for them in my green pastures. Now show me those pretty teeth and smile!"

Link to the speech and the best website ever for rearranging your stance. Kate Spade gold arrow paperclip courtesy of Bryton Morse, who is fashionable from the tip of her head to the bottom of her office supplies.

*Hebrews 9:11 (KJV Bible). The other two are "a tried stone", found in Isaiah 28:16, and "dayspring", found in Malachi 4:2.

Good Beyond Measure

I took my kids to the splash pad in Highland. I wasn't planning on going there; I had impulsively driven through JCW's and ordered cheese fries and Oreo shakes. They gave me A napkin. With equal impulse I drove to the splash pad sans swim diapers, towels, sunscreen, or changes of clothes. I did, after all, have one lousy napkin.

RE kept Archer under her wing while his brows furrowed at the craggy boulders and water gun gang. She surrendered her pink flip flop and like Dumbo's feather it did the trick. Instant performer, bye bye fear...as long as he was holding that flip flop. I sat with my feet in the water eating the lion's share of cheese fries trying not to cry in public. Sometimes I still can't believe he's here. Not only here but HERE chirping happy sounds and walking like Frankenstein, mooing for more milkshake with droplets on his eyelashes.

On a recent phone call my aunt mentioned how happy I sound now. NOW meaning NOW ARCHER IS HERE. I hope I was happy before but I know what she meant. I am so happy now. I'm so happy I don't even know what's in my brain. Whatever is up there is light and whimsical and obviously frolicking. For years my brain was heavy and thick, like submarine walls. The daily thought cycle

where is my baby

what can I do today to get closer to a baby

what does the Lord want me to do today

please, Lord, is it time

where is my baby

made my skull rattle like Tin Man's hollow chest. I think I had an emotional migraine from 2011-2013. That head hurt. My new head, the airhead that doesn't have to wonder anymore, hasn't hurt since I got pregnant. Until the night of the splash pad.

I cried Greg to sleep, then I re-cried myself to sleep because life is so good. If I opened a present containing a massage, a haircut, one of those hummus veggie wraps Fraiche used to make before they changed their menu, a BareMinerals shopping spree, and a chocolate fountain spurting endless 60% dark from a spring in the earth's crust it would not come close to the goodness of my life at present. Archer and RE finally have each other, laugh at one other, hold hands, wrestle, share, do their own thing, gang up on me. At long last RE's sidekick has arrived yet she will fly the coop in four short years. I guess I also cried because my kids had to be so far apart. I don't know why my plan had to be two kids 13 years apart; I have to trust the Lord on that one.

My heart is out of space so it moved one thing to my vacant head. Front and center is the new daily plea

Lord, please let the joy of now

[this good beyond measure]

to somehow be pressed down, packed in, and held together

so it can run over for years and years.

Mete magic with this little time.

Photo caption and scripture verse supreme: Luke 6:38 (KJV Bible). Also referred to as the "Cami Mecham brown sugar" scripture by many of us at church. Photo of a vintage kitchen scale I obtained at Nook & Cranny after years of searching; this is the same make and model as the scale my mom used in our home when I was young. I often watched her weigh stew meat and ground chuck on it. I still love the illustrations; I've never weighed lettuce but look at that beautiful type!

Unlimited Data

Bishop Thornton gave a humdinger of a talk on prayer at church yesterday. It was right up there with his Oliver Granger newlywed-in-a-chemical-suit talk. It reminded me to record two quotes I wrote on tiny scraps of ripped-off paper a long time ago. They float around my desk and fall to the ground when the ceiling fan gets turned on. I keep stuffing them in newer, hopefully better spots but I just can't risk losing them one more time.

"Work like it's all up to you, pray like it's all up to Him." -one of Abby McBride's favorite quotes

"Parents should teach their children to pray. The child learns both from what the parents do and what they say. The child who sees a mother or a father pass through the trials of life with fervent prayer to God and then hears a sincere testimony that God answered in kindness will remember what they saw and heard. When their trials come, they will be prepared. In time, when the child is away from home and family, prayer can provide the shield of protection the parent will want so much for them to have." -Henry B. Eyring, "Write Upon My Heart," Ensign, November 2000

Something For Nothing

Yesterday a man told an interesting story in Sunday School. He said a promotion opened up at his job and he wanted it. He prayed about it but because the Lord told him NO he didn't apply for it. Two subsequent promotions came along. He applied for both and was rejected for both. Time and discouragement passed, another promotion finally presented itself. He got it. His boss told him he got it because the new position required someone who had worked a certain length of time in his former position. Due to his NOT receiving the original promotion and being forced to stick around with the status quo he qualified for advancement.

He won because nothing happened for so long.

I recently learned a unique story about an ox on my great-great grandfather's handcart trek to Utah with other Danish immigrants in 1857.* The slowly starving company had been without meat for weeks. They were marching parallel to a United States military force of several thousand men sent to suppress a non-existent rebellion in Utah. The immigrants wearily pushed on one side of the Platte River, the military marched on the other side as "their weapons shone in the sun." The military had large trains of provisions; one of their heavily loaded wagons ran over and crushed the foot of a large, fat ox. The ox was left behind. The leader of the wagon train told the Danes they could have the ox because they "might need a little meat." The only problem was heavy items, including axes, had been forsaken in Florence, Nebraska prior to the commencement of the trek.

There was a butcher in the company but the ax he had was "of the lightest kind and the poor animal merely shook its head at the blows." Then a hunter with poor aim shot it through the nose. Finally, a "luckier Nimrod came and felled the animal with his shot and put an end to its suffering."

The pioneers were hungry. I'm sure they were praying for food. I'm sure they were praying for that ox. Yet when it arrived there was no easy way to kill and glean the meat notwithstanding the fact a butcher lay in their midst.

We have to be careful what we pray for. Like the man in Sunday School who prayed for a promotion but got NOT YET because more was needed we may similarly pray for an ox with grumbling tummies forgetting we have no butchering tools. Sometimes we pray for an ox when we need to first pray for an axe.

I wondered for years why I could not have a baby despite my never-ending sincere prayers. It occurred to me to start praying to become strong enough to carry a baby, to find solutions toward better physical health and pain management, and for divine aid in finding silver linings day after babyless day. If Archer had come five years ago I'm not sure I would have been able to enjoy the delicious morsel of heaven he is. I had not yet acquired the tools I needed for repeat motherhood.

God our Heavenly Father is the great cosmic controller. He is aware of every living thing, every moving part, and every detailed desire. He knows how to help each of us succeed; we just don't equate help with stalling. Proof of His love is sometimes suspended progress; He is merely keeping us in a holding pattern until it is time for Deliverance to land. 

When nothing is happening you can be sure something is still happening. 

*James Jens Dideriksen Mortensen was only 9 or 10 years old when he crossed the plains but he walked all thousand miles without help. Richard L. Jensen, translator, "By Handcart to Utah: The Account of C. C. A. Christensen," Nebraska History 66 (1985): 332-348 (Thank you, Aunt Carolyn, for all your help!)

This is a really cool collection of airports as seen by Google Earth. Ironically, the blog is called Holding Pattern.

Flame

My son is 1. He's 1 and it's 100 degrees outside. It's hot as blazes and his hair is the color of a white hot ember.

One year ago I jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire. To add fuel to the fire I was not firing on all cylinders during my trial by fire and life under our roof was a Chinese fire drill. I quickly realized I had too many irons in the fire, started breathing fire (sorry, Greg), and fired away (sorry again, Greg). I wanted to set fire to the rain (what on earth does Adele mean?) but stepped out of the line of fire instead. Now the fire in my belly keeps the home fires burning and I am fired up for victory. Silliness aside there has been a fourth man* in my fiery furnace; I thank the Lord for the proximity of His Son during heat waves and hot spells.

Someday, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides, and gravity, we will harness for God the energies of love: and then, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.

Teilhard de Chardin, French scientist

Archer was my graduation gift after earning a master's degree in Wet Wind & Downward Pull. He is my flame after decades of damp; the baby torch burning beside my blazing Aurora bonfire. He is my second chance, my do-over, my make-a-wish-and-blow-it-out come true.

*Daniel 3:25, KJV Bible 

Photo of a Fisher Price Peek-a-Block. I have been collecting Peek-a-Blocks from ebay and Kid-to-Kid since I found out I was pregnant. Blocks are the perfect toy; I can't not buy blocks at the thrift store.

Photo lyric from "Flame" by Alphaville. "Flame" is Alphaville's secret masterpiece no one ever heard because the entire world was dancing to "Forever Young" at prom.