This makes me 20 kinds of angry.
The Week at a Glance
Category: Life according to Angela
Stream of Consciousness
After a blustery night and as I enter a gray-brown day, I see winter-swept scenery through bare branches. I have some projects with fabric once the floors dry and I finish dusting. I need to do some clothing alterations. After that, I hope for easier weather when I have to carry my sewing machine to a friend’s house for quilt work with friends who will probably be dressed in gray sweaters. Sometimes the howl of the wind thinks it will remind me it is winter, but I need no reminders. The steely light permeates every corner of the house, a reminder that the sunlight is there, but has traveled through miles of clouds to reach us. Today, we just get the leftovers of sunshine. The views are bleak, but the snowflakes on my window help.
Even my church assignment (I still do not feel it is a “calling”) is about the dead. Shoulders hunched and eyes focused on computer screens, I study clues from handwriting of those long gone. I sit among people 20-30 years older than I am in research classes and feel young! Woot! I have never felt so isolated, but I anticipate connection with living people will be possible in this work, eventually. I am entering my fifth month away from church assignments involving people who breathe. My temple and family history assignment still is not defined, and I wait. It’s a busy kind of waiting, as I have so much to learn. I am giving many hours a week to a work that feels absolutely invisible, kind of like housework. Ha!
My assigned ministering route was changed and not a single woman wants me in her home. Some have had it with churchy things. Another just needs to get out of the house rather than have a visit. She helped me make the snowflakes on my window as we talked this week. I count it an act of trust when I get a text from one asking me to give her son a ride home from school. Discipleship and ministry are among the indefinable things.
I gift myself one day of study a week. In these books, I lose myself to a degree that I call indulgence. Church prophets have often told women they are needed and important, but now I feel I have been given a task to prove it. I have come to understand that my New Testament knowledge, gleaned over years and years, is needed in my family. I still apologize and feel insecurity when I let myself be seen by my family for who I am: a scripture nerd. I spend time coming up with activities that will allow my sons to come to love the New Testament as I do. It takes all my self-control not to spill out what I have learned and what I feel, and what the Jews did, and what the landscape is like, and what a different translation teaches, and literary techniques of Gospel writers, and, and, and, and…Mary kept these things and pondered them in her heart. In a house full of men who do not enjoy conversation, I do a lot of pondering.
A few weeks ago I realized that Tim and Mark have seen very few plays, so I bought tickets to The Wizard of Oz at Hale Center Theater for later today. This will be a good start to a four-day weekend for them, and we are all ready for it. There was a bomb threat at Tim’s school this week and half the student body stayed home on Wednesday. This week I have learned that I need to get used to my children being in mortal peril. Let’s celebrate by watching Dorothy get swept away by a tornado and flying monkeys!
Witness
Today Daniel’s apartment building caught on fire in Santiago, Chile. He escaped, thanks to living angels who stopped to warn, guide, and unlock doors. Feel free to join me in prayers of gratitude for his protection. He grabbed his scriptures, wallet, keys, camera, and photos which were already prepared for travel. He already had his shoes on when the call came to escape. He and the other elders had to abandon a smoky stairwell with hot handrails for a different route out. When they were trapped on the roof, with only locked doors to stairs going down, someone came up to open a locked door to a safe stairwell. A quote from his message today:
Needless to say, that was an intense experience. Maybe we were never in real danger. But my mindset changed. As a missionary, I already have very few personal belongings, but as I stood there with reminders of my family and my scriptures with all my markings and couldn’t think of anything else I would want to save I realized how easily we can get distracted by things that don’t last. There are a lot of things I left behind that don’t matter, and now that’s especially clear to me.
-Elder Daniel Ross
God really does protect us, guide us, answer prayers, and puts people, thoughts, and when necessary angels in our lives to help us return to live with him again. The Savior truly understands us, and through his infinite sacrifice and atonement we can be cleansed from sin.
I was very unwell all morning before I heard about this. Maybe I knew on some level he was in danger. I also felt complete peace when he announced his call (mission assignment) last April. I don’t need any more assurance that all will be well, whatever things look like at present. I don’t think he has his “cloak,” but he does have his “parchments,” (2 Timothy 4:13), and knows the value of them.
And last of all, here is a link to the journal page for our study of Matthew 2 and Luke 2 at our house for the week of January 14-20.
As I See It
In 2018, I learned it was God holding up my children. Not me.
I learned that I do not like philosophical email exchanges. I prefer less theory and more practical planning.
My skin is failing me.
My children have all surpassed me in musical ability.
I learned that I am good at knowing what people need.
I learned that the things I wished for when I was young are still what I wish for now: a simple house, quiet evenings, and books. Oh, and dolls.
I appreciate cheerful, fun-loving sidekicks.
I learned to not define myself by what I do. I am more than all of that.
I learned that my patriarchal blessing has a whole paragraph devoted to what I am going through right now. I always wondered why that paragraph was there. Now I know.
I have caused hurt.
I am full of power to act.
It is easy for me to find something to be grateful for each day.
I learned a little more that Christ is always the answer.
In 2019 I want to know what to say. I want to go ice skating. I want to conquer some fear. I want to be better at diverting a couple of people from negativity. I want to savor every day with my children while they still live with me. I want to be clear with others of what I know. I need God’s grace to make me meek, open, and unencumbered. 2019, we have our work cut out for us.
Just Write.
I mailed off my thank you notes for Christmas this morning and felt some relief after facing it. I question my wording, my tardiness, my choice of card. I wonder if I will seem overly flowery in my words or give the impression I am underwhelmed by a gift. I worry that it is another reminder that I am annoying. I am posting a radio segment I listened to today that addresses these concerns.
Julie is my friend from elementary school, middle school, and high school. We were also college roommates. She is the host for BYU Radio’s Top of Mind. Here is her interview about the value of thank you notes.
(it is about six minutes.)
If you are too busy to listen, the summary is that you should write how you feel and not worry about form or being annoying. Research supports that people love to receive thank you notes.
This is how we are doing it this week: Come Follow Me for Individuals and Families Week 1
This week, the goal is for each person to study a few verses on their own each day and write about it. We wanted the kids to start a journal of their scripture study, so each week I plan to make a page on which they can write. This week I typed it. Some weeks it may be photocopies of post-it notes. And yes, we will be sweetening the deal as we come together to share on Sunday morning. We will keep reading the Book of Mormon as a family in the evenings. Every scripture and question is listed in the study guide, so there’s nothing original here, just the way we are going to use it.
Post edit addition: we are changing the cinnamon roll time because it’s the first Sunday of the month. 😉
Some good memories from December
We were able to do a video call with Daniel and we didn’t need all of those questions we planned to ask. He talked non-stop, with enthusiasm, zeal, and happiness pouring forth. I didn’t know how much I needed to just see him and hear him speak. I didn’t take a picture of the screen, but imagine light, clothed in the Christmas tie that I was told he probably wouldn’t receive in the mail, a short haircut, sunburned neck, and speaking a mixture of Spanish and English, really fast. That was Daniel. Nothing sad about that.
Paige is with us, and moves from her room, where she is catching up on some reading, to the piano, every few hours throughout the day. Chopin, Debussy, and Jane Austen scores are now in the mix played on our piano. She is all things lovely.
Type and Shadow
I feel kinship and pity for Mary who gave birth in a stable. I had an emergency birth with strangers to attend, in a place I didn’t choose, and the feelings I had were fear, frustration, disappointment, and embarrassment. The shepherds were ready to proclaim his birth, but Mary kept these things and pondered them in her heart. I think that is appropriate. In order for there to be tidings of great joy, Mary’s experience had to be difficult, and not easily explained. I read that the manger was likely carved from limestone, somewhat similar to an altar. Even in this lowly place, there was a type and shadow of sacrifice for the Savior’s bed. Luke’s record seems to have the details Mary would remember. The cold manger is one of those details, type and shadow, present even at birth.
Shadows of another kind also accompany Christmas. All light will produce it. In contrast to my feelings of cheer, there is also shadow. My solution when I feel it is to hang more lights and decorations. We have four Christmas trees this year.
The full nature of the Savior’s ministry was to conquer every difficulty, and in this is our hope: he is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. The pivotal truth of Christmas is that Jesus came, experienced, and overcame all. He was real. Jesus wept.
I have wept as I comforted a friend this month, and felt more Christmas spirit in that act than any other thing I have done to keep Christmas. I welcome this shadow, because somewhere in that shared cry was also joy.
Daniel’s light still shines for us, and is a source of joy, but his absence is still shadow. This year, Christmas brings into focus a stone manger as an altar, and feelings about my own son far from home. It is a joyful Christmas, but like a drawing, there is neither definition nor depth without shadow.
The Season of Expectation
These pictures are my favorites from the week. We had a lovely time hearing Tim’s concerts and doing Christmas things.
At the beginning of the week, instead of filling my to do lists, I purposely left big gaps for rest. I was a little bit successful, considering it is the season of expectation. I find that Richard and the boys are clinging to traditions a little more this year. “When are we going to bake…,” and, “What Christmas movie will we watch tonight?” Maybe it helps fill in the holes in our family.
Lessons learned this week
Cinnamon oil does burn your nose and throat if you breathe in the steam while making candy.
True friends find a way to bless our lives, whether we are together or not.
I enjoy having Timothy as an accompanist as I play the violin. He is expressive!
Every Hallmark Christmas movie fits into one of three storylines. And I enjoy them better with the volume down so I can focus on the decorations. Sorry.
Brahms makes a great Santa.
I was a witness to a few miracles this week. God is good.
