I have never had a to do list last for 5 years. We work at this old house all the time, but it’s mainly things you can’t see, and by “we,” I mean Richard. My contribution is to decorate (put pictures up over all the nail holes) and keep everything clean. Beginning today, I am going to focus on finishing the painting. I will paint with the minutes I have each day until it’s done. I have had it with shabby walls and ceilings.
Daniel is in Houston with his robotics team this week for the world championships. Today they did a little sight seeing before the competition starts, a visit to Houston Space Center and an Astros game. As the team planned the trip, I told him how much he loved the space center when we lived in Texas, but then I remembered it was only Paige who made it there 19 years ago. Daniel wasn’t even born. Ha!
How do you teach children to rely on the Savior? How do you help them see a need for a relationship with Jesus Christ? What teaching method will work for ages 10-17? How can I share my testimony in a way they will hear it?
These are a few questions I have been thinking about. I know that these questions can’t be addressed with a one-time effort, but I wanted to make something our family could do each day leading up to Easter to bring us closer to Jesus Christ.
I made an Easter journal for each family member with a scripture to read and a question to answer each day for five days. I printed out questions and art and mounted them in the journals to help inspire writing.
We promised each writing activity would only require 10 minutes. We shortened it to 5 minutes after one day. We read the scriptures aloud and then set a timer for each of us to write in our little journals. I promised I wouldn’t make them share what they wrote and we wouldn’t read what they wrote. We had a short discussion after each journal entry, sharing experiences and ideas. I gave them each a container of Jelly Bellies to eat as they wrote. Richard and I also wrote in journals.
How did it go?
These were the scriptures I chose, based on our family’s needs. They are Book of Mormon scriptures to compliment the Bible verses we read every Easter.
Here are a few things we said about Jesus Christ this week in our family:
Happy Easter!
There are several women in this photo who are moving or leaving soon for an extended time and they mean a lot to me. I am grateful that our lives overlapped these past few years. One member of our book club passed away a few weeks ago. We were discussing the book she recommended tonight. It was a good book, Carol.
Here are some of my notes from last month’s study of the Book of Mormon. You may have noticed that my scripture projects are always evolving. This last complete reading of the Book of Mormon, I chose to focus on four topics and write down references and quotes related to each. I chose the following topics: faith, prayer, family challenges, and the atonement of Jesus Christ.
Of the four topics, the biggest number of references were about the atonement. I wrote 11 pages of notes about it. The other topics supplied 6 pages of notes each.
Here are a few basic things I gained from this exercise of seeking deeply by topic:
These ideas seem simple and basic, but that’s how it is with profound things. Truth is simple. It’s deep, but discernable. I am learning to love the Book of Mormon this year more than I have before.
Mark and I have been studying ocean life, especially coral reefs in biology lately, so we made a trip to the aquarium down the street from our house.
Mark doesn’t believe anybody loves this kind of stuff more than the two of us. We take our time and watch the animals and read the signs. As we walked to our favorite part of the museum, he slipped his hand into mine and held it for a few seconds.
He loved the South American exhibit because they play drums over a speaker system as part of the tropical rainforest atmosphere. The rope bridge and the enormous fish and poison dart frogs are also big attractions there.
We love the penguins (hint: learn their names), rays, sharks, birds, leopards, and turtles. The snakes, tarantulas, and smelly Bearcats from Asia are lower on the list.
Today we get back to the books, but this day of field study will keep us smiling for a while.
We spent a couple of days at Arches National Park this week to replenish our spirits. We did this by depleting all the energy in our bodies. For me, I was pretty depleted to begin, but I made it up the trails. I felt fear like I never remember before, the kind of fear that zings through the body and comes to rest, hot and electric in the feet and fingertips, as I watched the boys climb and jump over rock faces. I felt my spirit expand as I looked out over vistas. Concerns that felt so heavy moved to their proper place in my mind, less prominent and less pressing. We enjoyed our time with Shari’s family. We spent money at a rock shop and ate pop tarts. Comic books and AP History papers littered the back seat of the truck. We played card games in the tent trailer at night and made jokes about signs we saw. My boys said, Look, mom!” a dozen times (My favorite phrase). Food was often the topic of conversation when we weren’t eating. Mark swam at the campground pool until we had to leave. I read four whole pages.
These kite string moments, where we watch the boys soar, are different for Richard than for me. He photographs everything and urges us to do more hikes and make the most of the time. I sit and watch, allowing time to be insignificant, focusing on small moments of how they looked and talked on this day. Then I set the memories away gently in my mind. My favorite moment was sitting under our last arch of the trip, watching the crowds and the boys, Richard and I resting in our little niche in the rock. All was well.
Recently, something triggered the thought, “How did we get to this point, a daughter halfway through college, and sons speeding after her?” I felt disconnected and shocked to see where time had carried us.
We have been present in the kids’ lives; There are 14 years home schooling to look back on. We have been mindful and careful in parenting decisions. We have been there for almost every important milestone. We’ve been there for the little things, such as family meals and scripture study, tucking in, and prayers. It seems like we have earned the right to feel the situation with more sense of reality, but I don’t. How could anything creep up on us with all this focus on our family?
Perhaps that’s just it, we have been so focused on the minutes, I haven’t grasped the years going by. I keep hearing that this is common. It makes me wonder how it will be when my “youthful” self is in a shell that looks much older than I am now. Will that reality be just as shocking? Probably.
Carol was a member of my congregation. She was endearing. Several of her nieces and nephews said that she loved them like each one was her favorite. She loved them differently, just as they needed to be loved. Isn’t that beautiful?
I think I will keep the decorations up for a few days.