Being Grateful for All We Have

This was given to me by my grandson.  It is precious because of the effort he put into making it and, of course, the message. I am always grateful for gifts.

An inspirational thought:  Cicero, a legendary statesman from the ancient decaying Roman Empire, called gratitude the parent of all other virtues.  If we keep a feeling of gratefulness--have gratitude in our hearts--we unlock an entire range of temporal and spiritual blessings.  Gratitude invigorates the soul, overcomes fear, envy, and resentfulness.  It frees the heart so one can better love others and be concerned with their welfare rather than self.

Most of us are familiar with some sort of tradition we follow to show gratitude for the food we eat.  Sometimes the blessing on the food is a memorized prayer like the one I grew up with--"Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest and let this food to us be blessed."  Other times, we may offer a prayer off the cuff with whatever we feel inspired to say.  Either type of prayer is fine because it causes us to pause long enough to show gratitude for our food, which not everyone has on a regular basis in places throughout the world.

I challenge everyone to pause and really think about where their food actually comes from and what efforts are in play to get it to the table.  How about the following prayer for my morning smoothie:

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this food before me. I'm grateful for the cows that gave their milk, the farmer who milked them, the truck driver who transported the milk to the processing plant, and the plant workers who prepared the clean equipment to receive the milk. I'm grateful for the process that made my yogurt and for those who made the container that it was put into, as well as those who put it into the container.  I am grateful for those who transported it to the store, unloaded it, and put it on the store shelves, and for the clerk who checked me out at the grocery store. Bless this food to nourish and strengthen my body in the way that I need. Amen." Yeah, that is a bit much but don't tune me out yet. Think deeper.

If we went further back, we could thank the farmer who fed the cow and plowed and planted and watered the field where the grass grew for the cow to eat.  Perhaps, the farmer had to plow, cultivate, plant, cut, bale, and haul the hay for the cow to eat.  It can be a long list of complicated steps before the food makes it to us.

Think about all the food we eat and where it comes from and all the work that goes into getting it to our tables.  Many people are involved with laboring in the fields to gather fruits and vegetables,.  After that, there is washing, packaging, loading, transporting, unloading, and stocking.  All those steps and details for every single item means we get a quality product to enjoy in our homes.  

I would advise keeping the blessing on the food short in the interest of those hungry folks sitting at the table waiting to dig in as quickly as possible. A simple thanks for all the people who helped get the food to us will suffice.  It still doesn't stop me from thanking the chicken who laid the egg but I do that in private or everyone at the table would probably start laughing.

My husband enjoys creating a masterpiece when he prepares food.   

Love is the Little Things and Everything

On my fridge are three pictures sent to me by great-grandsons. This is love. They know I love ducks.

Most of you have heard the quote by George Sand, "There is only one happiness in this life--to love and be loved."   This I believe wholeheartedly. The small, simple gestures like a quick text with a heart or an "I love you," makes for a happy heart.  Feeling loved cannot be topped in the happiness scale.  Many things can be going wrong all around us but if we are loved we can survive anything.

Here are some quotes about LOVE:

Love one another deeply from the heart. -1 Peter 1:22

In our life, there is a single color, as on an artist's palette, which provides the meaning to life and art.
It is the color of love.  -Marc Chagall

Love one another and you will be happy.  It's as simple and as difficult as that.  -Michael Leunig

Love is above, above all, the gift of oneself.  -Jean Anouilh

Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails. -1 Corinthians 13:4-8

We can only learn to love by loving.  -Iris Murdoch

Love is not only something you feel.  It is something you do.  -David Wilkerson

Every man [woman] feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.  -James Russell Lowell

There is no remedy for love but to love more.  -Henry David Thoreau

To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.  -David Viscott

Only love lets us see normal things in an extraordinary way.  -Alejandro De Salminihac

One word frees us of all the weight and pain in life.  That word is love.  -Sophocles

Love comforteth like sunshine after rain.  -William Shakespeare

Our echoes roll from soul to soul and grow forever and ever.  -Alfred, Lord Tennyson

What a grand thing, to be loved!  What a grander thing still, to love!  -Victor Hugo

Love is everything it's cracked up to be . . . . It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for.  -Erica Jong

Love on!

Love is Beautiful-Spread it!

Happy Valentine's Day this week. 

A Perspective on Everyday Life & Trials

Here it is the middle of January and already we may feel like a failure because we had goals to improve ourselves or to do some specific things differently and we are still going on each day the same in and same out. Don't despair! We need to remember to just do our best each day and call it done.  We've heard it many times:  The past is gone, the future isn't here yet, so today is all you have in which to live. Needless to say, there are challenges to our days and these seemingly get in the way of what we were planning to accomplish.  Just take what comes.  Do our best with it.  

Faith Precedes the Miracle, by Spencer W. Kimball, is an easy-to-read book that addresses many concerns in life.  Below is a quote from his book to help our perspective on living and enduring trials that come our way.

“If we looked at mortality as the whole of existence, then pain, sorrow, failure, and short life would be calamity. But if we look upon life as an eternal thing stretching far into the premortal past and on into the eternal post-death future, then all happenings may be put in proper perspective”

Is there not wisdom in His [God’s] giving us trials that we might rise above them, responsibilities that we might achieve, work to harden our muscles, sorrows to try our souls? Are we not exposed to temptations to test our strength, sickness that we might learn patience, death that we might be immortalized and glorified?

If all the sick for whom we pray were healed, if all the righteous were protected and the wicked destroyed, the whole program of the Father would be annulled and the basic principle of the gospel, free agency, would be ended. No man would have to live by faith.

If joy and peace and rewards were instantaneously given the doer of good, there could be no evil—all would do good but not because of the rightness of doing good. There would be no test of strength, no development of character, no growth of powers, no free agency, only satanic controls.

Being human, we would expel from our lives physical pain and mental anguish and assure ourselves of continual ease and comfort, but if we were to close the doors upon sorrow and distress, we might be excluding our greatest friends and benefactors.  Suffering can make saints of people as they learn patience, long-suffering, and self-mastery.  The sufferings of our Savior were part of his education."

Elder Orson F. Whitney wrote: “No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude, and humility. … It is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire.” 

Okay, so back to our earth school day--what can we learn today?  What can we do with this day?

Mini Christmas Devotionals and Other Light the World Ideas

There are several wonderful videos to watch in this link: (see day two and six for sure)
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2019/12/one-a-day-mini-christmas-devotionals?lang=eng

https://www.comeuntochrist.org/2017/christmas/25-ways-25-days

https://www.comeuntochrist.org/2016/christmas/in-25-ways-over-25-days

https://www.comeuntochrist.org/light-the-world/all-year

Dogs Don't Judge

Think about the behavior of a dog.  They go their merry way of taking life as it comes (most of the time).  We can learn a lot from dogs (and other animals, unless the particular animal has behavior problems).  Eat, play, love, sleep, eat--you know the routine.  They don't do the following:
Compare themselves to other dogs
Criticize what other dogs are doing
Judge the behavior or bark of another dog
Spread venom with their barks because either they are warning, protecting, need attention, establishing territory, or being verbal because another dog is barking.
Backstab others
Think they are better than any other dogs
Take offense at every opportunity
Never forgive or carry grudges

Well, the list can go on.  The point is--CHILL.  Let us adopt an I'm okay and you're okay attitude.  Give people a break and benefit of the doubt before jumping all over with criticism or judgment.  Don't we all have better things to do like good, uplifting, kind, and generous things to do?

After watching the movie,  It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood and being reminded that if we all extended respect and acceptance to others as if we wanted them to be our neighbor (friend), it truly would be a more beautiful day each day.  Value others.  Recognize that most people deep down inside just want to get along.

Christmas Wisdom From the Early 1900s

Keeping Christmas

by Henry van Dyke

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Henry van Dyke was a member of the clergy, this story reads like a sermon for good reason. Its full title is A Short Christmas Sermon: Keeping Christmas. Van Dyke also composed lyrics to the popular hymn, "The Hymn of Joy" sung to Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, "Ode to Joy."

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Henry van Dyke leads an Easter service atop Mount Rubidoux, 1913

ROMANS, xiv, 6: He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord.

It is a good thing to observe Christmas day. The mere marking of times and seasons, when men agree to stop work and make merry together, is a wise and wholesome custom. It helps one to feel the supremacy of the common life over the individual life. It reminds a man to set his own little watch, now and then, by the great clock of humanity which runs on sun time.

But there is a better thing than the observance of Christmas day, and that is, keeping Christmas.

Are you willing...

• to forget what you have done for other people, and to remember what other people have done for you; 
• to ignore what the world owes you, and to think what you owe the world; 
• to put your rights in the background, and your duties in the middle distance, and your chances to do a little more than your duty in the foreground; 
• to see that your fellow-men are just as real as you are, and try to look behind their faces to their hearts, hungry for joy; 
• to own that probably the only good reason for your existence is not what you are going to get out of life, but what you are going to give to life; 
• to close your book of complaints against the management of the universe, and look around you for a place where you can sow a few seeds of happiness--are you willing to do these things even for a day? 
• Then you can keep Christmas.

Are you willing...

• to stoop down and consider the needs and the desires of little children; 
• to remember the weakness and loneliness of people who are growing old;
•  to stop asking how much your friends love you, and ask yourself whether you love them enough; 
• to bear in mind the things that other people have to bear on their hearts;
•  to try to understand what those who live in the same house with you really want, without waiting for them to tell you; 
• to trim your lamp so that it will give more light and less smoke, and to carry it in front so that your shadow will fall behind you; 
• to make a grave for your ugly thoughts, and a garden for your kindly feelings, with the gate open--are you willing to do these things even for a day? 
• Then you can keep Christmas.

Are you willing... 

• to believe that love is the strongest thing in the world--stronger than hate, stronger than evil, stronger than death--and that the blessed life which began in Bethlehem nineteen hundred years ago is the image and brightness of the Eternal Love? 
• Then you can keep Christmas.

And if you keep it for a day, why not always?

But you can never keep it alone.

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You might enjoy two more favorite works of VanDyke: The Other Wise Man and The First Christmas Tree.  Find these and many of his other short stories here:   https://americanliterature.com/author/henry-van-dyke

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