Smiles

Finding moments of happiness via YouTube.


Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

You Matter to Him

I feel like I am increasingly understanding how much our Heavenly Father really does care about us and our individual lives.  


Recently I watched a video on mormon.org in which a professional skateboarder who is a member of the Church shares this thought:


"I think a misconception that I had that a lot of people have is that God is just... boring.  It's through skateboarding and remaining prayerful that I've found out the complete opposite.  I realize that He's given us everything that we love.  Every crazy color...feelings, emotions, rushes, adrenaline...everything that inspires you, gets you pumped and excited, is directly from Him."


I love that so, so much.  Everything that we love and that gets us excited is directly from God, who loves us.


Who loves us.


I have been recognizing this in so many ways in my own little life.  As I get flashes of inspiration about what to do to be a better mother to Evie, or to reach out to others, or to find new ways that really excite me to organize our little life and home...I just recognize through all of it that He cares for me.


They may seem silly to anyone else, but I've seen Him show love for me through things like the following:

• Last year I was bummed to miss out on Halloween, and there have been many, many times in the past year that I just plain miss home and the traditions I grew up with.  As Halloween came up this year I assumed that I would just get over the fact the holiday isn't celebrated here the same, but after talking with my friend Renata about Halloween and thinking about how fun it is, I got this flash of insight: Why not have a Halloween Party/Family Night?  And invite Renata and her family, several other friends, and especially our neighbors who've been feeling we want to get to know?  I was instantly pumped!  I spent the next couple of days planning it, Tinoa was excited and wanted to "let me fly," and we had the Halloween party on Monday!  And all throughout I had little promptings letting me know that Heavenly Father was helping me with it and wanted me to enjoy the whole thing.  Like I wanted to have games for the little kids who were coming, and all the ideas came as inspiration:  Why not do limbo using a piece of clothesline and use the song "Thriller" by MJ?  Why not look on Pinterest to find some Halloween game ideas?  And then I was racking my brain trying to figure out how to decorate without spending any money.  I spent a while thinking about it, and then this idea: Use Evie's clean cloth nappies to make ghosts, and hang them from a clothesline hanging from the ceiling.  It was a great party, and I learned a lot about how to throw parties for the future.  Now Tinoa and I want to use things like Halloween and Thanksgiving, which aren't really celebrated in NZ, as fun traditions for our kids that we can use to have fun times with others.  All from inspiration.
• I've had somewhat of a hard time with Evie's napping during the day.  She is a champion at nighttime, because she has the routine down pat.  One of us takes a shower with her, we give her a baby massage, I give her a little feed, we put her in her bed with her dummy, and we turn on the radio to an off-station so she has white noise.  Then that's it--no fussing, no anything, she's straight to sleep.  But during the day I get carried away with things I'm working on and she doesn't always get tired at the same time.  I know from the book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child that by this age we should be aiming for a 9:00am nap and a 1:00pm nap, and possibly a late afternoon nap, but I also remember a discussion with a Plunket nurse who said that "every day is a new day" and to follow her drowsy cues.  So when I see her getting tired I have been just sort-of dropping what I'm doing and going and putting her in her cot.  Sometimes she's fine and she goes down, but other times she fusses and fusses until I take her out and try later or even put a teeny bit of Pamol on her dummy for her to suck on.  So I was thinking about all this yesterday, and I received a flash of inspiration, remembering something I read somewhere:  that at naptime I should do a mini-version of bedtime.  So of course!  I should set aside 8:45 and 12:45 to stop, spend some time with Evie, do some reading with her, and give her a little rub, and then put her down for her nap when she is calm and knows to expect me putting her into her bed.  And then this morning, another flash:  In the morning I should read to her from Church materials, so that I am getting in the spiritual reading that I need, and we both get in the habit of spending time studying the Gospel together each day--a tradition that of course I want to have with my children.  And so this morning I did that.  A few minutes before 9, I read to her a few pages from Daughters In My Kingdom, gave her a little rub, put her in her bed, and set the radio to an off-station.  She fussed a little bit, since this is a bit new and she likes to be with me, but I know it will only take a few days for this to become routine as well.  I'm thrilled with it, and I know that it's all from Heavenly Father helping me to sort things out.

So those are just two examples, but I feel that there are so, so many more I could list--flashes of insight about how to decorate our house...inspiration about how to organize my spices, since they've all been in a big mess...inspiration about the types of bread recipes I should look up since we are set on learning to eat better...and on and on.

Yesterday I listened again (several times actually, since I had it on repeat while I was cooking) President Uchtdorf's talk from General Conference, "You Matter to Him."  I loved the whole thing, and this part in particular has stuck with me today:

"My dear brothers and sisters, it may be true that man is nothing in comparison to the greatness of the universe. At times we may even feel insignificant, invisible, alone, or forgotten. But always remember—you matter to Him!" 

So even in times when I feel too far from home...lonely...desperately wondering if anything I'm trying to do is actually making a difference for anyone at all, or for me, I can remember:  I matter to God.  We all do. 

And in a related way, how important it is that we are kind with one another, and remember that the worth of EVERYONE'S soul is great.  In my heart I am too quick to blame my loneliness or frustrations on other people and the ways I feel they have "let me down."  But this morning in reading with Evie I was taught by the Prophet Joseph Smith who said, when commenting on 1 Corinthians 13:

"Don't be limited in your views with regard to your neighbors' virtues....You must enlarge your souls toward others if you'd do like Jesus...As you increase in innocence and virtue, as you increase in goodness, let your hearts expand--let them be enlarged towards others--you must be longsuffering and bear with the faults and errors of mankind.  How precious are the souls of men!" (DIMK, p.23).

What a beautiful teaching, and one I need to remember.  My soul is precious is God.  ALL souls are precious to God.  We should help and lift each other up on this journey of life and love one another enough to give each other the benefit of the doubt.  Today I am praying for greater love. For the ability to forgive.  For eyes to see opportunities to reach out, secure in knowing that who I am and what I have to offer is GOOD because I am undoubtedly loved by my Heavenly Father.

Wednesday

...is today, which means that it is almost a whole week that has passed since I posted about my new plans to write about my spiritual progresses.

Well, I believe I have been progressing, but I just have not been writing.

There's just so much living going on that sometimes it's hard to take a step back and write about it.

However, I read last week that D&C 25 is intended to apply to all Relief Society sisters.  I read it again, I thought, holy cow, this really does apply to me.  I particularly liked this verse:

"...thy time shall be given to writing, and to learning much" (verse 8).

I need to do more with writing, but learning much?  Oh yes, that is me these days.

I am learning about finances.  About budgeting.  About baking bread.  About "The Top 10 Foods You Need to Eat" (from a book that is amazing and changing my life, of course).  About taking care of an almost 5 month old little girl.  About being a wife.  About being a friend.  About serving.  About having charity.  About blogging.  About gardening--at least indoors.  About making homemade donuts.  About hanging ghosts made of white towels from my ceiling for a Halloween party.  About reading.  About being able to just plain reach outside myself.

Learning and progress.

Cheers for today.  Off to eat my baked oatmeal and quinoa.  (Quinoa--the wonder grain-- is one of the Top 10, of course.  I'll also remember that it would be an excellent use of a Q for Scrabble.)