Tidal Waves and Twinkies

You know, every now and then you have that overwhelming feeling of gratitude wash over you like a tidal wave - covering you, immersing you from the top of your head to the tips of your toes.  Today is such a day for me.  I have quite a few friends -- like it should be FRIGHTENING to you if you are my friend because I have so many friends who are having or have had twins in the last few years.  And three of them have had pre-term labor, bed rest, and/or early births with their babies.  As much as I thought in the moment that I - emphasis on the I - would have given anything to have my twins early, experience has taught me that the GREATEST blessing was that I DIDN'T.  And now that I have my twins and know the ups and downs and ins and outs and years of sleepless nights and double trouble/double fun moments lie ahead of all of my dear friends, I am kicking myself that we live so far away from them and can't do a thing.  Not one of the many small things that I would have given ANYTHING to have people do for me - and was thankful beyond words when one of them actually did. 

So that brings me to the present and makes me look around and try to see who around me is having a pre-term twin labor/birth moment in their owns special way, who is praying that someone will scrub out their kitchen sink or rescue them from another monotonous night of dinner and dishes, give them an easy night so their husband can just be their husband when they get home from work instead of a mommy/daddy twinkie pack, picking up all the work of two while wrapped in just on tight package.  I'm seeing a few dinner drop-offs in the near future -- probably tonight because my own twinkie-pack husband is home all day and gives me the flexibility/option to get out and do more than I can when he isn't.

Plato said that you should be kind to those around you because everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle!

'Nough said, huh? ;-D  So now I'm signing off to roll with these tidal waves and ease the weight placed on some tough but not invincible twinkies out there.

I Want to Thank You for . . .

C'mon - you know the tune.  Sing it out loud -- "givin' me the best da-ays of my li-i-ife!  And O-oh, just to be with you is givin' me the best da-ays of my life."

Today I have gratitude on my mind and heart.  The power of thank you.  Such small words.  Such easy words.  Such life-changing, relationship-building, faith-instilling, gratifying words.  When was the last time you said them?  Are there thank-yous left unsaid in your life or heart right now?  So what if it was something that happened a month ago (or two or three or four or a few years)?  Does it come to your mind - to your heart?  Does it bring a smile to your face?  Do you find yourself remembering that your life was changed or improved or influenced when so-and-so said or did such-and-such or allowed you to say or do such-and-such?  Cuz my heart has been remembering lately.  And I find myself in need of saying a lot of over-due, unspoken thank yous.  I am sure I have a few to say to you -- but if you don't hear from me for a while, don't think I have forgotten you.  I just have a VERY.LONG.LIST I am working on!

Today, though - thank you for reading my blog.  Thank you for saying to me that I matter enough to you and am a significant enough part of your life that you think reading up on my life matters.  Thank you for missing me and wondering how I am doing and coming to check up.  Whatever your reason for being here today, thank you!  Thank you for making me feel indispensable for a small moment in your very busy life and schedule.  Thank you for commenting (on here or in your heart).  Thank you for being my friend. 

Whenever I start to think about gratitude, I am reminded of some thoughts I had a few years ago while reading a familiar story in the New Testament.  The story of the ten lepers who were healed, and only one went back to say THANK YOU. Christ had told all of them to go and show themselves to the priests -- the custom in that culture was that they weren't clean until the priests declared them clean -- and when they all left Christ to go to the priests, all were being obedient to that commandment/tradition.  However, where nine of them kept going -- following the law that said the priests had to declare them clean before they would actually be considered clean -- the Samaritan, who wasn't a full believer in the law or, therefore, bound by it, recognized who had already made him clean, regardless of what the priests said.  He immediately went and glorified God, GIVING THANKS.  That made him whole instead of just clean, because his faith was in the Savior and not the priests, the law, or the false traditions.  Did the others glorify God -- did they get to the priests and tell everyone that Jesus of Nazareth had healed them, thus recognizing His power?  We don't know -- maybe, maybe not.  But the Samaritan definitely did.

There are a couple of things that really stand out to me here:
1) What it means to glorify God. In the scripture Moses 1:39, God says, "This is my work and my glory, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." His glory comes from our exaltation.  So, God is glorified as we complete His purpose -- which takes in recognizing Christ as our Savior, keeping the commandments, repenting of our sins, loving and forgiving others, etc. This automatically glorifies us in the process, bringing us to a place where we can be, through the Savior, worthy of exaltation.  Ultimately - as with the ten lepers - we must love Him more than man; we must want to return to Him more than we want man's praise or traditions, or even to just coast through life enjoying the blessings He sends us.

2) If this is God's work and glory -- if our exaltation is what glorifies God -- GRATITUDE is essential.  Merely appreciating someone in your life and all they may do for you is not enough to bring you closer to them.  It's YOU expressing that appreciation that lets THEM feel your love and understand it and find comfort and joy in it and therefore feel closer to you even as you feel closer to them for the love they have shown you, the love and acts that have left your heart GRATEFUL. 

This applies to relationships with friends, co-workers, neighbors, the mailman, the garbage man, God, everyone!  Particularly with God.  Even if we do go out and glorify and praise Him and all He does for us to everyone in the world and never go back to Him - never converse with Him and work on building that relationship with Him - that relationship doesn't exist. I feel love for Him and He feels love for me, but that coming together is what creates and strengthens our relationship WITH each other. One huge point to life build that relationship with God and do what is necessary to return to our Father.  GRATITUDE shows our faith, helps us identify how He is blessing us, helps us see and feel His love in our lives, teaches us what our worth is, etc. and also builds that relationship.

Like I said, gratitude has been on my mind and heart.  I hope you feel that love between now and my more personal THANK YOU!  And I hope you find a few minutes today or this week or this month, whenever, to say a few thank yous of your own!

Give a Twin an Unsupervised Mili-Second

I stepped away with Brianna to check my e-mail and came back to the twins sitting INSIDE my entertainment center.  Not a small feat, it's like three stories up to get there.  Seriously, give a twin a millisecond and you've given her time to recruit backup from her brother and get into all sorts of trouble. And I use her deliberately here because Abby is generally the fearless instigator and Isaac the eager follower!  Seriously, the two of them together are monkeys that know no bounds! :-)  I would have grabbed a picture if I weren't so worried about one of them falling or pushing the television screen in (fears rising in that order, of course!).

Irreplaceable

I am the kind of person who likes to leave a mark on everything I do.  I always dreamed of being the Keynote speaker, the inspiration to women on topics of motherhood, womanhood, child rearing, and patriotism (to name a few).  I love writing and would LOVE to publish a book someday.  I even have a few titles in mind: Perfection Walls or Garbage Bags and Bread Crumbs.  I really enjoy writing cute rhymes and hope to get back to a point where I can write and publish a few children's books - my imaginary friend Sir Belvis in his baggy MC Hammer pants, oversized baseball cap, and blue cadillac being the hero of my adventures and tales.  And I love to write music.  I have written a few songs and even been blessed to perform some of them, and maybe one day I'll get to publish a book of songs.  I would also LOVE to be part of an a capella group again someday (and I do mean L-O-V-E it!).  Add to that list my physical goals and desires, paramount being to run a marathon, maybe even ten or twelve and get to the point that I can actually compete in them and maybe even qualify for the Boston Marathon.  I would also love to run a Community Service/Community Action Youth Program someday, perhaps even putting into motion the program outline I began writing for a non-profit organization in Washington, D.C. before I gave it all up to get married to the man of my dreams.

Among my many wonderful memories that I have gathered in my mind's treasure box through the years is a memory of a three-year-old girl named Kathleen.  Kathleen was the oldest of three girls.  I used to babysit her and her sisters while her parents went to the temple.  I was amazed at how smart and on top of things she was!  She was a mini-me of her mother, and if her sisters hadn't learned lessons and life routines on their own yet, she filled in and often reminded them with things like, "No, Shara, remember Mommy says we don't eat anything until after we say a prayer."  I remember watching and listening to this young three-going-on-twenty-something and having the strongest feeling of awe and reverence come over me.  I thought, "Heaven help this family if anything ever happened to their mother!  And heaven help the woman that tried to fill Lisa's shoes.  She is irreplaceable to them.  And her shoes cannot be filled by anyone else."  I knew it was true.  They might enjoy me for a while, laugh with me, play with me, read books with me, play the piano and sing with me, but I was not and never could be their mother.  And all the things I was doing with them -- well, I was just going through the motions of the foundation their mother had already laid, and laid so well that it could not be easily shaken.

Many times in my life I have feared being replaced, not being an irreplaceable in roles and situations that will forever be one of a kind and irreplaceable to ME.  I have a great fear of passing through this life like the main character in Wit - hardly noticed and completely alone, having lived a life that was full of chasing dreams and aspirations that are ultimately no more meaningful than a name on a plaque or engraved in a cement bench in an empty park.  Before I got married, I even saw myself in Julia Roberts' role in Mona Lisa Smile - the successful, intelligent, innovative, passionate woman who was moving so quickly to accomplish and fulfill her own dreams that she missed out on relationships - chasing a dream that never left her with roots and branches. I am a friend who prizes sincerity first, last, and always.  I try not to say things I don't mean to merely flatter or feel good myself for having said it, intervened, been a "good" friend.  I try very hard to leave no message or phone call unanswered, unreturned. Most of this is because I want people to know they are important to me, and I hope to get the same reciprocity from my friends to know that I matter to them. 

This afternoon I put a movie on for Abby and Isaac to watch while I went in the kitchen and made pizza crust for our dinner "party" we had tonight with their old nursery teacher from church and her daughters.  As I turned to walk out of the room, Abby looked at me and said, patting to the sofa cushion next to her, "Mommy, sit by you?"  I told her just a minute, planning to quickly make the dough and then go sit by her while it rose for 15-20 minutes.  But it just so happened that I never did stop until long after the dough was made, dinner was served and finished, the company left, and my kids were in bed.  And here I sit with the memory of Kathleen and the sweet pleading eyes of Abby etched on my mind.

In her, I finally have my totally irreplaceable role!  No one else (hopefully) will ever be her mommy! And I know there are so many moments in each day when I can do better to make sure that she is getting the most out of me, that the unshakable foundation only I can give her is firmly in place!

The First Three Years in Pictures

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Is it sad that these are the only pictures we have of us in the last three years?  You'd think we had kids who took over the camera or something! ;-D

Cute as a Button . . . or Three!

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I know I have been meaning to post pictures for a while now to update everyone, but I never get around to uploading them all.  So here's the book I made for Grandma for Christmas.  ENJOY!!!