over the months of this year i have had a number of promptings to get our family started on a daily scripture reading regime. we've read through the children's stories for the book of mormon, the new testament, and most of the old testament, but i just kept feeling like we needed to be reading the real thing.
one morning in particular the feeling came to me again as i was praying and so i decided to talk to dev about it and really work to make it happen. dev was, of course, interested in doing it, but we both weren't exactly sure how to make it happen. reading at night was just too impossible with dev's schedule changing every day. plus, being pregnant meant i was just too tired at night. but the morning? ugh. it's hard enough to get the kids ready and to school on time let alone throw scripture reading in there too. but it was the only time we thought it would work so we set a time and began in earnest to do it.
turned out to be much easier a transition than we thought. but duh...doing things the Lord's way -- especially when following through with specific promptings -- will obviously work out somehow cause He wants/needs them to.
we've been reading for months now at 7:20 am and it's made a wonderful difference for our family. i love feeling like we are having more opportunities to speak about the Gospel in our home. i love that our kids are starting the day thinking about God, the scriptures, and what is true in this life. i love that we -- dev and i -- are both finding lessons read about in the morning coming back to us during the day. i hope that same is true for our children. and i love that the kids are getting to know that scriptures.
and so...again, we saw God. don't you see how much He wants us to succeed as families? if only we'll trust and obey.
Friday, December 31, 2010
before i forget...again
it seems that with each child my memory gets shadier and shadier. i have days when i can hardly remember the day of the week...and i've been known to forget the month and year as well.
this little diddy of a testimony builder came back to my memory the other day. i failed to write it down before, but like Nephi (3 Nephi) in regards to the story of Samuel the Lamanite, i will not forget this time. there is nothing like having the Lord remind you AGAIN to feel the weight of the importance to do so.
a few years ago -- maybe 2006 -- we got to the end of the year and tithing settlement. tithing has always been something i feel strongly about because i saw so many of the blessings that come from it as a child. more on that later. (if i remember!) at any rate, paying tithing is something that devan and i have always done and have always felt grateful to do. it has always been important for us to be full tithe payers. with all that God has given us it is the least we could do.
so per the usual we received the end of the year statement from our ward clerk and were surprised to find that it did not match our gross income for the year listed on devan's pay stub. in fact, it appeared that we were $1000 short. how could that be? i have always handled finances in our family -- the daily logging, the buying, the rectifying of accounts, the paying of bills, etc. -- and was in complete shock...and then i was scared. did i make that much of a mistake?
i sat down the next day and went through all the pay stubs for the year and matched them up against the tithing account. sure enough, i had missed two paychecks entirely and had been guesstimating incorrectly the amount of tithing we owed based on the net instead of waiting to find out what the exact gross was. for example, i would look at devan's net and say, "well if this is his net than if i add $___ amount to that i'll get his gross" and then i'd pay that. unfortunately, i didn't realize that when he had received a raise earlier in the year that it bumped us up a tax bracket, which meant that the difference between his gross and net had grown. essentially, i wasn't assuming enough. and so i came in under every month. in the end, the tithing statement was correct -- we were $1000 short...and we had about one and a half weeks left in the year.
when we explained to our bishop what had occurred he said that since we had always been full tithe payers and it had been an accident on my part that we could just take the next few months to pay it since he knew we didn't have $1000 cash lying around. but devan and i both felt that that was not the right thing for us to do. we wanted to be able to say that we were full tithe payers on december 31st, not march 31st.
christmas was just a few days away and all the gifts were bought. devan said we would just have to return gifts and explain to the kids our mistake and take the consequence. there were some things i could and did return, but i felt that the mistake had been ours (mine really) and i didn't want to make the kids take our consequence. we were at an impasse of sorts so we decided to take it to the Lord.
we prayed and explained our desire to be full tithe payers within the next week. we explained that we had made a serious error and repented for not having been more on top of our finances. we asked Him to make a way for us.
it's been so long now that i can't even remember how it all happened. this is why we write these things down as they happen and not years later, by the way. but it happened. like i said above, i returned some gifts, we scrimped and pulled money from other places where we could -- we did everything in our power. and then we received the rest of the money through other means. no random gifts from anonymous people, but credits, returns, and money we hadn't been expecting came pouring in. and by the end of the week we had $1000.
it was one of the most amazing moments of our life up to that point. we literally watched the Lord "open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing". it was absolutely breath taking. we couldn't stop saying to each other how amazing it was. it was awesome.
now a word on the side...remember our bishop had told us that we could take the extra time if we needed it. i want to say that i still think that would have been okay with the Lord. the bishop, is, after all, the Judge in Israel and the Lord's mouthpiece in a ward. but taking that route wouldn't have tested our faith either. and i have found that it is when we are most willing to try our faith -- to take a larger than normal leap -- that we see the greatest miracles. and our faith grows even more. that experience gave me the courage to take larger leaps of faith in the future. and what have i always found? that God never leaves us, never deserts us. never. never. never.
elder george q. cannon said, "when we went forth into the waters of baptism and covenanted with our Father in heaven to serve Him and keep His commandments, He bound Himself also by covenant to us that He would never desert us, never leave us to ourselves, never forget us, that in the midst of trials and hardships, when everything was arrayed against us, He would be near unto us and would sustain us."
so true. so very true.
so the next thing we did -- after thanking God in prayer, of course -- was to set up an account that helped me track every check, every piece of income as well as every tithing check from there on out. i felt that that was one of the biggest ways we could thank God for helping make up for our mistake and to show Him that we really meant to improve. and we've never been off since. but we've continued to see blessings galore from being willing to let go of our money and give that portion back to God.
tithing is a privilege. i think it's one of God's most merciful gifts.
and so...we saw God's hand that day.
this little diddy of a testimony builder came back to my memory the other day. i failed to write it down before, but like Nephi (3 Nephi) in regards to the story of Samuel the Lamanite, i will not forget this time. there is nothing like having the Lord remind you AGAIN to feel the weight of the importance to do so.
a few years ago -- maybe 2006 -- we got to the end of the year and tithing settlement. tithing has always been something i feel strongly about because i saw so many of the blessings that come from it as a child. more on that later. (if i remember!) at any rate, paying tithing is something that devan and i have always done and have always felt grateful to do. it has always been important for us to be full tithe payers. with all that God has given us it is the least we could do.
so per the usual we received the end of the year statement from our ward clerk and were surprised to find that it did not match our gross income for the year listed on devan's pay stub. in fact, it appeared that we were $1000 short. how could that be? i have always handled finances in our family -- the daily logging, the buying, the rectifying of accounts, the paying of bills, etc. -- and was in complete shock...and then i was scared. did i make that much of a mistake?
i sat down the next day and went through all the pay stubs for the year and matched them up against the tithing account. sure enough, i had missed two paychecks entirely and had been guesstimating incorrectly the amount of tithing we owed based on the net instead of waiting to find out what the exact gross was. for example, i would look at devan's net and say, "well if this is his net than if i add $___ amount to that i'll get his gross" and then i'd pay that. unfortunately, i didn't realize that when he had received a raise earlier in the year that it bumped us up a tax bracket, which meant that the difference between his gross and net had grown. essentially, i wasn't assuming enough. and so i came in under every month. in the end, the tithing statement was correct -- we were $1000 short...and we had about one and a half weeks left in the year.
when we explained to our bishop what had occurred he said that since we had always been full tithe payers and it had been an accident on my part that we could just take the next few months to pay it since he knew we didn't have $1000 cash lying around. but devan and i both felt that that was not the right thing for us to do. we wanted to be able to say that we were full tithe payers on december 31st, not march 31st.
christmas was just a few days away and all the gifts were bought. devan said we would just have to return gifts and explain to the kids our mistake and take the consequence. there were some things i could and did return, but i felt that the mistake had been ours (mine really) and i didn't want to make the kids take our consequence. we were at an impasse of sorts so we decided to take it to the Lord.
we prayed and explained our desire to be full tithe payers within the next week. we explained that we had made a serious error and repented for not having been more on top of our finances. we asked Him to make a way for us.
it's been so long now that i can't even remember how it all happened. this is why we write these things down as they happen and not years later, by the way. but it happened. like i said above, i returned some gifts, we scrimped and pulled money from other places where we could -- we did everything in our power. and then we received the rest of the money through other means. no random gifts from anonymous people, but credits, returns, and money we hadn't been expecting came pouring in. and by the end of the week we had $1000.
it was one of the most amazing moments of our life up to that point. we literally watched the Lord "open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing". it was absolutely breath taking. we couldn't stop saying to each other how amazing it was. it was awesome.
now a word on the side...remember our bishop had told us that we could take the extra time if we needed it. i want to say that i still think that would have been okay with the Lord. the bishop, is, after all, the Judge in Israel and the Lord's mouthpiece in a ward. but taking that route wouldn't have tested our faith either. and i have found that it is when we are most willing to try our faith -- to take a larger than normal leap -- that we see the greatest miracles. and our faith grows even more. that experience gave me the courage to take larger leaps of faith in the future. and what have i always found? that God never leaves us, never deserts us. never. never. never.
elder george q. cannon said, "when we went forth into the waters of baptism and covenanted with our Father in heaven to serve Him and keep His commandments, He bound Himself also by covenant to us that He would never desert us, never leave us to ourselves, never forget us, that in the midst of trials and hardships, when everything was arrayed against us, He would be near unto us and would sustain us."
so true. so very true.
so the next thing we did -- after thanking God in prayer, of course -- was to set up an account that helped me track every check, every piece of income as well as every tithing check from there on out. i felt that that was one of the biggest ways we could thank God for helping make up for our mistake and to show Him that we really meant to improve. and we've never been off since. but we've continued to see blessings galore from being willing to let go of our money and give that portion back to God.
tithing is a privilege. i think it's one of God's most merciful gifts.
and so...we saw God's hand that day.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
the little things no one else will ever know or ever see...
so recently a friend brought to my attention something about a mutual friend of ours that they felt was annoying. i could see how some of what my friend was saying was true -- if i was being totally honest there had been moments with our mutual friend where i had felt annoyed by similar things. outwardly i only defended our friend, saying that the person didn't do those things they were being accused of. but in truth, afterwards -- lying in bed at night -- i felt the heavy weight of the lies i had told. i knew that my friend had a point and even though they were saying something critical it was mostly true. but i didn't want to say mean things about our mutual friend. so i diminished my friend's concerns and, really, lied. but, i reasoned with myself, i had lied in an effort to defend my friend.
and so i felt confused. and then after a few more days those things that i knew were annoying about our friend started to bother me more and more. i started to feel just as annoyed as my friend that had brought up the entire subject in the first place when, before, i had been able to ignore and/or tolerate those annoying habits.
oh bother! what to do to hit reset and feel better about it all?
pray, of course. so i did. i asked Father to help me see clearly "things as they really are." i had a feeling that the things my friend was saying -- the annoying habits about our friend -- might be true to some extent, but not to the extent that they felt. often when we are missing the Spirit we can't see things in their proper perspective so i decided that since i felt angry and annoyed i wasn't having the Spirit and, therefore, the proper perspective.
turned out to be just the right thing to pray for. normally i think i would have prayed for help at not feeling annoyed with the person, but i think asking for the Spirit to help me see with real perspective gave me the opportunity to 1. feel the Spirit and 2. choose for myself how to feel about the person. it made me realize that 1. we are, in fact, capable of choosing how we feel and 2. that maybe the way to accomplish that is to have the Spirit in order to "see things as they really are."
i feel so much better. the annoying habits of the person haven't gone anywhere, but i don't see them very often anymore. and when i do i have more power to choose not to be bothered by them.
as for the lying...i think i should have been more honest with the person, but i didn't know how to be honest without just agreeing -- and thereby, be mean. in the future, i know now that i can be honest by sharing about how i have gained power through better perspective.
i love that God let's us practice in this life.
and so...i saw God today.
and so i felt confused. and then after a few more days those things that i knew were annoying about our friend started to bother me more and more. i started to feel just as annoyed as my friend that had brought up the entire subject in the first place when, before, i had been able to ignore and/or tolerate those annoying habits.
oh bother! what to do to hit reset and feel better about it all?
pray, of course. so i did. i asked Father to help me see clearly "things as they really are." i had a feeling that the things my friend was saying -- the annoying habits about our friend -- might be true to some extent, but not to the extent that they felt. often when we are missing the Spirit we can't see things in their proper perspective so i decided that since i felt angry and annoyed i wasn't having the Spirit and, therefore, the proper perspective.
turned out to be just the right thing to pray for. normally i think i would have prayed for help at not feeling annoyed with the person, but i think asking for the Spirit to help me see with real perspective gave me the opportunity to 1. feel the Spirit and 2. choose for myself how to feel about the person. it made me realize that 1. we are, in fact, capable of choosing how we feel and 2. that maybe the way to accomplish that is to have the Spirit in order to "see things as they really are."
i feel so much better. the annoying habits of the person haven't gone anywhere, but i don't see them very often anymore. and when i do i have more power to choose not to be bothered by them.
as for the lying...i think i should have been more honest with the person, but i didn't know how to be honest without just agreeing -- and thereby, be mean. in the future, i know now that i can be honest by sharing about how i have gained power through better perspective.
i love that God let's us practice in this life.
and so...i saw God today.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
on the road again
i'm in arizona tonight. i just flew here yesterday to empty our storage unit and drive the stuff back home tomorrow and monday. i've had so many things go right in the last 24 hours it is definitely noteworthy...
* jen and mario remain loyal friends. the best of. they picked me up, took me in, fed me, and then helped me empty the unit. it is not feasible to write down all the ways in which loyal friends bless our lives. specifically, the daniel family.
* the sun stayed hidden while i waited for the office to open so i could get a new gate code so i could unload the unit. and then...it only took two hours, not all day as i had planned...why? cause we found a flatbed cart that could haul three times what the dolly could. definitely a blessing.
* i slept well last night. that's saying something cause i never do to well on those inflatable mattresses. :)
* i've been safe...and so has the car.
* and i left something on the back bumper of the truck -- a box of tools -- and drove all the way from phoenix to gilbert until a man stopped me at a light and got out and gave them to me. can you believe that? that's a miracle i tell you.
and so...
i saw God today.
* jen and mario remain loyal friends. the best of. they picked me up, took me in, fed me, and then helped me empty the unit. it is not feasible to write down all the ways in which loyal friends bless our lives. specifically, the daniel family.
* the sun stayed hidden while i waited for the office to open so i could get a new gate code so i could unload the unit. and then...it only took two hours, not all day as i had planned...why? cause we found a flatbed cart that could haul three times what the dolly could. definitely a blessing.
* i slept well last night. that's saying something cause i never do to well on those inflatable mattresses. :)
* i've been safe...and so has the car.
* and i left something on the back bumper of the truck -- a box of tools -- and drove all the way from phoenix to gilbert until a man stopped me at a light and got out and gave them to me. can you believe that? that's a miracle i tell you.
and so...
i saw God today.
he cares for the sparrow and the speakers
so we left for a trip to point reyes national seashore with my parents last monday. the night before as i was packing i was trying to think of a way to make the car trip easier. usually you kids watch a movie on the little dvd player, but the volume on that thing stinks so we often pipe the sound through the car speakers. but that gives your dad and me big headaches.
now i realized that this wasn't a very big deal in the scheme of things and so it didn't occur to me to pray about it, but as i was praying that evening before bed i did think to ask Father if He would help me think of anything that i had forgotten -- cause i always forget something! - and if He would help me think of anything that would make the trip easier for all of us. instantly to my mind came a picture of our computer speakers and a thought that i should connect them to the dvd player. oh! i felt enlightened in that moment. i love that feeling.
so i tried it the next morning and it worked great! chas asked me how i came up with the idea and so i told him: God revealed it to me in a prayer. i said, "Chas, you are seeing a direct answer to a prayer." true story. i hope he remembers it.
cause even though speakers aren't important, I am important. and my prayers are important. and Father is always looking to watch over us and help us. and if speakers will help us than speakers it is. i love that about God.
i saw God today.
now i realized that this wasn't a very big deal in the scheme of things and so it didn't occur to me to pray about it, but as i was praying that evening before bed i did think to ask Father if He would help me think of anything that i had forgotten -- cause i always forget something! - and if He would help me think of anything that would make the trip easier for all of us. instantly to my mind came a picture of our computer speakers and a thought that i should connect them to the dvd player. oh! i felt enlightened in that moment. i love that feeling.
so i tried it the next morning and it worked great! chas asked me how i came up with the idea and so i told him: God revealed it to me in a prayer. i said, "Chas, you are seeing a direct answer to a prayer." true story. i hope he remembers it.
cause even though speakers aren't important, I am important. and my prayers are important. and Father is always looking to watch over us and help us. and if speakers will help us than speakers it is. i love that about God.
i saw God today.
i might as well just start
i've been putting this thing off cause...well, i always have some excuse. mostly good ones.
one day when i was in college i was standing at the kitchen sink in my apartment and noticed a daily calendar with quotes on the window sill. it was open to the following:
We always have time for the things we put first.
"Seek ye first the kingdom of God."
it struck me. it has stayed with me. it's true. and here it is coming back to me again. buen circulo.
two weeks ago we were at edison elementary school playing on the monkey bars. avery was crossing the bars and as she let go to jump down on the other side her foot slipped and she started to fall backwards off the ledge. cole was standing next to her and quickly grabbed her by putting his arm behind her back and taking her hand in his. he said, "i've got you avery." it was beautiful, gentle. it was so Christ-like. it was such a blessing that i got to see that moment. it brought the Spirit to my heart as it did to avery and cole.
i saw God that day.
one day when i was in college i was standing at the kitchen sink in my apartment and noticed a daily calendar with quotes on the window sill. it was open to the following:
We always have time for the things we put first.
"Seek ye first the kingdom of God."
it struck me. it has stayed with me. it's true. and here it is coming back to me again. buen circulo.
two weeks ago we were at edison elementary school playing on the monkey bars. avery was crossing the bars and as she let go to jump down on the other side her foot slipped and she started to fall backwards off the ledge. cole was standing next to her and quickly grabbed her by putting his arm behind her back and taking her hand in his. he said, "i've got you avery." it was beautiful, gentle. it was so Christ-like. it was such a blessing that i got to see that moment. it brought the Spirit to my heart as it did to avery and cole.
i saw God that day.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
begin at the beginning...
well, i'm not a great writer by any stretch of the imagination. and my use of commas -- or lack of use -- will become glaringly apparent quite quickly i'm sure. i have no intention of capitalizing or being exactly correct with my grammar. please don't count on perfection in any form...well, unless you are referring to the word in its scriptural sense. perfection in the scriptures focuses on the idea of being complete, whole rather than on the idea of being without error or blemish.
which amazingly brings me to my first buen circulo. bueno circulos already...as if to prove the point they show up for the introduction....beautiful.
you see, in spanish 'buen circulo' means good cirlce literally. but it's real meaning is more like 'complete circle'. it speaks to the idea of truth being eternal and how so many times in life we can see things coming back to themselves through the learning process thereby creating a 'buen circulo' or complete cirlce. it speaks to the idea that all truth can be circumscribed into one great whole. it speaks of how God works with us to bring us greater understanding of both His plan and our part in it. it speaks of connectivity in life and bonds in relationships. it speak to things as they really are.
oprah refers to these moments as 'ah ha' moments. we know them as moments of enlightenment given as gifts of the Spirit. when you feel one hit you've just gone one full circle and have been given the eye of faith to see a beginning and an end of one small circle within the larger cirlcle itself. but i'm learning that the actual ah ha part of the moment is just a small part of the whole circle...or lesson sometimes...that God is trying to share with us.
hopefully in time this idea with make more sense and begin to cement itself into your mind and your heart. if you open your eyes to them you'll begin to see them everywhere.
this blog is an attempt to write down some of these buen circulos for my posterity. a couple of years ago Elder Eyring suggested we begin to keep a record of the Lord's dealings with our families. he himself, following a prompting of the Spirit, began to keep a journal of sorts and wrote in it everyday about how he'd seen the Lord's hand in his family's life. after his kids had grown up he copied the journals and had them bound and gave them as gifts to his children. what a wonderful gift to give your children -- stories of how they gained their testimonies, how their lives were protected, all the small things that surely would have been forgotten. i want to give my children a gift of this sort. but it's been years now and i still haven't done it. this has been weighing on my mind of late.
this blog will serve as an offering to my children...a reminder that they have always believed in God and have always known His love in their lives.
and to my God a thank you, a tilt of the head -- really a bend of the knee -- for all I've been given and taught by His merciful hand.
which amazingly brings me to my first buen circulo. bueno circulos already...as if to prove the point they show up for the introduction....beautiful.
you see, in spanish 'buen circulo' means good cirlce literally. but it's real meaning is more like 'complete circle'. it speaks to the idea of truth being eternal and how so many times in life we can see things coming back to themselves through the learning process thereby creating a 'buen circulo' or complete cirlce. it speaks to the idea that all truth can be circumscribed into one great whole. it speaks of how God works with us to bring us greater understanding of both His plan and our part in it. it speaks of connectivity in life and bonds in relationships. it speak to things as they really are.
oprah refers to these moments as 'ah ha' moments. we know them as moments of enlightenment given as gifts of the Spirit. when you feel one hit you've just gone one full circle and have been given the eye of faith to see a beginning and an end of one small circle within the larger cirlcle itself. but i'm learning that the actual ah ha part of the moment is just a small part of the whole circle...or lesson sometimes...that God is trying to share with us.
hopefully in time this idea with make more sense and begin to cement itself into your mind and your heart. if you open your eyes to them you'll begin to see them everywhere.
this blog is an attempt to write down some of these buen circulos for my posterity. a couple of years ago Elder Eyring suggested we begin to keep a record of the Lord's dealings with our families. he himself, following a prompting of the Spirit, began to keep a journal of sorts and wrote in it everyday about how he'd seen the Lord's hand in his family's life. after his kids had grown up he copied the journals and had them bound and gave them as gifts to his children. what a wonderful gift to give your children -- stories of how they gained their testimonies, how their lives were protected, all the small things that surely would have been forgotten. i want to give my children a gift of this sort. but it's been years now and i still haven't done it. this has been weighing on my mind of late.
this blog will serve as an offering to my children...a reminder that they have always believed in God and have always known His love in their lives.
and to my God a thank you, a tilt of the head -- really a bend of the knee -- for all I've been given and taught by His merciful hand.
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