Gratitude Moments

I have to say that with Ellie's baptism and a trip to Utah, that it's mostly been a pretty happy couple of weeks around here.  However there's been a little blight in all this happiness when I found out this week that one of the fellow AML patients  we connected with this past year has relapsed for a third time and has been placed on hospice care.  My heart has seriously been breaking for young Brielle's family and I've found myself more upset about it than I would have expected.  I am using the blog tonight for a dose of free therapy and trying to help my heart focus on some of the gratitude moments I've had over the last couple of weeks.

• This sketch.  One of the missionaries serving in our ward is an artist and presented this sketch to Ellie as a gift for her 8th birthday and baptism.  She is ecstatic about having her own original work of art and will not allow anyone to touch it until it is framed.   I have found myself admiring it many times over the last several days and finding solace in its beauty and message.  

• One of my kids who was telling me all about how much a hangnail hurt, except he kept referring to it as a "cliffhanger" instead of a hangnail.  It cracked me up, although for the sake of his pride I had to pretend it was normal to have a painful cliffhanger on your baby toe. 

• Glen came home from his business trip!  I was off kilter all week without him, but by Friday I was a such a mess that I totally slept through my alarm that I'd accidentally turned to the lowest volume and missed waking the kids up for seminary.   It was the first time we've done that in nearly four years of early morning seminary.  

• Two men gave us flowers this week and neither of them was Glen!   The day before Easter one of our favorite teachers from the elementary school came by and presented us with these Easter lilies.  Four of our five kids have had him for a teacher and although we are sad that Ellie will never be in his class, we feel blessed for the kids that have had the privilege of being in his classroom over the years.   The second bouquet of flowers came from the cashier at Trader Joes.  He was a tad grumpy when he kept calling for bagging help and no one ever came.  I think he felt guilty and gave the flowers as a conciliatory gesture for showing his frustration in front of a customer. In any case, I love having not one, but two bouquets of flowers to officially welcome the commencement of real spring-like weather this week! 

• Cute nieces and nephews who make me smile and feel younger than I really am..

• I impressed Spence and Cam when I used a teenage slang word correctly.    I simply told Spence to "sice" me some gas at the station and instantly I became .0000001% cooler in the eyes of my teenagers.  And to think I was just trying to stay in the warm car and out of the whipping wind. 

• General Conference!!!   Twice a year we Mormons have the privilege of spending two days watching modern-day apostles and a prophet teach and inspire us.  What a blessing it is to know that God still speaks to us today. 

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A sampling of the kind of inspiring message we hear at General Conference:

"Though we are incomplete, God loves us completely.  Though we are imperfect, He loves us perfectly.  Though we may feel lost and without compass, God's love encompasses us completely....  He loves every one of us, even those who are flawed, rejected, awkward, sorrowful, or broken."
                                                                                                       Dieter F. Uchtdorf (October 2009)