All is quiet on the home front.
That concerns me.
So, I go looking for the reason for the silence. I quickly scan each room. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Then…
A pile of crayon peelings is staring me down. We exchange glances- me and the pile of crayon peelings. Actually, I’m glaring and it’s singing and dancing in cutesy little curls. It’s oblivious to my frustrations.
It’s having a party after all. Continue reading
Do you wake up tired? Heavy with the tasks ahead of you? Do you have one of those beds that wrestles you at night and latches onto you in the morning? Seriously. It’s got its days and nights flip flopped.
After a long restless night your hairstyle is fine (you didn’t sleep long enough to mess it up). But let’s face it you’ve earned a major frazzled bedhead brain.
Ah. The hurry and scurry of the season has passed. You can stop feeding that hungry cash register. It’s enormous stomach was always growling, always chomping at your wallet and chewing your stomach.
Ok. Sit down.
I’m suggesting you buy just one more gift. Continue reading
Over 2,000 years ago a babe born in a manger changes our lives today. This babe who knew and followed the will of his Father in Heaven is the example that we must follow. Only He was the perfect example.
Heavenly Father, of course, knew this.
But, did the Savior know who he was? I believe that he had to come to understand who he was with each perfect step towards our Father in Heaven. He surely did not know it all at once but as the scriptures say “line upon line, precept on precept.” At what point did he fully understand his role for all mankind? I’ll never know.
I marvel at the testimonies of those who did know. How they must have strengthened him and helped him understand his divine role. And how the record of their testimony strengthens our own. Each person in the Christmas story also had their own divine appointed roles. As each of us do.
The message is simple but I have found insight into how to strengthen my own testimony.
My 4 year old boy has a sweet little friend going through chemo. He has not missed one little prayer in his behalf. I thought that after a few days he would move on with life and forget- getting wrapped up in dump trucks, crazy kid moments, writing on walls, and mutilating boxes with pens (don’t ask…I don’t even know what draws him into that.)
And if we forget to mention his little friend in prayer (which we have) he is grumpy with us. He scowls and shoots out, “Hey, you forgot my friend.” We tip our ears down, tuck in our tails, and repent.
Oh, we repent!
But, he is persistent and perfect in prayer. He’s a four year old angel on a mission.
His prayers are always the same, “Please help my friend (calling him by name) to feel better. And I’m gonna ‘axe’ (AKA “ask”) my mom if he’s better when I’m done saying my prayer… Amen.”
And as always the same question jumps from his lips when he is done, “Mom, is he better?”
Perfect faith.
I wish it was that quick.
But, then I think. You know what? Yes. It does work that way. I’m certain a tiny stardust of hope floats his way. It may only be a brief moment: a hopeful thought, a sweet dream, a moment of relief from aches and pains and losses and gains, or even Mom’s lips on his cheek. All these little prayers- they are doing something.
And for a moment he feels better.
So, I’ve been thinking about my 4 year old boy and how much we need each others prayers. How, at times, we are in need of angels and other times we are the angel. And, really, it is the tiniest of things- like prayer- that are the big things.
He inspired this poem.
We went Christmas tree hunting. Well, technically, my husband did the hunting and we just traipsed behind him…WAY behind him. I expected less snow and mud, not that there was that much but I didn’t bring my boots. My steps were more careful.
He found a tree pretty quick. I liked it except for the big hole in the back.
But, it was pretty. And like a magnet he found another tree. He’s good at this. Immediately I decided, “Let’s do the other tree. It’ll work.”
I was done.
“But, it’s only been 20 minutes,” he said. Exactly my point. The perfect Christmas tree in 20 minutes. How much more perfect than that can we get?
But I see how roles were reversed. If it was a shopping trip I would be telling him the same thing (and I have)… but it’s only been 20 minutes!
He continued shopping. I puppy guarded the tree like my husband puppy guards a clothing rack while I shop. You know the motive of looking busy when you’re just plain bored. Yep, I just used the word “bored” with a family tradition. My to-do list was stealing my fun.
Today I’m joining the #ShareTheGift movement through the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints website. I want to share a message about how I know that through the gift of Jesus Christ one of my most difficult moments were made light. I want to bear my testimony of the atonement and it’s great power.
In Alma 7:12 it reads “…and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.”
I felt as if I was carried in His hands through my cancer trial. I could not have done it without the Savior taking upon Him my infirmities.
His is the gift that lifts.
Early one morning, just before sunrise I sat at the kitchen table, eating oatmeal that I couldn’t taste. I didn’t feel well. Big warm tears dropped from my cheeks. It splashed on the table below me.
I couldn’t do this anymore. I had only done 4 of the 8 chemo treatments (which I refer to lovingly as 5 hours of nuclear waste dumping) but each one was progressively worse. And each treatment had a new complication I had to muddle through.
I was tired of feeling sick. Nights were restless and my anxiety was escalated so that I couldn’t even crawl into bed for a good rest. My legs were antsy. I buzzed around, wearing circles in my carpet, which alleviated my anxiety but complicated my need for rest.
My chemo fog was extreme. I couldn’t read or concentrate. I existed in a muffled brain state. It’s as if someone had shoved a blanket in my head cutting off all circulation, numbing my brain and it’s functions.
I was ugly, bald, and cold. My eyelashes and eyebrows were dropping. And I felt like I was dropping out of everyone’s life… circumstances made it so.
My fast track moment in life began with diagnosis, total mastectomy, painful reconstruction, and now chemo. My body had taken all it could. Mentally, physically, and emotionally I was exhausted.
I couldn’t fight any more.
My taste buds are salivating. Chemo killed my taste buds for Thanksgiving last year. Though chemo had been done for a couple of weeks they were still in slow recovery, numb to my Thanksgiving feast. This year is going to be different.
Much, much different.
And I can’t wait. Last year I was actually grateful for stuffing. I hate stuffing. Toasted buttered bread slopping up water is just glorified floaties, in my opinion. Ok, I’ll stop. Now I’m ruining your appetite.
Sorry.
But I do have a point.
Send someone a Jellybean Hailstorm today. It’s so simple to let someone know that you care.
The bag of jelly beans slumps haphazardly on the top shelf. I reach up on my tippy-top toes. It’s about to fall. A simple touch and it all comes cascading down in a rain of jelly beans. It tinkles and clanks all over the shelves and floor like a marble hailstorm on a tin roof.
I groan. Then, I smile a little. What a mess!
My little guy come running in. “What was that?” he asks before figuring it out on his own. He catches me doing the reverse butterfly stroke in the jelly bean puddle. His sense for candy is so fine-tuned it would have been a tragedy to miss the aftermath of the jelly bean hailstorm.
By now my other boys’ sensors have been activated and they are standing in the doorway begging me with tinsel eyes. I only have to give a nod and they dive in. It’s not the first time they’ve disregarded floor germs in the name of candy.
We are all smiles.
A simple touch creates this amazing, unexpected, result (and honestly a little complaining from the mess). But, it’s not the first time a jellybean hailstorm ends up in sunshine. A simple touch created a similar outcome for an incident that happened years and years ago.
Kicking cancer with chemo…and an amazing support system.
One year ago today I finished my last round of chemo. I don’t miss it at all.
Hibernating taste buds, fiery hands and feet, stolen feminine identity card, constant flu-like symptoms, and commando hairstyle hardly merits any type of thank you card but the perspective I gained from cancer does.
In May of 2013 I was diagnosed with invasive ductile breast cancer with lobular features. In a nutshell, I had two types of cancer where surgery left me with a cancer finger and a fear of return. My lymph nodes also joined the cancer party. Every party has a pooper, right? Chemo and radiation were my attack dogs. I was a 34 year old mother with four boys ranging from the ages of 2-11.