Steller Week

I'm actually being facetious. It hasn't been a steller week. In fact, it's been a pretty bad week, but rather than bore you to sleep with all that has happened I would just like to take a moment and think hard about something that life has taught me.

I have thought to myself many'a time this week, "Had I know what this week would bring I would politely pass and move straight on to the next." But, life is sort of not that way. So instead of looking at life and wishing it were different. I'll try and look for things that have come to pass because of the negative and not dread the negative that hasn't even happened yet.

We all know Steven broke his foot in December and we have been balancing the recovery on our heads like one of those women who carry water on the heads from miles away, except my water hole was six long months away. It's been a little taxing challenge to say the lest, but I think to myself, "Steven saved not only his life but Ben's life in the processes of braking his foot, he might limp for his life, but this is a small price to pay for being able to spend the rest of my life with my husband and son." So it's really not bad at all, in fact the broken foot is really not very significant if I sit and look a the bigger picture. I should be thankful for the brake and thankful that everyone walked away safe, well not really, but you know what I mean. :) The broken foot is such a blessing.

My grandfather fell a few months ago and I hear the discouraging sound in his voice that his neck has not healed. But perhaps the greater blessing is that everyone in my family has reached out to fast and pray for him and have become closer to my grandparents right now that my parents are in Peru. Perhaps Heavenly Father preserved his life when he fell, along with his mobility and these are the blessing. Perhaps the blessing is knowing my grandfather and grandmother better by speaking with them often. I don't know, maybe it's all and maybe it's none, I don't pretend to know "God's Ways" I just trust that he knows best.

When I lived in Germany, my host mother, Annamarie, took care of her mother day in and day out for many years. She fed her and bathed her and would sit and read by her bed for hours. I remember her serving her for the entire year  I lived in the Seute's home. What an amazing service that Annamarie performed for her mother, what a remarkable and elect woman Annamarie is for the compassion and patients she gained while in the service of her mother.  Without a doubt the blessing there is Annamarie was able to gain a quality to her character that she might have missed had this never happened. I'm sure her mother new that she was there. I think to myself now that perhaps if Marin were to take care of me so faithfully I wouldn't mind lying in bed for so many years. . . if I was able to be by my daughter's side for so long. How in the world could anyone view that as waisted time on either parties time line. I certainly wouldn't. Time well spent and time well lived.

A few years ago I read a book about Meriwether Lewis and William Clark called  "Undaunted Courage."It was a good book with very many interesting facts about their journey and home coming. But one part of the book really struck me as an important fact that I so many times do. As Lewis looked out upon land he was about to cross, the snow covered peaks would apear from time to time in the vast distance (the Rocky Mountains). It was Lewis's view not to fear, despair, or dread the "unknown" "until proven otherwise." I think Meriwether Lewis had a view of optisim, well I think optimism is the wrong word, but "of courage undaunted" as Jefferson put it. Or in other words he did not give himself the trail of worry until presented with the gift of tribulation.

I say "gift of tribulation," because so many'a time this is what life is. It's just moments in time that allow us to become better, to be better and rise above the trail and learn lessons we would have denied ourselves had we had we been the creator of our own circumstance.

Thank Heaven's I'm not the Creator, but I get to live in the painting. Whatever that painting maybe at any given moment in time.