Easter Week

Celebrating the Resurrection

This week for Easter I am thinking about all the people I'm most excited to see when I'm resurrected. This is Robyn. The photo was taken when we were about 14. In my move across country and being here without friends, oddly, she's the one I've missed the most. I say oddly because I haven't been able to see or talk to her in about a decade. God takes the good ones early. Happy Pending Resurrection Robyn!

It will be so great to see my father-in-law again when I'm resurrected. He was so kind to me and so funny. I loved it when he told an outrageous story just to see if I would believe him. This photo is the last one taken of him at Lucy's baptism. He died suddenly about 2 weeks later. I'm happy to celebrate Christ's resurrection and look forward to Dale's someday.

This is Mae Francis Wright. What a great friend and example she was to me. She taught me that a person can survive just about anything. There wasn't much in this world she didn't have to endure. She was born in Louisana in the 30's and I asked her to teach me about the civil rights movement. She made me read a fat book on slavery first. We could laugh for hours. Her house was so peaceful. It will be fun to see her again and hear her deep voice. And Laugh! Won't the resurrection be awesome?!

This is me with my 3 brothers. I don't always say I have 3 brothers because inevitably if I do, people ask where they are......My oldest brother Stan, on the right, died at 15 when I was 6. I don't think I have any independent memories of him. That sucks. I have feelings for him. I feel we were very close. I'm told he chose to sleep in my room while I was a newborn.
I also know that his absense changed my family forever. I can't wait to see him again. I can't wait to see my parents with him again and know that they are finally whole. The resurrection can fix all the things that happen to families that leave them broken. Hallelujah! Easter is a good perspective point--a good filter to look at everything through.

I woke up this morning with the lyrics of "He is Risen running through my mind and thinking about what it would be like to go to the cemetery where my Ian is buried and have the stone moved and an angel telling me that he wasn't dead anymore. Someday! Even better than that he wouldn't be weak or achy or out of breath or scarred. He would be whole. Complete. Perfect. Just like his spirit always was. "Death is conquered; man is free. Christ has won the victory!" Resurrection is the greatest miracle of all.  I can't wait to see Ian.

Late last night Keith and I attended a Messianic Congregation where they were having a resurrection service. It was unforgettable. Men in skull caps with side curls chanting in Hebrew until they recounted the story of the crucifixion. That part was in English--including "every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Christ." We lit candles that were made in Jerusalem and lit the first time at what is accepted as the tomb.

Then on the way home we drove past a church where they had a tomb with a stone and guards making sure it stayed shut.

This morning the sun is finally out in Wisconsin--perfect metaphor for Easter Sunday. Happy resurrection day everyone. Can't wait to see my Savior when I'm resurrected and thank him.
We flew kites today--family tradition from when I was a child.  I wonder if my parents started it to keep us looking to Heaven for Easter?

I wish I could keep the resurrection in the front of my mind always.

DELETE

When temptation comes, you can invent a delete key in your mind...Your mind is in charge; your body is the instrument of your mind. When some unworthy thought pushes into your mind, replace it with your delete key.--Boyd K. Packer, 2009

Better Be Big

It's been a whole year.  No posts since the last one about waiting for Lucy's mission call.  This one better be big and important and profound after going that long right?
What prompted me to right?
I'm studying again.  I'm reaching and stretching and trying to find out what my Father in Heaven wants me to do--or better yet, how he wants me to do the things He's already told me to do.

Let me back up a bit.
Lucy got her call last year of course.
She's been serving in the Romania/Moldova Mission for 30 some weeks now.

My Lulu Belle

She's made it through the MTC and Christmas and a transfer and she's thriving.  Thriving.

Our family has moved to Wisconsin--in December.  This is only a slight change from California!!!!!
Keith got a new job and I was very happy to try a new adventure.  Mikey, not so much, but he is managing well and adjusting to a very different life.

People are smiley here.  They look each other in the eye.  They wave at passing cars--with their whole hand, not just one finger.  People here can still rent DVDs and write checks and leave their cars unlocked.  It's a change.  So is the weather, even though it's been an extremely mile winter this year.

The church is here, in force.  It's feels the same and yet different.  So many people have a conversion story here.  I know that sounds crazy, but in NH and TX and CA it didn't feel the same.  People here are still sharing their conversion stories like they just happened and they are still on fire.

Keith was given a calling by a member of the stake presidency--who I was meeting for the first time (Keith moved 3 months earlier than Michael and I) and he asked me about our family.  I said we had 3 children and that generally leads to the follow-up question of where they are....I told him that Ian had passed away.
Without even the awkward pause that most people have, he asked, "and what did you learn from that?"  I told Keith in the car on the way home that this stranger was so lucky that I was in a decent mood when daring to ask something like that.  I still think it's a very impertinent and presumptive question that should probably wait until you've known me for at least 24 hours?!

My answer was this, "I'm not in charge!"
That is still my answer to so many things. It is appropriate and it acknowledges God for who he is what role I allow Him to play in my life.
And when I study and let Him in, I have more to say.

There.  Is that post big enough to have been a year in coming?

Here goes....
This is Lucy's mission shot.  This is the one the mission committee saw when they decided where she is going.  This is what her mission president will see.  This is the one that will be up on the big board of transfers that the APs ogle--and they will.
I don't know yet.  It's killing me.  It's killing her.  She will be incredible.

Ugh!

What has happened to our language that a word can just lose a letter?   One of my biggest frustrations lately is people mispronouncing the word frustration. IT'S NOT FUSTRATION!!!   People come on, read a book once in a while; take a class;  do something to keep that brain sharp.  The word doesn't come from the same root as fuss.  One of the definitions is "preventing progress."  Hello.  Do you get the irony?

Yeah, I'm Still Alive

I haven't written anything on this blog for a really long time.  Last summer, after four years, when Ian's death anniversary came and then his birthday came and then Taylor came home from his mission and then Halloween...It was too much.  Instead of making me feel better, it was making me feel worse to write, both on this blog and in my journal--which had become letters to Ian.  I chose to pull back from the hurt.  Things aren't all that much better now, just covered with more layers and not as close to the surface.

I was looking for a scripture the other night and couldn't find it in the topical guide or index and I thought I had written about it so I was searching through these posts.  Reading some of them made me sad, but there were some that made me remember how much pondering went into them and how cathartic it was.  I had completely, COMPLETELY forgotten that I named the book that I would someday write.  That was a good goal--even if my children will be the only ones who ever read it.

I'd forgotten that I had an outlet for all my weird thoughts and insights that always draw blank stares and chuckles in Sunday School.  I miss it.  I want to start again.  I hate that there are such big gaps.  I can't fix that.  I want to start again.

Smile

Not the best ever photo but it's the selfie Lucy took to sign up for the ACT so it's appropriate for this post.  She got a 34!  Is that great or what?  I thought the 2120 on the SAT was good, but she tells me that this ACT score is even better.

I promised her clear back in October that I would post about her being admitted to Southern Utah University with a full scholarship and I haven't done it.  This week she was admitted into the honors program and encouraged to apply for an honors housing scholarship as well.  Wouldn't that be great?

By the way, She applied to Northern Arizona, BYU, and Tulane in Louisiana.  She's stubborn--didn't want anything to do with a school in CA.  Couldn't talk her into applying to an Ivy League though.  She didn't want to waste the money on fees to a school that was too far away.  (Tulane gave her free application.)

She's having a pretty good school year.  She's still dating Austin.  She's in preconditioning for softball and leading the mock trial team.  She had grade issues again though--got behind while at Yosemite for a leadership trip and never really caught back up.  It's a good thing that AP classes earn a 4.0 for a B.

She asked me to hide her phone and tablet over the Christmas break so she can finish personal progress, not as much so she can feel the accomplishment, but more so she can skip Tuesday nights more and not deal with her leaders as much.  (No, I'm not one of her leaders anymore.)

I guess the thing that I'm most happy about is that she really likes me again.  We had a couple pretty tough years.  Losing Ian in the middle of her terrible teens made even more excruciating for both of us.  Now, she wants to spend time with me.  She even told Keith that he needed to sleep on the couch last night so she could be in bed with me.