Why go to church?

Why go to Church? If you're spiritually alive, you're going to love this! If you're spiritually dead, you won't want to read it. If you're spiritually curious, there is still hope! A Church goer wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go to church every Sunday. 'I've gone for 30 years now,' he wrote, 'and in that time I have heard something like 3,000 sermons. But for the life of me, I can't remember a single one of them. So, I think I'm wasting my time and the pastors are wasting theirs by giving sermons at all.' This started a real controversy in the 'Letters to the Editor' column, much to the delight of the editor. It went on for weeks until someone wrote this clincher: 'I've been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked some 32 ,000 meals. But, for the life of me, I cannot recall the e ntire menu for a single one of those meals. But I do know this.. They all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me these meals, I would be physically dead today. Likewise, if I had not gone to church for nourishment, I would be spiritually dead today!' When you are DOWN to nothing.... God is UP to something! Faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible and receives the impossible! Thank God for our physical AND our spiritual nourishment! When Satan is knocking at your door, simply say, "Jesus, could you get that for me"?

Building Cathedrals

I love this story...I've read it a few times and each time it gives me renewed faith in myself and my devine calling as a Mother...

It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask to be taken to the store. Inside I'm thinking, 'Can't you see I'm on the phone?' Obviously, not. No one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all. I'm invisible. The invisible Mom. Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this? Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being. I'm a clock to ask, 'What time is it?' I'm a satellite guide to answer, 'What number is the Disney Channel?' I'm a car to order, 'Right around 5:30, please.' I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated sum a cum laude - but now they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She's going; she's going; she is gone! One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England .. Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, 'I brought you this.' It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe . I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription: 'To Charlotte , with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.' In the days ahead I would read - no, devour - the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work: No one can say who built the great cathedrals - we have no record of their names. These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished. They made great sacrifices and expected no credit. The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything. A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, 'Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof? No one will ever see it.' And the workman replied, 'Because God sees.' I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, 'I see you, Charlotte. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become.' At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction. But it is not a disease that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride. I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on. The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree. When I really think about it, I don't want my son to tell the friend he's bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, 'My Mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for three hours and presses all the linens for the table.' That would mean I'd built a shrine or a monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, to add, 'you're gonna love it there.' As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we're doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women.

What more is there to say?

Thank goodness for Rednecks...

If we did not have Rednecks, we would not have as much to make us laugh. I love these!!! Here's another one...

"What noise"??

At 1:30 pm I am driving to my friend Patty's house. Halfway there the van decides to give me grief. I can barely get going from the light. I slowly gain speed, all the while the van is having a seizure, and then realize my speedomoter is not working, along with the RPM's, and the temp. gage. The check engine light is on, the oil light, the airbag light and the battery light. And the air conditioning is not getting cold. All random stuff. Patty's husband Mark suggests calling two men in our ward who know something about cars and have them look at it to see if it's related to the $1,500.00 in repairs we had done between December and February, the first of which was $500.00 the week before Christmas. Yes, you read correctly. Anyhow, when Mark gets home he gets into the van it's doing all the same things. Thank goodness for witnesses, because I was about to become the "woman who hears things" and the woman who "maybe thought the dash stuff wasn't working". Cause, you know, when stuff goes wrong, the guy who looks at it never gets to experience the same thing the woman who drives it does. It magically fixes itself every time. Am I right? You betcha. And this time is no different. So Patty drives me home after Mark suggests not driving it and having the guys come to thier house to check on it. They get there, and it happens...everything is just dandy. Yes, nothing going wrong, everything sounds great, they drive it to my house and it's just wonderful and lovely and "we don't know, must've been a fluke". Uh huh. Just to be sure, they tell me the other guy will come in the morning and hook up his deely-bobber to see what code it gives. I figure if we get the same code, I can take it back to the place that "fixed" it since it's all still under warranty. But nothing is happening. Whatever code it was has magically cleared itself. No check engine light or anything else. Again, must have been a fluke. "Are you sure the dash wasn't working"? K, do I have a sign that says "please ask me the same question 5 different ways and I promise to answer differently the 5th time"? He tells me cars do that sometimes. It's like a computer, he says. Sometimes it has a glitch and you just have to shut it down and reboot. I ask him, "If it was a fluke and you don't know what caused it, who's to say it won't do a fluke again"? He kinda chuckles and says in that "you're a woman tone", that it's fine. He tells me to take it for a long drive. Drive on the freeway, run some errands, get it warmed up and see what happens...but he's positive it's nothing. So I take him up on it. I drive about 15 miles to do an errand. I stop to drop something off and a friends house, I gas up, I drive the 15 miles. Runs like a dream. Until I get out of Best Buy and try to turn it on. Nada. No stammering to start, nothing. Just blank. No noise. Wonderful. I wait 5 minutes and try again. It starts, but again is having a seizure. A grand-mal one. I call Patty. She rescues me. Again. The van is in the Best Buy parking lot as I type waiting for Isaac and Mark to go out there later tonight and see if they can get it home. I bet you a million bucks it will purr the entire way!!!

To be continued, I'm sure...

A 9 year olds thoughts on sweating

More Fun Photos From Pookie Grammas

Annual Trip To Grammas...

Each year the kids go to eastern Oregon to spend time with Pookie Gramma & Grampa Greg. They get to go for 3 weeks! They usually have a couple cousins from Utah there as well, so they all have a blast! There is so much work on the farm. It really is an all day thing. So many animals to feed each day, hay to move, watering, the list goes on and on. The weather does not stop the work. If it's 100 degrees out, you just get started earlier. Farm animals do not discriminate...they eat no matter the temperature! Needless to say, working the farm is not for wimps. It always amazes me how they go and work hard without complaint, when getting them to clean their rooms is an all day power struggle at times. Things that make you go hmmm. Well, whatever the reason, I'm glad they get to experience time alone with the grandparents to build relationships and just get spoiled to death...along with some responsibility. Spencer & Bailey removed fence posts one day. Abbey loves to feed the goats. Gramma has a dog named Jack (one of the dogs) that Abbey fell in love with 3 summers ago. She talks about Jack all year...she even named her stuffed dog Jack. She kept saying, "Oh, Jack is gonna be so excited to see me! He really misses me"! It's probably true. The kids will have these memories for a lifetime and then some! What a great experience for them each year. And we always end up with a ton of fantastic photos!!