Gratitude for the Good Days

With Thanksgiving coming up, it's given me time to stop and pause and remember how happy and blessed I am. I have a husband, who despite his constant pain, still greatly succeeds in giving all his love to his baby and me. We have a home where are family's needs are met and which provides constant little projects for us to work on when we get bored of Netflix. Which, speaking of Netflix, we absolutely love. I can remember the day when I used to think, gee, wouldn't it be nice to just watch videos online? I used to wish that "they'd" improve the ability to stream movies so I didn't have to constantly refresh the screen and wait for it to buffer.

Speaking of Allen and his constant pain, I had a moment a few days ago to be reminded of how much he does for me. For us. And of his intense fear that he won't always be able to do that. His desire to have more children and his terror that he won't be able to hold them. I was in a moment of complaining about how tired I was of having to carry the carseat, of how hard it had been to take Cammy around all day at church without him. I was tired. And I was tired of doing all the work. And I was completely humbled as Allen shared his feelings and made me realize that I was being the fungus on the scum on the bottom of the shoe for my selfishness. A My Bestfriend's Wedding moment.

I love my husband. He loves me even more intensely than I do him and I'm constantly trying to match him. He does so much for me. Even almost 2 years after marriage, he has been true to his word that he would never stop opening doors for me. He washes the dishes after I've left them in the sink for a week and as they've just piled up all over the counters and the floor. He hates getting wet, and yet he'll stand there in his work clothes, getting soapy water all over him and the floor, wincing because of the pain of standing after a hard, stressful day, and he'll quietly in a no-complaining-way wash all my dishes until he can't bear it anymore. That's how great he is. And that's how grateful I am. And I pray that I may ever remain so grateful.

Allen is my Gallant Hero. And I will ever be grateful for him!

Doing what Christ did & does

As I have read from the pages of the Bible, in my mind’s eye I have watched Him as He “increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.” 1 In my reading, I was there when He raised the dead. He healed the sick, fed the 5,000, brought comfort and hope and a process for peace into the world that He had created. He forgave those who mocked and tortured and crucified Him—for they knew not what they did. I saw the divine love and concern He had for His mother, though He suffered in supreme agony Himself. He overcame death so that we can too. He has prepared a place for us in heaven with our Eternal Father. He has taught us the plan for happiness and given us the vision of it and the hope to follow it. His was the ultimate life of sacrifice and a life of service to fulfill the plan of God His Father.

A Latter-day Saint woman who follows Christ’s example in her daily living begins to fulfill the plan of our Heavenly Father for her. By so doing she can be a powerful influence for good in today’s world and meet the challenges of mortality. I have known such women, and they have been a guiding light to me. The Latter-day Saint woman who follows Christ is a true Christian in the very best sense of the word. She is a woman of faith who trusts God and is confident and fearless.

Being Kind and Patient

In a conversation last night with Allen, we discussed his weight loss plan and how I was telling him how he wasn't following it. In the end, Allen basically said this:

“Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.”

(“He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven,” The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 3d ed., New York: Oxford University Press, p. 585.)

I told him I would try; I would try to be kind and patient, but that I hoped he would understand that those are two things which are very difficult for me to do.

Should I work?

For mothers who wonder whether or not they would be justified in working outside the home, the Church has provided no pat answers. Rather, each couple must consider the family’s temporal, emotional, and spiritual needs and decide how they can best meet them. For Jeanne Inouye, this process involved some struggle, a blessing from her husband, and ultimately the decision to stay home: “What you try to do is look at the counsel that’s been given to us as a people. Then you look at your own particular circumstances, pray about it, and then try to make a decision that will enable the Lord to bless you, that will enable you to fulfill your mission, and that seems to feel good.”

For Jeanne, the decision was not perfectly clear, but it has felt good.

But what of others who follow this same decision-making process and reach a different decision? President Spencer W. Kimball has given this assurance: “The Lord knows … that through circumstances beyond their control, some mothers are faced with the added responsibility of earning a living. These women have God’s blessing, for he knows of their anguish and their struggle.” (Ensign, Nov. 1978, p. 103.)

--Working Double Time

In the Arms of His Love

I found this article on Buck's website. These words touched my heart:

Relief Society means sacrifice. I am always moved by this simple verse of Anne Campbell, written in behalf of her child. Said she:

You are the trip I did not take;

You are the pearls I cannot buy;

You are my blue Italian lake;

You are my piece of foreign sky.

Many of you are mothers. You are responsible for the nurture and upbringing of your children. When you grow old and your hair turns white, you will not ask about the fancy clothes you once wore, the cars you drove, or the large house in which you lived. Your burning question will be, “How have my children turned out?”

--From "In the Arms of His Love", Pres. Hinckley, Oct. 2006

In Sickness and In Health

This morning I woke up, pondering how I would put my house in order. Between remodeling our home, having a 7 week baby, and venturing to substitute teach within the next month, I've filled my mind with things I feel I have to do and left all those things strewn about the house, waiting for me to do them. I often have bouts of being overwhelmed, and my house (surprisingly) doesn't reflect the chaos as much as my mind does.

I went to church and, peacefully, set goals of all the good things I would do to set life in order this week. Then Cammy needed feeding in the middle of Sacrament Meeting, and I took off to the mother's room to continue my reflections.

Only to walk out, an hour later, to Allen, patiently waiting to tell me that he was in so much pain that he needed to go home to lay down. I was to call him when church was over.

Cammy and I happily went through two more meetings, I enjoyed playing the piano for Relief Society, I set appointments for Visiting Teaching and tentative plans to make new friends by inviting a family over for dessert in the next weeks, and Allen called me to say he was outside, ready to pick me up.

I carried Cammy and put him in the car (Allen and I have made a deal that I will carry the carseat if he will carry the rest of the stuff--it is too heavy for him and really hurts his back to carry Cammy) and we headed home.

When home, Allen and I set our stuff down, relaxed for a moment, and Allen headed straight to bed where he could take pressure off his back.

Many of our Sundays this past year have been of this sort--Allen resting to relieve the pain from the hard working week, and me either taking the nap with him or bumming around the house, letting all those well-intentioned goals sift away from my mind. I feel like I hardly achieve those goals, and it's getting harder as I now have Cammy to fill whatever parts of my mind were empty before him.

I woke from my nap and fed Cammy. Then, in a feeling of neediness, I came up here to the computer to find some sort of support group for spouses who take care of spouses with chronic pain. And I found some. And you know what? Things could be a whole lot worse.

I'm not bathing and feeding Allen. He's holding down a steady job. I signed up for this job before I was married--it wasn't something that just happened to us. Allen is kind, thoughtful, and humble. He adores me, and he's actually really fun to be with!

Do I still worry that one day he might not be able to support our family? That I may be the sole provider, besides caregiver, in our family? That I will one day be a married woman, who is really "single, but without the benefits"? Yes. But you know what I thought to myself, as I read the posts of these people who experience these things?

They have grown kinder because of it. Many have strengthened their marriages, really living up to the "In Sickness and in Health" vows they made. And I have discovered that my vows go even deeper than that--for eternity. Until Allen's pain either gets better, or until this life is over and his pain WILL be better. And I will be able to be with him in this life, which was the one desire of my heart as I told him "Yes" the night he bent down on one knee to ask me to be his.