Sermon in the South

The stinky thing about moving three times in five months is not just the emotional roller coaster of putting down and pulling up roots, but the self-centeredness of it all. Do you know how long it takes to get settled? Unpacking, organizing, decorating, taking familiar routes to go places, exploring the area, keeping in touch with family/friends you miss, meeting new people and hoping to find someone to connect with, helping your kids feel stability, changing addresses, going to the DMV, and all the while you are trying to keep up on the everyday routine (and establish one at the same time), so the process is S-L-O-W. Slower than mud.

And it is incredibly self-centered, I think. Because it is all about me, my family, and us. Getting established. Getting organized and settled. Not that we're not. The third time is a charm because we are doing quite well. And I felt like we did quite well the first two times. But I am really sick of thinking about me, my family, and us. (Now that is an incredibly self-centered and negative thought in and of itself, but it has a purpose.)

So to get to the point, I have had a little bit of a hard time with Christmas already this year. We have been so busy going through the motions of life, just trying to get established and settled (three times), that the holidays have kind of crept up on me, and I don't want any more focus on us.

Since our Christmas decorations were half put up and scattered all over the house for a couple of weeks while I was sick, I was tired of them before they even went up! It took a few days just to clean the house and get organized again (because a mother's work is never done, and when mom is sick, everything is a bit chaotic), so I had flashbacks to MOVING IN again! ARGH! Then Madeline came down with strep throat, so the decorating became a snail's pace once again.

Wow, this is a negative post. But I'm still getting to the point.

At the same time I've been trying to get into the spirit of Christmas (by decorating, for starters), we've obviously been having health issues at home. Which always remind me of my own mortality. And that's always a strange feeling. Even with my testimony of a pre-mortal existence, life after death, and the promise of Resurrection and eternal families, I experience feelings like this in the hymn "O My Father":

Yet ofttimes a secret something

Whispered, "You're a stranger here,"

And I felt that I had wandered

From a more exalted sphere.

And I wonder what kind of balance I should have in my life as far as loving this world and putting my heart into it. After all, it's only temporary. Home is where the heart is, right? But this isn't our home. Heaven is our home.

So while I've been so caught up in trying to make a home for us three times (well, make that four, counting Alpine, Utah, where we were at before we moved the first time), I am realizing that it is important, but it's not everything. Maybe this realization is what causes many a mid-life crisis! Thank goodness for the anchorage of the gospel.

Speaking of anchors, here is a new classic quote that I read coincidentally from Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf that goes right along with this subject:

"Remember, we are only temporary travelers in this world. Let us not devote our God-given talents and energies solely to setting earthly anchors, but rather let us spend our days growing spiritual wings. For, as sons [and daughters] of the Most High God, we were created to soar unto new horizons."

So while I have been solely focused on decorating as a means to bring the Christmas spirit into our home, all I have felt are a few warm fuzzies piled on top of general emptiness. I need not go through the motions of decorations, music, Christmas stories, and games with the family, I need to involve all of us in something deeper. We need to feel the spirit of the season by participating in Christlike service and giving of ourselves.

I know this is so cliche.

But that still is not my point. I have been trying to work on having better prayers as of late, and "getting my errand from the Lord" each day, which is a little hard for me since I have expectations of what I want to do and accomplish each day. (I am my mother's daughter!) And let's just say that my expectations are usually something I want to do. Something that will (supposedly) make me happy. Like working on a project or running specific errands.

Sunday night, as I said my prayers, the image of Madeline's face came into my mind. I thought that was odd, since she is usually doing so well. I wondered what that was all about. But in the morning, she woke up with a fever and was having a hard time swallowing. (It TOTALLY disrupted my big plans!) I kept her home from school, but without that prayer, I probably would not have taken her to see the doctor right away - maybe waited a day or so just to see what happened.

(I know, it's obvious now: strep throat, but I hate to take my kids to the doctor if they are just going to send me back home empty-handed while they hang onto my co-pay.) But going to the doctor and getting her on medicine right away really helped ME in the long-run. So I felt more of a testimony of prayer - that our Father in Heaven knows Madeline, and he knows me. And he knows the end from the beginning.

Madeline and Choobs and I had a really nice time together at home while Raleigh was at school, and we got to bond and relax. And she sure is a chipper little thing when her Tylenol starts working! Little sweetheart.

So that was Monday of this week.

Then Madeline was back at school on Wednesday, and I have been back into the routine of things. This morning my prayers were: "Please help me get into the Christmas spirit," and I went to wake up Choobs:

Burning hot body. Throwing up all morning. 102.8 F temperature. Shivering with chills. Totally lethargic and even a bit delirious.

An answer to prayer??? I think so! I spent my full day loving that girl to pieces, holding her most of the day and worrying over her when I wasn't. I planned her funeral. (All of my family member's funerals are well-planned. I am irrational that way, I'm afraid to say.) I thought of the wonderful blessing she has been to our family, and I cleaned her up in the bathtub three times and put four sets of fresh clothes on her in the process. I cried as I watched her, barely able to stand, reach out for me when I tried to lay her down to change her. I kissed her burning-hot head and smoothed out her hair to relax her. I begged her to drink some water and take some medicine when her eyes looked vacant, like she didn't recognize me. And when half the day was over, she finally did. It was the weirdest thing: I handed her a chewable Tylenol, and she said, "Thank you, mama. Pink!" The first words she had spoken all day. And that girl knows what color pink is! Then she finally dozed off into a peaceful sleep.

Is not this Christmas? I spent my day serving and loving this girl and putting off my own (what I thought was urgent) business to help her. I thought of nothing else. Right now I can't even remember what I was going to do. And I overcame MYSELF!! I hate it when I get in a rut of self-centeredness, and sickness usually does the trick for me. Since I didn't learn the lesson well enough when I was sick, Madeline, and then Choobs, got sick. I really believe that our children are placed in our care to help exalt us.

But let's get deeper. Just as I held constant watch care over Kensington, I believe our Father in Heaven watches over us with just as much urgency and attention. And He is urging and begging us to do those things in our lives that will make us "well" again. To be with him. Like the medicine. Only then will we feel peace. And He knows what is best for us.

So the point?

I'm not sure. But I sure feel a lot more of the holiday spirit.

Thanks, Choobs.

Kensington and I lay on my bed tonight for a couple of hours, long after Raleigh and Madeline went to sleep and Dallas went to a meeting. Her fever was high again, but she wasn't falling asleep - just laying there. So she snuggled with me, and I got to lay there, thinking. No distractions. Just us. And I have decided that she is an "Old Spirit." A wise old spirit in a little body.

I watched her hands. One in her mouth in her signature two-finger-suck, and her other hand: sometimes resting it, sometimes pulling on my sweatshirt ties, and sometimes staring at it. She would hold it up and move it all around, examining it from every angle. Then she'd move her fingers around and watch them, too. I imagined what her hands would do in the future, what kind of life she would have someday. It was all very thought-provoking. And I loved it. I wonder what she was thinking. I was thinking about how our children are "my jewels:"

Matthew 6:19-21

"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:

"But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:

"For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

Choobs with her favorite grandmas:

Grandma

Grammy

P.S.- She is negative for strep throat and H1N1. Just a nasty virus, I guess.