The Passing of a Prophet

The world will little note, this week, the passing of President Gordon B. Hinkley, prophet and president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day-Saints. Much is made of the demise of stars, or a pope or a prominent political leader, but mostly the members of my church will be the ones mourning the death of this humble servant of the Lord. His greatness lies in his humility and service to mankind as he fulfilled the calling of prophet. President Hinkley was 97 years old and still active at the time of his death. This was a feat in and of itself. The Lord had a work for him to do and he did it well. May he be blessed now as he goes to meet his beloved Marjorie, and to us- "until we meet again."

Spiders and Spiritual Help

Our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has a magazine called The Ensign. I was reading the latest issue today and was struck by an article called Spriders and Spiritual Help. You can access it from the LDS.Org link to the right of this blog. Then go to Church Library to Church Magazines then to February Ensign. It was the story of a little grandson who saw a shadow of a toy on the wall and was scared because he thought it was a big spider. The writer likened the experience to our having a fear of something in life when in reality the Lord can take that fear way and give us peace. I know for myself, I tend to get carried away in worry over a problem that faces me or one of my family members. Instead of letting the Lord give me the peace and help I need, I continue to worry about it. I seem to never learn that if I just give my cares to the Lord as they come along, He will take care of it. Later, I see how I made the problem a "big spider" and should have displayed more faith by leaving it in the hands of the Lord. I am sure that when life is over and I look back on my life and the lives of my children, I will see that He, indeed, did take care of it and all things "worked together for my good".
This is a picture I took close to Myrtle Beach, SC, Merrills Inlet, in December of 2007.

Biding Time

Biding time is the name of the game as I spend a few weeks here in Arizona with my sweet daughter Katie and her family. She is on bed rest to prevent her going into labor for her second child which is due on March 3. When she called a few weeks ago, I was quite worried about her condition as my son's twin boys were born on November 10 at 26 weeks and only weighing in at 1# plus each. It has been a long several months worrying about and praying for sweet little Andrew and Aiden and their growth and development. Now they are weighing 5 plus for Andrew and 4 plus for Aiden. They are doing real well, but still have their Brady apnea spells so are still in the NICU. This was certainly not what I had in mind for Katie and little Emma. I flew out here a week ago to help her and Michael with Ellie Rose, who is 1 year old. So far Katie is doing well and we hope for a positive outcome. So much for preterm labor. I never thought much about it, but it is something our family is much acquainted with now. Andrew and Aiden are God's little miracles and I know Emma will be too. Thank you Heavenly Father.

First time post.

Blogging is a new word to me, but I think that it could be a theraputic thing, along with being of service to others in that your experiences in life could help someone or perhaps make them laugh, or even make them glad because they don't have YOUR life! Raising 12 children has been busy, hectic, satisfying, worrisome, expensive, happy, sad, rough, funny, loving, disappointing, wild, unbelieveable, and almost any positive or negative emotion you could use to describe raising kids. Just give it a double, triple, or quadruple dose compared to other moms. We are certainly not the Dugger family from TV. Perfection is not our label as a family but our children have been raised in a Christian home and all the seeds of a Christian upbringing are apparent in each of their personalities and lives. I have to say that each of them has made us proud in many ways. They are good, loving, generous and accomplished people and growing more so each year. I am proud of each of them and how they are turning out. They each have qualities that I could want to emmulate. Some day I will tell you about them individually. This is a picture of a few us us at Thanksgiving. I took the picture so I am not in it, as usual. Later I will post a better picture we had taken two years ago.