Friday, January 22, 2010

Appreciating the Sun

I love the rain. In fact, one of my dreams is to live in Seattle someday. Now, I know I’ve only been there once, and during the best time of year, but I can’t help feeling connected to that city. I love it!

Anyway, I digress.

California has been ambushed by rain storms. For a ‘desert’, we sure are drowning here! It’s been 5 or 6 days straight of dark skies, violent wind, and periodic downpours.

Today, I was heading out to lunch when I noticed the skies part. Suddenly, the sun emerged and beat down on the wet, clean earth. I raised my face up to it and felt its warmth. After not seeing the sun for so long, I couldn’t help but pause and appreciate its presence.

At that moment, a thought came to mind. If this was your typical California day, I wouldn’t have even noticed the sun. I might have even complained that it was too bright, or too hot. But because I had felt the rain for so long, I appreciated when the sun finally emerged.

Such is true about life: You have to go through the rainy days to appreciate the sun.

Although I love rainy weather, I don’t much care for rain in life. All of our trials, heartache and disappointment pour down on us… and we wonder if it will ever end.

But inevitably the sun will come out and, when it does, we will notice its warmth and feel its glow more than ever before. And that feeling will be worth all this rain.

So, for right now, we’ll just open our umbrella, dance in a few puddles, and wait for the sun.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Hands

Each of us has our own trials and struggles in life. The one I write most about, obviously, is infertility. However, I have experienced other trials in my life that caused me to feel hurt, frustration, anger and resentment. This helps me to understand that, although I write about infertility, many of these same emotions can be brought out because of other situations and disappointments in life. This has helped bind me to other people who have not lived my same experience.

You can take this entire blog and replace the word “infertility” with many other words (“death of a loved one”, “serious illness”, “career loss”, “divorce”), and I doubt much would change. Maybe the details would differ but the tone would not.

This Sunday, we heard an inspirational talk in church. Both Ryan and I were touched by it. The speaker spoke of trials, and centered his talk on this scripture:

And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.
Alma 7:12

Christ’s goal is to carry our burdens for us. There is no emotion He has not felt before. He suffered the hurt, disappointment, and weaknesses of every soul that has ever lived, or will live. There is no way to even imagine the suffering that Christ took upon Himself for our name. Living through our trials helps us to recognize a tiny fraction of what the Savior did for us.

Like the Savior, we should look up from our own difficulties and reach out to someone else.

Wherefore, be faithful; stand in the office which I have appointed unto you; succor the weak, lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees.
Doctrine and Covenants 81:5

I LOVE this scripture. It is so descriptive of what we should be doing to help each other.

One of my favorite songs reads as follows:

His hands
tools of creation
stronger than nations
power without end
and yet through them we find our truest friend

His hands
sermons of kindness
healing men's blindness
halting years of pain
children waiting to be held again

His hands
warming a beggar
lifting a leper
calling back the dead
breaking bread, five thousand fed

His hands
hushing contention
pointing to heaven
ever free of sin
then bidding man to follow Him

His hands would serve his whole life though
showing man what hands might do
giving, ever giving, endlessly
each day was filled with selflessness
and I’ll not rest ‘til I make of my hands
what they could be
'til these hands become like those from Galilee

His hands
clasped in agony
as He lay pleading, bleeding in the garden
while just moments away
other hands betray Him
out of greed, shameful greed

and then His hands
are trembling
straining to carry the beam that they'd be nailed to
as He stumbles through the streets
heading towards the hill on which He’d die
He would die

they take His hands,
His mighty hands,
those gentle hands
and then they pierce them,
they pierce them
He lets them, because of love

from birth to death was selflessness
and clearly now I see him with His hands
calling to me
and though I’m not yet as I would be
He has shown me how I could be
I will make my hands like those from Galilee


The speaker on Sunday spoke of the Sacrament we take in church each week. Typically, you sit quietly while the bread and water is passed. The speaker mentioned that he often sits and looks at his hands. He thinks about Christ’s hands, and the stories you could tell about what Christ did with his hands. I wonder what stories my hands would tell… and how I can use them to better the lives of those around me.

I hope, this year, to listen more than I speak, support more than I lean, and dry more tears than I cry. Maybe in doing this my tears will ease as well. :)

-----------------------------------------------------

This is a little video I put together about the life of Christ. The music is ‘His Hands’, the song quoted above.

Friday, January 8, 2010

Oh, My! Not the Timeline!!!

Ahhh, the incorrigible timeline. Nothing has brought me so much hope, or caused so much depression as a timeline. When dreamed up and followed, a timeline offers anticipation… and expectations. When broken, these doomed expectations bring heartache and hopelessness.

Nevertheless, I have decided to throw caution to the wind and develop a timeline once more.

There are certain, specific reasons why I need to wait a bit to begin a drastic change in course. While I wait, the next six months will be spent improving myself: my spirituality, my physical well-being, my marriage, my career, my financial situation.

At the end of this, I plan to go back to Dr. Synn and take the next step.

So, right here… RIGHT NOW (barring any natural or familial disaster):

I am hereby committing to completing an infertility treatment in July/August 2010.

I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful, one hundred percent.
FAITH IN GOD MEANS HAVING FAITH IN HIS TIMING.