Consider the postage stamp, it gets there simply by sticking to it.
January 6 A blessing always carries with it a responsibility. I must admit that I am a very blessed person. Some blessings I believe I deserve and have worked for but many are pure gifts out of love from my Savior. I also have been the recipient of many tangible and even intangible blessings from the many people I have come in contact with during my life. My first thought today when I read this quote this year was about the simple blessing of having enough towels. Now this might not seem like the usual response when asked to think about what one is blessed with but it was the case for me today. The reason these two, “blessings” and “towels” come together for me started when as a newly wedded couple my husband and I opened our wedding gifts. We received an abundance of towels: bath hand towels, bath body towels, bath washcloths, kitchen hand towels, kitchen dish cloths, and kitchen washcloths. Included with these linens we also received many hot pads, and hot mitts, tablecloths, and even some linen napkins. I’m not sure how we came up with the idea or why but we decided to keep all of them. We boxed them up for our first move and planned to keep them boxed till we could better store and use them. All my towels and linens had to be stored in several boxes and as time passed through several moves we hauled and stored our towels; the ones we had out and used and the ones that we hadn’t used yet. This went on till we happily bought our first and even current house. Excitedly I was able to have a place to finally put all my fun wedding gifts, towels included, and use them. We had three children at that time and had even added to our collection of towels cloth diapers. We finally were settled and could unpack our linens. They occupied two full closets. Oh, and that also included our extra blankets and sheets. I knew I forgot something. Both closets were near my girls’ bedroom. This abundance of towels has come in handy many times. Our towels became very useful when our home substituted for a hotel when we had family come visit. During these visits, we discovered that everyone could use as many towels as they liked and I still won’t have to worry about laundering them until after they left. Even when the not so planned life moments happened, we had enough towels to take care of most situations. When our dishwasher overflowed and flooded the floor with water and soap, we had enough towels to soak up the water. When bathtub time got a little crazy, we had enough towels to dry the floor and the children. Even when our children took turns over the years individually stuffing bars of soap or whole rolls of toilet paper down the toilet and flushed it to see what would happen, we had enough towels to soak up the entire floor full of overflowing toilet water. Now I wanted to be a “good mom.” I generally allowed my girls to play freely within the safety of our home. I wanted to be active in their lives and teach them so I wouldn’t have to monitor them every second. I wanted to be patient and I didn’t want to lose my temper or yell if my children caused trouble or got loud or became annoying. But in my naive state of new parenting and being the youngest child I couldn’t imagine all the small issues that come with raising children including play time. My girls liked creative playtime. They didn’t need very many toys to play with because they were good at imagining and using the different things around them. But imaginative play sometimes led into mischief causing a jumbled mess when it was done. Have you ever as a child or even saw a child play pretend games? Have you jumped into a pile of leaves or snow because they were soft and seemed like a fun thing to do? Pretended the floor was lava? Pretended that piles of cushions or blankets were mountains? Made a fort with couch cushions and blankets? Hopped or leaped from one floor mat to the next or something of that sort? Well, my girls liked to play like this. Their imaginative play sometimes included blankets and towels now and again. One day their playing turned into several days of chores for me. Our wonderful blessing of towels that I’ve been mentioning . . . well, my girls pulled almost every clean towel and linen out of the closet and mixed them up with their dirty clothes to make some pretend mountains. Needless to say, I was not happy that I’d have to wash and put away everything again. When my husband came home I asked if we could buy and install a lock at the top of our linen closet. He didn’t think I was too crazy and did it for me. The lock was strategically placed out of reach from my girls’ young arms to reach so hopefully this mix up wouldn’t happen again. So as this quote states that “a blessing always carries with it a responsibility” is true. Our blessing of towels mixed with young children and free time to think and play caused a chain reaction: - an overwelming amount of dirty clothes,
- an unplanned shopping trip to buy a lock, - installation of said lock, - at least two days’ worth of washing, drying, folding, and putting away laundry, and the most important responsibility of - remembering to lock our new linen closet lock! Yes, we do get our share of responsibility. And I must also admit that when I think back, we had more than just one day that I had to pick up and fold and put away lots of towels that had been used for creative play. Our family grew even more through time and we found that we were still being gifted more towels. So, our lock stayed up. As most things in our home, our lock has signs of much use. Now we don’t need to lock it anymore but we decided it’s always better to be safe than sorry and keep the lock installed. One never knows when we might get a short-term guest who tries to follow in their parent’s footsteps. As for the towels, we have thrown a few away here and there as time and use wore them out but we just can’t help finding ourselves blessed with them. My responsibility for this blessing, after my daughters’ day of fun, now included locking the linen closest latch so I’ll have them clean and ready when I needed them.
January 4
The only real peace in this life is peace of mind.
I find my peace of mind because of the knowledge, power, and love of my
Savior, Jesus Christ, through His gospel and atonement for me. January 3
Be sure to take an interest in the future, that's where you will spend the rest of your life. Prayer = Talking silently or aloud with God. Awsome!! Right? I've found many times in a day that I can use this wonderful heavenly tool and I know that God, our Heavenly Father, is real and hears our prayers. January 2
Kneeling keeps you in good standing with the Lord. Happy New Year! But wait...at some point in our growing wisdom we might connect the dots of thought that there is more than one time zone in this world and then wonder, "When does the new year really start?" Well, once in a while my family gets on this annual kick (discussion/fight) about when the new year starts but never bothered to resolve the question in our moments of debate. This year I decided to find out for myself since we're now in the age of instant knowledge through different devices and the internet. I'll get to the answer in a moment. But first I want to elaborate on this dilemma we've (I've) gotten into. I grew up as an east coast gal in Rockville, Maryland. When December 31st came around I'd watch the big New York count down (New York and Maryland are in the same time zone.) with its ball in times square for the new year on TV until I was old enough to go to a party or a dance or even host my own party at home. Then I graduated from high school and went off to Ricks College in Rexburg, Idaho. (Not the same time zone as Maryland and New York. - Mountain Time) While at school there I met my husband who grew up in Fairfield, California. (Again, not the same time zone as Maryland or New York. - Pacific Time) It was then that I realized that most of America watched, on the then limited TV options, the New York times square count down but delayed to air during their particular time zones’ time before midnight. I thought to myself, "why do I want to wait or watch a rerun of what had already happened?" The only good of that was staying up late because I could to feel the night time suspense of trying to find myself awake for the first minutes and beyond of the new day. Thankfully, my husband and I both have a laid-back opinion about this holiday. We'd just go to bed when we felt tired and say, "Happy new year in two more hours" before falling asleep or in the morning say, "Happy new year." Then we started having kids and as they got older our celebrations increased. Staying up late then still wasn't too hard. But somewhere between the time we started staying up for our first teenager to party and come home to now we found ourselves more tired. As parents, we found ourselves stuck with the dilemma of not personally wanting to staying up late and also finding a balance for our kids (teens) to be able to celebrate this world recognized holiday. Our past solution: we stayed up for our girls to come home, then they didn't care too much to go out and luckily for us our boys weren't the party types. When the kids decided it was cool again to stay at home again they stay up and the grownups went to bed early. Now, as my family and I have gotten even older and a little wiser, the appeal to stay up late to greet the new year for a count-down has lessened more. Our noise makers and fanfare have gone away again. The new year can wait till morning to greet me. So, when should we celebrate the new year aka January 1? Well quite frankly, whenever we want. I discovered at www.timeanddate.com/counters/firstnewyear that the first minutes of the new year start in Tonga. If my family wanted to celebrate the first minutes of the new year in the world, then we'd be celebrating it at 3:00am the day before our Idaho mountain time got to 12 midnight. That makes staying up to midnight my time zone sound easy. From then on (my 3am the day before/Tonga midnight) we could pick any minute to celebrate the new year. Kind of messed up - huh? This leads up to the greater point. The holiday New Years isn't all about celebrating the first minutes of the new year. It is also about being happy and celebrating new life and time on this wonderful earth for the full upcoming year - January through December. Life is good - no matter what time zone you live in because it is our gift from God to be here. So, "Happy New Year! And may all your days of this year and the ones to follow bring you knew hope, excitement, and time to recognize this gift of life." January 1
Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. |
Janet Burrup SpencerHere's a brief glimpse into who I am: I'm actively a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I like to organize, decorate, and create things. I grew up in Maryland and moved to Idaho to attend Ricks College, met my husband, and am happily a wife and mother of six children and 4 grandchildren living in Rexburg, Idaho Categories
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