Love

In the midst of my inner struggling at times I felt so alone....sometimes forgotten...socially isolated...not sure how to pinpoint that feeling of less worth than a daughter of God, with a testimony of the Gospel and conviction of Jesus Christ should feel, or likes to feel.  Credit to my Co-d imaginings for feeling as I did!

At such times, tender mercies seem to show up.  Events that seemingly are just normal occasions, that occur in friendships, but these in their timing were a healing balm.  Just to mention a couple.  Perhaps you will read these and puzzle over...so what is the big deal?  Kindness and friendship and love are gigantic in scope if someone has a heartache and confusion going on.

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4 things that touched my heart to the max.

1- a sister picked a bag of cherries and set them on the porch swing one evening and then sent me an email and told me to check the swing.  I sent her a note and told her they were delicious and thanked her.  She replied...they were picked with love.

2- an invite for a surprise baby shower arrived and to have been included just warmed my heart.  Although I will admit that I got lost and didn't make it.  How one gets lost on a straight road while watching for a house that has 2 lion statues guarding the front steps, well, that is just unexplainable!  I honestly don't know how that happened.  AND I'd been there before. More than once!  I had no phone with me and no address for my GPS.  All of that aside...it was just marvelous to be invited into a family event that included close friends.  Touched my heart!!!  I did deliver the gift later on that day.  I felt the love.

3- a friend was in town from out of state and we'd made arrangements to get together and visit and get caught up on life.  Then she called and said two other friends wanted all 4 of us to get together at one of their homes.  It was absolutely wonderful!  To eat with them, be with them and talk about matters of the heart and trust confidences would be kept and privacy respected and to just feel the sincerity and deepness of that love.  To feel so included.  Bliss! 

4- several years ago a little 4 year old girl in our Ward, named Lydia, for some reason, in spite of her extreme shyness, fell in love with me.  Then she started to include Terry.  She sat with us every Sunday for 5 years.  Her parents sat behind us with her 3 brothers.  The only time she sat with her family was when family came to visit them. 

When she turned 8 she asked me to speak at her baptism.  She would send us notes and draw pictures and drop by and we just loved her so much.

Then they moved and it broke her heart and mine.  At first we kept in touch and then it slowly dwindled and then we started reaching out again and rekindling what was still there but neglected. 

Her Mother called and said they were coming to Zillah!  So we got together, at McDonalds, so her brother and friends could play.

The moment I saw her my heart melted.  She'd grown so tall and I just drew her to me and she started sobbing.  It was so awkward for her as it caught her off guard.  Her Mother reassured her that it was okay to cry.  We sat and talked and hugged and held hands.  Tears from both of us.

We are in touch on email a lot now.  She tells me that the best part of summer vacation was seeing me and being with me.  She wishes she could live in Ely and then teletransport to Zillah and sit with me at Church! 

My heart was so touched with her most generous sincere love and I was reminded of the duty we have- to never let love grow dim through neglect ...to nourish the need and responsibility we have, to express and keep alive that sacred feeling, with those souls that we really connect with.

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Unconditional love is what it is all about and we each need to do what we can to let others know our feelings as we never know when that just might be the Rx that is needed.

By the way, I appreciate the love of you readers, even when I neglect you by not blogging!  Sorry.  I will say that I love you in spite of my rudeness!!!  xoxox

Love and relationships

Today is a day of memories for me.  Two years ago Monday our grandson was seriously injured in a bike accident, and the struggle with overcoming so much damage, continues in his young life as a husband and a Daddy.  Two years ago today my only sibling, my sister Dixie, passed away.

So much love for these two individuals in my life.  So many memories and life lived and shared.

Perhaps because it's Father's Day this coming Sunday, Terry and I have been talking about the power of love.  We have 5 children and I've shared over the years that except for the last name, they are not similar for the most part.  No cookie cutter family.  What they do have in sameness, is loyalty to the family, even if they are all marching to different drumbeats.  They also have a deep love for their children.

Terry and I were talking about the different paths our children have chosen and bumps along the way and all sorts of events...painful and joyous.  Sometimes we tend to blame ourselves for what our children do.  Unfortunately sometimes others blame us for what our children do!  Sometimes our children blame us for what they do!!

In my innocence as a late teen bride, fresh out of high school, totally inexperienced in life and yet totally unafraid of life, I found myself pregnant after 3 months of marriage.  We were both so excited about this fact.

We adored this baby!! I would say you can't even imagine how much we loved this baby boy but I would be wrong.  All parents that love their child feel the same way!  That love is so all-consuming, all-encompassing.  It leaves you breathless.  Every move of that baby is amazing.  There is no one more perfectly adorable than this treasured helpless infant!

I see young mothers on FB sharing endless photos of babies, that through their eyes, is the most unique child ever born.  None could be brighter or advanced.  I remember that I simply could not get enough of my baby!!  I would hold him as he slept and marvel at how amazing he was.

Parental love for a baby is what unconditional love is.  That is a love that is so connective that no matter what that baby, as an adult will do, no matter what choices with it's attached consequence will be...that divine parental love, will still be there.

My adorable nineteen year old hubby was a baby lover of our children.  He wanted to bathe and feed and hold and cuddle and play and show them off and he did so.  Taking our baby to the grocery store just so people would stop him and comment on what an adorable baby he was!  (now 3 months shy of 80!...he is the same with Grandchildren and Gr-Grandchildren as far as loving them!)

At some point our babies gain their own voices and in learning to walk they can also walk away at will.

With our 2nd baby, we were concerned as to how would we love this child, the way we had the first child and we decided that it just would not happen.  It would be an impossibility to have such love like that!  Surprise to us...hearts expand and we again felt that marvelous love. Unconditional is, again, the only way to describe it.

Our 3rd baby was our only daughter.  As a Mother I'd longed for her since 4th grade when I fancied myself to be a Mother of several little girls.  She is the family angel and peace maker.  Abundant love!!  Unconditional!

Our 4th baby was adopted.  We talked about he would never know the love of the first 3 but we would not let him know that!  A gift to us, was the discovery that we felt not one iota of difference in the love factor.  Unconditional love coupled with gratitude and the miracle of him coming to us...again we felt that soul-deep unconditional beautiful love.

Bonus baby #5.  Another adoption and no doubting or questioning or wondering about loving this time around.  Pure enjoyment and unconditional love all over the place.

I believe it is that base of that powerful love that is so pure and accepting and truly is unconditional that gives us fortitude to carry on with adult choices or teen choices that we would rather not see or hear of happening.

Because our love is so strong, there are times we feel great pain when we witness or are the target of judgment that we have erred in this or that.  Or maybe we do that to ourselves and have a kick-about, with ourselves being the object.

Terry and I had a talk about this.  We decided that we had such deep love, that was so unconditional for those early years, of each of these 5 lives, that whatever choices they made beyond that, they had a very strong base of total love and acceptance from early on.  We talked about any feelings we had about wishing this, that or the other thing, had been handled different...was a part of our mortal journey.  No matter what we wished or wanted changed or to have a do-over- the one constant was they each had the security and nourishment and warmth of parental unconditional love (no matter the age of those young parents or older parents).

To keep those feelings alive and rekindled and maintain that love, that is so nourishing and reassuring, is so worth every ounce of effort it takes.

Fathers that love and Mothers that love are a blessing to those they love.