The "Kindness" that didn't happen

After 3 weeks' notice, much thought, and some preparation, the day of my 15-minute talk arrived. Alas, they had over-scheduled. As the concluding speaker, I got up to speak with about 4 minutes left in the meeting. I did 30 seconds on kindness, mentioning my father as the kindest person I've ever had the privilege to know, and sat down. There was a sigh of relief from the Bishopric behind me as we were able to remain on schedule. Actually, there's no way I'd go over and cut into my Sunday School lesson time.

Christmas is a fine time to remember that Jesus changed all the Old Testaments's "Thou Shalt Nots" into positives, such as: "Love One Another". It's not enough to avoid doing something bad; we must actively search out, AND DO, the good.

Merry Christmas!

Kindness

Today I must speak in church and the assigned topic is "kindness", an appropriate Christmas ideal. The good thing is, I've been given 3 weeks to ponder this. I know that I have much room for improvement in the Kindness Department. I also know that I was blessed to have been born to one of the kindest men I'll ever know. I remember 100-mile drives on Sunday to pick up children from his home teaching families so that they could go to church. Our station wagon got pretty full at times.

It is interesting to me that the Old Testament is filled with "Thou Shalt Nots" while the New Testament encourages us with a "Shalt", "Love One Another".

I love the words of the children's song, "Jesus said, 'Love everyone'. Treat them kindly too. When your heart is filled with love, others will love you." What a splendid Christmas gift!

Thanksgiving

We have begun the Thanksgiving week. It is an exciting time as our family traditionally gathers. First, we have our children (and their children) for a rousingly good time. We have a dinner at the usual time. On Friday we rest and often do all kinds of physical activity. Second, we have all of my family (and their families) to dinner on Saturday. We expect at least 40.

We recognize our blessings, for family is the biggest blessing there is. To have so many makes us most richly blessed.

Living In The Forest

We currently have 2 bears and 2 cougars living near us. The chicken stay in the coop. It is a little disconcerting to find bear scat in our driveway, but the animals were here first. I believe we can co-exist, as long as they don't mess with me.

Eastern Oregon has the "Three 'S' Rule" for dealing with those critters who might be otherwise protected by law, but who threaten us law-abiding citizens. The rule is: Shoot it, shovel it, and shut up. Most people do OK on the first two and no one here really cares about the last one. Now, if I only had a gun...

The Challenges We Choose

We recently added, by choice and hard work, to our family. We are adopting an intact sibling group of older children. Our friends and family fall into two groups: Those who are extremely supportive and those who are looking for our lost marbles.

We are happy to take on this challenge and we know that we will be able to meet it and, with blessings, surpass it. We have missed a huge amount of these children's lives but we believe that they sincerely want to be part of our family. We truly want them with us, so there's nothing we can't do.

Wish us the best!

Diversity

Just received news that my nephew and his wife are going to adopt a brother and sister from Ghana. This is quite exciting news for a lot of reasons.

We are happy because this has been a long time in coming, with many false hopes raised. We are happy because all children deserve love and these children will add more of that to this family. We are also excited that the parents recognize that children are children no matter their color or ethnicity.

There will be challenges because parenting is a synonym with challenging. But there will also be rewards. Tremendous, humbling, and gratifying rewards. We wish them the best.

To Enjoy Being a Grandparent

I recently had the opportunity to speak with the child (He's 31) of friends of mine. He said that his parents weren't really "into" being grandparents. They have, after all, been grandparents for nearly 15 years and it's old hat.

I'm very saddened by this as they are missing out. What fun it was last night to share the excitement in our granddaughter's recounting of her grand adventure! Given that she's not quite 4, there were parts I didn't get. But, her pure excitement and joy came though and it was so much fun to share.

In essence, I was raised without grandparents and my husband had only one. I always felt that something was missing and I find it hard to believe that a person could be so blase as to not take full advantage of this wonderous opportunity. Not me, though. I love being a Grandma.