A Sprinkling of Things

A week or two ago, just as darkness began taking itself fairly seriously, Mike and I were out driving along some large stretches of farm land. Some of the land was empty (and deceptively smooth-looking — all covered in snow) but there were also areas crowded with barns and out buildings, broken-down fences and patched up houses, tractors and muddied cow-stepped-on hay.

We were taking a scenic detour — extending our rare time away from home — after having gone on a “date” to drop our wrecked Yaris off at an out-of-the-way shop Mike trusts. (Oh the Yaris. I wasn’t three minutes out of a long overdue temple trip — still serene and listening to something from my gospel library app — when I slammed into the front driver’s side of a stop-sign-running car.)

Anyway, the dusky scenery was pretty enough. And might have, depending on the season, or time of day, (or number of kids in my vehicle), inspired any number of emotions. But on that evening the cold and quiet stillness, the looming dark, and the empty run-downness of things stirred in my soul a subtle mourning that surrounded things like Daisy’s upcoming departure for college with woeful exclamation marks; and lifted me, dream like, from known life into the middle of all the unknowns ahead; and even tugged gently from my grasp the possibility of several unexpressed hopes for the future.

But, of course, the melancholy didn’t last. We arrived home just moments before the little kids needed putting to bed. (This struck me as unfortunate timing, and, Mike, seeing this, and being the husband that he is, instructed me not to come in with him but to head to the grocery store and return only when all the small people were properly put in their beds.)

And by the time I returned home, life was just life again (no longer misted with foreboding and loss). It was all the busy and ordinary and tiresome and good things it always is.

For example:

Daisy got one of the increasingly-difficult-to-come-by scholarships to BYU. And she just went to Prom.

Penny won $100 in a district writing contest. ($100!)

Hans snuck out of bed during nap time and destroyed all the boys’ LEGO sets.

Elsa’s head fell off. (Penny received that doll for Christmas back when Frozen first came out. But a year or so ago Hans fell in love and appropriated it for his own. Elsa’s shoes have since disappeared, and her hair is now a calamity; she sleeps on one side of Hansie’s pillow [while Gray Elephant sleeps on the other], and he carts her around the house and wails when she gets lost. And now? Her head falls off.) And Hans can often be seen wandering about — her body in one arm and her head in the other.

Abe continues to enjoy his mission and adapt to the difficulties and changes in a manner no mother would quite dare hope for. He says he wants to enjoy even the crazy and difficult things and that he can already see that it might be harder to leave El Salvador than it was to leave home. He tells us funny things like how directions involve “wild hand gestures” and things like “turn left close to where the Chinese man lives”. And he makes us laugh with snippets like: “Another thing that continually amazes me is that I can be 15 feet off the side of the road in the pitch black night and a car can fly around a curve at 40 miles an hour and the driver can have time to first see me in the dark, then see that I am white in the dark, and then unroll the window and yell, ‘Griiiingooooo!’ as he passes. Sometimes I forget how white I am ...”

Goldie, in a frantic bid to finish the last of her personal progress before the final deadline, sewed an entire dress one evening (and late late into the night). Has she ever had any sewing lessons? Has anyone ever explained to her how to use a pattern? I don’t know. I certainly haven’t. And yet, by morning, there the dress was — ready to be worn to church. (I almost wondered if little mice and birds hadn’t come to her aid — just like they did for Cinderella.)

Summer and Mette continue to find great enjoyment in getting out and setting up every toy and item in our house (and less enjoyment in ever actually stopping the “getting out” long enough to play with the things gotten).

Jesse and Anders were all excitement when, recently, they had to be removed (along with the rest of their elementary) from the school building and picked up early due to a gas leak (they weren’t even allowed to stop and get their backpacks — it was glorious).

And Mike calls Starling my “faithful companion”. She is. She is. My faithful, dear, little companion. She likes nothing better than for me to stop doing whatever needs done in order to sit on the floor, my back leaning against the couch, and let her play (with me close enough to climb on at all times).

And, last of all, I recently told my mom about a tiny spark of a wish that had been developing in my soul regarding an opportunity I wanted in my future; an opportunity that doesn’t actually exist and could therefore never be a possibility. But she only dismissed the small matter of it not actually being an option. The opportunity didn’t need to exist yet, she told me. Not now. When I couldn’t take it anyway. God was perfectly capable of creating the possibility when it was time for me to have it.

And whether or not that particular little dream ever becomes a reality, my mom’s assurance made me feel that God is busily working in my life — tying experiences and learning and desires of now to future opportunities that He sees, and is creating, and leading me to. And that made life seem pretty great. We’re in good hands. As I thought on her words, I thought of the small bits of things I am learning -- things The Spirit is teaching me -- through my studies, and experiences, and conversations with loved ones, etc.; and this scripture came to mind:

D&C 123:15

Let no man count them as small things; for there is much which lieth in futurity, pertaining to the saints, which depends upon these things.

And this one -- which has been on my mind often of late in regards to God's individual plans for us and hand working in our lives:

D&C 84:119

For I, the Lord, have put forth my hand to exert the powers of heaven; ye cannot see it now, yet a little while and ye shall see it, and know that I am ...

And that is all for now.