Snap Peas, Snap Circuits, a Birthday and ... the Temple :)

Not long ago Daisy picked a snap pea from her small garden box, ate it, and then offered one to Starling (who she happened to be holding). Babies generally learn by following our lead, but this time, things were just not adding up. In confusion Starling questioned, "Eat a leaf?"

(Here's how we know Abe will be a good dad. He brought home several large, empty boxes from work the other day because he knew the kids would enjoy them. And they did. It was like Christmas. :) )

Starling also likes to be wrapped up like a burrito and will stay still like that for great lengths of time. Here she was cleverly pretending to be asleep. "Mom," she'd shout. "Watch." And then she'd squeeze her eyes shut as hard as she possibly could (as if there could be no more impressive trick), and I'd ooh and ahh about the sound-asleep baby.

Hans, who is four, recently showed me something he made with snap circuits. I complimented him on what a good job he did, and he replied, "Yah. I'm good at it. It's not like I'm three." No. Not like a sissy three-year old at all.

Jesse looked at the calendar yesterday and announced that, after this week, we only had two more full weeks of summer. Sure he was mistaken, I had to walk over, take the calendar from him, and look for myself. August just started. Surely we had an entire month? But no. Not an entire month at all. Somehow the first week of August had come to it's close before I even really recognized its arrival. Two more empty weeks. And then school! (The only solace to summer ending is that it means red leaves and pumpkins and orange lights are coming.)

Perhaps the only thing more shocking than the summer season ending is the Summer person turning seven. SEVEN! In my mind she's barely four. (Though, as we just established, her brother Hans is that age.) Anyway. Summer at seven. (And Mette hot on her tail -- chomping at the bit to turn six in just a few more days.)

(Daisy made the Barbie cake Summer had been hoping and dreaming of.)

Yesterday I went to the temple. In the quiet of the experience I was able to see some of my life, my current frustrations, and how to handle them all much more clearly. The distraction and clutter surrounding certain things I've been called to do cleared itself out of my head so that my purpose became less murky and mixed; the necessity of practicing patience became less ... an unnecessary annoyance and more a significant part of my mortal tutoring. I even saw that practicing patience with those who tried it would be the very thing that would increase my love for them. 

And that would be all good and well if that were the end of the story, wouldn't it!

But when I left that place, it was only a very short matter of time (embarrassingly short really) before I discovered that all those things that became so clear in the temple ... were still incredibly difficult to put into practice back in ... mortal, real life. Before long I was crying in the bathroom (the only place to hide in this house) that what seemed clear and easy in the temple ... I didn't know how to do at all in real time. 

But I kept thinking of Holland talking about how we "all have to come down from peak experiences to deal the regular vicissitudes of life". And it occurred to me that this struggle is ... well, it's how it goes. I imagine coming to earth was just the same. As we prepared for mortality in the perfect environment of our heavenly home, it probably seemed so straight forward and clear. Our perspective was perfect. We knew exactly how we wanted to serve our Father, how we wanted to treat our brothers and sisters, how worth it all sacrifice was. But now we are here living it ... and it is not nearly so simple. But that's the point, I suppose. We really had progressed in those perfect conditions as much as we could. We had to come and live all those truths amidst the mess of a real, mortal life where we would be exhausted and emotional and surrounded by mundane and necessary demands, etc. We had to come to a place where there would be resistance to our ideals. We couldn't grow as intended by staying in that stress-free, peaceful place just sort of ... theoretically thinking about how we would respond to mortal challenges. We needed to put it to the test within that messy, complicated backdrop.

And if that is the case, then I am grateful to actually have a place where, even if just for a little bit, I can step out of the trenches and mists and be reminded again of how clearly I once saw all I would be asked to do here. A place where I can get my bearings again and disperse some of the cloudy untruths that try to wrap themselves around daily life.

The End