A Good Book!

I don't have time to post much, but I cannot leave without telling you about the best book! I don't think I've ever felt the spirit so strong in a book I've read in a very long time, and this is a work of fiction! The book is "The Great Gathering" by Chad Daybell. It is a series of what will be five books, with the third just being released this month. I checked out the first two from the library and bought the newest for my trip. I can hardly make myself leave it alone so I have something to read on the plane.

Anyway, I've had such strong feelings about this subject for the last forty years! All I can say is read it! I really want to discuss it with someone, so be sure to comment and call me. See you next week!

Costa Rica!

We leave on Saturday for my husband's company convention in Costa Rica!

Queen Bee

Saturday night we went to a gathering of funeral directors. (Ron sells pre-need funeral plans and property.) While there we got talking to an old friend and somehow got on the subject of bees. In Arizona where he was raised, his scoutmaster kept beehives. So, he acquired two of his own. In one of his hives the bees were so mean and aggressive that he could hardly work with them. His scoutmaster and mentor told him to remove and kill the ill tempered Queen Bee and order a new one which he did. After about a month with the new Queen, which is the lifespan of a bee, the bees became so calm and docile that he almost could have handled them without protection. He then paid his wife a wonderful compliment on the tone of love and cooperation she had set for their home, and we all agreed how important it is to be a leader and the effect of that leadership on everyone! I wish I had always been that good of an influence on those I lead and love, but this story of the cranky Queen will help me remember that "when Mamma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy!

Thespian Society

I woke with an interesting dream. I had formed a little thespian group for children and in my dream I was directing them. That was curious and it helped me remember that about twenty-five years ago I wrote and directed a play for our ward in Green Mountain, Colorado. I cannot even remember how it came about. (I must have opened my mouth at a Ward Council Meeting or something) I had certainly NEVER acted in, wrote, or directed a play before in my life! It was during the bicentennial of our nation. I had read several articles that moved me to my core. One was written in the Readers Digest and the other in the Ensign---all about the founding of this sacred nation and the writing of Constitution of the United States. My stage set was Constitution Hall, and the cast consisted of all men of course. In the back corners of the stage I incorporated scenes from the Book of Mormon and the Prophet Joseph Smith. Ron even played the part of a Nephite! He looked so good with his hairy legs showing! (Can you believe that I enticed my cute shy husband to do that!) Anyway, I just knew, I somehow knew how to spotlight those scenes, while dimming the lights on the frozen men in Philadelphia. Then they would come to life and the scenes of prophecy would black out, and so on, back and forth. It ended with a parade of cast members bursting in from the doors on either side of the cultural hall carrying the flag and singing "Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory of the Coming of The Lord!" The entire production was a testimony of Jesus Christ and the divine nature of this land, the founding of our nation, and the second coming of our Lord and Savior. It moved many to tears!

The curious thing is that I somehow KNEW how to pull all of this off. With absolutely no prior training or experience, yet it was somehow so familiar. As though I'd had that experience. I knew how to draw out the actors and get them to give me what I wanted. I knew what I wanted from lighting, and the costumes---well, there was a lady in our ward who had a stash of them including wigs. It was marvelous. I've never done anything like it since. I had literally forgotten that I ever had. It was one of the most exciting things I've ever done, and this mornings dream has me remembering the whole curious and remarkable thing. I remembered thinking at the time that surely I had participated in something similar in the life before and I had a strong feeling that I would do so again, but I'm quite certain it will be in the next life!

I've thought of all the things I haven't done (like design and build my own home, write another book, build furniture in my own woodworking shop, really learn to be a photographer, sculpt, paint, make a movie, etc., etc. etc.) and probably won't and can't do in this life, but each time I feel a twinge of regret, I am deeply assured that we have eons to live and enough time for all those things in the eternities.

You are all invited to the beautiful home I will someday build, which will be filled with sculpture and paintings and furniture that I have designed and built. (And you know Ron will stop running long enough for a party so he'll be there too!) Mostly I hope our home is filled with love! And, be sure and visit long enough to see my movies and plays!

Morning Poem

When I die, no "in lieu of" for me
Give me FLOWERS, in all their variety!

Bonnie H

Grandma Rose

I don't know, maybe I'm obsessed with flowers. I can't seem to drink in enough of their beauty! Usually by this time of year though I'm tired of the garden, it's hot and I just maintain without the enthusiasm of early spring! But because I'm entertaining my daughter and her new husband next week, and inviting a few of our friends into our yard to celebrate with them, I've been continually working in the yard. I actually laid a bit of sod today! As I was trimming the roses I cut a few old ones to throw away, when I noticed how beautiful the older roses really are. At closer glance, though they are starting to wilt, they have a kind of beauty so different than the new healthy buds and the flowers in their perfect prime. They are softer somehow and they seem to open themselves up so wide, as though accepting the world, accepting their place in time, and inviting anyone willing, to listen to their wisdom, and bask in their serenity. They made me want to snuggle into their soft fragile bosom and find respite from the cares and demands of the world---soft, sweet, lovely Grandma Roses!

Morning Flowers!

Beautiful Flowers - Beautiful Night

I wrote this post on July 29th and I'm finally publishing it tonight.

Today I bought some ragtag, leftover flowers at Walmart, and put them together in hanging baskets. I hung them in the empty space by our swimming pool where we had to remove a diseased tree and some shade flowers under the apple tree. They look so happy tonight. I had to visit them just before I went to bed. The night was warm and comforting and beautiful, and as I stepped outside I was greeted with the sweet scent of my huneysuckle and a loud chirping cricket! My little pots of leftover flowers looked so much happier than when I brought them home. I think the Miracle Grow is already reviving them! This week I have felt like the "leftover" flowers, but as I tended to the least of His flowers today, Heavenly Father worked His own loving, comforting miracle in my heart. I'm also grateful for dear friends who tenderly minister to me and love me! Thank You!

I took the pictures tonight. What a difference ten days of love has made to those "marked down" rescued flowers. Doesn't it make you want to sit on the lawn swing by the apple tree and talk into the warm night about wonderful things? Can you smell the honeysuckle, and hear the crickets!

How I love my Heavenly Father who gave us flowers to “gladden our heart!”

Father

(Posted by Donna B. Nielsen on her blog "Connections.")

"Throughout the silent years Jesus was learning the meaning of family life. The name for God which came most naturally to the lips of Jesus was Father; and the very use of that word is itself a very beautiful compliment to Joseph. It was said of Martin Luther that he hesitated to pray the Lord’s Prayer and to say “Our Father,” because his own father had been so stern, so unbending, so unsympathetic that the word “father” was not a word which he loved. To Jesus the name “father” was the most natural and the most precious name for God, and it was in the home at Nazareth that he must have learned the meaning of that word."

Reading of Martin Luther's harsh negative experience with the word "Father" made me stop and ponder my own experience with the word. If anyone should have a negative connotation of the word I should. I never knew my "real father" as I always called him in my mind. He left us before I turned two years old. The only thing I ever knew about him was my grandmother's comment when my brother or I did something wrong, "You are just like your dirty rotten, no-good father!" (I don't think she liked him)

Well that made a kid feel good. But, I never actually called anyone father, the word was not in my vocabulary. I called my step-father Jim. And, that word "Jim" makes me flinch like Martin Luther trying to say "Our Father." The word father to me has ALWAYS meant my Father in Heaven. I heard about Him the first time when I was ten years old hiding behind the old wood stove when the missionaries came to teach Jim. I felt the spirit bear witness to me that these kind, gentle, stake missionaries were telling the truth! I received a testimony of the gospel that has never left and which has sustained me all the days of my life since then. (That was nearly fifty years ago!)

Donna's post sent me to Psalms 68:6, but it was verse 5 that caught my attention: "A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God in his holy habitation." Heavenly Father TRULY always was and is my Father! The name is sacred and precious and fills me with warmth, and love. I have a lifetime of memories of peace and comfort in times of trial, and memories of gratitude and love for more blessings than I can contain! God lives! And, He is truly our Father In Heaven!

Perspective

I listened to a talk by Robert Millet "God and Human Tragedy" from the August 18, 2003 BYU Education Week. He told the story of a man who, though he had season tickets, had to miss a BYU game so his wife recorded it. He eventually was able to watch the recording of this exciting game, but by then he knew they had won the game. Though it was an exciting, nail biting, close game, he watched it calmly. When a team member would fumble the ball or make other potentially disastrous mistakes, he could calmly watch on because he already KNEW the outcome.

As we strengthen our faith we can KNOW the outcome of things too. We know that Jesus Christ WILL win! The world will be free of sin and depravity in a coming day! I want you to know that Heavenly Father has also born a personal witness to me periodically throughout my life when my world seemed a dark and forbidding place, that things in my small world would be okay too! I've lived long enough to know that things ALWAYS get better if we are doing all that we can to live according to our knowledge and testimony of our Savior and His restored gospel!