In this case I can't let myself be bogged down by frustration. At least I can't let that emotion control my actions. I have to keep doing what I need to do and the faith and have hope for a better day. Because that better day will come one way or another. Christ came for all of us even on those frustrating days.
One of the single most useless and counter productive emotions, yet one that many of us struggle with. I know I do. I am right now for about 3-5 hours a day always in the afternoon I feel like my blood sugar is out of whack. I test it and it isn't it just feels that way. I told my doctor she just thought it was exhaustion. I don't know it might be, but I have been trying so hard. I have been working so hard to eat right, and taking my medications and monitoring my blood sugar. I have been doing everything right but I have been feeling so not right. Then I get so snappy and hard to be around. It is in a word frustrating.
In this case I can't let myself be bogged down by frustration. At least I can't let that emotion control my actions. I have to keep doing what I need to do and the faith and have hope for a better day. Because that better day will come one way or another. Christ came for all of us even on those frustrating days.
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When we moved from Kansas to Virginia, we were not able to bring a lot of our property, and we got rid of much of what we owned. One thing we saved was a small desk that we strapped on the roof of our van. We stayed the night at my parents house in Missouri. My mom seemed surprised that we saved that old ugly desk when we could keep so little. My answer was simple. My grandpa Brumble had made it for me and it was all I had left of him. He was my mothers step father and had quickly made that desk out of some scraps he had around in the shop when he found out I wanted a desk. It is small and kind of ugly but still one of my treasured possessions.
When my younger brother found out I was going to leave behind much of what I owned, he inquired about the desk. I told him that was something I was keeping. He told me he would have found away to go down there, I was living in Wichita and he near Manhattan Kansas, and get the desk. He said he would rent a storage unit to keep it, if he had too. How could one ugly little desk that most people wouldn't pay two dollars for in a garage sale be so valuable to a couple of brothers? Beauty is indeed in the eyes of the beholder, and value is determined on an individual basis. That desk is a one of a kind. The only desk made for me. I love it. Stephen loves it. It is our only connection to a long dead but still loved family member. The material it is made of and the physical beauty does not change the deeper value and meaning. In our lives there are many small things that may seem meaningless to most people, but have real meaning to us. We need to keep a hold of those things and keep them close to our heart no matter what others may say. Those things can provide us strength and hope even if others can't see their value. So in the end what I am trying to say is hold onto your small ugly desks, no matter what others may say or think. Hold onto and treasure you little ugly desks it will be worth it. Having the Light
Does having the light, mean never in darkness? never in doubt or despair? Does having the light, mean always in noonday? With peace and joy in the air? Or does having the light, Mean fighting the darkness? Enduring the doubts ending despair? And does having the light, Mean hoping for noonday? Bringing peace and joy in the air? By Shane Swenson Here is a short poem I composed. I am not much of a poet. I write primarily fiction but I also like to express my self in verse from time to time. I hope you enjoyed it. I will see if my wife will let me post one or two of hers. Hers are amazing. When I served on a mission, I had a companion who taught me the "proper way" to read the scriptures. He said you need to read them slowly look up every foot note, cross reference everything, and use both the bible dictionary and the regular dictionary as much as possible. Some times you will only cover a few verses a day depending on how much meat is in what you are reading. I call this the Careful Study Method. Now there is nothing wrong with this method, but it is not the only good way to study or read the scriptures and perhaps not even the best.
I am a big believer that studying the scriptures is like eating a peanut butter cup. There is no wrong way. With one caveat that the chocolate company did not have, as long as you use the spirit. Actually other ways of studying the scriptures can help you see the gospel in way that might not be possible from the Careful Study Method alone. In this post I will include two other methods. I am planning on more to come. One method is the Quick Read. When I was on a mission for our Lord and Savior, I had several members talk to me about a challenge their bishop had given them to read the Book of Mormon in 30 days or less. Why would someone do this and what could be gained from reading the Book of Mormon in such an abbreviated fashion. I had a man explain it to me once like this. If you closely study the scriptures, it's like you are studying a tree and you go up next to the tree and grab a leaf and study the veins, or intensely study the bark or the root structure. It can teach you all lot about the tree and how it works but you never can get a true appreciation for the beauty of the tree. For that you have to step back a distance from the tree and then take a good look. Then you can see the whole tree and really get an appreciation for it. That is the quick read. It allows you to see the Book of Mormon as a whole and allows you to appreciate it in a way that just a careful study cannot afford you. The other is a method that was recommended by our mission President, and I think it may have come from President Hinckley originally. The Underline Method. For this method you get a brand new cheap copy of The Book of Mormon. Then you read the whole thing straight through underlining every time it mentions Jesus by name in red ink. This includes other names for the Savior, like Savior. At the end go back and see how much red is throughout The Book of Mormon. It can give you a whole new perspective of the mission of The Book of Mormon, and hopefully, it will impact your life. Yesterday morning I noticed that our large jar peanut butter which I had just opened the previous day was three quarters gone. We have had a problem with stealing food lately and us homeschooling now means that the kids are always around. I decided to do something. Forbidding them from taking food, taking away privilege and yelling at them all have failed in the past. So decided to take an approach that I should have done long ago. I decided a bit of education might be just what the doctor ordered and I do believe this thought was inspired.
So I sat my kids down in the living room.with a bowl a tablespoon and the peanut butter in hand. I spooned two tablespoons into the bowl. I explained that this was an official serving of peanut butter and asked them to tell me how many calaries they thought were in this bowl. My daughters said 42 and 47 respectivly. My son wanted to different so he said 85. I explained that if we added all three of there guesses together we would not get to the correct answer of 180. It also has 15 grams of fat and 3 grams of sugar. My oldest daughter admitted to eating a cup an a half and my son to about a cup. We did some math to determine what that would mean. We found out that one cup of peanut butter has about 1,440 calories and 120 grams of fat and 24 four grams of sugar. I pointed out that as fat goes peanuts had a healthier kind than many fats we should still eat it in moderation. My oldest daughter told me that I was grossing her out and that she was sick to her stomach. Not what I was going for but hey I'll take it. I told them when they made sandwiches from now on they had to use a measuring spoon and they could not have more than two tablespoons at a time, one official serving, and absolutely no more sneaking into it when ever they are hungry or consequences would follow. I don't think that last bit was necessary. My oldest daughter loves peanut butter so much she eats it almost every day for lunch. The last two days though she chose to forgo her normal lunch choice for other options and no one has snuck into the peanut butter, that I know about, since. I know that sometimes I quick to just tell my kids what to do and they should do it just because I said so, and they really should. Sometimes though we should explain the why's to them. Both because it lets them know why we are doing things and, we have real reasons and are not just a couple of dictators, and because it teaches them how to work things out for themselves and become problem solvers. Now my kids will be much more knowledgeable on what all of those numbers on the back of our food means. I know I make many mistakes on a daily basis, especially as a father, but If I can figure out one way to do it better each day than I can really improve myself and help my kids. If any of you have suggestions about parenting, or just for life in general please tell them to us in the comments. They would be greatly appreciated. I went to doctors appointments today and thought few of you might be interested in what is going on with my toe. My long antibiotic run is nearly over. My toe still looks ugly and there is still a hole in the bottom of it, but it is looking a lot better. My wound care doctor was so impressed with it that he wants to see me every two weeks, instead of every week. I am so glad. He said that it really was healing very well.
My other appointment was just on the maintenance of my diabetes which is also looking good at this point. I just want to thank everyone again for all of your support love and prayers. It is appreciated and it has and continues to work. I know that prayers work and have the power to change our lives. I remember watching a show where the husband was cruel and abusive and always tried to control his wife. He hacked into her e-mail and Facebook account to keep track of her. He didn't allow her to have friends outside the marriage or have really any life of her own. Although I thought his behavior was reprehensible and offensive beyond words, I also thought it was sad that she even thought she needed to keep her password from her husband. Don't get me wrong. She needed to, but you should not have to. I know my wife's email password and she knows mine.
Here is the key: we trust each other. I know she won't use my e-mail account to spy on me. She knows the same thing about me. Some times we need to check each others' messages for one reason or another. I will ask her to check mine if I am away from the computer too long. When I do look at her e-mail I only view what I need too and then get off. We trust each other and so we have no problems giving each other the keys to anything. After all we are supposed to give our spouses the keys to our hearts, and how can we trust them with the keys of our hearts if we can't trust them with our internet passwords. Jealousy, a problem that has afflicted the human race, since Cain and Abel is primarily a result of a lack of trust. The man in the story didn't trust his wife in any way, and it was completely unjustified. The woman also didn't trust her husband, but in her case it was completely justified. All of his abusive behavior stemmed from the fact that he felt he could not trust her in anything. Where does that come from? I am not sure. Perhaps it is a lack of confidence in ones self. If you don't know how you would not cheat you don't know how she wouldn't either. It could come from a supreme arrogance. Only you could be trusted with something so important, and since she is so weak and frail she cannot say no to the opposite gender like you can. There could be another reason as well. What ever is the underlying cause of mistrust it is something that can tear a family up as fast and thoroughly as anything can. Trust is very hard particularly for those who have been hurt but it is essential in our closest relationships. For many of us we find it easy to trust in our spouse, especially if they have never given us reason to mistrust them. We also need to have trust in the Lord. I could write some time on that, but will save it for another time. For me at least the hardest people to trust is my own children. I know their faults better than anyone else and unlike my wife, they have given me plenty of reason not to trust them. Here is the thing they will never develop into the fully functioning trustworthy adults we all want them to be if we don't give them the trust they need to grow. So we decided to look at every one of our children and decide where they have been trustworthy and increase what we trust them within these areas. Hopefully, this will blossom until we can trust them in almost all areas, but this is still a work in progress. I hope it works. This is not to say trust your kid's word in everything. Like that saying goes, "Trust, yet verify." My prayers to all of us. May we all learn to trust in the appropriate way. That after all is a Christ-like attribute. When I was a teenager many of us often called people hypocrites largely because I think most people misunderstanding of what that word means. Many people believe that being a hypocrite is saying one thing and doing another. That is not completely accurate. We all make mistakes and many time we know its wrong but we do it anyways.
Hypocrites at least as Jesus used it, referred to people who had one code of moral conduct for others and another for themselves. Some in Jesus' day believed that people could not walk more than a certain number of steps on the Sabbath away from your home, so they would hide some of there things around the area and count everyone of those spots as a resident so they could travel much farther than the allotted number of steps and still be obeying the law of Moses. That is the kind of practice that Christ was referring to. So here is what I am struggling with. I am homeschooling this year and sometimes you have to teach things you aren't a very good at or a very good example of. For example I am not a very organized person and yet one of the big things you need to teach your kids is how to be more organized in your studies. Now then how can I teach a principle that I am so bad at and not look like a hypocrite. Here is what I have come up with so far. If you have any Ideas please let me. First be honest with them. Tell them its not something I am really good at now but I am working on it do. If they see it is important for me to work on it then they may better know the importance of the principle for themselves. To is work on and improve. Nothing teaches better than a good example. Next I need to hold myself accountable and let the children hold me accountable. Finally hold them accountable as well. I believe one more principle to remember is don't be afraid to teach by experience. Some people think because they made a mistake when they were younger that they are a hypocrite if they stress those points to their children. If you did drugs in high school it does not mean you're a hypocrite if you tell your kids not to do drugs. Quite the opposite really. If you made a mistake and you had to face the consequences warning your kids not to tread a dangerous path that who were foolish enough to try at one point is not hypocrisy. It is an act of love, of Charity. I just hope I can be the example I try to be. I am not perfect but am trying. We had quite a day at church today. Murphy was working overtime. By the time we were done I was wondering if it was worth it. I mean I have a testimony of the gospel and I love the church, but going with four children can be a bit overwhelming at points. We actually got to church on time and I was hopeful everything would go well. Just as the meeting got started we noticed that our middle daughter had no socks on, even though I had told her to get socks and shoes on, and she said she had. I should know by know that I always have to make sure, but today I was foolish. To make matters worse she had some nasty looking sores on her feet that needed to be taken care of right away. So I took her out to the van and washed and bandaged her sores.
When we got back to the foyer we saw Natasha and my other daughters listening to the speakers. Evidently my oldest daughter and my son had gotten into an argument. My son was trying to rearrange the hymnals which was loud and distracting, so his big sister tried to stop him. He threw himself to the ground and started crying. I spent the rest of the meeting in the hallways talking to kids and trying to get them to calm down. Each was convinced that there was nothing wrong with his/her behavior and that it was all the other's fault. I had to explain to each that both had culpability. By the time I and my wife were done, sacrament meeting was over, and I had been on my feet way to long. I am still trying to recover from a nasty infection, and my blood sugar was way out of whack. So when the kids went off to Primary, I went home to rest. By the end I had not heard a single spiritual message so I started to think, what is the point? I know at some point in the future I will be able just to go into a sacrament meeting and enjoy the talks again without having to be a referee. Until then it is just important to keep going. It will show to the kids that the Lord is important to me, and I hope they get something out of it. I do believe that children are a heritage to the Lord, and He will bless all of us that are blessed with that holy calling even if it is hard to see that at points. Brigham Young once taught that the most important time to pray is when you didn't feel like praying. I think the same is true about church. It is most important to go to church when your questioning how much you all get out of it. I also believe our children get more out of it than we realize. So do we. In twenty years I might be able to look back at this time and see things I can't see right now. We live in time of great confusion. There is quite a bit of unrest around the globe from Ebola in Africa to horrors in the Middle East. This country, of course, is not immune, with tensions so high in and around Ferguson. I don't want to get too political or controversial, but I do want to make two brief points. First, in our society of media and entertainment it is so easy to make snap judgements about situations. Let's try to withhold judgement until we know all the facts. We live in a sound bite world, but no wise decisions or determinations can ever be made from just hearing one or two soundbites. That is just what too many of us do.
I also would like to say pray for the family. Let us pray for the family of Micheal Brown, the young man who was killed. I can't even imagine the pain they're going through and won't pretend to try. Whatever really happened, it is a great loss and tragedy that his family has to deal with everyday. So let's keep them in our prayers. We shall also remember the family of the officer involved. It would be so difficult to be one of the family members of that officer, and they don't get as many people visiting and wishing them well as the Browns do. None of the family did anything wrong regardless of what the truth is about the officer. Remember the power of faith. Remember what we can do with the faith of a mustard seed. So as the world gets crazier and crazier, let's not forget what our knees are for. |
AuthorMy name is Shane and I am just a guy doing the best he can. I live in Buena Vista Virginia with my beautiful wife and our four children. Archives
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