Pain Retains

At our recent family reunion, I had a chance to catch up with my youngest brother. He is currently serving in the Marines. We were questioning him about life in the Military and especially about boot camp. I can't quite remember why this came out, but he shared that one of his drill sergeants would always repeat "Pain Retains." He would shout this over and over when they would be at the breaking point doing push ups or some other drill.

I have thought over and over about this short concise statement. And I wonder if Heavenly Father has the same philosophy. What if that is part of the purpose of our trials? What if as we suffer pains and afflictions, we are really learning to retain valuable lessons about Faith and our Heavenly Father's unending love for us.

There is no doubt that this past year has been one of pain for me. But as Jared is getting closer and closer to resuming a normal life, I can feel myself starting to come back to life. The pain of this year is subsiding and is being replaced with the surprise and joy that it may finally be over.

Last week marked the one year anniversary of the day he went to the hospital. In fact on the very day, I went with my sister to tour Utah Valley Hospital so she could decide where to deliver her baby next month.

When we first walked in to the hospital, I have to admit to feeling dizzy and struggling to breathe normally. Just watching people walk by in scrubs made my knees weak. The sterile hallways, the people walking by to visit, the nurses station filled with camaraderie, all so familiar and yet a distant memory. As we walked the halls and viewed the facility, I could not help but reflect back to just one year ago when the rug was pulled out from beneath my feet.

And yet, I have survived. Barely, but this is kind of a pass fail situation where a D is as good as an A. Jared is getting stronger ever day. In fact he is at scout camp this week, something I could not have imagined even four months ago.

In thinking about what the pain of this year has retained for me, I can think of several things I know more surely now, than I did a year ago.

One would have to be that my Heavenly Father and Christ love me very much. They have carried me through this year when I didn't think I could last one more hour. I can't quite explain how this works but it is as Craig Zwick stated in a conference talk:

"It is the wounded Christ who leads us through our moments of difficulty. It is He who bears us up when we need more air to breathe or direction to follow or even more courage to continue. Trust in His promise of eternal life and allow peace and hope to distill upon you."

Truer words were never spoken.

Another thing retained by the pain would be the increased awareness and knowledge of how much my friends and family love me. These include my real world friends and cyber world friends. It really is true that you can get by with a little help from your friends. This year has reaffirmed for me that my friends really do care about me. And I needed to be reminded of this fact.

Another thing retained is my love for Jared. He can sometimes be a difficult child, but I have come to be closer to him through my service this past year. I remember one particular night when he was crying in pain and I stood at the foot of his bed rotating his foot while the tears streamed down my face. How I wished I could take his pain away. Our relationship has changed permanently. It is as if we have been through a war together. I wonder if some day we will look back and realize that we needed to be closer. Perhaps it will be one of the lasting blessings of this trial.

Neal A. Maxwell said: "Rather than simply passing through these things, they must pass through us and do so in ways which sanctify these experiences for our good."

It is my hope that this will be true for me. Hopefully, the pain I have experienced will retain the eternal truths of the gospel.

In Helaman 12:3 "And thus we see that except the Lord doth chasten his people with many afflictions, yea, except he doth visit them with death and with terror, and with famine and with all manner of pestilence, they will not remember him."

Truly when we go through a trial and we rely on the Lord to endure the pain, we can not help but remember him and his mercy.

Though I do not enjoy pain, I can see that it is necessary. There is no other way. And some day all the pain will be a distant memory when the Saviour comes and takes me in his arms and wipes away my tears.

Pat's Ponderings

This past month has been a difficult one for me. I have found my self caught up in the "thick of thin things" and stuck in the "middle of this mortal muddle" as Neal A Maxwell would say. The cares of the world have managed to press out things of a spiritual nature. Last week at stake conference, I found myself pondering on some of the choices I had made and wondering if I had chosen good things instead of the best things. I told myself that if I could just make it through this week, I would redicate myself to doing better. Recently I read an article about dealing with adversity in life. What do you say to someone who has lost their job, their home, or even their spouse. The author of this article said that the magic words were to "Begin again." No matter what mistakes we make, it is never too late to begin again. And I guess that is the beauty of having a new year, the opportunity to begin again. I heard a talk at women's conference that compared this to the sacrament prayer, if the person saying the prayer makes a mistake, they just begin again. No one demeans them or berates them publicly. Really we all understand and are rooting for the person to succeed. We need to treat life the same way. I tend to pour too much energy into feeling bad about the mistake, instead of putting that energy into just beginning again.

Quotable Quotes

I just thought I would mention a bit about my new quote feature I have added to my blog. My sister invited me to this website called goodreads.com. It is a fun place where you can share about the books you are reading with your family and friends. When I was looking at it, I found this cool thing where you could read through about a billion quotes and pick out ones that you want as your favorites. Then you can put them on your blog. So Saturday morning Trent was at work, Marion and Jared were at a merit badge clinic, and Diana was at a birthday party. I found myself in glorious solitude at my own house. No one was there to ask me annoying questions like "Aren't you done with the computer, yet?"or "What can I eat?" Also I didn't have to go to work. So what did I do with this precious gift whose value seemed priceless? Did I dig into the housework that is piling up around here and muck out my house? No. Instead, I sat at my computer for several hours reading through quotes. I have to say that it was much more fun than dishes. And to be fair the laundry was going during this time, so it wasn't completely unproductive. And now, I myself, love looking at my blog to see what quote will be showing this time. I love quotes, and most of the ones I chose bring a smile to my face. So I hope you all enjoy them as much as I do.

On your mark, Get set, Go!

OK maybe Jared read my post yesterday about motherhood being an amazing race because he seemed intent on providing me with the opportunity to race this morning. When I got up at 6:55, I found him still asleep in his bed. This is bad, as usually by this time he has showered, dressed, eaten, and is preparing to leave the house fifteen minutes later. Once again I am forced to waken him with threats, hoping to get him to move faster than a snail. I tell him if he hurries, he can still catch the bus. This is not an incentive for him, as he hates riding the bus. His biggest complaint being that they are forced to have 4 people sitting in a seat. I do share his pain in a "Hey that sounds uncomfortable" kind of way, not in a "OK, I'll drive you to school every day" kind of way. This seems the perfect time for the life lesson "Life is hard, suck it up and deal with it". He takes a shower while I make his breakfast and lunch. He seems to be dawdling in the shower and I sense that he plans to be so late that he misses the bus and I have to drive him all the way to school . I counter by prodding him along with everything short of a cattle prod. Does anybody know where I can get me one of those? Finally we leave the house and I drive him to the next bus stop that is just around the corner. He tells me that, surely we must be too late and I should just take him to school. But I revel in the victory that is mine, as the bus drives up at the same time we do. Bwaaahahahaha! What could he do, but admit defeat and get out of the car and onto the bus. I am especially glad that I didn't have drive out of my neighborhood as I am still in my knee length pajama shirt, with only a robe on for decency's sake. For sure that would be the time that I was in another car accident. Perhaps that would be the best cure for Jared, drive him to school dressed very inappropriately and get out of the car and embarrass him to death. I will have to keep that card up my sleeve.

Next we moved onto the sport of getting Diana to school. It was of course picture make up day. I had decided to just take every one's advice and live with the first picture. It did after all have to potential for good memories in years to come. Just like the picture of Trent with his nose scraped up when he was 2. Anyway, Diana decided that she would like to get a new picture. So I helped her get ready. Her hair has grown since the last picture and so we had to curl it under instead of up. Who knows how this one will turn out. Stay tuned for the results. She was very excited to wear her stick on earrings. She had to make sure that her hair was tucked behind her ears, so that they would show. I guess you can't really see the earrings in this picture, but this is how she looked when we left the house. No scarf's, hats, or any other accessory. And I would like to know how this picture day landed on library day again. At least now, we have taken to keeping Diana's books in her backpack. We aren't really reading them, but hey we are able to return them when they are due. So does the teacher actually expect us to read them and return them? I think that is taking things a bit far. Onto school where I had to go in and fill out a picture form. There were about 30 other parents doing the same thing and it was quite crowded. Finally all was taken care of, my child went off to her class and I headed for institute. Yes, just another day in paradise and another victory in getting my children to school.

No good deed goes unpunished.

Last Thursday I went and volunteered for Diana's class. This year she is in third grade and come to find out all the third grade teachers make their lesson plans together. There are six teachers all together and I guess each of them takes a turn for two weeks. So what this means to me is that I am not just copying for Diana's teacher, I am making copies for six classes. That is 6 sets of 20 of each copy. The first week of school, it took me 2 and a half hours to make about 1800 copies. I did not hole punch any of them that week. The next week it took me 3 hours to make about 2400 copies and I did hole punch the ones that needed that done to them. I kept thinking that there has to be a better way. The girls in the front office told me that I should be making all those copies on the rizzo (sp?) machine instead of the copy machine. So that brings us to last Thursday. I arrived at the school determined to cut my time and be more efficient.


I went and signed in at the office. This apparently is not optional. At my old school I never once signed in during the 7 years that my boys attended. Perhaps they had so few parent volunteers that they were just glad I was there to help and they choose not to harass me as payment for my services. Well when Diana started at this new school 2 years ago, I was introduced to RULES for parent volunteering. We have a principal that we lovingly refer to as Hitler. She has very many rules for everything. Basically you are not allowed to do anything at her school. So anyway they are very insistent that you sign in and obtain a visitor badge. I am sure that this is all great and better for security, but I find it to be a pain when I am there all the time and they know me. So once I had my badge I went to make all my copies. It actually did go faster this time and I was thrilled when I was completely finished in just under two hours. I went to the office to turn in my badge. Imagine my surprise when in the slot where my driver's license should be, I find badge #3 and not my driver's license. I have badge #36. There is still a driver's license in the slot for badge #3. So it is not hard to figure out that the person who had badge #3 had mistakenly taken my license when she left. Shockingly enough, I was not impressed with the idea of some other person running around with my license. I complain to the office staff and each one replies that they did not take any badges from anyone. Finally we figure out that the lady who took my badge has had a stroke and is not quite all together there and that she likes to just help herself by putting her badge back. Once I learn this, I calm down a little bit, but I am still not impressed. I went home and received a call a short time later telling me that they tracked the culprit down and that my license would be in the office the next morning.

Two years ago, I accidentally left my license in the office and took home my visitors badge. Unfortunately, this was the Friday before Christmas break so I had to live without my license for two weeks. This only proved to be inconvenient when I went to Comp USA on Christmas Eve to buy a new computer. If I had my ID I could have applied for an interest free credit card to put my purchase on, but instead I had to just pay with cash. I guess that was good to have less debt. Anyway after that I vowed to never let the office have my license again. Instead I would give them my car keys, figuring that it would be pretty hard to forget to get them. Hopefully I would not just walk home and leave my car there, right? But then last year, the office cracked down and they said it was no longer acceptable to leave keys, it had to be the ID. I then made a photocopy to leave each week when I volunteered. This worked well all year last year, but somehow I lost that copy of my ID during my many travels during the summer months. So this year I haven't managed to copy it again. Funny that in the 3 million copies I have made in the past three weeks, I have not managed to make just one copy of my license. Well be assured I will make a copy for tomorrow, because I will not let these people ever have my license again.
And yes, I did get it back the next morning so I guess it wasn't really all that awful, but cheese louise I wish it didn't happen in the first place.

Accidents Happen

As I said before, our trip to California would have to be the highlight of that week. But you know what the law of physics says "what goes up must come down". And so Friday August 17th was the low of the week. This happened about 12:30 that day when I received a call from Trent. He told me that he had been in a car accident and I needed to come to where it had happened. I was helping at the choir camp that Diana was participating in and so I was about 25 minutes away. I quickly left the choir camp and drove over to the accident. He told me that everyone was OK, which I was glad to hear, but still it was a very long, anxiety filled trip for me. When I got to the accident I was horrified to see that front of my car was pretty much smashed to smithereens. I was glad to see Trent standing pretty much unhurt on the sidewalk. Apparently he was making a left hand turn and failed to see an oncoming truck. The truck hit him on the front passenger side of the car. Both of the front airbags deployed. Trent had a small abrasion on his head that I think was from the airbag. So sadly it was his fault and he received the ticket. The police at the scene said to look at it as a good learning experience. And to feel lucky that Trent could get such a good lesson without anyone having to be seriously hurt. I wish that he could have learned this lesson in a less costly way, but oh well that is life.

So now my car is totaled. I have had a rental car for the past week and am looking for a new car. I hate buying new cars. I would rate the experience right up there with root canal and moving. But I guess that there are some things in life that are unavoidable. The good news is that I am going to receive a fair amount of money to help purchase a new car. The bad news is that my car insurance is going to go up. I don't know how much yet, but it can not be good.

Pat's Ponderings

I am hoping that this will be a regular, reoccurring feature on my blog in which I write about some of things that I have been thinking about recently.

Today's topic will be Forgiving those who have offended us. I have always thought that the ability to forgive is like a muscle and that we either use it or loose it. And so I have tried to tell myself that it is fortunate when I am offended as it gives me the opportunity to see how big my forgiveness muscle is. However, I do not feel happy while I am in the middle of the chance to forgive others. It is so easy to be bogged down with the feelings of injustice and the pain that comes with conflict with others.

Recently at Women's conference my sister and I walked from the dorms up to the Marriot center in the rain. Neither of us had an umbrella, but we did have coats on. My sister's coat was a waterproof raincoat, while mine was just a denim sort of thing lined with flannel. I noticed that the rain just rolled off her coat, while mine just soaked it up. The result of this was that my coat became quite heavy and wet for the rest of the day. Even though I stayed inside for the remainder of the day, my coat never did completely dry. Quite honestly it was a pain to lug around and made me cold if I ever touched it. My sister's coat on the other hand seemed no worse the wear and did not bother her at all. I wondered if this was a good parable for not being easily offended. We both walked in the same rain, but it was the way the coat dealt with the rain that made the difference. Could it be that two people could be exposed to the same offense, yet one take it in and absorb it while the other let it roll off her shoulders?

In studying my family history, I have read stories of ancestors who let offense be the reason that they left the church and all the blessings that it has to offer. This not only affected their life, but the lives of their children and grandchildren. I wonder if they could go back would they make a different choice? Recently, I felt very offended. I was extremely upset and it disrupted my sleeping, eating, and feelings for several weeks. I finally realized that I needed to forgive this person no matter what. I felt as though my ancestors were sitting next to me telling me not to follow in their footsteps. And so I was able through prayer and time to experience the miracle of forgiveness again. Not the miracle of my being forgiven, but the miracle of me forgiving another I felt had wronged me. And truly it is a miracle when we can forgive and forget.

It is a very simple plan that the Lord has given to us. We must forgive everyone, regardless of the circumstances. I don't need a forgiveness lawyer or accountant to help me figure out all the exclusions and exceptions. It is a very simple law to understand, just not as simple to follow. I know that I still have a long way to go in developing my forgiveness muscles, but hopefully I am on the right path.